Indholdsfortegnelse for December 2000 i Hot Rod

Having been squatters for nearly three years, my car and I have become a keen source of jokes and taunts. I must admit that, for a while, I contemplated having someone else do the work. A little later, when the inertia was really getting to me, I was ready to chuck the whole thing. Then it occurred to me that this project represents a lot more than rebuilding a car from the ground up. It’s a promise I must keep. I must invest my sweat in it. Actually, we’ve gone a lot further with the big trash dog than it might appear. And before you start thinking we’re crazy for doing a body-off deal with a car that’s already got decent paint and solid sheetmetal, you’ve got to realize my…

The Cops Never Showed Up! Wild record release parties are nothing new in Los Angeles, but we’d bet the fiesta surrounding the release of Cole Coonce’s Big Sounds of the Drags 2001 (see review elsewhere in this issue) was the first to feature a fuel dragster as the centerpiece. While luminaries such as Roland Hawaiian’’ Leong, Tom “The Brush” Hunnicutt, Pete “Drag CARtoons” Millar, Tom “Surfers” Jobe, Troy “Newhouse” Cagle, Al “Mousie” Marcellus, Dave “Microphone” McClelland, and others circulated in and out of the ultra-hip Bigfoot Lodge, the beautiful Master Cam nostalgia Top Fuel dragster sat majestically on the concrete. At 9:00 p.m. sharp, Coonce furtively checked for cops then gave ace wheelman “Techno” Tim Gibson and starter Frank “Rootbeer” Hedge the thumbs-up. Moments later, the 417 Donovan roared to…

Pity the Japanese driver/enthusiast. Gas prices topping $4 per gallon, traffic that makes LA freeways look open and swift, narrow roads with tight turns, complicated road signs that challenge one’s eyesight and memory, expensive toll roads and highways, and impossible parking are all part of the problem. In the face of these obstacles, what is one of Japan’s top import vehicles? How about the Chevrolet Astro? Sound ridiculous? It’s true: The funky old Astro has captured the hearts of Japanese consumers. Roughly 100,000 Astros have been exported, and the demand remains constant. Why? Vans have always been popular with Japanese buyers, but Japanese minivans barely top 75 mph on the highway. Compared to the home market three- and four-cylinder engines, Chevy’s 4.3L V-6 seems V-8-like in performance and sound. And…

ANNETTE SUMMER, AIKEN, SC Brand Loyalty: Chevrolet Race Results: Annette qualified her 67 Pro Street Camaro Eighth with a 6.985/204.20 pass and was eliminated in the first round by Bob Rieger’s twin turbocharged ’57 Chevy. “As a child I was a huge Bobby Allison fan. I watched in 1972 as his gold and red Coca Cola Monte Carlo ran hard against the factory-backed Fords and Mopars. Chevrolet was an underdog in NASCAR back then, and I used to cheer him on whenever he raced. I remember getting into a shouting match with a bunch of drunks at the Daytona 500 when he took the lead. Beyond that, my family always had GM products, usually Chevys, so I guess the early influence took root, and here I am. I’ve worked in…

The response was always the same: “You ran a 13.57 at 99 mph with a Slant Six?” Incredulous minds groped for words when they realized our 3,100-pound, 229-inch Hyper-Pak mill had vandalized the realm of V-8 performance. Then we’d pop the hood and watch them ogle the ram-tuned intake manifold and marvel at the streamlined contours of the Demon carburetor. At one cruise night, the shiny red Hyper-Pak mill got as much attention as a Street Hemi parked alongside. Who knew that Slant Six ownership could be so rewarding? Most people think of it as a lowly economy motor incapable of passing anything but a gas station, but traditional hot rodding methods and a sensible vehicle combination tend to yield surprising results. Hyper-Pak Performance SOURCES Classic Wheelworkz Dept. HR12, 515…

Real Street Daring to be different paid off for our two Real Street Quik 8 finalists. Bruce LaGory ran his poppin’ yellow ’69 ’Cuda, while Neal Owens ran his 455-powered ’92 Pontiac Firebird; both had to contend with two rounds of pesky Chevys to kick off their tails before they met each other for the big $450 prize money. Owens caught LaGory asleep at the tree, with the Poncho driver’s 0.563 reaction time simply glowing against the Mopar man’s sleepy 0.665. From there, though, LaGory out powered Owens and took the win light with a 9.161/150.60 mph over the slower 9.413/144.90. EZ Street It seemed inevitable: The only two EZ Street competitors in the 8.60s during qualifying would face each other in the Edelbrock Quik 8 finals. It boiled down…

Here’s a newsflash for you—gas is expensive again. And despite the collective brainpower of a million Internet chatrooms working on the problem, it’s probably going to stay that way for some time. Why not try some fuel-efficiency tips and save yourself a few bucks? •Lose weight. Yeah, you could stand to shed a few pounds, but we’re talking about your car. Sure, the trunk is a handy place to store your tool chest, jackstands, that old Y2K survival kit you never got around to using, spare transmission and so on, but all that junk is weighing you down. And you probably aren’t going to need it for your 20 minute drive to work. •Use proper octane gas. Your high-performance hot rod might need the expensive stuff, but the beater you…

Like a Typhoon in a Grand National’s Clothes Imagine the power and tweakability of an Grand National in a new car: Two turbos, six cylinders, a 9,000 rpm redline—and a tach that puts the 0, 1, and 2 in a smaller font, to reinforce the point that this sucker is built to drive hard and fast. Six-speed stick. All-wheel-drive. Eighteen-inch rubber all around. Zero-to-60 in the mid-5s, the quarter in 13.4. Brembo binders that stop you right now. Front and rear bellypans for aerodynamic smoothness at speed—the back one made of carbon fiber—and a NACA duct to cool the rear differential. A gaping hole in the square-jawed fascia fronting an intercooler the size of most home air conditioning units. Room for four adults. Smooth, but tactile (you feel everything you’re…

MBI Publishing Co. In celebration of Chrysler’s 75th anniversary in 2000, Dennis Adler’s Chrysler fills 192 pages with the story of how Detroit’s Number Three automaker was founded by a retired GM executive. Walter P. Chrysler, former vice president of General Motors and head of the Buick division, retired from his high-powered post in 1920 after one too many disagreements with GM president William Durant. By 1924, Chrysler was riding high again at the helm of Maxwell Motors, where 32,000 of the nearly 80,000 cars it produced that year bore the Chrysler name. By June 26, 1925, Walter had bought out Maxwell, and the Chrysler Corporation was born. The remaining chapters of Adler’s book chronicle Chrysler’s history through the Great Depression, WWII, the Exner-inspired finned ’50s, the supercar ’60s, the…

Concept cars are as much “what-ifs” as they are glimpses of the future. In the ’50s, they were flights of pure fancy designed to get the name of the company on everyone’s lips. These days, the more elaborate the concept car, the more time and money invested, and corporate money and resources are too valuable to be wasted on flights of fancy. No company has the bucks to blow on pure whim, and you can bet that somewhere in that car—anything from wheels to color to fascia treatment to powerplant—is a piece or a plan that will make it into production. It’s up to us to figure out what’s what, ’cause the companies don’t like to talk about the future. Not officially, anyway. Chrysler has often quietly tipped its hand.…

Like the factory shoulda done. We hear it a lot. The factory shoulda put a TPI engine in the Monte Carlo SS back in the ’80s. The factory shoulda slid a 351W into a Fox-body Mustang long before the ’95 Cobra R. The factory shoulda made convertibles out of just about everything that was never made into a convertible. The factory shoulda never canceled the Camaro. The factory shoulda never stopped building rear-drive Mopars, Grand Nationals, Impala SSs, turbo T-birds, take your pick. The factory doesn’t do things that enthusiasts think it ought to for a variety of reasons, most of them relating to cost, ease of building when pumping out cars to the tune of one a minute, and those danged government regulations. To the enthusiast these are dumb…

Brand Loyalty: Chevrolet Race Results: A local bracket racer and chassis fabricator at Jerry Bickle’s renowned shop, Calkins came to Gateway not to face off against the NMCA racers, but rather to test and tune a new delay box he had just installed in his 67 Camaro. While the NMCA racers get most of the ink, each NMCA event also features a popular bracket racing show. “I’ve always been a Chevy person because they’re the first cars I knew when I was growing up. I still remember my father power-shifting I our ’64 Impala 409 station wagon when I was six. He always had Corvettes and Novas all over the yard. I try to keep an open mind to other makes; the unibody construction of certain Fords and Mopars reminds…

The track might be located in Madison, Illinois, but don’t let that fool you; it’s just a stone’s throw from St. Louis. Basking in the shadow of the famed arch from which its name is derived, Gateway International Raceway once again hosted the HOT ROD Power Fest. If you’re looking for show cars, the Midwest is the place to be. These folks were raised on the Street Machine Nationals, so they know how to build attention getters. Don’t expect lots of date-coded restos or highly polished hone-stock late-models; we’re talking custom, from radical paint to fabricated chassis to monster motors, and all intended for the street. We were anticipating a strong turnout, but our expectations were exceeded before lunch on Saturday. By Sunday afternoon, we had a showfield that was…

Fender Gender I want to set up my ’71 Chevelle station wagon for street cruising. The body is good except for the grille and the front of the hood. Rather than finding replacement parts, I’d like to convert the car to look like a ’70, and I can get a ’70 Malibu four-door really cheap. Will the ’70 front end bolt to my ’71? Burt HuberSaratoga Springs, NY Normally known for killer interchangeability, Chevy got a little weird with early ’70s A-bodies. Though ’70-72 models appear similar (save for the extra headlights on the ’70 and other grille and headlight trim variations, the hood remains the same on all models), ’70 fenders are slightly different than ’71’72. Other than the slats for the side marker light on the 70, there…

Bench-racing is an age-old pastime given new life (and a worldwide audience) with the advent of the Internet. Anyone with a computer can get in on the fun, and remain virtually anonymous. Challenges are thrown, bluffs are called, and accusations are hurled with regularity. So whatcha gonna do besides just BS? Welcome to Cyberbrawl, an Internet-orchestrated gathering of drag racers, trash-talkers, and cyber-enthusiasts who want to go fast and have a good time. On July 22, more than a hundred cars showed up at Beech Bend Raceway in Bowling Green, Kentucky, to represent their Web sites or newsgroups. Didn’t matter whether you were running a clapped-out Cougar that ran 20s or a blown 9-second Mustang, all comers got lots of track time, met people they’d e-mailed, made friends, and most…

Latest HOT ROD/Dodge Showpiece Stunner Debuts ay SEMA The new Dodge Stratus Coupe is a visual stunner. If only it came with more power… No more if-onlys! Dodge and HOT ROD are getting together with Troy Trepanier to build the hottest Stratus Coupe yet. This tight, eminently driveable package includes a full complement of bolt-ons, a supercharger, the fattest meats we can fit in the fenderwells, side-exiting exhaust, and a paint scheme that will smack you upside the head with reminders of performance Mopars past. The name? Stratus-Fear: It shoots for the stars and will strike terror into the hearts of supercharged Grand Prix GTP owners everywhere. And if Troy builds it, you know it’s going to be a quality, fully streetable piece. Watch for full instrumented testing and photography…

In the hands of average hobbyists like you and me, car projects can easily get out of hand. You begin with a fixer-upper, plan a few upgrades, and the next thing you know, the car is in pieces all over the garage floor. What follows is often a lengthy downtime, occasionally ending with a basket-case up for sale. Even those projects that reach completion usually take much longer than anticipated. But what of the pros? Even an outfit like Hotchkis Performance found itself caught up in a project that was spiraling out of control. Plans to net an in-house engineering mule spun into a quest to create a show-stopping, cross-country calling card—one that had to be completed in a month. Having produced suspension packages for many popular GM applications, Hotchkis…

Scott Crouse had a problem. The cost of a full schedule at Cal-Poly Pomona had him so bucks-down that he couldn’t lavish one thin dime to make his daily driver faster. A gift from his Ford-addicted father, the stock ’83 Mustang GT was a low-mileage cream puff when Scott got it a few years ago, but even with 175 horsepower, it just wasn’t able to hang with fuel-injected 5.0L ’Stangs. Shunning blister-pack goodies and credit card tactics, Scott returned to the roots of hot rodding, working mostly with standard brand replacement parts and salvage yard treasures. One by one, Crouse addressed the early 5.0L’s weaknesses until his ’83 was capable of 14.4s at 95; cornering and braking is now on par with any current Mustang GT. The punch line is…

I was 17 years old in ’85 when I found a newspaper listing for a ’74 Cutlass with a 454. My friends were into Chevys, and I thought Chevy power was the way to go. Turns out it was a 442 with its original Olds 455 under the hood. I was disappointed—I wanted that Chevy mill—but I bought it anyway. Soon it was a weekend street/strip toy. I changed the cam, intake, and exhaust system, and then added nitrous, which was just getting popular, and very suddenly we ran high 12s. But I wanted more, so I built another big-block motor and got into the low 11s (no nitrous) running through mufflers. I gave up my Chevy torch about a year after I got the car. I experimented with several…

(OR,“WHAT ARE YA, YELLA?”) Our art director, Hot Rod Todd, wants bright, poppin’ colors for our show coverage sections. Alas, the skies over Maple Grove were changeable ―threatening rain for a large chunk of the weekend, though they never quite delivered. Still, it’s hard to make colors look bright under partly cloudy weather conditions…unless your car is yellow. Yellow, somehow, always manages to pop super-vivid through our view-finders. And though we took photos of everything, the yellow rides ended up looking sunniest ―even in the absence of sun. PEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARDS Modem Tech,Jeff Lutz, ’93 Firebird (Yellow) TruckCraig Collier, ’88 Chevy AstroVan Paint & GraphicsEarl & Pam Metzler, ’34 FordFive-Window Street RodWayne Stein, ’32 Ford Coupe(Red) InteriorDaniel Swisher lll,’57Chevy Coupe (Green) EngineMike Sholley, ’55 FordMOO EngineeredTerry Toms, ’65 Chevelle(Multi-colored) Daily…

“Dandy” Dick Landy is still revered in the drag racing world. In the ’60s and ’70s it was Landy, Bill “Grumpy” Jenkins, “Dyno” Don Nicholson, and a whole bunch of other guys with really cool nicknames who brought professionalism to the doorslammer stock classes that eventually resulted in the creation of the NHRA’s Pro Stock class. Landy’s Dodges were well turned out and consistently fast, and the beefy Landy was never without his trademark cigar (unlit, of course). Today, Dandy Dick still drives Dodges. But instead of a Hemi Challenger or Dart, it’s this innocuous-appearing Durango SUV packing a Vortech supercharger atop the 5.9L Magnum V-8. Does it challenge the legends of Landy’s past for ultimate velocity? Um, of course not. But it’s worthwhile in its own way. The primary…