Indholdsfortegnelse for January 2000 i Hot Rod

Setting speed records at Bonneville is harder than you might think. At the 1999 Bonneville Speed Week, your author and the BMR Racing Team of Pasadena, California, went to the salt to set a record at more than 200 mph. The mighty 2s are not uncharted waters for us, as I piloted this car to a record 203 at Muroc Dry Lake in ‘98 and chronicled the ride in a story in the January ‘99 issue of HOT ROD. The 322ci GMC Jimmy mill made 85 hp stock, and now, with the engine on nitro with a blower, it makes more than 850. The BMR ‘32 five-window coupe easily sailed through the gears on the air-shifted Jerico Pro Stock-spec five-speed. Then, mere seconds into High gear, I heard that crackthoowang…

Admitting to being from rich-boy country (Santa Barbara, California) may not be the best way to publicize your band in the hot rod genre. Fans of this music dun’t dig pretense, they demand simplicity: it simply must kick ass. Well, count Blazing Haley in, Santa Barbara or not. The opening track here, “Train to Nowhere,” smokes like a rear-hit Pinto: sinister surf riffs mutate fast into smash-mouth punk chording a la Social Distortion while singer Matt Armor croons an unforgettably catchy chorus like the king of tough-boy ‘5Ds ‘billy, Eddie Cochran hisself. Drummer Chris Story’s hyper-hyperactive tempos keep this baby rolling at top speed-the man must have black coffee for blood. Check “End of the Line” and “Back for No Good Reason” and the band’s self-titled theme song for details-these…

The German homemarket version of the Cadillac Catera will have an American V-8 engine next year, yet will be deprived of an American consumer base hungry for rear-drive, eight-cylinder performance. The newly facelifted German-built Opel Omega (badged as a Vauxhall in England) will sport an LSI engine for model year 2000. This executive express will thus become one of the smallest and most powerful “fullsize” cars in Europe, and will be available only in lefthand drive. The Omega is sold in America as the Cadillac Catera, also recently freshened; the Caddy will continue using its tepid 3-0 V-6 to power its rear wheels. HOT ROD is told that Cadillac would only expect to sell around 1,000 units total with the V-8, and the cost to emissions-test and federalize such a…

ENGINE Type: Supercharged Dodge 360, bored 0.030 over, assembled by Gil Nevarez Induction: Hampton 6-71 supercharger and intake manifold, twin 650-cfm Demon carbs Heads: Iron 340 X castings, fully ported and polished with Manley 2.02/1.60 stainless valves Cam: Nevarez Racing Products (NRP) custom grind hydraulic, 0.560 lift, 300° duration Valvetrain: Comp Cams roller rockers, Isky valve springs and pushrods Pistons: JE forged, 8.3:1 compression Rods: Stock forged 360, shot peened, fitted with ARP bolts Crank: Stock cast 360, journals ground 0.010 undersize and nitride hardened Ignition: MSD 6BTM module. Pro Billet distributor, and Blaster 3 coil Exhaust: Doug’s 1%-inch undercar headers (714/901-4260), custom NRP 3-inch diameter exhaust, and dual three-chamber Flowmaster mufflers Power Rating: 610 hp at 4,300 rpm, 595 lb ft at 6,200 rpm (12 psi boost) DRIVETRAIN Transmission:…

Many racers consider Memphis the place where organized street-legal racing was born. Every year since 1996, HOT ROD has sponsored a program at Memphis Motorsports Park in conjunction with the regular NMCA national events to determine the Top Ten quickest “street” cars. This race within a race, combined with the historical significance of Memphis, usually makes it one of the most entertaining and unpredictable contests of the year. The NMCA rules allow racers in many of the classes, including the Professional categories, to claim their best eight finishes of the 10-race season in the Points Championships. That makes the last two races even more important. They become critical to those who need just a few points to move from the lower half of the program to the top half or…

ENGINE Type: ’64 Ford “high-riser” Displacement: 427 ci Block: FE block with cross-bolted main caps (4.23-inch bore) Crank: Forged steel (3.78-inch stroke) Rods: Forged steel (6.488-inch-long) Pistons: Forged aluminum (13:1) Camshaft: Precision-molded iron (solid tappet), 324 duration. 0.524-inch lift Cylinder Heads: High-riser wedge style with a 7,000 rpm kit—2.197-inch intake, 1.772-inch exhaust (sodium-filled) with unshrouded chambers around the valves. Intake Manifold: High-riser style aluminum Carburetion: Two Holley 600-cfm carburetors Exhaust: Special fabricated individual tube runners into 4-inch collectors DRIVETRAIN Clutch: N/A but contained in R.C. Industries-produced aluminum bellhousing Transmission: Ford-designed. Borg-Warner-built four-speed equipped with a Hurst shifter. Rearend: 9 inch Ford with 3.50:1 SUSPENSION Front: Modified, relocated, trimmed, and reinforced upper A arms and A-arm brackets, inner fender panels, and front frame stubs. Rear: New frame member, new shocks, special…

Rich BoydLong Beach, California’33 Ford Roadster ENGINE Type: ‘87 3O5ci Chevrolet V-8, prepped by Edelbrock (Torrance, California), lower end stock but equipped with Edelbrock cam, intake manifold, AFB carburetor, and rocker covers. Ignition: HEI Exhaust system: Street & Performance headers, Borla mufflers, Cone Engineering tips Miscellaneous: Jim Babbs radiator, Street & Performance pulleys, chrome alternator DRIVETRAIN Transmission: 350 Turbo equipped with a B&M shift kit. Gear Vendors over/underdrive Converter: B&M Shifter: Gennie Trans cooler: B&M Third member: Ford 9 inch equipped with a 3.50:1 ring-and-pinion CHASSIS Frame: Just-A-Hobby mild steel reproduction augmented with Brizio crossmembers Front suspension: Heidt’s SuperRide IFS Front shocks: Aldan Eagle coilovers Front brakes: JFZ disc Steering: Fiat rack-and-pinion Rear suspension: Deuce Factory four-link with single sway bar Rear shocks: Aldan Eagle coilovers Rear brakes: Cadillac Seville…

The Whole Worm After a 30-year hiatus, I’m re-hooked. Years ago I read the series on the low-buck 440 Swinger while waiting in my dentist’s office. I also read “The Small-Block Chevy Should Have Built” last year. Tonight my butt’s got a permanent ring around it after an extended stay in the library, reading Cole Coonce’s “Wormhole.” You’ve got a ringer. Coonce is a Steinbeck/Kerouac/London banana split, and may just earn HOT ROD its first Pulitzer. How do you nominate someone, anyway? I can smell the nitromethane now! Well, methane, anyway. Larry TolleBakersfield, CA Eww. I cannot believe some of the erranious [sic] things you people print. [Like your spelling of erroneous?—Ed.] The World’s Fastest Small-Block Chevy? Well, a 5.87 e.t. and 232 mph is respectable… if you’re only running…

Production of the Viper and Prowler are said to be slated to move to an outside supplier. Dura—a company known for producing and working on low-volume specialty vehicles and convertible conversions both for and with Chrysler—is scheduled to take over Viper production in a few years’ time and is said to be bidding on the Prowler as well. Both Viper and Prowler will continue to be sold as Dodge and Chrysler products, respectively, through the usual dealership channels. The Plymouth name will be going away soon, say insiders, and the Prowler will be sold through the Chrysler franchise. Farming out production of the image-enhancing but money-losing specialty cars falls into line with Daimler’s apparent wishes that Chrysler start phasing out its own passenger car production. No word on if/how that…

Welcome to the new millennium! Provided the world still exists, HOT ROD Magazine TV will be thrashing a junkyard motor for dollar-down performance. This time, it’s the very-same Ford 351 Windsor motor featured in this issue of HOT ROD. We have heard rumors that the Y2K bug is going to change the firing order and crank rotation direction on all V-8 engines, so our jewel may be returned to junk. We ll have to wait and see. We may even go all out and throw a bash in a junkyard and party like it’s 1999. Why not? Also this episode, we are sticking our TV cams in the faces of NMCA champions at the NMCA World Finals in Atlanta. Racers always like that. There is something about the rush of…

Well, the Holley Dyno Challenge originally had only four classes: small block, big-block, power-adder small-block, and power-adder big-block. But such was the variety of cars that joined us on Power Tour this year that Holley had to create six-cylinder, power-adder six-cylinder, and four-cylinder classes to incorporate them all! Output figures were measured at the rear wheels on Holley’s portable Dynojet. Thanks Holley, and congratulations to all the winners; well post East Coast Power Tour’s numbers in an upcoming issue. SMALL-BLOCK Brian Karmy, ‘89 Camaro, 4O6ci, 444.1 hp SMALL-BLOCKPOWER-ADDER Bob Flanigan, ‘92 Mustang,4O2ci, 467hp BIG-BLOCK Tom Johnson, ‘67 PlymouthSatellite, 426ci Hemi, 555.9hp BIG-BLOCKPOWER-ADDER Ed DeUel, ‘64 PontiacGTO, 455ci, 643hp SIX-CYLINDER Anthony Brewster, ‘95Chevrolet Corsica, 191 ci,120.1 hp SIX-CYLINDERPOWER-ADDER Robert Lundwall, ‘91 FordThunderbird SC, 23Oci,188hp FOUR-CYLINDERPOWER-ADDER Mark Covey, ‘89 MerkurXR4ti, 140ci, 248.6hp…

At the conclusion of the sessions, John Baechtel and Steve Abbruzzese alluded to an experiment they’d been anxious to try, but said that none of their clients had been willing to participate. Much speculation has been made that NASCAR racers would sometimes “fog” their engine bays with nitrous oxide at crucial moments, and that the screaming engine’s strong intake draw would ingest the juice to provide significant improvement in intake-air quality. We, too, became curious. Minutes later, Steve Abbruzzese, the Nitrous Fairy, pranced around the engine with a bottle strapped to his back. We made several pulls and found that he had to be fairly close to the carb’s air horo to have an effect. This is probably due to the strong blow-through ventilatioo in the dyno cell, which visibly…

STEVE MAGNANTE In my eyes, the term “hot rodder” can only be loosely defined as a person obsessed with the act of modifying mechanical devices in an effort to attain increased levels of performance. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a can opener or a Boss 429. If you alter it for increased performance, you’ve engaged in an act of hot rodding. Practice the art regularly, and you’ll become a hot rodder. The essential ingredient is that exclusively human desire to massage and perfect, to take things to the next level. So how does one think like a hot rodder? Because each of us perceives his surrounding world in a uniquely personal way, there is no single “correct” answer or process, but there are some universally applicable suggestions worth sharing. Find…

As with any computer-regulated system, we began to run into fine-tuning problems. Aside from various fluid leaks, our main glitch was in the microchip and fuel delivery. Tom Miller at Turbo City (Orange, California) turned our trembling babe into a full-blown street-stalker. The fuel delivery was incorrect in that the supercharged 350 had completely different requirements than the new normally aspirated 383. The 100-psi fuel pump that fed the blower TBI was way high. Miller replaced it with a high-volume, high-pressure Turbo City TBI pump at the fuel tank. Then he installed ’88-’88 Chevrolet high-pressure braided steel fuel lines from the tank to the injectors. Once inside the computer program, he changed more than 300 settings in 11 of the major tables. Basically, he added fuel and timing and removed…

Paying Homage to the First Hot Rods The roadster, hot roddings ground zero, has become the generic name for any vehicle that has a cloth top. New car ads extolling the hair-blowing virtue of modern, open cars employ the term “roadster” to increase interest. Used car pitchmen frequently exploit the word “roadster” while gesturing toward a vehicle with a fixed fabric top. Even historic, hard-core roadster clubs have relaxed their rules and now allow their members to drive more comfortable but far less pure convertibles. What separates a roadster from a convertible or sport coupe? The former has fully removable windshields, detachable tops, and “windows” that don’t roll up. By contrast, convertibles, convertible sedans, sportsmen coupes, and A- or B-400s employ fixed windshields, windows that roll up, and tops that…

The next time you see a cast-iron part, envision it as a molten pool of red-hot ore. This liquid iron is poured into a multipiece mold, and the end result is a raw casting. The casting cools and is then machined into a finished part. The mold fits together like a large puzzle, and a potential problem lies therein. At the junction points, molten iron can seep out during the casting process and produce non-structural “flash,” actually thin webs of residual iron. Generally, most flash is hastily removed by foundry workers long before the machining process begins, but virtually any mass-produced cast-iron part reveals that flash removal could have been far more thorough. During a Mopar big-block rebuild, we removed plenty of 30-year-old flash. Some would ask what threat it…

Going back to LeMans in 2000 is just the first step toward Cadillac’s bid to boost its performance presence worldwide. The rear-drive, Corvette-based Evoq due in 2002 will be another. And now, Cadillac presents Blackfin, a group of performance-oriented enthusiasts who will lend their touch to a variety of Cadillac products into the 21st Century. Low-production, performance-oriented specially vehicles will be its calling card. Blackfin is to Caddy what SVT is to Ford. Blackfm’s first project is said to be a supercharged version of the Catera, out sometime in 2001. (No word about doing an LSI-powered version, however.) A year later, the Catera-based, as-yet-unnamed Luxury Activity Vehicle (LAV) will get a performance treatment. It’s also said that the 2003 Seville, which will revert to rear-wheel-drive motivation at that time, is…

Legendary cartoonist Pete Millar describes his recently revived Drag Cartoons comic book as “the only drag racing magazine that has absolutely no social redeeming values and tells it like it is,” which is to say that nothing’s changed since the ‘60s. Picking up where it left off 31 years ago, the latest issue’s 48 pages have the look and feel of vintage Drag Cartoons, but with contemporary subject matter. You’ll read about how John Force signed a pact with the devil (or is that the NHRA?), see a fuel Hemi come down with HIV (Horrific Infectious Venturi), and watch as O.J. Simpson takes a stab at describing what DNA means (Don’t Never Admit). Politically incorrect satire, but hilarious nonetheless. And Millar’s illustrations are as dense as ever, every frame containing…

The performance aftermarket is at the bottom of the technological food chain; eventually, everything ends up here. Though developing new technologies may not be our forte, we are quite adept at assembling eclectic sciences for the singular pursuit of making a car go faster. Certainly, this approach makes for some interesting bedfellows. Whereas most areas of mechanics are one-dimensional, the workings of an engine encompass nearly all aspects of physics, making it a melting pot of theories. The efforts of the aviation, manufacturing, and military industries that have kept America at the forefront of technology has bestowed motorsports with the trickle-down effect. On ground level, where we are, high-tech theories are often overlooked as a means of improving performance or adding longevity. The problem becomes a human one. Most of…

Rich Boyd knows how a rod should look—stance, wheel and tire combo, angles, use of color, understated presentation, and timelessness. That’s because Boyd is a trained automotive designer who graduated with honors from Art Center College of Design (Pasadena, California) in 1976 before moving on to Chrysler Corporation and back to sunny So Cal to join Larry Wood at Mattel toys. He is also an automotive artist, writer, and photographer who currently occupies the prestigious technical chair at Rod & Custom magazine. Best of all, he’s just finished a 10-year project on a ‘33 roadster… thanks to his nay-saying father. As a car-nut kid growing up in Tucson, Arizona, Boyd lusted over a chopped, primered, flathead-powered ‘33 five-window coupe. “It was the car of my dreams,” recalled Boyd, “but my…

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