Indholdsfortegnelse for February 1990 i Hot Rod

STOP! BEFORE READING THIS, PLACE THE SOUND TRACK FROM THE MOVIE TOP GUN IN YOUR STEREO AND TURN IT UP REALLY LOUD! If someone offered you the honest-to-high-g opportunity to fly an F-16 simulator in a combat situation, would you do it? Of course you would! I found myself in that situation at Phoenix, Arizona’s Luke Air Force Base while I was researching my “Fast Gas’’ story (see page 52). Lieutenant Colonel Steve Wall is the officer in charge of the simulator program at Luke AFB, and he is also an extremely enthusiastic F-16 pilot. Since the F-16 is the plane he flies, he ran me through a quick, 20-minute indoctrination to the simulator operation, outfitted me with a torso g-suit harness, and plugged me right into an F-16 Fighting…

THUNDER RATS Thunder Engines in Northridge, California, is putting the finishing touches on its pushrod, four-valve, aluminum cylinder heads for big-block Chevys. Originally conceived as an efficient four-valve setup for street cars, the system is now getting a lot of interest from boat racers and bracket racers. It was designed to offset the typically soggy low-end performance of a four-valve system by incorporating a patented intake manifold design that delivers fuel to only one intake valve at low engine speeds. As rpm increases, a valve in the manifold permits fuel flow to the other intake valve for increased power. Currently undergoing back-to-back dyno testing, Thunder Engines’ four-valve cylinder heads should be available in the spring of 1990. GOO$E COOKER It’s neat that Tom “the Mongoose” McEwen’s classical ’glass ’57 Chevy…

The secret to successful low-dollar street machining lies in the carefully cultivated ability to wheel and deal in the right parts and in the talent to perform all the work yourself. Ambitious hot rodders are constantly trading parts and pieces, swapping out their time and energy, and even exchanging entire cars in the pursuit of their individual performance goals. Those who are adept at this practice typically have one or more primo street machines with very little money invested in any of them. Tom Ocasek of Van Nuys, California, has been building high-performance cars for years, and he has learned the ropes the hard way. Tom works at the Valley Motor Center Chevy dealership in Van Nuys, where he spends the better part of his days taking care of other…

Jim Strawn has owned a lot of cars in a lifetime of performance-mania, most of them Chevys. So it was in February 1988 that the Canton, Ohio, truck driver perused the Mini Merchant, the local area’s compendium of classified ads, looking for an early Chevy II or Comoro to build You’d think he’d be the last man to join the Dodge Rebellion. But an advertisement for a clean, original ’69 Dodge Dart Swinger 340 caught his attention (“I’d never seen a Dart with tubs before”), and he soon found himself staring at a refrigerator-white car with 75,000 miles on the clock. The Dart had been sitting in “a guy’s garage where it had been stored for 10 years.” Yes, it was dinged, and the rear quarters were rusty, but the…

Untold performance treasures are lurking in every attic and under every workbench, patiently waiting for enterprising hot rodders to liberate them from exile. Consigned to a vast underground graveyard of forgotten speed equipment, these discarded parts are the hidden treasures of hot rodding. Think of them as both past and future tenths, for whatever performance gains they offered in the past may still be there waiting to be applied on the cost-conscious hot rods of tomorrow. Judicious application of these components can reap substantial rewards and stretch your performance dollars for maximum effect. Unscarred by factory part numbers or casting numbers, old aftermarket speed equipment is relatively immune to the speculation that has driven the price of original factory hardware and O.E.M. restoration parts sky high. By comparison, uncommonly high…

At 220 mph, 322.666 feet blister i by each second. In the time it took you to read that first sentence (three seconds on average), R.J. Gottlieb and I traveled 967.98 feet—or 3¼ football fields—in his race-prepared ’69 Z/28 Camaro, otherwise known as ‘‘Big Red.” On September 24, 1989, we shot through the 90.1-mile section of Nevada Highway 318, which made up the timed course of the Vintage Racing Silver State Classic Challenge. We finished the course in 27 minutes, 54 seconds, and won the second running of the Challenge with an average speed of 197.99 mph! That, my friends, was one brutally fast ride. There is a saying: ‘‘Be careful of what you wish for; it may come true.” Well, getting a reserved seat in the Gottlieb rocket ship…

Like ’32 Fords and flatheads, ’55 Chevys wilt always be core elements of the hot-rodding movement, and Rich Gerhardt’s flawless rendition of the 210 sedan represents hot-rodded ’55 Chevys at their finest. Rich built the car entirely by himself in a one-car garage. Voted Best Shoebox at the 1989 Street Machine Nationals, Rich’s ’55 combines all the essential elements ’ of a classic Pro Street ’55. It utilizes a highly modified stock frame with a narrowed 4.56:1 12-bolt rearend, Chassis Engineering coil-overs and ladder bars, and Super Bell disc brakes front and rear. Massive 33x21.5-15 Mickey Thompson street tires fill the rear wheel openings perfectly, and they’re appropriately enhanced with 15x7 Drag Star wheels. Up front, you’ll find more Mickey Thompson rubber on 15x3.5 Drag Stars. The engine is a…

This one’s for all of you budding Scott Sullivans out there. How do you think the master does those incredible graphics jobs? With a copious amount of God-given talent, of course. But you must also use only the best-quality products. If you’ve already stripped your car down to the metal underbelly and are now wondering what kind of paint to use, check out this user’s guide. And if your car already has a good coat of paint but has been subjected to that wonderful stuff that falls out of the sky, there’s help for you here, too. So take a look at these products. What you find could brighten your car’s future. QUALITY CUSTOM PAINT House of Kolor leads the way into the 1990s with some of the most innovative…

When better supercars are built, hot rodders will build them. Yet it has become increasingly clear that when better production supercars are built, the Japanese will build them. Now that may not sit well with patriotic red-, white-, and blue-collar Americans, but facts are facts, and if the truth hurts, then so be it. The Japanese have clearly taken the initiative when it comes to building rock-solid performance cars, while domestic automakers continue to wring their hands and cry foul. Unlike most domestic performance cars, the Nissan 300ZX Turbo delivers total performance without the usual glut of compromises. It handles like a race car but rides like a limo. It idles so smoothly that you’ll think the engine has stalled, yet it will buzz to the 7000-rpm redline quick enough…

BUDGET BUILDING My congrats on “Project Budget Builder’’ (HRM November ’89). I haven’t even finished the article yet, but felt compelled to write. I am 26 years old and have fallen into every pit that a used-car buyer/hot rodder can find; i.e., Bondo sculptures, tired engines, pretzeled frames, and “universal’’ speed parts. The first point I love is your list of parts, prices, and sources, right down to the transmission mount. When I rebuilt my first motor, I had no idea of the cost and availability of the parts I needed. This first attempt was successful, but many lessons were learned. This article would have helped me when I was 16 and looking for that first car. One other thing I wish to comment on is the availability of cars…

Another way to scratch-build a cost-conservative car is called “the family plan." You see, brothers Rick, Duane, Al, and Lee Grebner, kas well as Rick’s girlfriend and parents, combined their talents, time, and legal tender to lovingly restore and update Rick’s Marina Blue ’66 Chevelle. Rick, a Harley-Davidson mechanic, recalls, “The car has been around our town [Washburn, Illinois] for a long time, and when I bought it, the Chevelle had been reduced to a thousand pieces.” A serious eight grand and 10 months later, you can see what happened after Rick got the whole family involved. Save for the three small, cowl-mounted gauges—Auto Meter’s liquid-filled oil pressure, temp, and tach—Rick’s ride appears to be Stovebolt stock. Wrong! Under its gennie sheetmetal, original bumpers, and Brad Grimm graphics—and surrounding its…

Ever since Mary Leggett drove her ’67 GTO from Chicago, Illinois, to Mission Hills, California, she’s been hooked on hot rods. But it wasn’t until her uncle turned her on to the cruise on Van Nuys Boulevard—after she got situated in “the valley”—that this street sister got really addicted. “I think I’d go crazy,” said Mary, “if I didn’t have my hot rod to drive on weekends. After checking out the street scene, I had to get a quick car. So I bought a Duster and stuffed a big-block in it, which was a ton of fun. But I wanted to make my Goat go fast, so I sold the Duster and put the money in my GTO. My Goat ran pretty quick until a lady pulled out in front…

Three hundred miles an hour in a full-bodied passenger car is a staggering speed. It’s more than five and a half times the legal speed limit and a full 50-mph faster than even the fastest Group C prototypes on the 4-mile back straight at Le Mans. Indy cars and Formula 1 cars fall away while you’re still in third gear, and all other forms of motorized vehicles pale in comparison. Imagine driving a stock-looking Pontiac Trans Am faster than any helicopter or most small aircraft, including twin turboprop models. Top Fuel dragsters push close to the 300-mph mark but only for the briefest instants. These drag-racing cars are capable of tremendous speeds, but they can’t sustain them. At Bonneville, you have to put your foot down for two minutes at…

If the 70s brought us the revolution in electronic ignitions and high-temp silicone spark-plug wire, and the ’80s brought engine-management computers and electronic fuel injection, the ’90s is shaping up to be a decade of innovation in spark-plug design. Ever since the late-’60s introduction of resistor and taper-seat “peanut” plug designs, spark plugs have remained essentially the same, even as the rest of the automobile and its engine-management system has gone through the electronics revolution. That’s all about to change: On one hand, market saturation and declining consumer brand loyalty (the perception that “all spark plugs are the same”) have driven plug prices ever lower. To reverse their profit squeeze, spark-plug manufacturers have elected to test the waters and see if there’s a higher-end market for premium plugs featuring upgraded…

Suzuki rocked the road-race world with the original ’86 GSXR750. Now, in 1990, its up-to-the-minute GSXR is hotter still—ready to hit the production-racing trenches with only a tire change. The 86 GSXR is still legendary—for its light weight, its flexible, strong, oil-cooled engine, and its almost magical handling. With a tall, stable, 18-inch wheel up front (against the competition’s twitchier 16s), the Suzuki quickly gained a reputation for unshakable handling and astronomically lean angles. And by making the frame out of lightweight aluminum—and leaving water-cooling to the other manufacturers—Suzuki was able to undercut the all-up weight of the other Japanese 750s by as much as 50 pounds. But by 1988, Suzuki was ready for a fresh approach. The basic oil-cooled engine remained, but with a very large bore and a…

CABS & TRUCKS ’66 BUICK LESABRE. One owner, cream colored, 45,370 actual miles. Restorer’s dream. Serious inquiries only, please. Best cash offer will be accepted, M. Chenowith, 605 S. Boston, Russellville, AR 72801, (501) 968-1690. ’62 BUICK SKYLARK. Arizona car. One owner. $3200. Marian Wilson, 643 S. Marvin, Tucson, AZ 85710, (602) 885-1786. ‘41 CADILLAC COUPE. Rare, 66,000 actual Beverly Hills miles. Professional frame-up restoration with Cad 429, 400 Turbo transplant. P/S, P/B, A/C, AM/FM stereo. Goodyear radials on Trueline chrome spokes. No rust in this beautiful, dark blue show and street cruiser. $37,500. Dewey R. Etchison, P.O. Box 2025, Lake Havasu City, AZ 86403, (602) 855-3118. ’70 CHEVELLE SS 396. 350 hp, 4-speed. A/C, Forest Green, white stripes, numbers match, Protect-O-Plate. beautiful car. $12,000. Don Wells, 3962 Pickford Way,…

If was during January 1988 that teenager Jim Gleim dared to be different. At the then-tender age of 16½, and much to the dismay of his Comoro-, Chevelle-, and Mustang-loving pals, Gleim borrowed a healthy chunk of change from his family to buy a basket-case ’68 GTO convertible. But that was only the beginning. Gleim—pronounced Glyme—then made the decision to join the Marine Corps after he graduated from Carlisle High in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. In other words, he had a year and a half to finish his GTO before embarking on a 4-year stint in the Marines. So instead of partying and playing like most juniors and seniors, Gleim stayed home to work on his ragtop. And if that wasn’t enough, what he had envisioned as a simple shave-and-haircut project somehow…

Henry Moukoian’s kome-built supercar is designed more for twisting canyon two-lanes and an occasional outing on a road course with the local chapter of the Shelby Club than it is for cutting the quarter-mile down to the shortest tenth. But it is still a potent performer posting low-13 e.t.’s, and it will give the local Porsche fans nothing but grief. Henry is an exotic-car mechanic in Southern California, and he owns a Porche 911, but he drives his repro Shelby looker to work every day. He said, “It’ll blow the doors off my Porsche.” To some hot rodders, that’s what it’s all about. This ponycar is powered by a 351 Windsor that’s built to produce torque, and the rest of the driveline is arranged to capitalize on that torque. Henry…

It borders on violence. The NASCAR Winston Cup car blasts into the pits. There are precious seconds in which to change two tires and add a load of fuel. While the rest of the crew descends on the right-side tires with air wrenches screaming, the gas man juggles his 85-pound gas can and plunges it into the spring-loaded drybreak, quickly feeding 11 gallons of 108-octane race gas into the car. The driver impatiently revs the engine, anxious for the signal to leave. Suddenly, the floor jack drops the car, the race car makes its move, and the gas man yanks the fuel can out of the inlet—all in a scant 12 seconds. High above the track-bound race cars, another more delicate—but even more refined—refueling process is taking place. A U.S.…

With the invention of internal combustion came an idea that was to live on through time—a pure thought representing progress itself! It surely passed through the minds of early car makers, and before his first tin lizzie rolled off its assembly line, Henry Ford must have thought it, too: “If only it had a little more power!’’ Today, we’re still in search of horsepower, but because of the added complexity of ignition and fuel-injection systems, many feel that noticeable improvements are things of the past. Yet because today’s powertrains are extremely efficient, proper improvements can still net impressive gains. This was clearly shown in the first part of our series (“Showroom Stomper, Part 1,” HRM January ’90), with a 13.67 at 99.46-mph quarter-mile, a gain of .84 seconds and 4.55…

After years of messing around with musclecars—such as SS Chevelles, Hemi Chargers, and Corvettes—Gary and Ellen Cohen were smitten by the street-rod bug. Said the owner of American Classics Restoration (Leesburg, Virginia), “After my wife and I were introduced to street rodding and street rodders by a close friend, we fell in love with the cars and people. When we agreed to build a ’34 five-window coupe, we wanted it to be low, aggressive-looking, fast, air conditioned, and, most of all, very streetabte. Moreover, my employees got very interested in the proposed project, so I decided to see what we could do.” What Gary and his gang did to the all-steel Ford during the two years it took them to complete the project would fill a book. Suffice it to…

It isn’t as if of Wile E. Coyote hasn’t tried. He’s donned spring-loaded shoes, high-powered magnets, and rocket-propelled backpacks, yet that pesky Road Runner continues to evade him. Still, some folks feel the desert fowl deserves a few tricks of his own to stay out front So it is with Dave and Teresa South, owners of this mind-bending ’69 Road Runner. Its stock 383 was eventually replaced with a healthy 446-cuber topped off with a Dyers 6-71 blower and twin Carter 750s. A Mopar 727 Torqueflite tranny makes use of B&M’s 3500-stall converter and Quick Silver shifter with cooling from Hayden. Dave also fabricated a chassis from 2x3-inch tubing with a torsion-bar front suspension, Gabriel shocks, and JFZ disc brakes. An 8¾-inch Mopar rearend is fitted with GM disc brakes,…

Back in the mid ’60s, street stroking was divided into two camps: ’48 and earlier for the rods, ’49 and later for the machines. Due to the fact that the British-built ’48 Anglia is nearly identical to ’49-’53 Anglias, owners of post-war Pops—another name for Anglias—are as welcome at rod runs as they are at machine meets. Thanks to guys such as welder Mike Hoag, hard-line benders Jon Scherer and Bob Robe, bodyman Bill “Birdman" Stewart, tin bender Mel Swain, painter Tom Stratton, trimmer Dennis Taylor and understanding wife Parry Rapp, Dennis now owns one of the nicest Anglias this side of the Atlantic. As you can see, Dennis’ trap is based on a powder-coated, custom-built frame employing a TCI front axle, spindles, shocks, and four-link radius rods, Vega steering,…

NO SIESTA FOR FIESTA Q Can you tell me what sources there are for speed parts for the 1.6L Ford Fiesta 4-cylinder OHV “pushrod” engine? Mike ForbesTroy, Virginia A The 1.6L OHV “Kent” engine is used in several road-racing classes, both domestically and in Europe, including SCCA Formula Ford. Hence, there are mucho Fiesta speed parts available—you just have to know where to look. Tom Rust Racing (28019 Arnold Dr., Sonoma, CA 95476, 707/938-4020) has been building these engines since the mid-’60s, and offers everything from ported heads to complete engines. He reports that a driveable street engine can be made to develop 125 to 130 hp. Road-race units typically develop 155 to 160 hp, with up to 180 hp available for short-duration usage. Dave Bean Engineering (925 Punta Gorda…

GOLDEN ARCHERS In Sports Car Club of America’s (SCCA) Endurance racing there are three major championships: Driver, Team, and Manufacturer. We understand that winning the Manufacturer’s portion of that three-ring road-race series is extremely important because the championship gives the general public a true measure of a car’s power, handling, and endurance. Consequently, when Brothers Archer-Bobby and Tommy—took the checkered flag in four of the first five races of 1989 with their all-wheel-drive ’90 Eagle Talon, they did so by flying past a covey of Nissan 300ZXs, Mazda RX7s, and Quad 4 Calais in the process. With the ’89 Manufacturer’s Cup behind them, the Bobby and Tommy show is concentrating on soaring with Eagles this year and hoping for a bull’s eye in both the Team and Driver Championships. NEW…