Innehållsförteckning för July 2013 från Hot Rod

Just when you think that hot rods are for straight lines and street rods are for cruise-ins, the world goes all mish-mash on you, and ’33 Fords are out there carving corners with the best of ’em. It shouldn’t be such a shock; just do the rodthropology. See, today’s pop kulture would have you believe that early hot rods were all about the dry lakes and dragstrips, but guys in purpose-built race cars—and some gow gobs and jalopies—were hanging lefts around oval-board tracks and dirt tracks long before WWII. There was a time when Los Angeles, for instance, was dotted with roundy-round race places (including the 1910 Los Angeles Motordrome that was a perfect circle), and guys learned to hang lefts. Road racing on public streets was also popular, and…

Poor little Italian supercars. We just can’t stop picking on them. Are we bullies? Is it just meanness that makes us beat up a Lamborghini Gallardo with Bret Voelkel’s RideTech ’33 Factory Five Hot Rod? Nah, we just want to show you that it isn’t just imported supercars that can tear up a track, and sometimes a kit car and some clever upgrades are all you need to build a formidable bullfighter. Suspension company RideTech has a whole stable of impressive R&D cars. A quick web search brings up a long list of the company’s muscle cars, from Mustangs and Camaros to wagons and even AMCs, all of which have claimed trophies and honors at various autocross and Pro Touring events around the country. Bret wanted more. He wanted…

The setup to this caper went like this: “Hey, Bill, how ya doin? I’d like to drive your roadster back to L.A. in mid-January. Would you be mad at me if I accidently drove it into a ditch?” “No, come and get it.” That was it, the beginning of a dumb idea I would have to follow through with. Surprisingly, driving a topless roadster 2,000 miles in the dead of winter is not the stupidest thing I’ve ever done. If stupid were a talent, I’d be gifted. I just didn’t expect all of the puzzle pieces to come together without somebody trying to stop me—not family, staff, friends, or even roadster owner Bill Akin. As it got to mid-January, right on schedule, I boarded a plane for Nashville to…

If you’re into engines, and we mean really into engines, then grab a large towel—you’re going to need it to wipe up the drool. It’s not because the entirety of this behemoth, right down to the pistons, pushrods, and crankshaft, is machined from billets of aluminum and steel—that’s merely a sideshow to the rest of this circus. It’s because this is cutting-edge engine porn. It’s the offspring of ridiculously innovative ideas and a five-axis CNC machine. It’s an engine that couldn’t be built without decades of experience punishing the original big block Chevy design with boost to find the weak points, and a wicked vision of what’s possible in turbo-engine performance with today’s technology. If the data extrapolated from BigStuff3’s engine dyno is correct, then this twin-turbo terror not…

Next Month: How to Weld Titanium Contacts SIMPSON RACING PRODUCTS; New Braunfels, Texas; 800.654.7223; SimpsonRaceProducts.com WORSHAM RACING INCORPORATED; Orange, California; 714.974.1394 CARE AND MAINTE-NANCE The chute should remain unpacked between races. If left packed for long periods of time, moisture will deteriorate the chute, and the compressed chute will wedge itself into the pack and will not deploy properly, if at all, even with a spring launcher. Store the chute in a dry location out of the sunlight. A milk crate is the perfect container. You can machine wash the chute with a mild detergent, but it must be hand-dried.…

GM’s E67 engine control unit (ECU) is the brain behind the LS9 and LS3, as well as many garden-variety four-, six-, and eight-cylinder GM engines. Because of its fast processor and plentiful memory, it’s the go-to ECU for V8 LS swaps using 58-tooth reluctor wheels. It offers additional input and output channels that you’ll need if you want to keep variable valve timing, and it also helps when swapping into vehicles with late-model gauge clusters. You can find an E67 in many of GM’s higher-end performance cars, but they were also used in many ’08-and-newer trucks and SUVs like the Colorado, Hummer H3, and Envoy, as well as the non-direct-injection V6 and four-cylinder cars. Computers from non-V8 cars will need to be re-flashed to operate an electronic throttle body, so…

01] GRANATELLI MOTORSPORTS GranatelliMotorsports.com; 805.486.6644; Price: $2,150/set; PN VC-0084 GMS specializes in late-models that make serious power. By far the most expensive of the valve covers featured here, Granatelli’s two-valve billet valve covers are CNC machined from solid blocks of 6061-T6 aluminum. They’re also offered with custom logo etching. GMS has similar units for four-valve Fords as well as late-model Dodge Hemis, and GM LS engines, and sheetmetal-style covers are available for many older V8s. 02] MOROSO Moroso.com; 203.453.6571; Price: $539.95/set; PN 68389 These fabricated aluminum covers for two-valve engines feature thick billet rails that help with gasket sealing by preventing warping. They are a littler taller than stock and come with a knurled, billet oil-fill cap. 03] FORD RACING FordRacingParts.com; 800.FORD788; Price: $399/set; PN M-6582-C543V Ford Racing offers these…

That’s how you change a tranny in 12 minutes! —Wade Dunn You had one job! —John Wojnar Ooh?! You told me to turn over the engine. —Joseph Farkas Won’t start, but it turns over fine. —Jeff Brooks Is it a boy or girl? —Joshua Zuehlsdorff Year? Make? Model? A: This is a ’50 or ’51 Studebaker Champion bullet nose. You’re looking at the passenger side between the door and the front fender. Notice how there’s a section of cowl between the door (left) and fender(right). HOT ROD TRIVIA Q: 1 Name the first “perfect game” (no cautions) national series NASCAR race? Hint: It was the first race at this track. 2 Second “perfect game?”. 3 In Cannon-ball Run, Burt Reynolds says to Hal Needham, “We could get a black Trans…

Speed and elapsed-time milestones in drag racing were being smashed at a steady pace in the ’60s, but one of the biggest—if not the biggest—barrier to be broken was the 200-mph mark for the quarter. Some say it was first accomplished by Chris “Golden Greek” Karamesines, running 204.54 mph at Illinois’ Alton Dragway in April 1960, but the NHRA recognizes Don Garlits as the first, with his 201.34-mph run at the recently shuttered Island Dragway in Green Meadows, New Jersey, on August 2, 1964. We’re not here to enter that hackneyed argument. Instead, here’s a look at another lesser-known feat by Garlits. After his hero pass, he offered to completely tear down his Top Fuel Dragster for HOT ROD to dissect—swearing he would reveal everything it took to achieve this…

This month’s adventure began with a HOT ROD reader telling me about a friend who had a ’70 Plymouth GTX that had been sitting in a barn for decades. I made the arrangements and headed out to see it on a rainy Friday evening. After meeting up with the reader, we went to rendezvous with his friend who opened the barn to reveal what we came to see. It was a 440 four-barrel (U-code) car with a four-speed—one of 1,471 built—that still had the factory pistolgrip Hurst shifter sticking through the floor, though the 440 had been replaced with a 383. The car was in decent shape, with mostly original paint, the Air Grabber hood intact, and very little rust because it had been indoors most of its life. The…

Each year, we search for the quickest and fastest legit street cars in the nation by luring their owners into driving to five dragstrips over the course of five days—in a row, and without the aid of a car hauler. It’s like street racing but without the death and/or handcuffs. To win, HOT ROD Drag Week™ racers must provide photographic evidence that they endured more than 1,000 miles of highways and byways in their cars to find our clever checkpoints and then set the lowest average e.t. in their class by making passes at all five tracks. The appeal of such a ridiculous event must be the really cool jackets and prizes we present to the winners in 14 different classes. It’s become so big that we’ve limited entries to…

PERFORMANCE AS TESTED Rear-Wheel Horsepower: 440 at 5,744 rpm Rear-Wheel Torque: 439 at 4,500 rpm Time on HOT ROD Road Course: 01:11.17 420-Foot Slalom: 6.15 seconds at 46.56 mph Skidpad: 0.98 lateral g Quarter-Mile: 11.62 at 125.56 mph 60–0 Braking: HOT ROD did not test this; RideTech claims 110 feet HRM STAFF AVERAGE RANKING ON A SCALE OF 1-10, 10 BEING BEST: Competence vs. Purpose: Bret built the ’33 to showcase RideTech products at events. It certainly makes them look good. It was also meant to dominate at the autocross and scored the Pro-class points championship in the ’12 Goodguys series. Ranking: 9 Performance vs. Potential: With a custom build, there’s always more possible, and given the low weight and high horsepower, we’d like to see quarter-mile times that are…

There are plenty of mysteries within hot rodding, but none so vast and bewildering as car-show judging. In roadsterlandia, there is no event so steeped in tradition as the Grand National Roadster Show (GNRS), where the coveted “America’s Most Beautiful Roadster” (AMBR) crown is the Holy Grail. And just as the Grail is mysterious, so, too, is the process by which the AMBR is judged. For 2013, HOT ROD was allowed into the inner sanctum of the show’s secret judging to witness how the honor is conferred, pledging not to reveal the parties involved and what methods of provocation were involved. GNRS history dates back to 1949 in Oakland, California’s Exposition Building, where Al and Mary Slonaker assembled an international car show. Though primarily made up of foreign makes,…

Last weekend, I watched Pac-Man (it’s a video game character, if you’re too young or old to have played it) chase a ghost (another game character), which was being followed by a missile, just as I fueled up a Fury carrying a donkey. Seriously. Pac-Man was a plywood cut-out mounted atop a Porsche 924S, and the ghost—well, I don’t know what kind of car it was riding on because it blew by me too fast to tell. The missile was carried by a bootleg-turbo’d Mazda Miata, which gave chase, catching up to Pac-Man a few turns later. That, friends, is LeMons racing. I only turned one-and-a-half laps at the Arse-Freeze-A-Palooza, one of the last 24 Hours of LeMons races (24HoursofLeMonsRacing.com) of the ’12 season, and I’m already addicted to it.…

HOT ROD staffers must be magnetically drawn to any old iron within a five-mile radius. A weekend hiking excursion in California’s Malibu hills ended when we stumbled upon the remains of something minty green and V8-powered. There was a tree growing out of the intake. Scattered around the botanical block were twisted remnants of chrome, rusty leaf springs, and a tailgate, all of it partially entombed in a crumbling cliff face. How did this happen? We haven’t a clue, but we did have some hints as to the identity of this buried treasure. Taking note of the engine’s offset rear-mounted distributor, GM-style distributor weights, flat valve covers, shaft-mounted rockers, and 1-8-4-3-6-5-7-2 firing order led us to believe it once traveled the highways as a mighty Rambler mill. Perhaps a 327?…

THE COMBO Jim Mooneyhan’s ’70 Dodge Coronet has a pretty stout drivetrain. Motivation is from a built, 11.0:1 440 equipped with a Mopar Performance Purple Shaft cam, Edelbrock aluminum heads, the classic 3x2-barrel Holley Six Pack induction system, headers, and a Chrysler breakerless distributor sparked by Mopar’s Orange Box through an MSD Blaster 2 coil. Shifts are handled by a 727 TorqueFlite equipped with a shift-improvement kit and a 2,800-rpm-stall torque converter that transfers the torque to a 3.73:1-geared Dana 60 rearend. All this should make for a killer muscle car. But the Coronet spent the last seven years on the show circuit, mainly backing on and off the trailer, and has never been regularly driven or really dialed in. When Mooneyhan tried to drive it on the street,…

Borla Induction Borla //877.462.6752 //BorlaInduction.com In 2010, Borla Exhaust purchased TWM Induction, which is now known as Borla Induction. The company sells fuel-injection systems and accessories, including some very cool individual-runner intake manifolds and throttle-bodies. Applications include Ford 302, 351 Windsor, 427 FE, and 460; Chevy big-block; LS1, LS2, LS3; and the 6.1L Hemi. This one is the Ford 351 Windsor Cross Ram. The Cross Ram design has longer manifold runners that add torque while still offering plenty of hood clearance. Check the site to see the company’s other throttle-body kits. Price: Depends on Application One Bad Shifter Lokar //877.469.7440 //Lokar.com You can’t have a badass transmission like a Tremec without a cool shifter. Lokar sells billet-aluminum shift levers that bolt onto the standard two-bolt flange found on Tremec TKO…

SEND YOUR PHOTOS To be included in Scene by Readers, send low-rez photos and some information about them to HOTROD@HotRod.com. If we elect to use your photo, we will email back with instructions on how to send us a high-rez photo for publication.…

Tim Roth //Toledo, Ohio Tim has made so many changes to his Vista Blue Mustang that he didn’t even list them all. He bought this one after totaling his ’06 Mustang. Eric Stein //Charlotte, North Carolina This ’65 Chevy C10 hauls Eric’s hardtail Harley around North Carolina. We like the Moon discs and original patina. Isidoro Mata Jr. // Honolulu, Hawaii This ’77 Corvette is powered by a built 350, and Isidoro hopes to make it to his first HOT ROD Power Tour® this year. Jerry and Carolyn Niceley // Mount Vernon, Kentucky This ’70 Impala coupe is a factory 454 car and was bought new by Carolyn’s dad. Dave Nowacki // Monrovia, Indiana We goofed in our Readers’ Projects a few issues back. This is Dave’s truck, a ’36…

The Detroit Autorama has been showcasing custom cars since 1953 and awarding the coveted Ridler award since 1964. In February 2013, we had one job to do at the show: find the eight cars contending for the Ridler, nicknamed “The Great Eight.” It seemed easy enough, but sending us to a car show in the Motor City is like sending a squirrel into a nut factory. We got distracted. START Dan Dennis comes to the Autorama every year and brings a new car each time. This is his fifth year, fifth car: an altered-wheelbase Thunderbird. “I get bored and sell ’em after,” Dan tells us. He’s already working on his car for 2014—a ’37 Cord. We found our first of the Great Eight in the Rad Rides by Troy spot.…

Ed Pink Racing Engines (EdPink.com) in Van Nuys, California, rebuilds an incredibly wide array of engines. During a short visit, we scoped out a 260-cube Duesenberg straight-eight, a Ford Indy V8 (like the one the company built for the Martini Racing–inspired ’66 Mustang featured in our June ’13 issue), a WWI Curtiss OX-5 aircraft V8, and a Porsche flat 12 from a 917. That was just in one room. We asked Ed Pink’s head engine builder, Larry Ingham, to show us the tools he’s made over the course of his 40-year career of engine assembly. Everything you see here, aside from the dial indicator, was made by Larry and was in his toolbox at his assembly station.…

Goolsby Customs (GoolsbyCustoms.com) has been making a name for itself by showing up at the yearly SEMA show in Las Vegas with at least one high-profile show car. The Bessemer, Alabama, shop has been turning out top-quality trucks, hot rods, and muscle cars for the past eight years, including the most ambitious and most attractive ’71 Mustang we’ve ever seen (“Pegasus,” HRM June ’12). Skip and Debbie Walls, founders of Lokar Performance Products (Lokar.com), met the Goolsby team at SEMA in 2009 and mentioned they might one day like to collaborate on a project. Just after the ’11 SEMA show, Skip decided he wanted to put together a build to show that Lokar’s products aren’t just for ’32 Fords and ’57 Chevys, since the company seemed to be better…

Thanks to quick support from Ford Racing Performance Parts (FRPP), the Mustang’s high-tech DOHC ’11-and-later 5.0L TI-VCT Coyote engine is hitting critical mass among Blue Oval engine-swap enthusiasts. Last month, we covered the basics of retrofitting those engines into earlier hot rods and muscle cars. Now, it’s time to turn theory into reality, as we delve into the innards of real-world Coyote swaps in a variety of late and early chassis. If there’s a common thread among these swaps, it’s this: The Coyote is wide; front accessory drives are critical (often mandating an aftermarket or even a custom solution, especially if you want to run hydraulic power steering and air conditioning); clearance for an old-school power-brake vacuum booster is nil, and in older chassis (especially those with high shock…

When you’ve been in business restoring woodies for decades, driving a termite-riddled, dull-gray, creaky crate of a car might not be the best way to advertise your skills. That’s what the casual observer at a woodie gathering must have thought when he commented, “What’s up with this?” after eyeing the totally original ’48 Ford station wagon owned by Wood N’ Carr (WoodnCarr.net) proprietors Doug and Suzy Carr of Signal Hill, California. Though the ’48 was an untouched gem, complete with its original flathead, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. When Doug and Suzy overheard the comment, they decided impressions trumped originality, so for the next 14 months, Doug worked midnights after spending 10 hours a day on customer woodies, slowly bringing his own up to everyone’s expectations. Doug…

Nothing broke this month. Nothing broke, nothing made a suspicious noise, and there were no upgrades I felt I couldn’t live without. My daily driven ’70 Challenger performed just as it ought to, providing me with routine transportation and no problems. Since I wasn’t watching gauges or running out of gas, I had lots of time to think about commuting—specifically about Four-Door Nova Guy. I noticed F.D.N.G. during my very first drive in to the office. He was—and this should come as no surprise—driving an early ’70s four-door Nova. The car was not particularly awesome (on the contrary, it was somewhat beat, a vile shade of green, and it had too many doors for anything that isn’t a station wagon), but after that first sighting, I recognized the car again.…

Yup, it’s like we said: a semi-furry vinyl wrap for your car. So far, none of our ventures into vinyl wraps over paint has ended well as far as reader reactions go, and with the company Velvet Cars choosing an Audi R8 to show off its stuff, it’s clear we’re not the target audience. We hope the only hot rodder to use this stuff on the outside of his car is the one building a clone of the original Batmobile. And we hope that’s not happening. But the velvet wrap would be perfect there. However, this stuff could be helpful on some custom interior pieces. The company describes its product as “a high quality, self-adhesive vinyl coated with deluxe synthetic fibers.” Those fibers are said to withstand outside use for…