Indholdsfortegnelse for July 1996 i Hot Rod

READERS’ BEATERS We received many more Readers’ Rides than we had room for in the May issue, including Readers Beaters, so we thought you might like to see some more of ’em. Before you think otherwise, “beater” is used as a term of affection. We’re not talking about slow, unsafe piles of junk, but rather hot rods that don’t put much stock in visuals. Consider this another call for your ragged, rusty and huddled wrecks, because we’d like to have a monthly beater in this section. BEST FLAMES OVER RUST For a $500 investment, Vancouver, British Columbia, artist 12 Midnight (yup, that’s his name) has this cool-looking (and driving, since there’s no trunk floor) winter-beater ’58 Pontiac Strato Chief. He swapped in a ’62 261ci Pontiac straight-six when the stock…

DOUBLE-NICKLE SHOEBOX Dennis Terzich, whose sano ’56 Chevy Pro Streeter graced the pages of our November ’95 issue, has another shoebox under construction. His ’55 will be built around a newstalgia theme, with vintage-style Radir wheels to give it a ’60s look, a fuel-injected big block and all the creature comforts. The front end will also consist of late-model suspension hardware on an RB’s Obsolete clip instead of the period-correct straight axle. We don’t blame him. We’re not sure if he can make it to the shows this summer, but keep your eyes open.…

FAST GAS Nitrous is great stuff for horsepower, but it sure doesn’t last very long. When you’re on the road, it can be difficult to find a source for a nitrous refill. To remedy this, Nitrous Oxide Systems has joined forces with the DCi Interactive Telephone network to create a refill-station database. All you have to do is call 800/99-REFILL (800/997-3345). The toll-free number automatically knows where the telephone call originates and can give the caller the nearest Nitrous Oxide Systems refill station telephone number. Keep the 800 number handy, and finding nitrous will be a lot easier the next time your bottle is dry.…

STRIPES FOR THE ’STANG As we ended our phone conversation with Thom Taylor about the retro Camaro-styling ideas, in came the announcement from Ford that SVO has a graphics kit for the new Mustang. Originally planned as a regular production option for 1994, the graphics have just now become available. The hood, side and rear graphics can be had in black, white, dark metallic blue and metallic gold, with 5.0L, 4.6L or GT40 logos. Get ’em at your local Ford Motorsport SVO dealer, or call the hotline at 313/337-1356.…

The Borg-Warner T56 six-speed is probably the sweetest shifting gearbox ever offered in a production car. Yet as good as it is, it’s even better with an aftermarket shifter. Just as a Muncie would wake up with a good shifter, the B&M Ripper we installed on the T56 made a world of difference. The throws are much shorter and more precise, which is nice when we’re power shifting this thing at the dragstrip. And it’s one of the few parts that are easier to install on the new car than on the old. Total installation time was only two hours, and three quarters of that was spent figuring out how to remove the console.…

Some Ford enthusiasts greeted the ’96 4.6L Mustang with more than a little concern. Granted, the all-new engine was a technological tour de force, but it was way down on displacement compared to its 5.7L-powered GM rivals. It’s a well-built vehicle that looks great and is comfortable to drive, but most hot rodders have “There is no replacement for displacement tattooed somewhere on their bodies. Pair off with a Camaro or a Firebird in the stoplight-to-stoplight derby and you could risk a serious waxing. So what’s a Blue Oval lover to do? Get over it by ordering some parts, whipping out the wrenches and bolting on some power. And if you aren’t going to do that, we are. HOT ROD has researched the aftermarket parts available for the new 4.6L…

What started as a repaint and a freshening of the engine compartment led to this maxeffort, frame-off, drool-inducing ’55 Chevy. Alan Willard initially wanted a clean shoebox, but once the snowball got to rolling there was no stopping it. Harbor Auto Restoration in Pompano Beach, Florida, smoothed and painted the frame, fixed the body and had it dipped. The shop also mixed up and sprayed its own shade of paint (Harbor Red) and reassembled the car with more attention to detail than most of us have the patience for. The nose was dropped with tubular A-arms and Fat Man drop spindles, and Budnik billets were bolted on each corner. Underhood brawn comes from a Sherman Addcock-built big-block with a Street & Performance electronic-fuel-injection system and a Top Gun laughing gas…

In the world of “hot” rods, it may seem contradictory to be so concerned with what’s cool. Unfortunately, an inevitable by-product of increased horsepower is increased heat. Without a healthy cooling system, your ride could end up spouting more steam than Old Faithful. If you’re about to up your car’s performance or if your temperature gauge is already uncomfortably close to “H,” these next few pages are for you. Everything from radiators to water pumps is presented, and as usual, if you don’t see exactly what you need, call the companies for more information. SHRINK TO FIT A new thermoplastic cooling system clamp from Gates shrinks to fit any shape of hose and housing. Made of a heat-sensitive material, Gates’ new PowerGrip SB clamp solves coolant leakage problems in both…

For the past two months we’ve been following along as Indianapolis resident “Speedy Petey” Walsh has been building a true street/strip car—a ’72 Nova he hopes to both drive in the 10s on the dragstrip and across the country on the second HOT ROD Power Tour. As if that weren’t enough of a challenge, Walsh set strict limits on his buildup budget: The car has to be completed for less than $10,000, including the original purchase price of the car and the cost of parts and labor. No freebies are allowed, nor are “good guy” deals. Used and swap meet parts are OK, as long as the deals are available to anyone with a talent for haggling. And so that we get a realistic cost for the new parts that…

Very few things in life feel as good as scoring a great deal on a part you need for your hot rod. Spend some quality time scrounging around the local salvage yard for parts, and you too can have this wonderful shallow-pockets experience. WHAT IS USEABLE? It’s amazing what hot rodders find in salvage yards and bolt to their cars—essentially, everything and anything. And why not? Nearly everything is use- able, except some rubber, plastic and glass pieces, which age quickly. Steel components last the longest. From engine components to wheels, with a little rust and crud removal and some paint or plating, these components can look and work like new at a fraction of the cost of new pieces. WHAT’S A CHOICE SALVAGE YARD? Two types of salvage yards…

How do you get a real life when you own an exotic-foreign-car repair shop and have to work on yup-pywagens? You do what Butch Winters did. He surrounded himself with a real hot rod and rocked out with his “SOHC” out. Now if the reader is totally confused, I’ll translate. What the man from Oklahoma City did, with the help of his friends at Elite Street Rods, was rebuild a highly modified ’33 Ford coupe and power it with a rare but extremely strong single-overhead-cam Ford V8 engine—commonly called a “carnmer” or “sock” motor by three decades of hot rodders. According to David “Furbie” Freiburger, the man who shot these photographs, this is one shag-nasty ride. It runs on straight alcohol, so the tree huggers are mollified. Entering its all-aluminum…

QUICKER Z Q I own a ’93 Chevy Camaro Z28 and would like to know how to increase the power by 100 to 125 horsepower. The motor is completely stock. I was told that another computer chip, a full-flow exhaust and a bigger throttle body would do it. Is that true? What would work best as a daily driver and road stomper? I would like to keep pounding the Mustang Cobras at every stop light! Chris HullPort St. Lucie, Florida A While a good exhaust system, a chip (Note: ’94 and later LT1s don’t use replaceable computer chips) and a throttle body will pick up power in your Z28, those parts alone won’t make anywhere near your 100- to 125hp goal. It isn’t that easy! The easiest, quickest and usually…

SHOWROOM HOT ROD In the glory days of the late ’60s, you could order a set of headers when buying a new Z28 Camaro, but they didn’t come installed. They were in a box in the trunk, and the new owner had to do the dirty work. But in the user-friendly late ’90s, it’s a different story. Now you can buy a new Camaro and have the factory hot rod parts and stripes already installed. GM Performance Parts threw us the keys to one of its F-1 Specialty Vehicle Camaros recently and said, “See you in a week.” The F-1 package consists of a ground-effects kit with front and rear airdams, a three-piece rear spoiler, a cold-air induction system, a cat-back stainless-steel exhaust and special F-1 emblems. Optional items include…

PAST TENSE Since our cover theme deals with applying hot rod techniques of the ’60s to ’90s cars, we thought it would be a good idea to let Thom Taylor come up with some retro styling themes on the new Camaro. We planted the seed and off he went in search of something different yet distinctly familiar. Can you pick up the old Camaro styling bits applied to these new F-cars? Starting with the car in the foreground, Thom did a modem interpretation of the traditional ’69 “hockey stick” stripe, blending it in nicely with the stock turn signal and mirror/body line. A bumblebee stripe might be equally interesting. Also notice the cowl-induction hood, the rear spoiler, the swoopier roof line and the 18-inch American five-spokes. No, the wheels don’t…

A-TRACK-TIVE PLANS After years of pipe dreams about Southern California getting a superspeedway, we weren’t that optimistic when Roger Penske announced a year ago that he would be building a track here. We’d heard it before, and he was building in a spot that other developers had found impossible to build upon. But we were recently invited to lunch at the new California Speedway construction site to see just how far along the track is and put to rest any doubts. Penske was joined by a who’s who list of team owners, IndyCar drivers and dignitaries to guide us on a tour of the track and fill us in on plans for the speedway. Built on the site of the former Kaiser Steel plant in Fontana, the California Speedway is…

Set the Way-Back Machine, Sherman, to the year 1966.” “Where are we going, Mr. Peabody?” “Back to the good ol’ days of hot rodding. Oh, and Sherman, do something about those geeky glasses, OK?” You usually hear it from old-time hot rodders. It’s the same old wheeze: ’The ’60s, man, those were the days when everyone was into hot rods. It was a whole lot better back then—less complicated and more fun.” We thought it would be fun to compare hot rodding 30 years ago to today’s hobby to see if that statement is really true. Nostalgia is cool, as long as you’re looking back at it. Everyone wants to think that things were easier and better, but perhaps the ’90s are really the “good o? days.” You decide. 1966…

Not everyone can be a hero. Take Fastest Street Car racing. Jeff Chandler has competed in every race except one since the first NMCA Shootout in 1992. He has yet to win, but he hasn’t given up. Couple that with a Chevelle that’s been down the track well over 500 times and you have one dedicated and durable man and machine. Jeffs ’68 Chevelle is decidedly low budget, head-butting a 454 with stock iron heads against a Super Street field chock full of killer race-engine-equipped cars. That’s akin to bringing a knife to a gun fight. But that’s Jeffs style. His Chevelle started its five-year gestation program as a big-block street car that’s now turned a best of 9.29 seconds at 148 mph in Super Street trim with 10.5-inch tires.…

Not a single piece of Pavement Pounder will be left unmodified in order to reach its dual goals of spinning the Mickeys to 9-second e.t.’s and pounding the BFGs across 2900 miles of U.S. interstates on Power Tour. That requires a significant amount of time, effort and attention to detail so that everything works in harmony to provide safe and dependable transportation. This month the crew at Reiter’s Metal Craft turned its attention to the front suspension, the front and rear brakes, and the rear wheelhousings. Brake components for Pavement Pounder received considerable forethought. With 150- mph quarter-mile dragstrip passes possible, serious braking power would be required, but serviceability anywhere in the country in the event of a breakdown was also paramount. The transmission was another critical area where the…

Last month we assembled the Mighty Mouse 302 small-block Chevy and discussed all the pieces that would help us make our goal. The key was the combination of a Vortech supercharger and ACCEL’s EFI. Then came the critical moment: firing up the engine and listening to the beautiful noise. But would it make the power? Right now you’re probably thinking about fast-forwarding to the dyno charts to see how we did. We’ll save you the trouble. The bottom line is that our little killer pumped out 549.2 horsepower at 5400 rpm on pump gas. In our book, that’s 550 horsepower. Then we stuffed the engine in our Power Tour ’65 Chevelle, tuned the part-throttle and managed to pull off 23.3 mpg on the freeway at 65 mph. Our aim was…

More than three years ago Mike Adams, the owner of Adams Rod Shop (ARS) in West Palm Beach Florida, and his crew began an odyssey to build a Deuce roadster hot rod the way Ford Motor Company would today, ARS had no idea how long it would take or that another major auto company would decide to build a “production” street rod in the meantime, but following that concept, Adams and his crew went to work building the car you see here. In a one-off fit of mayhem that bordered on a nuclear melt-down of innovation. ARS started with an original steel ’32 Ford roadster body, a 375hp Lincoln Mark VIII 4.6L dual-cam Modmotor, drivetrain and suspension, and 17-inch Budnik wheels (7-inch fronts and 13-inch rears) wrapped with Bridgestone tires…

We all want a bike that looks bad but rides like a dream. Johnny Plant of Amarillo, Texas, has such a bike. His Harley sports a Sumax Softail frame with a rubber-mounted engine, giving Plant a bitchin’ Softail look minus the shake of a factory solid mount—which is why the rest of us are green with envy! Starting with a ’94 Sumax CX frame, Plant had Derrick Drown at Tripps H/D in Amarillo, Texas, toss an Evo engine into the frame with a Screamin’ Eagle cam, milled heads, an S&S carb and air cleaner, and a Strader exhaust. Drown then combined a billet RC Components 21-inch front wheel with an 18-inch Custom Chrome solid rear wheel, wrapped both wheels in Metzeler rubber and hung an RPM fender over the front…

Headers and spark plug wires rarely coexist in peace. Even with well-planned wire separators, one of those hot header tubes will eventually flambe the best of plug wires. The situation is aggravated by poorly designed headers or tight engine compartments. There are several different types of wire sleeves, but they do nothing to prevent burned boots. However, Jacobs Electronics has a cure. Jacobs’ Ceramic 2000 wires use ceramic spark plug boots that the company claims are burn-proof at more than 2000 degrees Fahrenheit. (If your headers get that hot, plug wires are not your greatest concern!) The ceramic-booted wires install as easily as regular cut-to-fit wires and come with a lifetime warranty. They cost a little more, but if you have a tight header-to-plug fit, they’re worth the extra bucks.…

GOOD GAS/BAD GAS In the February ’96 Readers’ Rides, you ran an article about fuel in Holland being 98 octane. Unfortunately, that is a European standard, and it’s not the same as the American one. I have included a fuel coupon that converts European 98-octane fuel to an equivalent 93-octane American fuel. I too use 98-octane premium unleaded fuel in my ’69 Corvette. It has an 1 1:1 350/350hp motor, and that fuel doesn’t work well except in light-load-cruising situations. I won’t dispute the car owner’s numbers, all cars are neat, but there is no way a 12.5:1 engine will come close to not detonating on European 98-octane fuel. My timing is set way back on the rear bumper and it doesn’t help. I’m a U.S. Air Force pilot flying…

FAST TIMES John Lingenfelter is at it again. He recently built a ’95 Corvette for a top speed attempt at Fort Stockton, Texas, where he blistered the pavement with a streetable all-aluminum 427ci small-block at an amazing 214.7 mph—through catalytic converters! While this effort is not exactly emissions legal, it does drill the point home that it’s possible to funnel outrageous power through catalytic converters. The engine is a GM Performance Parts aluminum Bow-Tie block with a 4.125-inch bore and a 4.000-inch stroke spinning underneath a set of the new SB2 heads (“SB2 Small-Block,” March ’96). Comp Cams supplied the mechanical-roller cam with only 224/232 degrees of duration at .050-inch tappet lift. Lingenfelter used the SB2 four-barrel intake but plumbed it for EFI, using a ZR1 throttle body. The engine…

TIME IN A BOTTLE SEMA is commemorating 1996 as the 100th anniversary of the automobile in the United States by constructing a SEMA Time Capsule. The capsule design credit goes to Boyds Wheels and will measure 20 inches in diameter by six feet in length. It will contain numerous automotive-aftermarket memorabilia and is scheduled to be opened in 2096. SEMA plans to debut the capsule in May, followed by a nationwide tour of leading automotive museums. The time capsule’s location and the items to be included will be announced at a later date.…

EXCLUSIVE RACING NEWS! We’ve just learned about Bill France’s plans to inject a little more flavor of the South into Winston Cup. The race at North Wilkesboro is changing its name from the First Union 400 to the Skeet 400. The rules now state that during every pit stop, each driver must unbuckle, get out of the car and shoot clay pigeons. Ten skeet will be flown, and for every one missed the driver goes down a lap. Morgan Shepherd, shown here with his new car and gun, is ready. “I’ve been huntin’ all my life, so I fully expect to clean up in that part of the race, and the Remington Arms Ford should run at the front, thanks to all my guys’ hard work.” Actually, we’re just having…

How do you hot rod a new car? That depends on what interests you more, appearance or performance. But most of us would agree that power is the first thing that needs to be addressed. Before cars became so complicated and computer controlled, you’d slap on a set of headers and mufflers, an intake, a carb and a cam, and maybe port the cylinder heads. Then came the deep gears, some traction bars, a clutch and shifter (or loose converter), and some sticky meats, and you had yourself a hot rod. It’s certainly not that easy anymore, but is it really as difficult as many people seem to believe? We wanted to see if these traditional ’60s performance tweaks worked on a new ’90s car. Other than the engine computer,…

A strange thing happened at the dragstrip. On street tires, the car picked up only a tenth, running 14.55 at 97.1 mph, when we expected about three tenths. It would still blow the tires off for most of First gear, but you could feel the Trac-Link working, because the tires would hook much better in Second than they had before. More surprising than the tenth of a second improvement in e.t. was the amazing consistency that the car has now. It ran 14.55 not once but five times in a row. And that’s varying the launch rpm from 2500 to 3500 rum. Before, we made only one run in the 14.50s, with a variation from 14.56 to 14.73. This thing is now the bracket king! The car on slicks is…

Buck Scott proves that editor Jeff Smith—a confirmed card-carrying member of the ACLU: American Chevy Lovers Union—is wrong. Not all rodders in their fifties are Ford freaks or drive street rods. In fact, 54-year-old Buck of Middletown, Delaware, actually dumped his ’48 Ford pickup the day he saw, in his own words, “a car sitting in a shed that was so dirty you could hardly tell what it was. After I finished installing a new range in the elderly owner’s kitchen,” Buck continued, “I asked her if the car was for sale. At first she said no, but after talking to her husband, she reconsidered. That night I went back with a trailer and loaded up this pristine, one-owner, rust-free ’72 Nova with 11,235 original miles on its odometer. “It…

The “hot” in hot rod has meaning. High-performance engines make power through heat. Heat is as much a part of the performance equation as fuel, air and spark. Heat expands air and provides an optimum temperature for combustion inside the cylinders. Maintaining proper engine temperature means more complete combustion, which provides both more power and lower tailpipe emissions, since hydrocarbons bum more completely. But heat is a double-edged sword. Too much heat will rob power, cause detonation and, in extreme cases, lead to major engine component failure. Naturally, the more power you coax out of an engine, the more heat becomes an issue. It’s a balancing act that employs a fairly basic system for control. While the cooling system in a water-cooled automotive engine is relatively simple, enough variables are…

In the first installment, we stated that Pavement Pounder would be a nontubbed street car capable of running 9-second e.t.’s and cruising across the country on Power Tour. So we expect to receive much flack and mail when we show wheeltubs being installed this month. We’ll start by saying that installing mini-tubs is a viable means of fitting good-sized meats under a wide variety of cars, and this sidebar will show the basic steps that apply to nearly any car. But we’ll also say that it’s much cooler if you don’t have to install wheeltubs in a small-tire car. It became necessary on the Pavement Pounder to fit the 29.5x10.5-inch Mickey Thompson slicks that the car will run on the dragstrip. The alternative was to run a tire so narrow…

Hot rodding has always been about being different. Ask any hot rodder why he built his car and he’ll invariably respond, “I wanted something different,” even if that “something different” is as common as a red ’32 Ford or ’69 Camaro. Being really different has always been the realm of customizers. Hot rodders who live to go fast have never really understood the custom thing. To most enthusiasts, the generic “kustom” is a gaudy, angel-hair lead sled powered by an anemic flathead with a whining transmission and glass-pack mufflers. That image has survived through time, but the face of customs is changing. These latest versions are closer to the total-car concept. They not only look cool, they’re also real cars that can boogie down the highway with the best of…

Did you ever notice that when things work out the right way, they really work out the right way? We were huddling en-editorial-mass around the coffee maker (our one true source of inspiration) trying to figure out how we would transport some bikes. The problem was four bikes needed to go and only two could be ridden. We needed a good trailer. At that moment the phone rang and the makers of the Hamlet Bike Hauler answered our prayers. They would lend us a trailer, a rather cool trailer we might add. The Bike Hauler is unique. The only thing it has in common with other trailers is that it carries bikes. Every feature on this trailer makes you stop and say: “Why didn’t I think of that?” Start with…