Innehållsförteckning för February 2011 från Hot Rod

ROAD TRIPPIN’ IT I went to college in Fort Collins, Colorado, and love going back because since it feels like home to me. So when an old roommate put together a reunion of people I hadn’t seen in 22 years, I wanted to go. Then Freiburger sent me an eBay link to a cheap project car, and the trip was sealed. The car was a rusty POS ’52 Dodge Wayfarer sedan located in Longmont, just south of Fort Fun, and if you’re a Facebook friend of mine or have seen the video on HOTROD.com, you already know that it’s ours now. The car was complete, and it was cheap. I was going to buy a plane ticket and rental car on my own dime to go hang with my pals—then…

THE MATERFAMILIAS This month’s issue has a story about Leah Pruett-Leduc, the amazing young Nostalgia Funny Car champ. It’s difficult for any form of media to cover today’s many females in drag racing without drawing lines back to Shirley Muldowney. While that connection may grow tiresome for the women in question, there’s no doubt that Shirley blazed their trail. And so here goes with a little more retrospective to add to HOT ROD’s revealing interview with Shirley in the Apr. ’09 issue. The inset photo on the left depicts Shirley and Jack Muldowney at the ’68 NHRA Springnationals in Englishtown, New Jersey, not far from their New York home. The car is the couple’s first professionally built dragster, a Don Long car that ran a blown 350 Chevy in B/Gas…

It’s been 15 years since the LS family of engines was introduced by GM, and these engines have rocketed to the top of the scene as the must-have hot rod powerplants to the point that we have no problem proclaiming the LS as the hottest engine in America right now. It’s long since escaped from the underground and has hit the everlasting mainstream, with even the naysayers now swapping in the lightweight powerhouse and reaping the benefits of great mileage and efficiency The days of fearing the Gen III and IV small-block are gone. The days of scoring an LS drivetrain from a dead Chevy Silverado or F-body car for almost nothing are gone, too. We tried to buy a set of ignition coils a while back and couldn’t find…

Last month we introduced our project E-Rod ’79 Camaro. In this month’s gripping episode, we’re going to dive right into the ins and outs of swapping the GM Performance Parts E-Rod crate engine, complete with its turnkey electronic management system, into our ’79 Camaro. We’ll also cover what it takes to shoehorn a Tremec six-speed gearbox into the second-gen F-body’s suddenly cramped transmission tunnel, along with other details of the drivetrain installation. And not to tell tales out of school, but there’s a hidden Zex nitrous setup as well. You’ll note the build begins with a ’79 Z28 in scabrous blue, which then inexplicably metamorphoses into a Z28 in gorgeous orange mid-feature. That’s the magic of magazine production at work. After teardown, the Camaro was sent to EDAG in Auburn…

THE LS ENGINE VS. THE WORLD I’ve long been conflicted by the General Motors LS-series V8s. I distinctly recall sitting in a hotel—the Nikko, I think—near Beverly Hills at a 1997 press function where GM engineers first revealed to us the bones of the new engine that would replace the traditional small-block V8. Of course, I was immediately suspicious, as I am prone to be, and was even disparaging. I didn’t like it, but I fear change. It takes me a while to get used to things, and I tend to need proof that stuff works. The LS engines have proven themselves to me, if only 15 years later. I became impressed with them quite earlier than that but have only now become a missionary. That’s what delivers the inner…

Welcome to the Hot Rods section of the mag, where all the car features live. Know of a great ride that should be here? Got killer photos of cars in action along with details about them? Tip us off: email HOTROD@hotrod.com or mail to HOT ROD Hot Rods, 831 S. Douglas St., El Segundo, CA 90245. Many pages of this issue are about how the GM LS engine is the hottest thing in the rodding world, but Jim Seafuse does not agree. A true loyalist, he would have been offended if anyone suggested he stick one of those ugly things under the hood of his ’57 Ford sedan. Instead, he went with one of the best engines ever to go into a new Mustang: the blown 4.6L monster from an…

Anyone too young to have experienced the golden age of American motorsports firsthand is fortunate to be able to access photographic evidence from the ’60s and ’70s. Luckily for us all, those two decades roughly coincide with the peak of Bob D’Olivo’s career as an action photographer. For both of these reasons, we have chosen to focus on that incredible era for this second of two articles chronicling the man’s life and work. (The Jan. ’11 issue contained part one.) Although Bob continued to trigger shutters on behalf of Petersen Publishing Co. right up to his 1996 retirement, most of this photographic director’s work in the ’80s and early ’90s involved a desk and Petersen’s photo studio. “When I was hired in 1952, we had three magazines and 35 or…

THREE DEUCES MADE RIGHT My swap meet purchase of three rebuilt Rochester 2GC carbs, an Edelbrock manifold, Speedway progressive linkage, and a Mallory dual-point distributor is not cutting it. The lead and rear carbs, although refurbished, still have the chokes in place. What mods need to be done to make the carbs pure dumpers, and is this a job a novice could tackle? I have very little money to pay a rebuilder, and the wife and kids were hocked to buy the setup to begin with. I feel confident the upgraded 327 small-block Chevy, 0.030-over-bore, Comp valvetrain and cam, Manley valves, and various machine work will handle the gas flow if I can get it right. Les White Granbury, TX The choke butterfly still present on each outboard carb is…

A CASÉ OF DÉJÀ VU The racing was fantastic at the NHRA California Hot Rod Reunion in Bakersfield in October, but the most over-the-top moment was courtesy of Mike Boyd shoeing Mousie Marcellus’ Winged Express. From the left lane, Boyd got crossed up on a burnout just beyond the Christmas Tree, got off the throttle when the slicks grabbed, shot into the right lane, and ended up pointed at the tail end of Randy Bradford’s Fiat, which was peacefully idling after its burnout. Boyd pointed his machine between a crewmember, Bradford’s Fuel Altered, and the wall, and as the crowd held its breath, deftly threaded the needle, missing the crew guy, Bradford, and the wall. He then swung it back into his lane, backed up, and went coast to coast…

Troy said, “I can’t do anything with that. It’s too ugly for the style of the car, but more important, nobody makes anything for it since it’s so new;” That was the start of the first big project car that HOT ROD has seen powered by the new-for-2010 Coyote 5.0L Mustang engine from Ford. In our eyes it’s actually pretty cool looking for a late model engine. But for a retro-styled, bigtime sweepstakes car? Maybe not. The Troy was Troy Ladd of Hollywood Hot Rods (HHR), the schemer was Josh Russell of Raybestos Brakes, and the car ended up way, way too nice to give away as a sweepstakes prize. But that was the deal from the outset. Josh is a member of the Chrome Czars of Chicago, the same…

Back in the day, hot rodders didn’t have an enormous speed parts industry, and the Internet was more science fiction than Dick Tracy’s watch phone, so they had to make their cars faster with their ingenuity and sweat. You might have to as well if you have an oddball engine that nobody makes parts for. Next month, Marlan Davis goes into detail about how to hot-rod any engine and stuff you need to think about in the process. Included in the story is some information on Pete Aardema’s various four-valve cylinder head incarnations, including the oddball shown here. Do you know what it is? Hint: it’s not all from the same manufacturer. On sale January 18, 2011 Meanwhile, Get Your Car Fix at HOTROD.com…