Innehållsförteckning för December 2017 från Hot Rod

I thought it’d be longer. I really did. But life’s funny that way, and here I sit, writing my last Starting Line column. I’m not burnt out. I’m not overwhelmed. I’m not in the least bit tired of doing something I’ve dreamt of as far back as I can remember. But I was presented with a choice, and albeit the hardest I have ever made, it was one in which the answer was clear. Family first. Always. I won’t dwell on the negative. That’s not who I am or how I’ve survived in this fast-paced world. I’ve treasured my time here and hope I’ve done my part to advance the magazine. While I am stepping down as editor-in-chief, I will continue to write for HOT ROD and it will always…

It’s more than the mountain’s altitude, the week’s sleeplessness, or the mechanical heartbreak that’ll change you at the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb—it’s the people. Racing families are the friends who’ll even turn down beer money to see you through to the end; the satisfaction of finishing (or at least being a few paces ahead of two-steps back) is payment enough. We first met Kash Singh in 2013 while diagnosing a banging noise from the back of his Time Attack 2–class 2008 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500. The Fiji-born gentleman racer—a product planner in Dearborn, Michigan—was known for a wealth of antics on the mountain (such as bringing KFC up to the peak so fellow drivers could eat something a little different than donuts while waiting the race out), and this…

Despite its great styling in the 1960s and into the early 1970s, Ford’s midsize muscle car never seemed to get the respect it deserved among the classic Chevelles, flashy GTOs, and expertly marketed Mopars like the Road Runner and Charger. It seems like it’s only a matter of time before the next generation of classic-car fans realize their potential, because constant engine updates and multiple coupe and fastback body styles mean there’s a Torino to fit just about every flavor of muscle-car fan. It just so happens that Jeff Lilly’s 1970 convertible is one of our favorites. Lilly, of Jeff Lilly Restorations in San Antonio, has Ford muscle in his family tree, as his father raced a lightweight 1963 Galaxie, so when it came to selecting his personal car, he…

Forty years at one company is crazy, but that’s the landmark we’re celebrating for HOT ROD’s very unique, devoted, and walking GM part-number catalog, Marlan Davis. Forty years! You know him as HOT ROD’s Tech Editor par excellence—and he’s that, for sure. But Marlan is somewhat of a mystery, even to the staff, as his desert residence in Neenach, California, isolates him from city hustle and bustle, making commutes into Los Angeles a long haul and sightings of him at the HOT ROD mothership rare. His longevity at HOT ROD is serendipitous, as he came here when Jim McCraw was editor. Says Jim, “I was the editor of HOT ROD when Marlan was hired in the spring of 1977. He was the son of Petersen Vice President Dick Day’s next-door…

When you’ve had a car for many years, some repairs become second nature. You just know that the car isn’t starting because of that wonky neutral safety switch wire with the broken tab or the paperclip wrapped in tinfoil you used instead of a fuse. Sometimes, there isn’t even anything shade-tree about it—it’s just a weak point in your system, like you were too lazy to make heat shields that fit with your new aluminum heads on a 440 so you always burn the same wire. Yeah, that last one is why, when the Polara’s 440 started running a bit more V7 than 8, we knew just where to look. “It’ll be the No. 7 spark-plug wire,” Tom said as he rooted around between the master cylinder and the steering…

THE RESCUE SO FAR When Norm Brandes at Westech Automotive received J.B Bracken’s 1935 Ford Rat Rod truck (HRM, July 2017), it couldn’t do a burnout and had poor driveabilty—despite an 8-71-blown 383 small-block Chevy engine. The 4,000-pound truck’s huge Dana 70 dualie rearend didn’t have enough low-end inertia to spin the tires. Initial fixes included a cam change, overdriving the blower, and proper tuning—only to suffer a broken piston and Brand-X head-stud failure. Gluttons for punishment, we came back in the Aug. 2017 issue with a 4.125-inch bore Dart block, turning the 383 into a 401. Brandes stuffed it with stout 2618 aluminum-alloy JE blower pistons, bolted its aluminum heads on with real ARP head studs, and did some additional tuning to seemingly bulletproof the combo. But after Bracken…

I’m finally driving my 1971 Road Runner nearly every day I’m in town, but I’m ashamed it’s been 18 years since an old car was my daily. I drive vintage junk for 12 to 20 weeks a year for my video gig, but using a muscle car for chores is a different program. It’s made me realize how peoples’ reactions to old cars have changed, while making me nostalgic for the days when driving 1960s and 1970s cars was what everyone did out of normalcy—like when there was a Tuneup Masters down the street and it was still owned by Andy Granatelli. Imagine a business today trying to survive by changing spark plugs, points, and condensers. Now I carry all that stuff in my glovebox along with a spare ballast…

Just a hazy 1967 Thanksgiving holiday evening of Funny Cars at the packed, million-dollar Orange County International Raceway (OCIR) in Irvine, California, for the first- ever Manufacturers Funny Car Championship. Known as the “Supertrack,” OCIR was just a few months old. With its magnificent, three-story tower and actual landscaping, it seemed like civilization would never encroach way out in south Orange County, guaranteeing a beautiful racing venue forever—or so everyone thought. Gaining popularity by the day, Funny Cars still had no class of their own in the NHRA hierarchy, but that would soon change with events like this. Forty-five Funny Cars showed up for a round-robin with a guaranteed $22,000 cash purse. Staging just shy of the Chrondek “eyes” are the Samson Dodge Dart out of San Jose and the…

I recently came across a 1970 Dodge Super Bee that the owner rescued from a junkyard, where it had been sitting since the original engine blew decades earlier. Even back then, the Super Bee was rare—1 of 599 V-Code cars—which meant it had a 440ci V8 with the three 2-barrel Holley carburetors and a 727 three-speed automatic transmission. Instead of putting the car back together, the current owner tucked it away in his garage for 40 years. It was stunning to imagine such a rare and desirable car sitting for so long. Even so, it was something special and was saved from a very rusty fate.…

The Southeast Gassers Association is sweeping the nation—part of it, at least—with cars that are built to 1967 NHRA Gas class rules. These cars are insane, with high-winding, naturally aspirated horsepower disguised as a 1960s powerplant and backed by four-speed manual transmissions. Of course, modern tires and safety equipment are allowed in the series, but the rules package is extremely strict to preserve the true definition of a gasser and put on an awesome show. With 10 races in 7 states for the 2017 season, the series is drawing huge crowds and showing why the 1960s were the heyday of drag racing. The most recent clash came at Knoxville Dragstrip in Maynardville, Tennessee, and it drew 60 period-correct gassers and thousands of spectators to watch the action. The racing is…

The Chrysler Corporation never offered a four-door Barracuda, but this brand-new 1970 model would have the average onlooker convinced they did. Dave Walden, owner of ECS Automotive Concepts near St. Louis, has completed a number of OE-style restorations from 2005 through 2010 and was pondering another build that would be equally challenging, but different—way different. He decided to build a car the factory never made in the first place and make it look like it just rolled off the assembly line. Years back, Walden viewed a rendering of a 1970 four-door Barracuda that was swimming around the internet, and it struck a chord with him. At first, he and his associate, Steve Been, thought to build the very car in the drawing. Then they decided a Lemon Twist Yellow version…

Nitromethane-powered NHRA Top Fuelers and Funny Cars (fuel cars, for short) still use a manual clutch, despite the direct-drive transmission, but they’re more complex than what you see in any conventional clutch, even with today’s multi-disc clutch setups. These 3,700-degree Fahrenheit carousels of steel and sintered iron are foot-clutched and centrifugally activated with a computer-controlled release, get rebuilt between every run, and act as the sole control over power delivery after the 11,000hp Hemi engine does its job. We hung out with Corey Lee, Del Worsham’s clutch guy, and McLeod Clutch’s Paul Lee (no relation) to find out how they’re tuned and rebuilt between rounds during the 2017 Winternationals at Pomona. In a typical car, a clutch is a fairly simple mechanism. The clutch disc, attached to the input shaft…

Whatever happened to customizing newer cars? How did such a popular trend in car building come to a screeching halt? In the 1940s through 1950s, turning a car into a “mystery car”—one that contained body mods, shaved emblems and door handles, and grille changes so that it was not identifiable—was part of our hot rod lexicon. HOT ROD, and especially sister publications Motor Trend and Car Craft, were founded on featuring customized cars and showing you how to sling lead to do it in your own garage. In the late-1950s, newer cars customized with wild Larry Watson and Dean Jeffries paint jobs helped eliminate the need for major body changes, partially due to Detroit’s flamboyant styling matching or exceeding anything customizers could conjure. Panel painting and wild, scalloped designs helped…

Q:I would like to install a 1988 small-block Chevy motor in my old 1953 Chevrolet truck, but I need good information so as not to make costly mistakes. The engine was equipped with a hydraulic-roller cam from the factory. I purchased the engine already remanufactured. I did not receive any paperwork from the engine builder about break-in. I presently plan to use a carburetor as a fuel-delivery system, but have considered aftermarket fuel injection in the future. I do not have a distributor at the present time and need to know what to look for. Should I use a brass gear or the melonized gear sold through GM? I was told to locate an HEI distributor with the small cap. When setting the valve lash, should you remove endplay from…

It was during HOT ROD Power Tour® 2016 that we got the call: “Big Red” had caught fire, but thankfully, RJ Gottlieb was OK. It was less than a week before the team had to be in Colorado Springs for last year’s 2016 Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, when a fuel-system failure torched the baddest Camaro ever during testing at Buttonwillow Raceway. The team was devastated, but also counted their blessings on RJ’s good health. Racing is all about redemption. Whether you’re too late to the finish line, rebuilding after a wreck, or repairing mechanical maladies, the attitude of “never give up, never surrender” is probably the most important tool you can carry. You pick up the pieces, find a solution, and return—failure is not in what happened in the…

In its brief half decade of existence on the beach, The Race of Gentlemen (TROG) has kicked up a sandstorm of press and media attention, which has helped revitalize the vintage hot rod and bike hobby. It’s been less than five years since that fateful autumn day when a hardy pack of diehard hot rod enthusiasts and biker brethren stormed the beach in Allenhurst, New Jersey, for the first time. Since then, TROG has flourished and has also jumpstarted a movement dating back to an era where you modified your favorite ride, stripping it of useless weight and parts, and then hopped it up to perform better and go faster. It’s the definition of pure hot rodding—on two or four wheels. And at the helm of this perfect plethora of…

The Illinois State University’s solar-car team is made up of hot rodders. Sure, they’re only pushing road-legal speeds, but building and “ray-cing” a sun-powered machine from scratch is no easy task. A tube chassis supports the carbon- and Kevlar-fiber body, and the whole car weighs 544 pounds (minus the driver). The choice of Kevlar under the film-like solar cells is needed on the body, as carbon fiber is conductive and capable of causing accidental shorts. The ISU team competes in the American Solar Car Challenge, Formula Sun Grand Prix, and Abu Dhabi Solar Car Challenge, where they compete in both long-distance road rallies over thousands of miles and in on-track endurance races. As a show of force, the team came out to Power Tour® with their Mercury 5S and ran…

There are a lot of reasons you may want to swap out the seats in your ride. Maybe the stocker has a giant bench and you want buckets, or like so many 1970s-and-earlier models, they don’t recline. Regardless of the reason, there’s an entire subsection of the automotive aftermarket dedicated to vehicular seating. While the most common muscle cars have direct bolt-in options, most cars fall into the universal-fit category. Take this 1969 Road Runner: The factory buckets were in good shape, but they weren’t comfortable and certainly didn’t match our updated design. The interior design calls for four bucket seats, which means we need four matching seats. We selected the Elite style from Procar by Scat, which come with sliders that bolt directly to the seat. Procar offers a…

As discussed last month, exhaust-header primary-tube length is the main determinant for establishing the engine speed at which the header system tunes. But what about header primary-tube diameter? Basically, tube diameter establishes the velocity of the exhaust-gas slug as it travels down the pipe. Too small a diameter and backpressure becomes a problem; too large a diameter and the inertia of the outgoing gas will be insufficient to scavenge the cylinder of exhaust gas. Gas velocity within a tube is inversely proportional to the tube’s cross-sectional area. In other words, gas velocity is high through a small tube and low through a large tube. Taking this into account, most applications use the smallest-diameter tube that flows enough air to handle the engine’s displacement and maximum engine speed. The smaller diameter…

Compact, Remote-Mount TPS TCI Automotive // 888.776.9824 // TCIauto.com TCI Automotive recently updated its adjustable, remote-mount throttle position sensor (TPS) to keep moving parts from malfunctioning or becoming damaged. Available now in a compact, fully enclosed housing with a GM-type sensor, it fits a wide range of applications with 4L60E or 4L80E transmissions and can be installed on a carburetor or mounted directly to the firewall. Price: $137.50 Powerful, Rechargeable UV Flashlight OEM Tools // 866.968.6657 // OEMtools.com Constructed of anodized aluminum in a lightweight housing, OEM Tools’ professional rechargeable flashlight (PN 24607) has a dual purpose as an ultra-slim, handheld 450-lumen LED with a 30-meter beam for tight spaces, or as an inspection light with three high-output true UV LED lights to detect fluorescent dyes and make leaks easier…