Indholdsfortegnelse for September 2002 i Hot Rod

When the hot rod world first heard rumblings in 1963 that Chevy was working on a big brother to the small-block, and a replacement for the 348/409 W-motor, the press had a field day anticipating exactly what form it would take. Rumors flew, but GM, reeling in the wake of a self-imposed moratorium on high-performance development, kept a tight lid on the proceedings. Between its semi-official debut at the ’63 Day-tona 500 in a Smokey Yunick-prepared Impala and its actual Showroom appearance in ’65 models, Chevy’s big secret came to be known as the “Mystery Motor.” Of course, nearly 40 years later were all well acquainted with the Mk IV big-block and its Mk V and Mk VI variants. This plastic and metal cutaway from the late '60s lifts the…

If Chevrolet won’t do it, somebody eise will. That seems to be the theme sur-rounding Kevin King’s ultra-sleek, ultrachic, retro-nuevo ’69 Camaro RS convert-ible. Pumped full of premium fourth-generation F-car parts, Kings thor-oughly modern ragtop could almost pass for an ’05 Camaro… if Chevy hadn’t pulled the plug. Just add a touch more aero and some federally mandated crash bumpers, and let the LSI Z28 drivetrain, late-model interior bits, and modern Suspension take it from there. Can you see it? We can. Car-owner King is the president of Year One—you know, the place that helps keep our greatest musclecars on the road by offering a constantly expanding line of excellent restoration parts. In an effort to meld the past, present, and future, King and the guys at Brewer's Restoration and…

380hp/400 Ib-ft package Mobil 1 oil, fill cap, and decal Berger exclusive chambered exhaust Carbon fiber airbox lid and "Prescribed Power by Berger" decal Progressive-rate 1 tünch drop springs 17x9 'iinch Cragar S/S wheels Dimpled front and rear rotors Red powdercoated brake calipers 69-style hockey-stick stripe with 380HP lettering HOT ROD Test Car door Stickers included, but not installed Blacked-out rear panel Chrome "by Berger" emblem on rear panel HOT ROD Camaro fender emblems Billet aluminum grille with Bow Tie emblem Body color roof on hardtop models Black leather inferior with red inserts and HOT ROD stitching Floor mats with HOT ROD logo Dash plaque with horsepower and torque White-faced gauges with HOT ROD Camaro logo Short-throw shifter Hurst shift ball Hurst Roll/Contro Fitted car cover with HOT ROD Camaro…

Beefing your stock block? Then don't overlook the advantages of adding steel four-bolt main caps where your stock iron two-bolt caps used to be. The installation requires some machine work, but can be invaluable to engine life at high power levels. Milodon (818/407-1211; www.milodon.com) offers four-bolt conversions for Chevy big-blocks and small-, large-, and 400-journal small-blocks; Ford 302s, 351 Windsors or Clevelands, and 429/460s; Mopar small-and large-journal small-blocks, big-blocks, and early Hemis; Pontiac 455s; and Olds 400s, 425s, and 455s.…

Moper Axle Upgrade Strange Engineering 847/663-1701 So far, Mopar guys have been content to upgrade their 83A rearends with Green bearings to eliminate the axle endplay adjusters. Now Strange can take these venerable Mopar diffs a step stronger with the Strange S/S Street axleshafts for A-, B-, C-, and E-body cars. Though they’re induction hard-ened and have the stock 30-spline configuration, these axles are stronger than stock and come with long, 'A-inch studs for dragstrip legality. Nifty Battery Terminals Scosche Industries 800/621-3695 www.scosche.com These are really intended for ultimate stereo systems—Scosche has a full line of audio trickery—but we thought the new PODI mini battery terminals just plain look cool. Functionally, the forged, platinum-plated terminals feature a setscrew to grip the battery and can accept two 4-gauge and two 8-or…

I am putting headers on my ’85 Monte Carlo SS with a 305 engine (5.0L, enginecode “G”). My transmission crossmember has a single hump, and to run true duals you need to have one with a double hump. Does anyone make one for my car? Ryan AldrichEast Peorta, IL G-Force Performance (Remsenburg, NY; 631/325-7947; www.crossmembers.com) sells bolt-on doublehump trans crossmembers for the ‘78-'88 GM rear-drive A/G-chassis. These crossmembers can accommodate up to 3!4-inch pipes. Complete mandrel-bent dual exhaust systems are also available from G-Force. This G-Force double-hump crossmember is supporting a 4L60E trans installed in a ’78 Malibu. Installation was only a matter of tightening four bolts onto the framerails. This car also uses a universal Energy Suspension polyurethane trans mount, although in most cases the stock mount works just…

y buying this magazine you've got access now to stories and questionnaires that will appear on the HOT ROD Web site, plus some sneak peeks 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 Power Tour: The Whole Story This year’s Lincoln-to-Canfield trip was the best ever, and we'll cover it with more pages than ever in the October issue. Get a preview of the editorial, plus lots of Web-exclusive coverage, by hitting hotrod.com now. SNEAK PEEK 2…

Third Best Photo of All Time First, let me say how important it was to me to have known Gray Baskerville. I mer Gray, who was then at Rod & Custom, while I was on the Car Craft staff in 1970. I remember my first day on the job pulling into the too-small employee parking garage at the Petersen Building at Sunset and La Cienega. I was driving a VW bus at the time, and it immediately caught my attention that among the array of late-model stuff there was a lone red Deuce roadster. Later I would discover that the owner of that car was as unique as it was. He will be missed. In the "From the Archives" of the June '02 issue there are two of Gray's favorite…

It was at least eight years ago that we first heard concerns that the NMCA Pro Street cars were too heavy and too fast to be safe with the Contemporary NHRA rollcage rules, which were de-signed around lightweight pure race cars. Now the rumors of the updated SFI 25-1 spec safety rules is fact. Cars running quicker than 7.50 will not only need far more stringent rollcage designs, but maximum weights will, for the first time, be specified in the safety sections of drag rulebooks. This is good news for two reasons. First, fewer guys get hurt. Secondly, it marks a new split in the ever-evolving character of Street car racing: The classes accused of being for pure race cars will become even more pure race cars, and the “street”…

The Petersen Automotive Museum, just down the street from our office on LA’s Wilshire Boulevard, has become a gearhead destination and the frequent gathering place for car clubs of all kinds. Now it’s going upscale, with a proposed $75-million expansion and redesign. Expect the renovation to include a restaurant, Grand Motor Court entrance, and a glass elevator big enough to get a car onto the enlarged third level. Construction should begin Spring 2003 for completion in early 2004. See the museums site at www.petersen.org, or visit the redesigners, Keating Khang Architecture, at www.keatingkhang.com.…

∙ Want to play along at home? Then check out the Year One catalog (800/950-9503) or log onto www.yearone.com for details on these helpful problem-solvers and trick accessories. ∙ ’67-'69 Camaro composite hood with '96 SS hood scoop ∙ Billet Specialties 18-inch rims ∙ Houndstooth seat covers for late-model Camaro seats ∙ Stainless Steel long-tube LS1 headers for '67'69 Fbody and '68 '74 X body (Nova, Omega, Ventura, Apollo) ∙ 3-inch diameter stainless Steel chambered exhaust for '67'69 Fbody ∙ LS1 swap engioe mounts ∙ 4L60E/T56 transmission mounting kit ∙ Inboard rear shock absorber relocation kit ∙ Fourth-generation rack-and-pinion steering swap kit ∙ '67-'69 Camaro custom gauge cluster ∙ Fourth-generation console swap kit for first-generation Fbody ∙ Custom delay windshield wiper conversion kit ∙ Inside rearview mirror with LED compass…

It was about a year ago when we first made the phone call to Chevrolet: “Hey—it’s the 35th anniversary of the Camaro, and you’re about to kill it. You need to do a special HOT ROD magazine edition to commemorate our first Camaro test car. You know—Jim McFarland’s red ’67 SS35O that Edelbrock now owns? It’s the car that pretty much put Camaros on the map.” The answer? “Love to. Sorry. Can’t.” By then the Anniversary SS, with its special checkered stripes and trophy mat, had already been locked in. Next, our intrepid Associate Publisher Ed Zinke sees the story “Berger SS Camaro” in the Dec. 01 issue; it’s about Berger Chevrolet, of “By Berger” fame from ’60s tuner mus-clecars, and how it’s making special-edition Berger SS cars even now.…

Back in its 1960s glory days, Fords FE big-block put the “King” in Cobra. But this is the 2Ist Century, and the old King is a little long in the tooth. By to-day’s Standards the original FE design—a product of’50s technology—has poor oiling, the original block Castings (if you can even find one) have thin cylinder walls, and the exhaust ports are poor. Yet for a purist like Carroll Shelby, a Cobra just isn’t a Cobra without a 427-FE Medium-Riser. When Shelby began his Cobra “continua-tion program,” he also tooled a stout new FE aluminum block and heads, all of which are available to the general public. However, for Shelby’s personal ultimate Cobra, even this was not enough. Shelby wanted to test the limits of the basic FE engine design…

As we writc this, were just moments off the plane from Power Tour 2002, presented by Chevrolet and sponsored by Flow-master. Man, what a trip—clearly the biggest and best Tour ever. Now, if there’s one thing Tours, it’s that participants want to see their cars in the magazine. You want it, you got it. For the first time ever, we re showing as many lour cars as possible by cramming them into lots and lots of these tiny little photos. Even so, we still can’t cover every last car on Tour—there were more than 500 l.ong Haul members (cars that drove all the way with us, from Lincoln, Nebraska, to the Hot Rod Supernationals in Youngstown, Ohio) and at least 14,000 extra cars participating along the way, So it’s clear…

SCOSCHE INDUSTRIES’ ACCUMAT Description: It’s a sound-deadener. Accumat is a thick, “visco-elastic,” self-adhesive, flame-resistant material that you can stick to any surface to keep it from rattling or drumming. We've used it extensively in cars and trucks, and it really works. An Accumated door closes with a pleasing thunk. Accumat can kill that annoying drumming from nasty exhaust, and it can reduce wind or rain noise across the roof. What it’s really intended for is to keep everything sounding tight once you add a thumper stereo system, but we like it for cancellation of all kinds of annoying white noise and vibration. Accumat comes in three different types: AMT045, AMT250, and AMT750. The numbers represent the thicknesses of 0.045-inch, 0.250-inch, and 0.750, the latter two being foam-backed products for use…

If you would like to bookmark any story to read later or to keep in your personal library, be it a tech article, a feature vehicle, or any other subject matter available on our site, first log in with your user name and password. 1. When youre within a story you” like to save, scroll to the bottom of the text and click “Bookmark.” 2. A pop-up window will automatically display listing that article and any others you have previously bookmarked. You can add as many as youd like and they'll be available during each visit to the site until you manually delete them by clicking on the adjacent red “X.” 3. To access your bookmarked stories during your next Visit, simply click on the “Bookmarks” tab found at the…

We just got the July HOT ROD and feit compelled to send you an update: Our $2,002 Z-car has been down the track. As you suggested on HOT ROD TV, is can be run for $2,002. Our best run to date is 11.817 at 117.64 mph. Since you saw the car, we have reinstalled the parts that feil out of the tranny, replaced a flat cam (Comp Cams covered it under warranty), installed mufflers, added rear-suspension limiters, and included safety harnesses and a B&M shifter to pass dragstrip tech. The 383 loses power above 6,000 rpm, probably because of stock exhaust manifblds. The IRS is hanging tough with the original axles and gears, but I try to roll into it be-fore hitting the nitrous to make them live. The 60-foot…

If you read the story “The Return of the Bow Tie” in the July issue (by renowned Illustrator David Kimble, whose name we hideously misspelled in the June issue; sorry, Dave), then you know that Chevy is rededicated to Indy racing. And if you could fog a mirror sometime around Memorial Day weekend, you heard that Chevy’s efforts paid off with a win surrounded by a yellow-flag controversy a few laps prior to the checkered finale. Helio Castronoves (showri) was named champ, though Paul Tracy, who was given Second, kinda thought he was the guy. No matter—both drove Chevys. As did Felipe Giaffone in Third, and rookie Alex Barron in Fourth. Chevy led at the start, led 115 laps, and led and at the Finish. Ten of the 11 drivers…

Magazine project cars usually rot away in our garage, get sold, given to advertisers, or returned to the manufacturer and crushed. Others are won by readers, never to be heard from again. It’s been nearly 10 years, and now our Mean Green Machine 55 Chevy has surfaced. The stories on the car started in the Dec. ’91 issue; it was eventually given away, then sold, and is now driven by Paul Trudell of Schenectady, New York, who sent us this photo We’re not sure what possessed us to build a ’55 Chevy with catalytic Converters, but Paul says the mild, 288-horse 350 is still purring. The car appears just as it did when California Street Rods first sprayed the Thom Taylor graphics, though he’s had to repaint nearly half the…

This month you'll read about the Bob Estes Cougar that came out of hiding after our Feb. ’02 story, “The Trans Am Look.” Well, here’s yet another one. Our treasure trove of unpublished photos included a snap of the No. 93 Jerry “Racer” Walsh Pinto running Trans Am at Elkhart Lake in 1972, and Jerry's son Brian wrote to tell us that he still runs the car. It left the family for a few years, but was repurchased by Brian in 1990 and has been raced in SCCA competition and, more recently, in Sportscar Vintage Racing Association (www.svra.com) and Historic Sportscar Racing (www.hsrrace.com) events. The little Pinto is surprisingly stock, with the OE brakes, steering, and suspension, but has finished Seventh overall out of a field of 53 cars at…

In our Feb. ’02 issue we ran a story on how to get the ’60s SCCA Trans Am look, and reader response was amazing—our phone lines and Web site lit up with positive Feedback from readers who like the gritty, bare-knuckled brutality of the original ’66-’72 Trans Am pony cars. I took one call from a guy named Craig Cline who said our story included a 34-year-old Petersen archive photo of the trunk compartment of the Bob Estes ’67 Cougar and that he owns the same car today. He went on to say that more photos of the car were published in, as he put it, “One of those old thick annuals you guys used to do. I only have a tattered photo-copy of the article but think it was…

There’s nothing worse than trying to build an engine you read about in a magazine only to discover that they left out critical details and at least half the costs. We hate that. So we decided to make this street-race 383 Chevy as simple as possible to duplicate using 100-percent off-the-shelf parts, and we got virtually all of them from the Summit Racing catalog for the lowest prices and one-stop shopping. We used lots of Summit brand parts, too, to keep the cost even lower. There’s a sidebar that lists every single tiny little nut and bolt you’ll need to duplicate this engine, plus the part numbers, and—guess what?—-we included every single tiny little price, too, right down to the machine work, headers, drive pulleys, and even the oil. It…

Phil Camphell ’69 AMC AMX LEWISTON, ID OWNER’S OCCUPATION: Police officer ENGINE: AMC 390 V-8 ENGINE MODS: Offenhauser carb intake, port-matched heads, Holley 750 DYNO-PROVEN POWER: N/A TRANSMISSION: T10 four-speed REAREND: ANC 20, 3.15:1 gears, Twin-Grip WHEEL TYPE AND SIZE: American Racing Torg-Thrust Il, 16x7 front, 16x8 rear TIRE TYPE AND SIZE: Kuhmo, 225/50-16 front and rear PAINT COLOR: '99 Ford Toreador Red Metallic BODY MODIFICATIONS: Bumpers painted body color, fiberglass front bumper APPROXIMATE TOTAL INVESTMENT: $8,000 WHAT’S THE BEST MODIFICATION YOU’VE MADE?: “The American Racing wheels make the look!” WHAT’S THE BIGGEST PROBLEM YOU’VE HAD?: Burned up the clutch “during a few, ahem, practice runs” at the dragstrip HOW LONG HAVE YOU OWNED IT?: A year and two months HOW MANY MILES HAVE YOU DRIVEN IT?: “2,000 miles, maybe”…