Indholdsfortegnelse for January 1997 i Hot Rod

I love the smell of napalm in the morning Rush-hour traffic was really demented the other day, and after we all finally staggered into the office, the conversation centered around what to do about it. We decided the best way to deal with traffic is to sic the HOT ROD Stink-Driver Eliminator on it forthwith! We found this ’70 Charger buried in the weeds in Freiburger’s Mopar junkyard and transformed it into the road warrior from hell. A couple of roof-mounted 50-caliber machine guns, a pair of sidemounted, rear-facing flame throwers, two fender-mounted missiles, some grenade launchers, and a six-pack of 20mm cannons under the grille will grease the miscreants well into their next lives and open gaps in the gridlocked morning commute in a nanosecond or two. Actually, this…

A hot rod doesn’t need to be all fire and brimstone. It can have a totally stock drivetrain wrapped in an exterior that shouts “Let’s go cruisin’!” And if the need for speed strikes later, fine. Rory Dolan of Oceanside, California, knows that. His ’63 Dart still has the original slant-six and pushbutton transmission, but he says it runs strong enough for now. He paid $1,500 for the car, and the quick and easy modifications he’s done to it so far—lowering it, and bolting on a new set of wheels and tires—have done a great deal to make his Mopar look like a righteous street machine. That’s why Posie made it this month’s pick. If you’re under 25 years old and would like to be a Posie’s Pick, send a…

Obituary Street rodding lost one of its true ”rag“ flies when a series of heart attacks proved too much for rodder, writer, and spokesman Bill ”Billy B.“ Burnham. Billy B. began his writing career contributing event coverage to Drag News and then writing for Tex Smith’s Rod and Machine Gazette, Street Rodder, and Gary Meador’s Goodtimes Gazette. He shared with his readers the human side of owning, building, driving, selling, and swapping street rods. He was the hobby’s head cheerleader and nothing rattled him more than seeing people try to rip it off. He always encouraged people to become involved with hot rods—year, model, and make was immaterial—as long as it was owner-built. Billy B. rarely got angry, but I remember an incident in Colorado a few years back when…

1 May 8: Power Tour kickoff party, Petersen Automotive Museum, Los Angeles, California 2 May 9: Las Vegas, Nevada 3 May 10: Grand Junction, Colorado 4 May 11: Denver, Colorado 5 May 12: Goodland, Kansas 6 May 13: Kansas City, Missouri 7 May 14: St. Louis, Missouri 8 May 15: Springfield, Illinois 9 May 16: Lansing, Illinois 10 May 17: Mount Clemens, Michigan 10 May 18: Last Day cruise in Mount Clemens The customized HOT ROD Kenworth 18-wheeler, which you may recognize, will be sticking to us like white on rice and will be chock-full of apparel, souvenirs, magazines, and anything else we can cram into it. One of the few bummers of the Tour last year was an unprecedented rush on Power Tour T-shirts; demand quickly surpassed supply. This…

HOT ROD & MR. GASKET Performance Group Join Forces to Build Huge Points Fund We have good news i World’s Quickest Street Car i and really good Drag Racing Series (former-i news! The good ly called the HOT ROD Magnews is that HOTROD’s i azine Street Car Drag Racing i street car drag racing series Series). The top 10 finalists i is back for its second year, in each of our four heads-up with a new name and lots i racing categories will earn more manufacturer support, big bucks. Top Pro Street i HOT ROD and Mr. Gasket honors earns $25,000. The Performance Group have following chart provides the i formed a partnership to. breakdown of prize money. award the top points finalists i Read it carefully and then i…

Everybody has a really fast car, right? Sure, pick your cruise night, ask the owners, and you’ll walk away convinced that the lot is packed with 11-or 12-second hellions. In reality, it’s horse manure. Most of those fibbers have never been on a dragstrip and would have a hard time breaking the 14-second mark, but machismo keeps them from admitting this. It sounds much better to say “Yeah, it runs 11s” than to say “Uuh, last time out I ran 16,50.” We searched for the truth and found it in legitimate street cars that run the number. We know how they did it and what they’ve learned from the experience. There are several levels of information here: the story behind each car and how the owner got it to run…

Sharing little more than a surname with the famous NASCAR clan, Jim Petty and his 10-second ‘66 Chevy II are a primer of acceleration on a budget. Jim’s family-backed 10-second Nova is a true street car. It’s driven every weekend and was built on a $12,000 budget, yet it pulls 10.80s at 123 mph in an altitude of 3,000 feet. Early Novas are notorious for their weak front suspension, as well as for small rear wheelwells. Petty began by moving the leaf springs inboard. Then he added ladder bars and coil-over shocks. To save money, Petty personally installed the eight-point rollcage, subframe connectors, Chris Alston ladder bars, and a track locator. The 9-inch Ford housing is from a 76 Lincoln Continental and is fitted with Koni adjustable coil-overs, Eibach 140-pound…

It Was Free! Anthony Matassa got his ‘69 Buick for nothing, with nothing (no engine, trans, or rearend) a few years back and he’s been tossing parts at it ever since. A mild 455 Buick loaded with Kenne-Bell equipment pushes the car to 12s in full street trim, yet it’s completely docile in traffic. There are drag shocks all the way around and an airbag in the right rear corner, but other than that, the Bu-Eye is very streetable. Matassa and his hot rodder father, John, built the car, thus enabling Matassa to avoid many common young hot rodder pitfalls. “I wanted more cam, more converter, and more gear,” he says, “but my dad kept me away from that.” Matassa doesn’t recommend the following: “I put a 12-gallon fuel…

Bruce Ferris (Glendale, California) on how he ended up with his current car: “I rolled my Camaro, sold all the pieces from it, and built this Chevelle from the proceeds,” The Chevelle is biased toward the strip more than the street right now. The 4.11:1 gears limit highway speed and the Detroit Locker, drag shocks, and lack of a front swaybar sometimes transform fast turns into an amusement park ride. But it didn’t start out that way. “I built the big-block to be very dependable, in fact I think now it could use a hotter cam, and since I O-ringed the engine when it was built, some nitrous, too. If I did that, then a higher stall converter would help, but then I think the 29x9 Goodyear slicks would really…

There are lockers and knockers, limited slips and Sure Grips. Sometimes they’re called Positractions and sometimes much worse. But this name game is really about the concept of pushing equal measures of horsepower and torque through the rear tires. We’ll take you through the litany of method so you can decide which path is best for your street driver. When a car turns a corner, the inside tire always travels a shorter distance than the outside tire. This requires a device between the two rear axles to “differentiate” the speed of the axle shafts. All street-driven cars are equipped with a differential that is usually found inside the ring-gear carrier. Without a differential, e.g., a spool that directly connects the axle shafts, the inside tire slips, and/or the inboard axle…

Hot rodders always look for the big win. One way to do it is to bolt on a supercharger and make tons of power, but that takes stacks of cash. For the budget-minded, the little gains can mean quite a bit, especially when they don’t squeeze your wallet. For those of the General Motors persuasion, tweaking on both the Rochester Quadrajet carburetor and the High Energy Ignition (HEI) distributor can be rewarding. Neither of these products have great reputations with hot rodders, but frankly the bad rap is undeserved. Both the HEI and the Q-jet are quality components when they operate at peak potential. The Q-jet offers exceptionally sensitive boosters for better driveability and a wealth of tuning options, while a properly prepared HEI is an excellent street ignition. Part…

What It’s Like Doin’ The Black-Line Boogie Ever had the urge to stand on it? For one block? Two? Maybe three. Even four. But where? The city’s impossible and too full of fuzz. Country roads are too narrow, and farmers don’t use turn signals. Interstates? Yeah—but the K-Whoppers get in the way. Dragstrips suck! A wimpy 1,320 feet isn’t long enough. Ah—but the Bonneville Salt Flats and 40,000 acres of “white lightening” can still support five miles of lift-free speed and two miles of shutdown. It’s difficult to imagine what this really means, so I’ve got an idea. Let’s pretend your town’s widest, flattest, straightest thoroughfare has been magically transformed into a Bonneville-long course with five miles for turning it on and two miles for turning it off. Now, pick…

The Power Tour was originally a cross-country cruise from Los Angeles to the Power Festival in Norwalk, Ohio. But it has blossomed into an event of its own, so that’s how we’re treating it. Last year’s Friday night cruise in Mount Clemens, Michigan—the final stop before departing for Norwalk—was so impressive that we’ve decided to end the Tour therewith a humongous but informal cruise night. Mount Clemens people know how to throw a party, so get ready to get down. We’ll roll into Mount Clemens before noon on Saturday, May 17. Power Tour cars will get the best parking spots (based on the background color of the window sticker). Local cruisers will be charged $15 if they want to park in the cordoned-off Tour area. We’ve got some fun activities…

Rather than run a Chevy like everyone else, Steve Cagle does it with a Buick. He found a ‘70 455 GS and commenced tweaking. Cagle races in the HOT ROD Street Car Drag Racing Series (now called the HOT ROD World’s Quickest Street Car Drag Racing Series) in Real Street, where 10.5-inch Department of Transportation (DOT) tires are required and nitrous oxide is not allowed. Even with these limitations, this bad actor tickles the timers at 10.96 at 124 mph. This is a 3,900-pound Buick here, folks, and those are some mighty impressive numbers Despite this handicap, Cagle has done well. He’s the Real Street All-Star points champion for ‘96 (worth $2,000) and he accomplished it with a win at Topeka, Kansas, and consistent Runner-Up finishes at two other events…

So here’s another daily-driven, 550 horsepower, 10-second, untubbed ‘86 Mustang convertible. Put that combination together—big engine, small tires, no roof—and something usually gets hurt. Yet here before you is just such an animal. Matt Gogluicci’s righteous rag is so wrong, and for so many reasons, that it’s a wonder the beast hasn’t selfcombusted in a ball of impossibility. First, it’s an ‘86 model. “No. it’s not!” cry out the sharpeyed among you. Gogluicci chose to go with an older, cheaper model and update it—from the fasciae and interior (including the dash and its problematic wiring) to the ‘93-only yellow paint. So there, Sizzlechest. A Cobra grille and a Saleen-type fiberglass wing were slapped on for good measure, and everything was covered in forty-eleven-teen coats of the most obnoxious yellow pigment…

The big-block in Brad Lagman’s El Camino had over 200,000 miles and God knows how much nitrous through its gills, but use and abuse couldn’t kill the thing. Lagman’s daily driver lasted 10 years (90 miles a day, six days a week), and then the Elky’s Rat motor finally succumbed—not to a blown piston or a broken rod, but to a loose locknut from the air-cleaner stud that found its way into the engine. That’s testament to Lagman’s engine-building ability, which is what he does for a living at Four Wheel Racing Engines in North Hills, California. And this is no weak-suck motor, either. On the spray, his 4,180-pound truck (the stereo equipment adds a bunch of weight) has run 11.22 at a blistering 135 mph, while annihilating the McCreary…

Mike Laske is only 24 years old, but he knows plenty about building a quick and driveable hot rod. Seven years ago, his 71 Nova was a $600 basketcase. Today, it’s a clean, high-12s daily driver that represents loads of labor and “car trouble” learning experiences. “I’ve learned many things,” says Mike, “but the things that stick in my mind seem so basic now. One of them is to do it right the first time. Street cars need to be built for low-speed torque, not high-rpm horsepower, so it’s better to put money into a bulletproof bottom end before the killer induction system, aluminum heads, and roller cam. And you need to make one modification at degrees initial, 30 degrees total), a time!” Mike’s package includes a 383ci small-block built…

In the beginning, there was Pro Street, then Super Street and Real Street. Now, the HOT ROD World’s Quickest Street Car Drag Racing Series has created a Hot Street class for cars equipped with small-block engines. Stipulations for this new class include 9.0 pounds per cubic inch, a single four-barrel carburetor, and slicks with no more than 11.5 inches of tread width. The class is designed to complement existing rules for ‘50 and later domestic street machines with stock body components—fiberglass parts are limited to the hood, the hoodscoop, and the bumpers. The car can be tubbed, but it’s not required. The stock interior must be retained. The rear seat may be deleted for wheeltub clearance, but the area must be carpeted. The stock front chassis and suspension are mandatory.…

“I guess I just got carried away…” Doug Jerger works in Mesa, Arizona, for his car-painter father. One day Doug decided to “tune up” his daily dog ‘65 Nova. Naturally, the project escalated and soon spiraled out of control. How could it not? This was 23-year-old Doug’s first hot rod. Initially Doug was just going to lower the car and add some five-spoke Americans. When he couldn’t get the front end low enough, he replaced the front clip with an Alston Mustang II front suspension, tubular A-arms, and rack-and-pinion steering. This radical change required a new radiator support and body mounts, but it precipitated an even greater challenge. Doug wanted to emulate John Buttera’s “NoVette” tube grill (June ‘85 HOT ROD), and that’s when the project assumed a life of…

If somebody told you they spent thousands of hours building a car, could you honestly picture how much time or work that is? Bret Voelkel, the builder of this ‘70 Mustang, has logged over 3,000 hours building this car—and that’s not including the paintwork! Imagine making 4,000 consecutive 45-minute oil changes on your car. Get the idea? Voelkel explains what it took to build this highwaycruising Pro Streeter. “I’m not a professional car builder, but I wanted to build a serious Pro Street car that could do everything. I just decided to do whatever it took to build one. I ended up doing stuff two and three times to get it right, but I’m happy with the results—and I learned a lot,” he says. “It all started with a clean…

The concrete apron flowing from the doors of Jon Kaase’s shop sparkles in the stupefying Georgia sunlight. A million bright bits of aluminum are a sure sign that race season is in full swing. On the big do-sheet at the front of the shop is a long list of clients already itching and mumbling about the whereabouts of their mountain motors. Kaase and his crew are alternately giddy and morose. Their eyes shine with a dark longing. They’ve been drunk on midnight oil for quite some time now. Surely that’s the Bridgeport wheezing. A decapitated 812ci Hemi dragon hangs from an engine stand. The tops of the pistons are evenly charred, and here and there light-colored stuff drools down its flanks. While we stand in awe of the large gray…

This is the second time around for Dave and Rogene Morgie’s ‘39 Chevy. The original was the Morgies’ handiwork, but the current iteration was built by Lee Osborne’s The Other Shop, in Jamestown, Indiana. “I came up with most of the ideas,” says Dave Morgie, “but Lee made them all work many times better than I thought they would.” Osborne cranked up his metalworking mojo and performed considerable magic. He removed the top and the rear section of the body and used them to create a subtle remake of the car’s hind quarters. Then he reworked the body reveals at the beltline to complement the new rear treatment and the roof. The rear fenders were extended 14 inches and the rear section was rolled up under the car. Moving to…

New Owners Plan Expansion After months of negotiating, Petersen Publishing Company—the parent company of HOT ROD, Rod & Custom, Car Craft, Motor Trend, and a large group of non-automotive titles—was sold to Willis Stein & Partners, the Dunning Group, and a cadre of investors including D. Claeys Bahrenburg and Neal Vitale. According to Mr. Bahrenburg, who will take Robert E. “Pete” Petersen’s place as chairman and CEO, “We are delighted to have acquired Petersen Publishing and we plan to continue Petersen’s tradition of producing many of America’s great magazines, and to start, buy, and joint-venture new magazines plus expand our franchises into multimedia formats.” Neal Vitale, the former vice president/general manager of the Entertainment Group at Cahner’s Publishing, will be the president and chief operating officer of Petersen Publishing and…

Every hot rodder wants to be a contender when it comes to performance, and Donny Bray is no different. Bray bought this original 396/325hp *68 Cheveile at an auction. He raced it in street tire classes with a ladder-bar rear suspension and engines of his own until a few years ago, when he added nitrous oxide and pushed the car into the nines. Then Bray got serious. He had Fast Times Motorworks in Morton Grove, Illinois, build a 477ci big-block and set it up for two stages of nitrous. Bray then gutted the car and had a full cage installed by Webb Automotive in Bowling Green, Kentucky. He hung a 9-inch Ford housing with four-link suspension, then installed a rack-and-pinion steering system. Advanced Transmission prepared a TH400 to transfer power…

“ I think it will take a 6.50 car to I be competitive toward the end of I the season in 1997.” That’s Bowling Green, Kentucky’s Jimmy Hack (who finished third in Real Street points in 1996 with his ‘70 Nova) talking about the future of Real Street. He’s owned his Nova for six years and says he’s “been waiting for a class like this so I wouldn’t have to cut the car up to race.” The Nova has a 388ci small-block equipped with untouched Brodix Track I cylinder heads (2.08-inch intake/1.60-inch exhaust valves) and a flat tappet cam. The motor has over 100 passes on it, yet still runs strong. The power comes through a TH350 to a stock C-clip rearend carrying Moser axles and a stock posi. The…

It doesn’t take a ton of money, professional talent, or even a big-block to run a 10-second e.t. If you work hard enough, you can do it with a smallblock on DOT tires. That’s exactly what Jimmy Hack did with his 71 Nova. The car was extremely competitive in the first year of Real Street. It ran sevens and won the Bowling Green event, which landed him a Third Place finish in points behind Steve Cagle’s Buick and Walt Bainey’s Chevelle. The car has run a 6.99 in the eighth-mile and 10.50 at 124 mph in the quarter-mile. Hack’s Nova began as a hot street car six years ago, but he didn’t put a hammerlock on it until this year. Hack built himself a 388ci pump with a 0.060-over 350…

Keep It Simple, Stupid Stickers from the 1979 Car Craft Street Machine Nationals West in the quarter-windows of Steve Gray’s blue ‘67 Camaro attest to its longevity. He bought the car in 1978 and claims to have sunk only $10,000 into it since then. That’s because he does a lot of the work himself and avoids expensive race parts, relying instead on attention to detail and the ruggedness of well-prepared factory pieces. That and a small whiff of nitrous, oh yeah. The engine is a nearly stock small-block, one with ported iron 462 heads and a low-dollar shortblock that holds together at 8,500 and makes enough power to run in the 11s. Valley Head Service in Northridge, California, built the 355 with a forged crank, “pink” connecting rods, and…

Nitrous is the great equalizer. It makes a reliable daily driver run like hell. Jeff McKernan’s 70 Dodge Dart is an 11-second bottle baby, but it runs those times even without nitrous. The Mopar guys reading this are no doubt thinking, “Well, no kidding! Mopars are king!” But it’s not that easy to run this quick, Mopar or not. How does McKernan do it? Remember the Cheap Thrills Dart project a few years back? We stuffed a bargain-basement Dart with a fairly stock 440 and got 12-second performance for less than two grand. McKernan’s 440 isn’t stock, but it’s not that special either. His “low-budget motor” was built by Mendez Racing Engines in Calumet City, Illinois. It uses Ross 12.5:1 pistons swinging on stock rods and crankshaft, and it breathes…

Greg (the kid) and John (the dad) Barkley drove their ‘72 Camaro on HOT ROD’s Power Tour last year. They’d just finished what they thought was a 12-second steamer. After the jaunt to Ohio, it ran a 12.20 on the first pass. Simply, the Barkleys set out to accomplish the impossible—to build a car that could do everything. To that end, the Camaro has a small-block that runs on pump gas, and has air conditioning, power steering, a nice stereo, and a safe and sane suspension system. The drivetrain was built for torque. The 383ci engine breathes through an Edelbrock Performer RPM package. Torque is managed by a B&M-prepped 700-R4 and sent to a Trans-Am rearend and Mickey Thompson (M/T) stickies. The suspension is tweaked for canyon carving, so the…

Yeah…them hills are alive with the sound of thunder, but is this twilight or a new dawn for Drag City USA? Deep in the South, well below the Mason-Dixon, out among the verdant hills of moonshine country, and surreptitiously tucked away from a county highway behind chunks of kudzu, there lives an ol’ boy I know named Cuz’n Roy who, at any given moment, enjoys a plethora of life’s pleasures. He likes to raise hell, sleep late, make noize with some fellow hillbilly musicians, watch drag racing, and otherwise be left alone. By some charmed quirk of fate and fortune, this friend of mine found himself overseer of a 2,000-acre chunk of woods, thickets, and hollers. Roy had managed to slip between the cracks, so to speak, and carve out…

First it was CadZZilla, then Cad-Zooks and now, Biggest Red—Paul Barnes’ 4,700-pound, 6-71 roots-blown, Series 62, Cadillac-bodied “DeLuxe-o-Rod.” Yes, fellow HOT ROD readers, Barnes is continuing this magazine’s “Dare to Be Different” approach to hot rodding in a Big-a-Way. Barnes, the owner of Barnes Machine Service in Shelbyville, Illinois, was just another street rod spectator until his chance encounter with a pink, match-race Cadillac. That awesome sighting caused a serious outbreak of “Raddus Caddus” to occur. The coup de grace were its dorsallike tail fins, because “they really turned me on,” admitted Barnes. Where there is a will, there is a way, and Barnes eventually located such a beast in Iowa and herded it back to Shelbyville. Now two years; a new custom-built frame and suspension components; a blown, balanced…

My love for hot rods is like a narcotic—I constantly need my hottie hit. But there is more to it than getting high. Rod gatherings are the best way to see what’s happening—right now! For the past 10 years the hottest of the haps is inside the Alameda County fairgrounds, next to the upscale Bay Area suburb of Pleasanton, California. Since 1986, the Goodguy Enterprises-produced Nationals has featured an increasing cross section of the West Coast’s finest Streeters. According to Goodguy Enterprises, 3,493 street rods and 68,000 spectators made this year’s West Coast Nationals the biggest ever and revealed more eyecandy and “eye-diaz” than ever before—and we present these color-fun flicks as our version of an eye-high.…

STREET MACHINE The happiest people on earth just might be those whose hobby has turned into a career. The HOT ROD staff is that way. We’ve been certified car crazies since birth and have the enviable duty of getting paid to live the life. But dealing with hot rods or hot dogs or any other thing eight days a week tends to drain the humor and dilute the enthusiasm. Tim “Zeek” Vos knows what that’s like. At the age of four, Vos was working in his father’s body shop, and by the time he was 25, he had his own paint and body emporium. After years of fixing other people’s mistakes, dealing with insurance company nightmares, and salving irritated customers, he found a large, black hole where his enthusiasm had…

If success is based on how much racers like an event, then the HOT ROD Street Car Drag Racing Series (HRSCDRS) is on its way to the penthouse suite. If you’re not up to speed on this phenomenon, it goes like this. The series is based on three classes: Pro Street, Super Street, and Real Street. All competitors race heads-up in eighth-mile drag racing. Pro Street is for monster street machines that run in the mid-four-second to high-five-second (low sevens to mid-eights in the quarter-mile) zone with mostly bigblocks and nitrous oxide. Super Street cars are limited to plate-type nitrous systems and slicks that are less than 11⅜ inches wide. Real Street cars operate with normally aspirated small- or big-block engines and Department of Transportation-legal tires. The final race of…

Picture this: Your OI’ Dad is riding shotgun with Don Tanner, a 51-year-old carpenter from La Verne, California, “Americruising” Interstate 80 about 150 miles west of Lincoln, Nebraska. We’re parked in Fifth gear with the tach reading 2,800. That is the equivalent of 90-plus mph or a fast idle to the Mooney-huffed, 500-inch, ’83 all-alloy Donovan rumbling on the other side of Tanner’s firewall. Suddenly a clueless driver decides to pass a slow-moving truck and darts into the fast lane. No sweat. Rod Warrior’s four-corner Wilwoods whoa us down to an indicated double-nickel before the brain donor resumes sleeping in the slow lane. Does Tanner back shift the Doug Nash five-speed? No again! He merely eases the throttle down to where the 29.50x15 M/Ts begin to wiggle, and we accelerate…