Innehållsförteckning för August 2012 från Hot Rod

We’ve got big things coming with HOT ROD starting in the next issue. Big things mean big money, and as a result, I’ve spent more time in corporate meetings than I have in a long time. It’s all good news, but there’s a bit of a language barrier. Somehow the guys in the business roles get hooked on trick-of-the-month words and phrases—nauseating corporatisms that seem designed for using more words than necessary while simultaneously soft-selling the message and making the speaker seem both cool and competent. I can’t imagine car guys standing around the dragstrip spouting the stuff I hear every day around the office. Let’s try it out. I heard every one of these in a meeting last week. Corporate guys say: “I need you to reach out and…

Robbie Bryant is working on this ’60 Chevrolet Brookwood wagon, realizing a long-lived dream of his. Robbie is a talented rendering artist and owner of KEG Media (Keg-Media.com) and has dialed-in the wagon rendering just the way he wants it. The suspension uses tubular control arms and a custom rear wishbone by Kris Carroll at California Hot Rod and Custom Shop. Slam Specialties ’bags will be controlled by AccuAir via a center-console-mounted iPad to drop the frame almost completely on the ground over billet U.S. Mags Hornet wheels, which measure 20x8.5 in front and 20x12 in the rear and are wrapped in Pirelli rubber. The paint scheme calls for PPG midnight black with a silver metallic roof and flat-gunmetal-painted trim and bumpers. As you can see in the rendering, the…

BILL WENDT • CAPE CAROL, FL You may have noticed that we changed the title of our Readers’ Rides section several months ago to Local Hero. Bill Wendt is a perfect example of why. Not only does he have a cool car but also a cool history of rides—and records that came with them. Bill had a rough childhood growing up in the suburbs of Chicago. As a kid he used to run home after school to a local race shop, where an ex-racer became his mentor. That sparked his love affair with cars that later led to the first AHRA BB/FC Alcohol Funny Car in the 6s and the first over 200 mph. According to Bill, his car—named Smokey Bear—a 417ci Hemi Challenger, ran a 6.94 at 202.6 mph…

Notice something a little off about these photos? Tony Beyer machined these heads back in the ’80s before computer-controlled machining tools were common. He drew the idea with a No. 2 pencil on a drafting board and started working. His original idea was to raise the intake ports to allow fuel a straight shot into the engine. But did it ultimately work? “They are marginally better,” Tony says, but “it was a weird idea, so I had to do it.” It became one of those tasks that was done just to see if it could be. According to Tony, “I built all the fixtures, sine plate, and combustion-chamber models, which I traced in all cylinder locations with a tracer mill. I machined the guides and shrunk the seats in with…

It takes some serious stones to crown yourself “King.” If you have the stuff to back up the claim, a legend may be born. Get it wrong, and your poseur status will live forever. Take the title King Cobra. It’s totally legit for a select few cars in Ford’s past, yet completely laughable when hung on a certain ’78 Mustang II. In the case of Len and Linda Perham’s 427 Cobra, it rightfully earned the regal status lettered between the car’s curvaceous fenders. CSX3159 left Shelby American’s LAX digs in late 1965 as a standard-issue Cobra (if there is such a thing). It wouldn’t become King until one Clem Hoppe bought it in April 1966 from Larsen Ford in White Plains, New York. Hoppe bought the factory black car with…

What have you done since high school? Care to brag? Did you win a Super Pro Championship with your dad, graduate from medical school, and win twice at Drag Week™? Doc McEntire sure did, and he did it all while driving the same ’68 Camaro he took his driver license test in. Thirty-two years of street racing, wrenching on high school and college buddies’ cars for cash, and studying his ass off has paid off nicely. Good story: One college classmate crashed his Vega bad enough that it was U-shaped and needed a new body. Doc bought the same-color car from a junkyard and swapped the entire chassis, drivetrain, and interior inside of a modest two-car carriage house fast enough that the other kid’s folks never even noticed. Doc’s as…

We legitimately had the chills. Not because it was 32 degrees at Milan Dragway. Certainly not because we’d never seen a raspy race car before. But there was something different about the quivering mass of pure-white Camaro that was rolling into frame for our cover photo. It was special: the ear-piercing realization of a plan that had been formed years before the fifth-gen, ’10-model Camaro ever saw light outside of General Motors’ secretive facilities. Long before the first bailout check. A scheme hatched among the hot rodders within GM well before early 2009, when the PR machine told HOT ROD, with a straight face, that the new Camaro was not a muscle car but a “high-tech, efficient sports car for the Fergie generation.” Three years later, the dudes surrounding us…

For the past year, the biggest story in Camaroland has been the upcoming ZL1 and its 580hp, Eaton-supercharged, LSA engine. The ZL1 MSRP starts at $54,000. For the most powerful production Camaro of all time, especially in today’s world of high-priced everything, it’s possible to believe a $60,000 Camaro is a bargain. Chevrolet will certainly sell every one of them built, but for most of us, that’s a lot of coin. While the ZL1 is a lot more than just its engine—the suspension, appearance, and everything else differentiates it from lesser Camaros and makes it what it is: an all-around badass—the biggest grin for most drivers will come when they mat the gas pedal and feel all that power. But you can get a similar thrill with an SS Camaro…

July 8, 2012, will mark the 90th running of the Pikes Peak International Hillclimb and also the first in which the entire course is paved. The traditional race is held over 12.42 miles, with competitors blasting from 9,390 to 14,100 feet of elevation, and the freak factor has been the sideways action around 156 turns—on dirt, with bottomless cliffs lurking everywhere. That appeal has slowly changed over the past 13 years, as the road has been paved in sections after the Sierra Club sued the city of Colorado Springs, arguing that the graveling of the road was causing damage to nearby vegetation and wetlands. An agreement was reached, and the surfacing began. It was completed in late 2011. Some racers have carried bumper stickers pointing out the irony: If I…

With NASCAR having become a multimillion-dollar sport funded by candy, cell phone, insurance, paint, soda, and fast-food sponsorships, drivers are heavily censored and often careful with what they say, especially to the media. We asked a handful of drivers some questions during a press conference at the end of last season. After picking through the sponsor plugs and scripted responses, we found some genuine answers. Here are a few of the best from the always-hating-Kyle-Busch Kevin Harvick and the often-clever Carl Edwards. HRM: What’s an absurd question you’ve been asked? KH: What do you have to do in the car when you have to use the bathroom. That’s the most common question you get from fans. We even did a “SportsCenter” commercial about it. CE: Yeah, that’s a silly one.…

It looks like Chevrolet is holding out on giving us a Z28 until the sixth-gen Camaro debuts, but in the meantime, the newly announced 1LE model is one heck of a parts-bin placeholder. Borrowing its name from the option introduced in 1988 on track-oriented third-gen Camaros, the fifth-gen 1LE teased at SEMA last year is now officially set for production as a ’13 model. Filling in the vacancy between the SS and ZL1, the 1LE will use the 426hp LS3 we’re familiar with but will couple it with a Tremec TR6060-MM6 six-speed with ratios that you’d typically find in an LS3 Corvette (an automatic is not available). Unlike on a Corvette, the rear-gear ratio is upped to 3.91:1 from the normal 3.45:1 found in the SS. Additional upgrades include: electric…

This homebuilt retro-rebel rod is unexpected, and that’s the way we like it. Inspired by the unforgettable lyrics of Charlie Ryan’s rockabilly song from the ’50s, it is rough around the edges, a bit of an outlaw. Best of all, Bob “Stretch” Stredwick’s ’30 five-window coupe with a 4-inch chop and massive 8-inch channel on a double Z’d frame represents his personal interpretation of the legendary “Hot Rod Lincoln.” The masterpiece of this build is the ’41 Lincoln-Zephyr V12 engine. Ron Baker at Valley Engine Rebuilders in Visalia, California, revitalized the 71-year-old, 292ci flathead by removing the useless oil slinger and carefully grafting in front and rear rubber main seals. He also stepped down the crank snout and modified a 327 small-block harmonic balancer, as well as the original pulley,…

Are young kids into cars these days? When most of us on the HOT ROD staff were growing up, we were consumed by a lust for cars and an appetite for gasoline. Reading car mags in study hall was common, we always had greasy fingernails (even if it was from working on a bike), and the most effective way to teach us math was to explain how to degree a cam. But is it that way with today’s youth? Or are there just too many things vying for their attention? Has texting replaced bench racing? In the face of school budget cuts and the elimination of shop classes, it’s nice to hear a story about encouraging young people to get involved with hot rods, and that’s what we have here.…

The ’12 Camaro ZL1. GM wants you to race it. The company is practically begging you to destroy a road course or dragstrip. Why else would it add a launch-control feature to the Performance Traction Management program? It’s certainly not because the company expects to sell you a new rearend after the first hard launch. The entire drivetrain is covered by a five-year/100,000 mile warranty, as long as you don’t modify it. And you don’t need to modify it—at least not today. This thing is a 580hp rocket right out of the box. That’s the kind of power you don’t get used to or bored with hours after you sign on the dotted line. You might not wait until the warranty period is up before you dig into the nuts…

It had to be done. Our ’69 El Camino wouldn’t do a burnout, yet it smoked worse than a blue hair on a heater at the penny slots. That ain’t right. It needed a new engine. By our warped logic, driving 500 miles from Los Angeles to Sparks, Nevada, to do the swap in Summit Racing’s parking lot instead of doing the job at home made perfect sense. Back home, we would likely waste time by making 10 or more trips to the parts store for junk we didn’t have. Summit Racing had the new engine and everything else we needed, so technically we’d just make one long trip to the parts store. Mankind has never schemed a plan so perfectly efficient. And then it snowed. The Elco has been…

EDITOR’S NOTE: If your existing hot rod has a gremlin that just won’t quit, you could be one of the lucky candidates chosen for a hands-on thrash. Drop us a line at pitstop@hotrod.com, and put “Rescue” in the Subject Line. We won’t repair factory stockers or build you a whole car, but HOT ROD and industry experts will fix the immediate problem. THE COMBO Rick Bogoff’s show-quality ’66 Pontiac GTO has a fully built H.O. Enterprises 10.3:1 455 equipped with Edelbrock aluminum heads, Comp Cams’ biggest Xtreme Energy XE294H hydraulic flat-tappet cam (250/256-degrees duration at 0.050), and a Demon 750-cfm vacuum-secondary carb atop an Edelbrock Performer RPM intake. A TH400 automatic transfers power back to a 3.73:1-geared rearend. The car hugs the road with a full Air Ride suspension and…

We know—monster-truck races have long been dismissed by the hard-core as little more than a gearhead freak show, the pro wrestling of motorsports. We’re not here to argue differently, but as we recently found out, these races are also a laugh riot, and it’s well worth a visit to the Advance Auto Parts Monster Jam when it comes to town. The opener includes side-by-side “races” around an obstacle course set up on the stadium floor, and we can take it or leave it. But the Freestyle competition is nearly flawless as a ludicrous display of needless violence. Drivers go nuts with jumps, smashes, rollovers, wheelies, donuts, and circus-act fire and steam shows. Judging ostensibly takes place, but who cares? What matters is the scream of the 1,500hp, alky-burning big-blocks that…

Cash running low these days? Take a break from the 1:1-scale cars and look into collecting some cool old gearhead toys. They’re much cheaper, take up less space, and it’s easier to convince your wife that you’ve got the kids in mind. Speaking of which, it’s way cooler to repurpose old toys for the small guys than it is to fund more Chinese plastic. Give us the ankle welts from crashing into a good ol’ steel Tonka truck any day. These shots were taken over the past few years at swap meets here and there, but we usually find the best deals on vintage playthings at yard sales. Think about it.…

When Chris Glasgow’s father bought what was left of this ’64 Olds after it was abandoned in the north Louisiana woods in 1977, it was worth every bit of the $40 he paid for it, maybe less. Over the next nine years, he worked on the car, got it into presentable condition, and drove it until he passed it on to Chris in 1994, when it got another refresh. The current version of the car is the result of Chris wanting to bring his ultimate dream car to reality, and it took the better part of 10 years to make it so. Chris’ goal was to build an engine and chassis that would compete with modern cars while keeping it all Oldsmobile under the hood and stock-appearing from the outside.…

NASCAR’s Modified series has always been the main event for short-track racing in the South. The cars are purpose-built to go fast, with open wheels and no resemblance to factory cars, sort of like a Southern F1. It’s one of the few series that has stayed true to its roots, too, never getting too famous (most drivers aren’t household names) and without million-dollar sponsorships or multiple-car teams. They race at tracks the whole family can go to for less than the cost of a tank of gas. This ’36 Chevrolet Modified was built to honor that time in NASCAR when there was nothing more than pure racing. We look past the car as a tribute to Dale Earnhardt, and see what he and the car represent: the yesteryear breed of…

Guys who didn’t dig it at first have at least gotten used to it. Our Crusher Camaro’s makeover as a late-’70s street machine in the Dec. ’09 issue might have been a bit early for the trend. Maybe the look was a bit more accepted, if not embraced, by the May ’11 issue, wherein we drove the car on an 1,100-mile road trip and suffered only the normal amount of shakedown issues while proving you can drive an 8-71-blown Rat motor virtually anywhere if you set it up right. But the question remained: How quick is it? Answer: 10.62 at 126 mph in the quarter. Not bad. After posting those numbers on the web and in a YouTube video (“Crusher Camaro Hits the Dragstrip,” HOT ROD Unlimited, episode 3), folks…

THE PREMISE You see him at every indoor car show, the car-care-product guy with a collared shirt and headset microphone, looking like he is taping the ShamWow infomercial. He’s pitching the latest and greatest wax or wheel polisher. It may look cool, but until you get it in your garage, you can’t tell. Take those drill-powered wheel polishers, for example. They’re designed as a quick method to polish your wheels and save your knuckles at the same time, but do they really work? To find out, we grabbed three of the most popular brands, as well as a heavy-duty wheel restoration kit, and put them to the test. THE STUFF With its huge variety of PowerBalls and PowerCones, Mothers is the forerunner for drill-attachment wheel polishers. We opted to test…

HAROLD ASKS: Thank you for a very informative article on turbocharging (“How to Buy Your First Turbo,” May ’12). Most of your technical articles are of great value, and I try to digest the information with the hope that I can apply it in some way, somehow, some day. My question is what is the importance of, and how do you size, the intercooler? I have read ads for intercooler upgrades that suggest there is more power to be had just by upgrading to a larger unit. How would I know what size to apply to various turbos? MARLAN ANSWERS: Because a turbocharger is fed by engine exhaust, it’s best to mount the turbine (hot side) as close to the engine’s exhaust manifold as possible. This allows the maximum amount…