Indholdsfortegnelse for October 2002 i Hot Rod

We balked at Gale Banks’ claim that his Sidewinder is “the world’s first diesel sport truck,” but it might be the only diesel Dakota, and it’s certainly a standout when you consider the goal: tow all the gear from Los Angeles to Bonneville, then run 200 mph on the salt. Banks has a history of Bonneville success (remember the twin-turbo Trans Am, the GMC Syclone, and his partnership in Al Teague’s streamliner) and is well-known for diesel power parts; put the two together, and there’s bound to be some noise. Mr. Banks hopes the Cummins-powered Dakota will “show with the Sidewinder that diesel is without a doubt the future fuel.” And with NASCAR-like suspension, this thing handles, too. As Gale said, “This is an eyeballs-in, eyeballs-out, head-banging-on-the-side-window diesel sport truck—not…

The third day of Power Tour covered the distance between St. Louis, Missouri, and Louisvilie, Kentucky. At 350 miles, it was longer than the next longest travel day by a full 70 miles. Still, it was less drive time than some of the shortest legs from years past and allowed participants to travel at a more relaxed pace and have more time to sight-see. Knowing this, Mid-America Direct opened its Effingham, Illinois, facility once again for an early lunch stop and visit to its world-class Corvette museum. After getting dazzled by some of the world s most exclusive Corvette memorabilia and feasting on free hamburgers and soda, the Power Tour continued southeast to the Kentucky Fair & Expo Center where Holley Performance Products sponsored the cruise night and gave away…

Sponsor for this cruise night was the Sema Action Network (SAN), and VPs Chris Horn and Peter MacGillivray were manning its “I Fight for Hot Rods” booth. SAN is a nationwide partnership between car clubs, individuals, and the specialty auto parts industry. The goals are simple: stamp out legislative threats and pass favorable legislation. SAN “members” don’t pay fees or dues-they only pledge to maintain the grapevine regarding state or federal laws that could negatively affect our cars and hobby. And when everyone gets on the stick, it works like hell (for a good example of this see “Scrappage Bill Defeated on U.S. Senate Floor!” in Roddin’ Aug. 02 issue). We visited these glib goodwill guys several times during the Tour, mostly to glom liquids and Fritos, and couldn’t believe…

So there you have it—a wrap on the biggest Power Tour ever with a historic Long Haul Gang photo. Historic because it’s the first time ever that we gathered every single Long Haul vehicle into one shot, and frankly, it was such a debacle that we may not do it again. So soak up the glory of the cars and the people who Power Toured in a big way. One of them even took home the Monte Carlo SS, front and center. Next year it could be you. Join the crowd, won’t you? CRUISE NIGHT SPONSORS OFFICIAL PRODUCT SPONSORS EVENT LEVEL SPONSORS PREFERRED EXHIBITORS…

Those who successfully complete one of UTI’s Automotive Technology programs can look forward to a number of post-graduate options. To begin with, UTI has a whole graduate employment assistance department that works with dozens of automotive-oriented employers to help match graduates with jobs in the industry. For those who qualify, there are also several graduate training programs that provide continuing education at no cost to the student. How is that possible? These programs are sponsored by a number of automakers-Audi, BMW, Jaguar, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, Volkswagen, and Volvo-that need technicians trained to work on their vehicles. So the makers are willing to pick up the tab for vehicle-specific education in exchange for a new crop of technicians to send out to their service facilities. Not only does this post-graduate work put…

We’re sick of building small-block Chevys. Not that we don’t like them—we’re just worn out from finding cores, digging up parts, paying for machine work, and wrenching through four midnights each time we dream up a new power scheme. So we came up with this brilliant idea: create one bulletproof small-block that we can beat on relentlessly in a grillion different configurations, changing parts and pieces in each issue. We figure it’ll start mild, then grow increasingly fierce as the months roll on. So here it is: the Anvil, a short-block built with top-quality parts to ensure a long life of dyno thrashing and—who knows?—maybe even some time under the hood of a project car or two. The concept is upsidedown to what you normally see in a magazine, wherein…

It had to be done. In one corner of the shop was our fresh 4.3L Chevy V-6 (see “The ¾ 350,” Aug. ‘02), and at the other end was Vortech’s new centrifugal supercharger system for carbs (“Vortech Blower for Carbs” in the same issue). Bringing the scenario to its logical conclusion, one would have to meet the other. The Vortech system was designed for the smallblock V-8, but in our sick dreams, there was no reason it wouldn’t bolt right up to the sawed-off six. We couldn’t stand it until we proved ourselves right—so we did, and ended up with 501 hp and 437 lb-ft in the process. We also got greedy and managed to puke a head gasket at 12 pounds of boost. Let’s review. The 90-degree, even-fire V6…

Description: We’re giving the thumbs-up to TTI’s complete line of specialty exhaust products for Mopars. The company makes headers, pre-bent exhaust systems, and stainless steel exhaust tips for virtually every Mopar musclecar application. We’ve used the small-block step headers for A-Bodies, the Hemi race headers for B-Bodies, and the complete 3-inch exhaust systems for both A-Bodies and E-Bodies. In every case, the stuff has been of the highest quality and has fit better than we expected. The exhaust systems are aluminized and come in either 2½-or 3-inch diameters with either DynoMax or Flowmaster mufflers, and can be ordered to mate either with headers or with any number of factory exhaust manifolds. The headers are available in many varieties in either chrome or with a polished ceramic coating, and all the…

Power Tour Feedback I can’t thank you enough for the Win a Trip on Power Tour contest and for picking my son Ryan as the winner. When we spoke on the phone prior to the Tour, I was happy to have HOT ROD picking up our costs, but I had no idea what lay ahead as you and your entire staff made us feel special. From the beginning of the Tour to Ryan’s ride in the Chevrolet engineering cars (I’m still envious of him for that) to all the surprise gifts at the end of the trip, the 2002 HOT ROD Power Tour will long be remembered. It had a very large impact on Ryan and me. Edwin W. IngallsEvanston, WY Picking the winner of the free trip on Tour…

As threatened, our HOT ROD Hemi Ram made a very loud appearance at the 2002 Power Tour, motoring all the way from the kickoff party in Lincoln, Nebraska, to a glorious showing at the iCan cruise night in Pontiac, Michigan. There we tossed the keys to Mopar Performance’s Dave Hakim, and the truck will spend some quality time smokin’ the Yokos at Mopar central before being delivered to the Pri-media publishing offices at Lakeland, Florida, for more beatings at the hands of the staff of Mopar Muscle. After the big Hemi blew up just one stock rear, we’ve had no problems passing anything but a gas station. The truck is shown here with its stablemate from So-Cal Speed Shop, where both these hot trucks were hopped up.…

The first day of Power Tour usually produces plenty of roadside casualties as new car bugs strike or worn parts finally check out once and for all. Gve spent plenty of time pushing my cars on highway shoulders and medians after they conk out, so I sympathize with the wounded. For this first Power Tour leg, a 280-mile jaunt from Speedway Motors in Lincoln, Nebraska, to the Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri, I went on vulture patrol, swooping down on roadside carnage for a lurid look-see at the highway’s freshest kills. The good news is how other Power Tour participants also pulled over and refused to depart until repairss were made or a tow truck was called. 1 A.J. Pasmas and Harriet Jones of Tampa, Florida, had mechanical problems…

1 Geoff Knechtel and the GM Mobility/iCan RK Sport Camaro SS convertible 2 Mercury Marauder Ride and Drive Team Captain Scott Herberg (closest to camera) says, “The response has been terrific. Everybody is excited that Mercury is getting back into the performance car market.” 7:00 a.m., Room 203, Country Inn, Columbus, OH The windup alarm clock rattles me out of a deep sleep. You just can’t trust wake-up calls. As I roll out of bed, I can already hear the now-familiar sound of V-8 engines roaring to life in the parking lot outside. To non-Power Tour hotel guests, it must sound as if Rommel’s Africa Corps is mobilizing for warfare. Brush the teeth, wet the hair, sign the express checkout form. Hit the road. 8:15 a.m., Route 70, heading west…

School and hot rodding generally don’t mix. If you’re a hot rodder, chances are good you’d sooner be in the garage, at the track, cruising Main, reading this magazine—hell, doing almost anything—rather than school. Really, how often will you need to know what’s important about the year 1066 once you’re out in the working world? Or how to punctuate a sentence using a semicolon? (Well, unless you want to be writer; writers think semicolons are cool.) No, school and hot rodding usually don’t mix. Not unless you’re talking about a hot rodding school—a place where you can turn your interest in building cars into a career. There are plenty of vocational/ technical schools around the country that’ll help you hone your mechanical skills into a trade, but Universal Technical Institute…

Perhaps Harry Bradley, the well-known automotive designer, described Jim Jacobs’ NieKamp roadster best. “It is a visual articulation expressed by means of expressed by means of exposed wheels and suspension elements. The simple body is first a hood, then a cockpit and finally a trunk. Each function yields gracefully to the next.” NieKamp’s roadster is that and more—much, much more It is one of the few hot rods that epitomize a pure rodding vision. It remains a moving, living tribute to its original builder. Bill NieKamp, and to its current owner/restorer, Jim Jacobs. It represents what we call a true dual-purpose roadster, a rod that is as much at home churning up the dust at the dry lakes as it is tooling into some local drive in. And yet when…

We really wanted to step on the V-6, so we worked with the Comp Cams team at 800/CAM-HELP to design a custom solid-roller cam based on the flow numbers for the cylinder heads and the knowledge that we wanted serious rpm and big boost. We installed the cam and got the engine running only to discover a huge loss of oil pressure. It turns out that the lifter gallery on the V-6 block is drilled much lower than on a V-8, and when the solid roller lifters were installed, they allowed oil to escape when each lifter was pushed all the way up at max lift. The hydraulic rollers have a deeper skirt and do not pose this problem. So we were unable to use our trick custom cam. We…

1 To find the answers to frequently asked questions about the site or the magazine, click on the Help link just below the site logo. The list of questions will load. 2 Click on the question you need answered. 3 The question and answer will display in a pop-up window. Tip of the Month We’ve added a new Performance Directory to the site! Click on the button located under the left navigation bar, and a list of categories will load. Click on the category you’d like ta view, and a list of applicable Web site links will appear. Click on the one you’d like to visit, and the site will load in a new pop up window. We’ll be continually adding links to this area, so check back often! SEE…

Toy Test Two Turbo 2.0L Ecotec Beats 570ci Rat… and Other Oddities General Motors’ Jon Moss and crew brought out a slew of vehicles (including SUV, FWD, and light-duty trucks) for this year’s supreme grind-off, a now-annual flogging of the concept vehicles, prototypes, and what-ifs normally found either behind GM closed doors or on the floors of auto shows nationwide. We’d driven most of the pertinent cars before, a few of them as much as a year ago. But GM, and Chevrolet in particular, is pushing the four-cylinder market very hard these days in an effort to establish dominance in that field, so Moss spiced up the roster with a gaggle of front-drive hotties—everything from supercharged 3400 V-6s and Quad 4s to Ecotec-powered Cavaliers and Sunbirds in every popular power…

Today I was the guest of jon Moss’ Chevrolet Special Vehicle team and of GM Performance Parts. These GM crews attend Power Tour each year with a fleet of R&D vehicles for real-world testing. The engineers tend to run ahead of the crowd, so we journalists are stuffed in to share the seat time with readers who otherwise lust at the Chevy projects in stationary mode at each cruise night. When I arrived in the marshalling yard, I spied three or four of the usual suspects—ones I’d driven before, ones that have stood clearly in memory. Running from lean to fat, I would start off in the Cavalier Z24R and work my way through a supercharged Pontiac Sunfire, a Ram Jet prodded ’91 Camaro, a ’98 Camaro equipped with LS6…

The phone call came late on the Louisville cruise night. “Hey, man, this is Dennis [Barker from Berger Chevrolet], Do you think you could drive the HOT ROD Camaro again tomorrow and meet up with us in Columbus?” You bet, Barker, and you won’t have to come over here and twist my arm. 1 Last month you read about the HOT ROD anniversary Camaro from Berger Chevrolet. Here it is in smoky action, a sight not rarely seen on Power Tour. Rumor has it some other Berger cars saw flatbed time after a similar showing in front of the Man. 2 This about sums up the cars allowed on Power Tour: customs, rods, musclecars, and hot trucks. Of course, rental cars and imports stay to the back of the pack.…

1 HOT ROD Publisher Ira Gabriel and Associate Publisher Ed Zinke drove a Monte Carlo SS Intimidator just like the one given away to a Power Tour participant. 2 Chevrolet’s secret-projects master Jon Moss was on had to give the Monte Carlo to Long Haul member Jackie Decesaris (lipper Marlboro. MD), who’s husband was so stunned he couldn’t even speak when we brought him up on stage. The GM Performance Parts Crate engines were given away to Tony Sevenski (Elmia, Ml) and Bill White (Coconut Creek, FL). Power Tour 2002 wrapped up with a bang, cruising through Summit Racing in Tallmadge, Ohio, for a huge barbecue before joining the Jim Pace GM Parts Warehouse 24th Annual CD93.3 Hot Rod Super Nationals in Canfield. Longtime readers will remember that the Super…

There’s more to car shows than gawking at polished chrome and glistening paint. If you keep your eyes open, you’ll find an unending supply of great ideas you can take home to your own ride. And while some of us may be prejudiced against garish Pro Street cars, by their highly modified nature, they typically contain the highest level of ingenuity on the show field. The point is, if you look long enough, you’ll always spot something you hadn’t thought of before, even if the car itself doesn’t light your fire. Here’s a cross-section of tips and tricks we spotted in just one afternoon at the recent Hot Rod Supernationals in Canfield, Ohio. Prank Graphics Factory stickers add the perfect finishing touch to restored muscle, but what if you’re a…

Last year, at the behest of Chevrolet, Chuck Mallett experienced his first Power Tour as a part of Chevy’s Toy Fleet. The Toy Fleet is a rolling, real-time exhibit of current and future engine and engine management combinations as installed in various sheetmetal (or fiberglass, as the case may be). As such, both Chuck and his C5 Corvette became instant and unforgettable hits, he for his openness and affability, and his car for its docile nature and ferocious tendencies, which he shared with several of the unsuspecting among us. Right off the bat, Mallett yarned about top-speed capability that would embarrass everything else on the Tour, and anywhere else on rhe road for that matter, hut we’d heard that kind of bravado before. His blonde ponytail and calf-high boots tripped…

1929 Ford Modified RoadsterJim Jacobs, Temple City, California ENGINE: Engine Type 1946 Ford V8 Displacement 259 cubic inches DRIVELINE: Transmission 1939 Ford 3-speed equipped with 26-tooth Zephyr gears Rearend 1950 Cyclone quick-change equipped with 3 78:1 ratio CHASSIS: Frame 1927 Essex, made from 2x4-inch channel, ⅛-inch wall Wheelbase 113 inches Front Suspension 1937 Ford tube axle, fitted with hairpin split wishbones, tube shocks and leaf spring Rear Suspension 1939 Ford axle housings supporting, shocks and a Model A cross spring Spindles 1940 Ford Tread 72 inches front, 62 inches rear Brakes 1940 Ford hydraulics front and rear Shocks Gabriel tube front. Houdailles rear Springs Stock Ford cross springs (six-leaf front) front and rear Steering 1935 Ford cross steer Wheels 5½xl5-inch ’56 Ford pickups front. ’46 16-inch centers with six-inch Buick…

For the past few years, we’ve been making you aware of the problem of intrusive big government and what you can do about it. It is a cold, hard fact that misguided bureaucrats at federal, state, and local levels are constantly coming up with inane bills and regulations that interfere with what we do to our cars. Whether it’s a scrappage program in California, an exhaust modification ban in Massachusetts, or a nitrous oxide freeze in Georgia, someone, somewhere in government is constantly threatening our hobby. The good news is that you can eradicate legislative and regulatory threats and help pass favorable laws. How? It only takes 6 to 10 letters to a Congressman or state representative to change his or her vote, and that’s a fact. The question is…

Jim Draper ’71 CHEVY MALIBUCONESTOGA, PA OWNER’S OCCUPATION: Heating/air conditioning/plumbing contractor ENGINE: 502 GM crate ENGINE MODS: Edelbrock Performer RPM intake, Holley 9SOHP carb, MSD 6AL ignition DYNO-PROVEN POWER: N/A TRANSMISSION: TH4OO with full manual valvebody REAREND: Chassisworks Fab 9,3.89:1 gears, Strange axles, Detroit Locker WHEEL TYPE AND SIZE: Weld, 15x5 front. 15x10 rear TIRE TYPE AND SIZE: Moroso 28x4.50-15 front, Mickey Thompson ET Street 30x13.50-15 rear PAINT COLOR: “Not sure yet.” BODY MODIFICATIONS: Harwood hood and front bumper APPROXIMATE TOTAL INVESTMENT: $20,000 WHAT’S THE BEST MODIFICATION YOU’VE MADE?: “Replacing the 307 with a big-block.” WHAT’S THE BIGGEST PROBLEM YOU’VE HAD?: Pretty much everything, it seems. He sent in a multi-page answer for this one. Let’s just say installing the new engine was a royal pain. HOW LONG HAVE YOU…