Indholdsfortegnelse for January 2001 i Hot Rod

BUGGED In the old days (circa 1955), the only place you could buy a pair of Levis was in an Army-Navy surplus store. Regular clothing stores in the towns my mother shopped didn’t carry them because they were associated with ditch-digging labor, and of course, there was that nasty hoodlum aspect. Levis were favored by respectable juvenile delinquents from Jersey City to Brooklyn. These things were soaked so heavy with blue that it took years for them to fade to a beautiful shade of indigo. Even with daily use, they stayed stiff for months, but one day you’d wake up and pull on the most comfortable pants you ever felt. It took time to make them that way. It was a ritual, and it required patience. So why is it…

It’s Faster—Here’s How! Last June we told you that the 2001 Lightning pickup was getting a power increase. Now we’ve learned how they’re doing it. Beyond the usual calibration tweaks, there are three distinct elements to the power boost: a bigger intercooler, a bigger mass-air meter, and a reshaped lower intake mani fold. The mass-air meter grows to a whopping 90mm and will feed a shorter lower intake section (about ⅝ inch shorter and a little narrower than ‘99 00s) to help increase velocity. A healthier intercooler will help process all that extra air. And there you have it—an extra 20-25 horsepower from the factory.…

The End of the World Is Nigh! You’re a car guy. You do all your work yourself because you haven’t got a zillion-dollar budget. You do crazy stuff—make your own intake manifold, windage tray, and even your own fiberglass doors. You double your engine’s power output. You bolt on a set of slicks and race the pee out of your bad ride. You win trophies, nearly 100 in all, but you really ‘do it just for fun. You’re a hot rodder. Right? Is Dave Benton a hot rodder? His ride of choice is the furthest thing from what most would consider a hot rod to be. Benton, a Howell, New Jersey, resident and longtime Fiat enthusiast, gravitated to the lowly Yugo of all things (thanks to their Fiat-based mechanicals) in…

You’ve seen cop cars made from Saturns, Vipers, and everything in between. But you haven’t seen a Prowler patrol yet, have you? Consider your life complete as you dig on Captain DAVE, the new DARE vehicle from Contra Costa County, California. DAVE, a name coined by a local fifth-grader, stands for “Drugs And Violence Erased.” The car was made available via asset forfeiture (sounds so much nicer than “we got it in a drug bust,” doesn’t it?) The Prowler has lights, strobes, a TV and VCR, and a CD player, and it was given a bitchin’ flame job to boot. Lieutenant Mike Newman with the county Sheriff’s Office put the program together to educate young folk about crime prevention.…

In what has become a biennial event, the editors of HOT ROD have thrashed out their choices for HOT ROD Top 10 status. We began with a list of 37 potential candidates and thinned the herd to a couple of dozen. Then the fighting started. By the time we got down to 15 cars, we were having to defend our choices to each other. It took us half an hour to go from 37 to 15; it took another two hours to come up with our 10 finalists. This year, our sole criteria was finding street-driven cars which pushed the envelope and which appeared in HOT ROD in the past 24 months. It’s obvious, though, that we are bewitched by a combination of old and new working in harmony. (We…

When we think of “indestructible,” images of Mack trucks, battleships, overcooked Spam, and Baskerville’s feet come to mind. Ask a hot rodder about an indestructible axle, and the Dana 60 is first on the list. Though originally designed for ¾- and 1-ton personnel carriers in WWII, during the supercar ‘60s this big-guy axle was beneath all Chrysler Corp, passenger cars equipped with the Street Hemi or 440 wedge and a manual transmission. Since then, racers of every stripe have latched onto rhe Dana and its huge 9.75-inch ring gear, heavily ribbed cast-iron housing, and numerous extreme-duty features. But for every hot rodder who swears by his Dana, there are just as many who swear at it. These critics cite difficult assembly, lack of economy-oriented gear ratios, and its inherent porkiness.…

Driving project cars, regardless of condition, is perhaps the most rewarding aspect of owning them, but it’s not easy keeping middle-aged iron on the road. While tooling our ’62 Ford Galaxie 500 XL to the office, we counted no less than 15 bushingbeating bumps in the first mile. Considering the 160,000 miles on the car and applying simple math, we figure that rough roads punched the original suspension pieces no fewer than 2.4 million times over the past 38 years! As such, our Ford is plagued by some serious driveability issues ranging from front end clunks and groans to nose dives under braking, all associated with old age and wear. Our favorite quirk is the occasional random lane change caused by fried ball joints and sloppy steering links. In an…

Nine Seconds… Silently. Charge! Nine and a half seconds. No fuel. And the only sound you can hear is air moving out of the way as it flies down the quarter-mile. Introducing Killacycle, which builder/owner Bill Dube is touting as the quickest electric-powered motorcycle on the face of the planet. Based on a ‘77 Kawasaki KZ1000 frame, Killacycle runs on 624 separate thin-metal-film lead-acid batteries made by Bolder Technologies (Just six of them are sufficient to jump-start a car). Each battery is approximately the size of a roll of Lifesavers, and the whole pack weighs 132 pounds. Those batteries produce 312 volts (nominal), 3,600 peak amps, and generate better than 300,000 watts on a trip down the strip; the twin motors are 6.7-inch diameter series-wound DC traction motors. The motor…

Trans Am Red Line If you stroll down the Venice Beach boardwalk on certain days, there are drum circles-penple simply show up with a percussion instrument and join in. The result is a perfect soundtrack to the eccentric environment, and it’s easy to lose your train of thought there and get swept away by the incredibly rich polyrhythyms. There are stretches of field Line that capture the same primal feeling, and there are other stretches that are almost robotic, self-consciously artificial, and this contrast is what makes the music intriguing. Not dark enough to qualify as industrial, not as catchy as the ‘80s synth-pop it borrows from, Trans Am sounds like no band you’ve ever heard before. They have long ambient tracks that bear a debt to Kraftwerk (and possibly…

We went to LA County Raceway with a 520ci, 550hp Hemi Dart to test the mass of the Dana 60 against a Chrysler 8¾ third member. To minimize the variables, both axles shared the same ratio (3.54/3.55), width, pinion angle (5 degrees negative), brake assemblies, and M&H 10/27x15 slicks. The basically stock 742-case 8¾ centersection was prepared by Performance Differential using DTS clutch rebuild parts (SP 22233X), a 3.55:1 ratio (DTS 03-887355E), and 1350-series U-bolt yoke (SP 3-4-5731X). We also used 30-spline Moser custom-alloy forged axles to handle the stroked Hemi’s 630 lb-ft of torque. Our first surprise was that the fully assembled Dana weighs 251 pounds complete with 2½ quarts of 85/140 gear lube and the MP three-bolt adjustable pinion snubber (P3690181) in place. By contrast, the fully dressed…

Most hot rodders are intimidated by electrical system work more than anything else. It is impossible to see electrons flowing through the wires, so our minds have difficulty grasping very basic concepts. Complicating matters is the damage caused to electrical systems by heat, vibration, moisture, and time. While other vehicle systems suffer from maladies we can see and feel and reason with—things like clogged fuel filters, sheared bolts, and blown gaskets—when it comes to wiring problems, the best we can do is say the car has “electrical gremlins. If you’re building a hot rod from scratch or have just plain had it with ancient OE wiring and faulty connectors, a pre-made wiring kit like those offered by Painless Wiring makes a lot of sense and can save you a ton…

Torn, tarnished with age, and in pieces post-bodywork, the blue vinyl cabin of Project Montelgo (pronounced “Montego”; the “1” is silent) had seen much better days. The dash and kick panels were cracked, the vinyl center of the coat-hanger-thin steering wheel had hardened to a point where you couldn’t honk the horn, the carpet had 30 years’ worth of dirt and foodstuffs ground in, and the big torn bench seat simply had to go. The plan was simple: Keep it looking as factory as possible, while adding only functional and (we think) tasteful items. In our desire to make Montelgo a little more like a Psyche!-clone, we went with a “gauge-pak” dash, standard in Cyclone Spoilers and optional on all 351ci and big-block midsize Mercs. Tach, oil pressure, water temp,…

Borla has built stainless steel waste-gas-expulsion systems for everything from Ferraris and Ducatis to Camaros and Harleys, and its line of competition mufflers have aided champions in virtually every type of racing. If anyone knows about getting hydrocarbons out of an engine, it’s Borla. So now it’s working on the intake side, too. The result is what Borla calls a “Power Set.” Knowing its market, Borla’s initial Power Set is engineered for the current GMC Sierra and Chevy Silverado full-size pickups, and the first truck to wear the product is Donnie Woolard’s 2000 Silverado 4x4. How’d Donnie’s truck rate such an honor? He’s one of Borla’s R&D coordinators. (We bet he didn’t have to pay for it, either.) Holley Huffs Holley’s name is magic in the world of carburetors. Will…

GET SHORTY When you mess around with cars as much as we do, sooner or later you’ll need to have a driveshaft reworked to re-establish the correct center-to-center dimension. A lucky few with the right skills can do this at home, but the rest of us require the services of an upstanding driveshaft shop. If you’re unaware of a facility in your area, check with the transmission shops—they will usually tell you whom they use. Our man Randy Bryan (Driveshaft Specialist, Azusa, California) showed us some things to consider along the way. Source Driveshaft SpecialistDept. HR01, 1117 W. Foothill Blvd, Azusa, CA 91702:626/334-2418…

MORE 2003 MUSTANG NEWS Blown 3.9L on the Way? Serious, sleuthing Mustang fans will already know that the new car, due out for model year 2003 as a coupe or convertible, will ride on the Lincoln LS/Ford Thunderbird chassis’/Jaguar S Type chassis (code-named DEW98 inside Ford)—they’ll even share key suspension components. Now HOT ROD has learned that the ‘03 pony’s top engine will be a variation of the 3.9L V-8 as used in the DEW98, and that the “modular” motor introduced in the Crown Victoria in 1992 will not be used for the Mustang in the car’s next iteration. The 3.9L has been chosen in part because it is a 60-degree design, and is easier to package than the 90-degree 4.6/5.4 Mod motors, which are as wide as a big-block…

Although we maintain our support of used hardware for the budget-minded, it’s tough to deny that locating sound 350 Chevy engines in certain parts of the country may be more of a trick than it is here in the oasis of aged automobiles. Your humble editors know all too well the trials faced by Rust Belt rodders; we were once among you. For some, simply scoring a sound core is a challenge that involves outsmarting (or at least outbidding) fervent cabbies, work truck jockeys, and other professional consumers that voraciously chew up and spit out small-blocks for a living. Fittine one of these clanped-out lumps with new heads and cam would likely prove futile. So whether you’re one of these unfortunates or simply have no faith in pre-owned merchandise, we’ve…

Randy Scoville doesn’t suffer fools. There isn’t a politically correct bone nor a limpwrist view on any topic in his 54-year-old being. To Scoville, the word “assume” means “makes an ass of you and me.” When the designer, builder, and former driver is asked to compare the difficulty of making a 300-mph ‘29 highboy roadster in light of Joe and Jeff Kugel’s 300-mph ‘92 Pontiac, he shrugs. “It’s their deal, not mine.” Scoville’s goal of fielding hot rodding’s first 300-mph roadster is where he’s at and where he will always be. Forty-four years ago, Tony Water’s ‘32 highboy roadster and Belmont Sanchez’s ‘53 Studebaker coupe became the first open and closed, stock-bodied passenger cars to surpass the 200-tnph barrier on the salt. Both cars were equipped with a Hemi and…

Electrical problems are among the most frustrating challenges. Since were used to applying hands-on troubleshooting skills to things we can touch and see, we have a difficult time envisioning the flow of electrons through a morass of wiring. We run for the hills screaming when the key won’t shut off the ignition, the lights flash when the horn is honked, or the engine dies for no apparent reason. The guys at Universal Technical Institute are in the business of shedding light on such mysteries as well as offering courses explaining virtually every aspect of how cars work and how to repair them. We caught up with UTI Electrical Instructor Matt Kelley for some insight on electrical gremlins. Matt tells his students, “You have to know what you are looking for…

Six years ago, Joe MacPherson won the coveted America’s Most Beautiful Roadster trophy at the ’94 Grand National Roadster Show in Oakland. Six years later he did it again! Team MacPherson has produced another AMBR—but instead of a roadster, this one’s a reacher (a rod that reaches its intended destination under its own power). MacPherson is a car nut’s car nut. He’s a car peddler’s car peddler. As an auto dealer, he lives for the sale and a passion to please that began in Southern California nearly 50 years ago. When pressed, he figures he’s bought, sold, built, or traded more than 250,000 cars and trucks. Yet he’s never taken the time to just lay back in the seat, turn the ignition key, and scoot out in one of his…

Ripped, gripped, born to suffer, sacrificed on an altar of hot tarmac, slicks are the essential ingredients for maximum acceleration. But there is more to it than just lighting ’em up in the bleach box and hammering the throttle when the last amber flashes. Slicks, just like any other part of a race car, are quite affected by driver technique. Their service life and effectiveness is also influenced by how they’re handled and stored between races. At the recent NMCA Memphis race, we interviewed racers, manufacturer’s representatives, and track personnel about the nurturing of these special tires. While some of their insight was universal, we were surprised by the contradiction that exists. Some take a hands-off approach and pay little attention to their tires. Others seemed on the verge of…

Bulletproof Crane Cams Crane’s new “Bulletproof Nitro-Carb steel rocker arms are able to endure millions of cycles with a 350-pound open valve spring load without failure! Features include accurately maintained rocker arm geometry and a “long slot” design to accommodate higher-lift camshafts. The rockers are available for most all small- and big-block Chevy applications. Information: Crane Cams, Dept. HR01, 530 Fentress Ave., Daytona Beach, FL 32114; 904/258-6174; www.cranecams.com. Gimme a Brake Harbor Freight Do your own brake job with Harbor Freights handy Caliper Tool Set for Disc Brakes. The set is made of carbon steel and contains a Thread-adjusting tool, 10-piece attachments, and a pad and it comes in a molded carrying case. It features attachment diameters from 1.261 to 2.5 inches, lead screw diameter of 0.620-inch, and a T-handle…

First Project Everyone’s gotta start somewhere, and Peter DeCrosta of Newburgh, New York, did with this formerly turquoise six-cylinder ’66 Mustang. It now sports a 351C with 2bbl heads, an Edelbrock four-barrel intake, and MSD ignition; 2¼-inch pipes and Flowmaster Delta Flow mufflers get the junk out. Competition Engineering subframe connectors, V-8 rear springs, KYB shocks, Granada disc brakes, and a 1¼-inch sway bar in front are among the chassis mods. Faster Back What else would you call a 0.030-over, 289-powered, Edelbrock Power Packaged, TRW-slugged, Dynomax-exhausted, C4-shifted Springtime Yellow ’67 Mustang? Additionally, it’s been lowered an inch on all corners, sports sway bars front and rear, features Stainless Steel Brakes front discs, a 3.50-cogged rear, and 60-series BFGs on 15-inch Prime rims. Steve Doolen of Kinmundy, Illinois, claims ownership. The…