Indholdsfortegnelse for August 2002 i Hot Rod

I used to think small-block Chevys were for uninspired automotive meatheads. Many of you agree, but as the editor of magazines like HOT ROD, Rod & Custom, and Car Craft, I've had to acquiesce to the masses to a certain extent. And the masses drive small-block Chevys. Me? I've got one of everything—the lifetime collection includes 19 Chevys, but also 16 Fords, 16 Mopars, 5 Buicks, 4 Pontiacs, and 12 others best categorized as miscellaneous. I added that up partially for my own entertainment, but also to demonstrate that I'm not particularly brand-biased. So do nr attack me for the realization that a small-block Chevy can actually be pretty compelling. It's taken a lifetime of avoiding them to admit that. My current infatuation with the little engines hit overdrive when…

When the principals at Allen Engineering (the supercharger people), in Oxnard, California, told us to be at J. Bittle American’s new dyno facility in Kearny Mesa (a suburb of San Diego) and that they would handle all the arrangements, we fell by J’s joint with high expectations. The wavers of the magic wand, who demand anonymity, put the touch on more than 30 Ford products over the two-day thrash, and the mix was eclectic. Blown Thunderbirds and Crown Vics, supercharged Cobras, Cobra-equipped Lincolns LSCs, a Cobra R, and even our own recalcitrant SOHC Mustang rode the rollers with amazing results in power output and driveability. These clandestine sessions are advertised by word of mouth, and the tuners admit to having spent time in grease pits from Texas to Michigan. Said…

A perfect opening day at El Mirage was damped by the absence of Baskerville and the severe, 125-mph rollover of Tom Finn’s 49 Chevy fastback at midday. But Gray was there in spirit, and the SCTA volunteers responded instantly to Finn’s wreck, making the best of two bad situations. Meanwhile, the race was attended by more spectators than in recent memory, and we were glad to see an extra smattering of older musclecars participating, perhaps in response to the SCTA’s new Classic class of land-speed racing. As an allowance to the monolithic aerodynamics of the older rides, the new Classic class separates the °81-and-older rides from the °82-and-newer swoopy stuff in Comp Coupe, Altered, Gas Coupe, and Production (for engine classes A through D only). Existing records were assigned to…

Anybody who had ever appreciated Detroit muscle Was thrilled to see the Fc= turn of factory performance in the early 80s, even if the initial offerings could only muster mid-15-second e.t.’s. As it played out, Ford’s 5.0L Mustang would steal the show for the following decade or two, reminding hot rodders young and old that with the right upgrades, a sound platform can be steadily improved to achieve race car performance. Meanwhile, despite favorable sales, hardcore motorheads dismissed the GM F-bodies for a variety of perceived shortcomings, including excessive weight, temperamental engine electronics, weak driveline components, and so on. By the early '90s, the third-gen F-car had been written off by many enthusiasts as a non-player in the performance wars. Nick Fusco was unaware of this when he purchased his…

In the July issue, we showed you how Muscle Motors builds a complete SB2-headed street engine with used NASCAR parts. However, you can also buy leftover speedway goodies for more mundane uses. We recently nabbed a Sonny Bryant crank with a 3.335 stroke and set of killer Carillo 6.200-inch rods for about $1400. That's cheap for such extreme quality. Toss these into a junkyard 350 block with a 4.060 bore and we've got a 1.86:1 rod ratio and 345ci of high-winding power that'll just love a load of nitrous. Or nitro! To avoid custom pistons, we'll use JE Pistons (PN 182007); they have a 1.125 compression height, and if we mill the block from its stock 9.025 deck height to 9.000, the piston deck height will be 0.0075. Combine that…

Perhaps the least-often hopped-up small-block is the 307, a ‘68-'73 offering that's really nothing more than a stroked 283. The 307 uses a 3.875 bore (same as a 283), and the crank is the same as the desirable large-journal 327 unit—it has 350-style mains (2.450-inch) with a 3.250 stroke. So how can your 307 scream? One option is to steal the crank and put it in a 4.000- or 4.125-inch-bore block. But if you want to use the 307 block, the cheapest thing to do is to use pistons designed for a 283, like the Keith Black hypereutectics (PN KB165 with a Gece dish or KB166 with a 4cc dome) with a compression height of 1.805. To make the pistons work with the extra 0.250-inch stroke (compared to a 283),…

This idea is far from new—Bentley had crank-snout-driven superchargers in the ‘30s—but when was the last time you saw it? The snout-driven blower is a Roots setup, but rather than being mounted atop the engine and beltdriven, it couples directly to the front of the engine. Potvin made these setups back in the day. What ever happened to Potvin? We're not sure, but we'd be proud of anyone who fabbed a similar setup today. The one shown here is on an early Olds, but you get the idea.…

Want the ultimate sleeper engine? We've never seen anyone go so far as to use a stock cast-iron two-barrel intake and a 2-Jet carb. However, Bzrezinski Racing Products makes a high-flowing, yet very expensive, modified stock intake that kills on circle-track applications. Bzrezinski also has ported Corvette ram's horn exhaust manifolds. Look to JET for tuned-up, 500-cfm 2-Jet carbs. Run an under-manifold nitrous system, and you could put the spank on the hapless suckers. Sources Bzrenzski Racing Products Pewaukee, WI; 414/246-8577; www.einfo-net.com/motorsports/brz/ JET Huntington Beach, CA, 714/848-5515 www.jetchip.com…

One big question is if this thing will fit your car. To help answer that question, here are some measurements we took from our Vortech-blown small-block. The dimensions of the enclosure itself are 101 inches wide, 142 inches long, and 7 inches deep from the carb flange to the top. The unit is slightly trapezoidal in profile. Those specs will help you determine the hood clearance you'll have with your intake manifold. We took the measurements listed below on our 383 with an RPM Air Gap intake. • Front header bolt outward to the blower's max width: 10 inches. Watch out for control-arm clearance issues • Manifold base to the top of the blower: 9 inches • Manifold base to the top of the airbox: 121/4 inches • Front of…

“So how much horsepower does it have?” he asked, eyes wide and eager. "Three hundred and ninety,’ we replied. "Wow! And that Michigan tag. Are you from Michigan? I just got here from Ohio.” “No, we live here. The cars straight out of SVT-it belongs to Ford,“ we grimaced, as his face slowly jelled with incomprehension. Thus it went with the young salesperson at a large Ford retail store. Reaction was pretty much the same all over. This Sonic Blue king of Cobras got barely a glance from anyone on the road. T()them, it was just another Mustang with big tires, the millionth in a sea of Mustangs. And that's not a bad thing, either. An edgy car like this needs anonymity for obvious reasons. Even the cop we whizzed…

With the merger of the National Musclecar Association and the National Street Car Association, each of the NMCA/NSCA Super Season events carries a whopping 15 classes of street-legal drag racing. Many seem to overlap, and we'd expect some consolidation in the future. In the meantime, we're digging the “old fashioned” classes—referring to a time just 10 years ago—such as Nitrous Express Nostalgia Pro Street and the very similar Drive Train Specialists Super Modified. They're the good ol’ back-half cars (mostly) that hang hoops and run 1,500 feet down the quarter-mile. It’s just like Memphis ’93! Almost. While these classes were intended to give older cars a place to race, others are building class-purpose racers for the show. Hence the juxtaposition of cars like Marino Cintron’s ’87 Regal, which we first…

A scrappy little 283 race motor hasn't been the hot ticket for, like, 30 years. Why? In addition to being of tiny displacement, the small bores—3.875 versus a 350's 4.000—aren't friendly for the 2.02-inch-or-bigger intake valves guys like to use in performance heads. But now there's a different answer: Vortec heads. These vaunted, low-buck GM Performance Parts offerings (PN 12559060 per head, around $460 a set) have 1.94/1.500 valves that clear the small bores, and they run like stink. We'd throw ‘em on a 283 with Speed Pro L2275F domed, forged pistons at 0.060-over (292ci) for 10.9:1 compression with the Vortec 64cc chambers. The solid-dome pistons can be milled for less compression, or you can cut the heads to 58ccs for nearly 12.0:1. We'd use budget Manley aluminum rods (PN…

As the senior editor of the HOT ROD staff, I worked at Petersen Publishing during Ray Brock’s time. I didn’t work with him, but I saw him in the halls nearly every day. He was the publisher of Motor Trend then, and I was a young brave at Car Craft. I'll always remember him as a good-natured soul of quite some physical stature. He had big, meaty hands and his forearms were thick like tree branches and hairy. He wore a perpetual tan that accentuated his perfect white teeth, and his smile was broad and quite infectious. When he spoke, that rich bass flowed smoothly, and you knew it was Ray and only Ray. A writer for Sports Illustrated once described his deep tones as coming from the bottom of…

Camaro/Impala/Tri-Five Custom A/C Classic Auto Air 813/251-2356 Need a heater, air conditioning, or defrost, but don’t want too much ugliness under the hood or in the interior? Classic Auto Air now has Perfect Fit Series A/C systems for 67-69 Camaros (shown), ’58-68 Impalas, and ’55-’57 Chevys. The Camaro kit even uses the original vent locations if your car has factory air. Check out Classic Air for applications for any car from the 50s through the ’70s. Trick Fuel Filters Kluhsman Racing Components 800/814-5745 There’s no excuse for boring inline fuel filters any more—the aftermarket’s thick with new offerings. These new Kluhsman units seem pretty neat, and the company says the patented design flows 5 gpm at 12 psi. You can get them with short or long bodies, paper or stainless…

By buying this magazine, you've got access now to stories and questionnaires that will appear on the HOT ROD Web site, plus some sneak peaks at the stuff in next month’s issue of the magazine. Just check out the descriptions below, then load the address at the bottom of the page into your browser’s address window to see the articles on hotrod.com before you can buy them on the newsstand. There’s also an archive of past HOT ROD articles you might have missed. SNEAK PEEK 1 Speed Secrets for Any Engine This issue has a story on how Top Stock crate engines are built to get every ounce of power. We thought of even more machine-shop trickery to make any engine speedier, and it'll all be on the Web site…

It's 9 o'clock Monday morning and Dave Hakim’s phone is ringing. Hakim, motorsports marketing manager for Mopar Performance Parts, picks up the receiver and hears frantic words rattling away like machinegun fire: “Dave, it’s me, Steve Magnante from HOT ROD Magazine. I’ve got a big problem. I blew up the rearend out of the HOT ROD Hemi Ram pickup truck, and it has to be at a show in Laughlin, Nevada, by the weekend. Heeeelp!” Cool, calm and collected, Hakim says: “You're handled my man. As soon as we get off the phone, I'll have a complete 2002 Dodge Ram rear axle air freighted from Detroit to Los Angeles. I'll even pay for it. Sounds like you ought to save your money so you can buy some more Prozac.” Though…

Mice came with two rod-journal sizes: 2.000-inch for the early 283s and 327s and 2.100-inch for anything after ‘68 or so. The beauty is that aftermarket rods remain readily available for the small journal size, so you can grind your 2.100 crank down to 2.000 to get smaller bearing sizes for reduced bearing speed and more power. While you're there, offset grind the crank to stroke it or destroke it for more or less cubes. If you start with a standard 2.100 crank, you can usually alter the crank throw by as much as 0.080 inch if you grind it 0.100 undersize. The extra 0.020 is often needed for cleanup. For example, offset-grind a 3.48-stroke 350 Chevy crank and you can destroke it to as little as 3.400 or stroke…

Boost is gooood. Boost makes big power. But for carbureted applications, it can mean big ugly if you're not the hole-in-the-hood type, because it’s the Roots huffers that have been the most practical source of horsepressure ever since Barney Navarro first strapped one to his El Mirage roadster. Centrifugal blowers have also proven themselves since the ’30s; the blow-through Mc-Culloch VS57 was introduced in ’53 and was OE on Kaisers in 54. However, it’s been almost 40 years since Paxton first enclosed a carburetor on a Shelby, and nearly as long since an aftermarket company seriously promoted blow-through applications. But everything old is new again: Vortech’s got the hookup for centrifugally blown carbureted applications. This return to low tech opens up a new world for hot rodders unwilling or unable…

It’s pretty amazing when you think about it—all those metal parts spinning away furiously but never making contact. Oil makes it all possible. In addition to serving as a buffer against wear, oil also must cool critical engine parts, pump easily to critical areas at low temperatures, remain stable at high temperatures, and keep internal components clean and free from varnish and corrosive deposits. It’s a tall order, and for more than a century petroleum-based mineral oil has been the literal grease between the wheels. But in the last 30 years there has been a steady growth in the use of synthetic oils. Where Mineral Oil Comes From Deep within the earth’s crust are vast reserves of petroleum crude oil. Over millions of years, the decomposition of plant and animal…

To hear Ed Snell tell it, he’s always been a hot rod nut—when he was kid, he 7B built his own race cars and drove them for a hobby. Then he took about 30 years off to make some bread and raise a family properly without any outside distractions. But the bug began to munch on him again, and he was “looking for a hot rod to play with.” Now that he had means, the idea of specific fantasies built to order somehow equated to an iteration of the 32 Ford Coupe. So how come we're looking at a Willys? According to Ed, it “was everything I wanted.” Ed used to be a CPA. Do you think that had anything to do with his Mercury-to-Pluto decision? Or was it more…

Most crate motor buyers are content with the performance de-livered right out of the box. But there is a select group who just can’t leave well enough alone. We're talking about competitors 1 in the exciting IHRA Top Stock class. What the sanctioning body has done is approve a variety of big- and small-block Chevy, Ford, and Mopar crate motors for legal, heads-up competition. By coming up with a recipe list of permissible upgrades and modifications specific to each particular crate strategy, a close approximation of parity is achieved and the door is opened to the same kind of multi-make brand rivalries that made stock class drag action so engaging back in the ’60s. In fact, the IHRA also allows certain musclecars into Top Stock to dice it up with…

WWW.COLLECTORCARTRADERONLINE.COM Description: This is two months in a row of HOT ROD Approved in which we endorse stuff that doesn’t even begin to make your car go faster or look better. So? This one’s proven nearly invaluable to us for wasting time and money dreaming about cars; what else could you want? Free and addictive, maybe. It’s a Web site: www.collectorcartraderonline.com. At the site you can get in lots of trouble searching for cars for sale nationwide. The search function is great, allowing you to narrow down the exact make, model, year, and price of the car you want. You can search by region, state, or area code. But why get so narrow? We risk a new purchase on a much grander scale say, searching for anything under $1,000 in…

David McGarry "63 Pontiac Tempest Ventura, CA OWNER’S OCCUPATION: Architectural Designer ENGINE: 474ci Pontiac ENGINE MODS: Bored 0.060, stroked to 4.250, ported heads DYNO-PROVEN POWER: 552 hp, 600 lb-ft TRANSMISSION: 200-4R automatic overdrive REAREND: Narrowed Ford 9-inch, 3.89:1 gears WHEEL TYPE AND SIZE: Weld 15x5 (front), 15x15 (rear) TIRE TYPE AND SIZE: MT 26x7.5-15 (front), 29x18.5-15 (rear) PAINT COLOR: Metallic Turquoise BODY MODIFICATIONS: Harwood hood scoop, emblem delete APPROXIMATE TOTAL INVESTMENT: $30 grand WHAT’S THE BEST MODIFICATION YOU’VE MADE?: The four-speed automatic trans WHAT’S THE BIGGEST PROBLEM YOU’VE HAD?: No problems HOW LONG HAVE YOU OWNED IT?: He’s owned it four years, three of them spent in the car’s construction. HOW MANY MILES HAVE YOU DRIVEN IT?: “3,000—the car is totally new.” HOW FAST IS THE CAR AT THE DRAGSTRIP?:…