Innehållsförteckning för May 2015 från Hot Rod

STARTING LINE I never thought fuel would be less than $2 a gallon again, but the law of supply and demand brought the cost of crude down to levels we’ve not seen since 2009. The great news is the plummeting fuel prices weren’t created by a global economic crash, as they were six years ago. Today’s fuel costs are being driven by an enormous increase in American oil extraction, which for the first time since 1970, is the world’s largest producer of oil. How long will this supply of cheap fuel last? Te U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA.gov) predicts the average nationwide retail price of a gallon of gasoline will be $2.32 in 2015. That’s a dollar less than it was in 2014. That means the…

Te annual SEMA Show in Las Vegas is an all-you-can-eat buffet of automotive treats. Thousands of new parts and hundreds of custom vehicles are on display, vying for attention, and it’s easy for a car without a flashy paint job or massive wheels to get overlooked. Angelo Vespi’s 1969 Camaro, built by Detroit Speed and recently debuted at the Good guys show in Columbus, Ohio, not only got noticed, it took home a GM Design award for Best Chevrolet Sports Car and also the top spot in the new Battle of the Builders award, as chosen by the country’s top car builders. Here are the details that caused other builders to take notice. Starting with a decent 1969 Camaro, the crew at Detroit Speed in Mooreseville, North Carolina, led by…

Delivering on the Promise Pro Stock Cars Made 40 Years Ago Pro Street has had an interesting arc over the past 43 years, ever since Bill “Grumpy” Jenkins debuted his 1972 Pro Stock Vega with a full-tube chassis allowing 32-inchtall, 14-inch-wide slicks to ft under the body. Car guys loved it and immediately wanted that badass look for their street cars, hence the name Pro Street. However, just like any attempt to bring race parts and style to the street, things quickly became muddied between style and performance. Real Pro Stock cars were stripped-down racers without any semblance of street ability. Most people didn’t want to suffer that much in their street cars, so as comforts got added in with the race parts, Pro Street became open to a large…

WRENCHIN’ @ RANDOM The Gen III (2003–2015) Hemi is an outstanding platform for building power for your hot rod or muscle car. It has a strong iron block with deep skirts, cross-bolted main bearings (with six bolts each), and a camshaft tunnel high in the block that allows clearance for stroker cranks as well as short pushrods for valvetrain stability. Then there are the heads. Even as-cast, the latest factory 5.7L heads flow in excess of 325 cfm, while 6.4L heads flow up to 340 cfm. Those are tempting reasons to put a late-model Hemi into your old Mopar, but there are some headaches that can be averted by picking the right engine the first time. We spoke with Joe Jill at Superior Automotive in Placentia, California, an engine machine…

WRENCHIN’ @ RANDOM Somehow, my eight-car fleet—through a combination of half-built engines, leaking radiators, and a bad third member—has been reduced to two reliable daily drivers. The Polara and the Opel GT. Ha! Did you ever expect to see an Opel GT referred to as “reliable”? My boyfriend, Tom, and I have been swapping who drives which car, which can be pretty amusing, as there are few vehicles more different in every way. In the Opel, I’m constantly fumbling for a left-side key or reaching up for a column-mounted shifter that doesn’t exist. In the Polara, I’m pressing a ghost clutch when I get halfway down the block, at the spot where I’d normally shift the Opel into Second. I’ll park the Opel like it’s three times as…

PARTS & STUFF Mopar Handling QA1 // 952.985.5675 // QA1.net QA1’s new bolt-in rear suspension for 1967–1979 Mopar A-Bodies replaces the leaf springs with a six-link suspension. It mounts into existing locations on the chassis to improve handling and ride quality (like a four-link) while eliminating axle wrap and keeping the pinion angle constant. Price: $2,995 Pontiac and Olds Posi Fabcraft Metalworks 800.208.8242 FabcraftMetalworks.com Made in the USA from high-density nodular iron and AISI 9310 pro-gear steel, Fabcraft’s limited slip fits 1957–1964 9.3-inch Pontiac and Oldsmobile rear axles. Designed to be direct replacements for the 31-spline originals, these have large bearing hubs and a six-gear, double-cross-shaft design and are compatible with 2.69–6.14:1 ratios. Price: $695 Vintage Modern Tunes Retro Manufacturing 702.483.2222 // RetroSound.com The RetroSound Redondo is a modern radio…

RODDIN’ @ RANDOM Lawn-mower racing came to the United States in 1992. It had been going strong in England since 1973, when Jim Gavin, an Irish rally driver, created the sport to be a low-buck endeavor for the average Joe. Almost 25years later, the sport is going strong across the United States and the low-cost racing Gavin envisioned still exists, with winners taking home only bragging rights instead of a winner’s purse. When we wondered just what it takes to turn a 12–14hp, single-cylinder engine into a 23hp, 7,000-rpm racing mill, we called Bill LeBlanc of Yellow Jacket Race Engines in Lake Charles, Louisiana, who took us through the many changes. The Sta-Bil United States Lawn Mower Racing Association (USLMRA) C/Produc-tion class calls for a factory or direct replacement engine…

RODDIN’ @ RANDOM Say you find yourself in Dallas with five days to get to Sacramento, California, and five different high-powered cars to choose from on the way. Such a journey fell into our laps recently, and we used it as a chance to jot down some road-trip wisdom. 01] Start with an interesting car. The right car becomes like a companion on your adventure. It can get you into conversations, out of tickets, and give you much better photo opportunities than a rental Kia. Bonus points if it has wing windows. 02] Use a road trip as a chance to learn more about how the world works. We took the Dodge Hellcat Challenger to the Petroleum Museum in Midland, Texas, to show it where its food is made. 03]…

Memories of Racing a Rare Shelby Dragonsnake The year was 1964. It was a typical humid summer afternoon in south central Pennsylvania. A yellow T-Bird pulled up to a grassy field alongside a quiet airport runway, towing some precious cargo in the trailer behind. Te ramps quickly dropped, and a thunderous roar echoed through the aluminum cavern that enveloped the caged beast. Don Reimer gave the signal to back the brute out. His younger brother, Mike, shifted into Reverse and eased down the ramps onto the asphalt strip. A retina-burning yellow hue blinded the small pack of spectators gathered to see this race-bred animal run. It was here at this rural race site where the first trials of man and machine would take place; the test to see the compatibility…

Fify years ago, it was hailed as “Ford’s greatest engine.” It’s still referred to as the “90-day wonder,” and more commonly, the “Cammer.” It’s the Single Overhead Cam 427 Ford, the SOHC (pronounced “sock”). Based on Ford’s 427ci side-oiler block, it was intended to be Ford’s two-valve, single-overhead-cam, high-rpm answer to Chrysler’s 426 Hemi for NASCAR in 1964. But racing these purpose built engines turned “stock cars” into “not stock cars,” creating a situation NASCAR moved to stop. It banned “special racing engines” with its sights on stopping both the Hemi and Cammer. Chrysler sat out the 1965 season in protest while Ford continued with its Cammer-less 427ci wedge, which it had already been using in NASCAR for a couple of years. So what is the SOHC? Essentially, it’s a…

WRENCHIN’ @ RANDOM As turbo charging becomes more popular in both factory and aftermarket applications, those of us familiar with naturally aspirated engines might not be fully up to speed on our turbo-plumbing anatomy. One of the big mix-ups seems to be with two parts used in aftermarket forced-induction systems, which can look similar, but actually do two different jobs: the waste gate and the blow-off valve. WASTEGATES When a turbocharger’s exhaust-driven turbine wheel spins fast enough to produce the desired level of boost, a waste gate is typically used to allow the excess exhaust pressure to divert around the turbine wheel. By opening the wastegate (typically boost-pressure referenced), exhaust pressure bypasses the turbo’s turbine wheel to prevent the turbo from reaching an unsafe speed. You’ll find external wastegates on…

WRENCHIN’ @ RANDOM Good design should be everywhere. Then again, maybe it shouldn’t be everywhere. Like when you open your hood and confront another hood in the form of a plastic engine cover. When did it become necessary and fashionable to cover an engine with two hoods? The design of an engine is a design statement unto itself, and every reader of HOT ROD can relate to that. So why do designers need to impose design by covering the engine compartment? What’s under the hood is so important that manufacturers advertise it on scoops, fenders, and sometimes trunk lids. For many customers, an engine’s performance is as important as a car’s color. Some would even suggest exposing some or all of an engine and eliminating hoods altogether. Cars are machines…

The ancestral heir to the Funny Car has to be the Mooney ham and Sharp “554.” It’s a 1934 Ford coupe seen here in its later guise as raced by Havertown, Pennsylvania’s K&G Speed Associates at the Bristol NHRA Finals in 1966, next to Roy Gay’s 1965 GTO in the far lane. It’s configured exactly like most early A/FX cars with a center driver’s position, tubular crossmembers, a significantly set-back, supercharged engine (nitro-burning, 392ci Hemi with Enderle fuel injection), and some tinwork surrounding the driver—all wrapped in a stock body. In 1960 this car, in this configuration, ran more than 150 mph in the quarter-mile. But the ties don’t stop with this car alone. Jack Chrisman was arguably the first to run this configuration for his A/FX 1965 Mercury Comet,…

“There’s nothing really that special about it,” said builder Dave Dudek about the Dodge he built for pal Rick Callahan. And sure, it’s nice, but it looks like it’s just a stock 1968 Dodge Super Bee. A quick walk-around, heck, a close inspection of the car and every detail from the Group 27 Mopar battery to the 15x6-inch redline tires seems to be a well-researched restoration. Carter AFBs sit on the iron manifold between two black wrinkle-finished Hemi valve covers. Inside is a vinyl-covered bench seat and a column shifter in front of the standard ribbed 1968 gauge panel. Nice work, but hardly HOT ROD material. Oh, but then Rick cruises it up to the Christmas tree, where, when the yellows flash, he launches hard enough to pick the front…

We were expecting bears. Bears, and frozen tundra. We packed boots. Boots and lumpy sweaters and even considered a snow shovel, in case the lumberjacks who would surely be everywhere were too busy drinking maple syrup shots to assist us in digging out of our igloo. HOT ROD was heading to Canada, and everything we knew about that country we’d learned from old episodes of “Te Rocky and Bullwinkle Show.” When we got into Toronto, the sun was shining, the skies were blue, and the only ice was in the stare of the concierge at the super fancy hotel we’d accidently booked, as she took in our lumpy sweater and heavy boots. Good thing we hadn’t brought that snow shovel. Far from being an artic wasteland, Toronto is an active,…

WRENCHIN’ @ RANDOM David Freiburger finally had enough wrenching on various disposable beaters and decided that his own cars needed some attention. He focused on the Crusher Camaro, which had run a previous best of 10.07 seconds at 135 mph with the Mast Motorsports LS7 that was installed at the 2013 PRI Show. Back then the car was using 4.57 gears and a Gearstar 4L65 trans. The LS7 was near the power threshold for the trans and the engine kept revving past the shift points Freiburger had hoped for, proving that the Crusher needed a tighter torque converter. It was also running through the traps at redline, so the 4.57s were a bit on the low side. A few key upgrades were planned to get the Crusher into the 9s.…

FINISH LINE For two decades I’ve heard the same concern from publishers, advertisers, and regular-guy hot rodders: they all wonder if hot rodding will survive into the future because “the kids aren’t into cars like they used to be.” Through my newfound focus on HOTROD.com, social media, and online video, I have a new perspective on it, and I think our legacy is safe. Here’s my theory. There’s an entire generation who mostly missed the car bug: those who came of driving age around the mid-1990s. At the time, their frst cars were econo-boxes that should have had NoDoz as a factory option. Those cars were handoffs from their parents, who were the frst generation forced into buying transportation outside of the muscle-car era, and outside…