Innehållsförteckning för September 2018 från Hot Rod

My daily driver is a boring Home Depot truck. It’s that mid-2000s, white, 5.3L Silverado with the extra-cab half-door and a longbed that you see everywhere. Go to Home Depot this weekend if you want to see 50 of them parked in a row. The reason I am telling you this is because my other two vehicles are something you might be interested in and represent a shift in car culture. First is a 1971 Dodge Demon. It’s what used to be called Pro Street or a door car, but now it would be described as a nice—but slow—version of a big-tire no-prep or grudge car. It’s on 31/13.0s with a four-link and has an EFI twin-turbo 6.4L Hemi that makes 1,000 hp. The Demon is square in the center…

Brand loyalty starts young and, often, it’s less about the badge and more about the memories they evoke. For Greg Carnforth, the automotive moniker tied most closely to his heart strings is Volvo. The Swedish carmaker was his mother’s favorite, and the apple certainly didn’t fall far from the tree. “My mother, from the early 1970s on, had Volvo wagons, and I’m just in love with them—they’re tanks,” Carnforth says. “When my three kids came of age, each one of them had a [Volvo] 240 wagon.” Volvos have synched an inarguably solid rep among the auto crowd as a reliable, safe, and relatively indestructible form of transportation. Sporty and stylish? For most–true or not–those descriptors aren’t synonymous with the brand. Carnforth’s build puts that stigma to rest. We love different…

In the July 2018 issue of HOT ROD, we hatched a plan to test every intake manifold for the LS3 engine that we could get our hands on. Given the popularity of the rectangular-port LS3 configuration, it was only natural that the aftermarket embraced it with open arms and offers all manner of intake manifolds, both carbureted and fuel injected. In fact, there were so many intakes available for the LS3, we had to break our test into two parts. Part 1 covered the EFI intakes; in this installment, part 2, we tested a variety of different carbureted intakes. After all, man does not live by EFI alone, and carbs are plenty popular for many performance applications. Thanks to performance products like the MSD ignition controller, adding a carbureted intake…

THE COMBO As originally built back in 2006, this 1969 Plymouth Road Runner clone was powered by a thumping 11.3:1, Chrysler 440-based engine, bored 0.040-over, and equipped with a 4.15-inch-stroke crank to yield 496 ci. Since then, the engine had been refreshed at least once before present owner Ray Lane got his hands on it in 2012. The Plymouth had laid dormant for several years with a reputation for breaking rocker arms, an annoyance that persisted under Lane’s stewardship. Enter Chicago-area rescuer, Westech Automotive’s Norm Brandes. Initially, Brandes thought it was a random, old-age-related problem: Like highly stressed aluminum connecting rods, aluminum rockers have a finite fatigue life. Explains Brandes, “I thought the rockers were just cycled out.” He replaced the original shaft-mount valvetrain with Dave Hughes shafts, rockers, spacers…

We made 1,543 hp at 29.5 pounds of boost with a stock, junkyard-fresh, LY6 6.0L short-block and it didn’t blow up. Three weeks later, I wrapped up my next land-speed-racing short-block, which is destined to make “only” 1,000 hp at “only” 17 psi and it has about $10,000 worth of beefy parts. Why? You can bet I’m asking myself the same question. This started in 2011 when Richard Holdener conceived a HOT ROD story called “Big Bang Theory,” wherein a 4.8L truck engine made 1,203 at 26.8 psi on an engine dyno. Holdener has since done a bunch of other “Big Bang” engines on nitrous and boost, pushing used LS short-blocks well north of 1,000 hp before having to mop the crank off the floor. These days, perhaps hundreds of…

When the company truck wasn’t hauling magazines, photographic equipment, or speed parts around Los Angeles in the 1950s, our first rolling billboard flew the HOT ROD and Car Craft flags nationwide at races and shows. Robert E. Petersen’s acquisition of the 1949 or 1950 Ford panel actually predated the entity Petersen Publishing Company. When these photos were shot by staff photographers Bob D’Olivo in soggy Great Bend, Kansas (1955 NHRA Nationals), and Eric Rickman in San Gabriel, California (1956 NHRA West Coast Regional Championships), the Hollywood firm that “Pete” and ex-partner Robert Lindsay founded in late-1947 to launch HRM was still called Trend, Inc. The red-on-white scheme is thought to be the second custom job sprayed by George Barris and striped by Dean Jeffries. This total repaint—along with considerable panel…

You might have already seen the headlines on your Facebook feed, “A $500,000 dollar 1955 Chevy built by Tom Nelson at Nelson Racing Engines (NRE)!” It’s not fake news—owner Matt Swanson “poured the hours into this thing” to get every detail perfect and match his son Jack’s vision for a street sleeper that looks like something from 1955. After we heard about the re-chromes, the changes, the repaints, and hundreds of hours of metalwork, we began to see where the money went. Then we heard about how they knocked down the crowns on the fenders, doors, and quarters just to get light line perfect, then built a screaming, big-inch LS that looks old but makes 700hp. Now we are believers. Matt Swanson is from Turlock, California, a small town south…

“Hey, wanna come to an all–Dodge Demon shootout?” That was our invite from Brandon Mass of Mass Traction to join his team at No Problem Raceway in Belle Rose, Louisiana, as they and the Modern Street Hemi Shootout club cohosted the first competition of Dodge’s 840hp, street-legal drag car. “Does anyone even have a Demon delivered yet?” we asked, to which the answer was, “We only need two to race.” As it turns out, there were four Demons running for the cash prize in February, and all of them were intensely focused and enthusiastic about racing, as you’d expect of the sort of person who buys a new $90,000 car and takes it straight to the dragstrip. One of the cars had less than 100 miles on it! At the…

It seems strange seeing my name on the HOT ROD masthead after more than a dozen years with Car Craft. Always the scrappy upstart, CC is the yappy dog nipping on HRM’s heels, and we always took a bit of perverse pleasure when we scooped HOT ROD on something. Nevertheless, here I am, and I’m bringing Shop Talk, my former editor’s column in Car Craft with me. The name of the column suits me: I live in a garage in South Los Angeles and am therefore surrounded by cars and parts. Currently, I’m cohabitating with my 1967 C10 and 1993 GMC Sierra, a 1985 Camaro, four engine blocks, an Easy Run Engine Test Stand, and hundreds of miscellaneous parts and tools. If I’m not out driving or doing “work stuff”…

Q: I have a 1978 Cutlass Supreme with a 260 V8. It was rebuilt a few years back, but I don’t think it was done very well. It has a rod knock now. I don’t know which way to go: rebuild this one again (they want $2,800 to rebuild it), or upgrade to something with a little more get up and go. If I replace it with a used engine, what newer-year Oldsmobile would bolt directly in? What size would work best? A: There’s no replacement for displacement. Always get the largest engine you can afford. That’s my motto, so coming from a HOT ROD performance perspective, I wouldn’t waste time or money on a stock 260 rebuild when complete Olds 1980–1889 307, 1964–1967 330, 1968–1980 350, and even 1977–1979…

When a friend told us about a Dodge Travco motorhome in a farmer’s yard, we got lost on the way and stumbled upon a garage full of nice Mopars instead. The family who owned the property invited us to see the rest of their collection. In one of their barns was a 1969 Dodge Superbee that was 1 of 9,346 produced that year with a 383 and an automatic transmission. Work on this car was put on hold while the couple focused their efforts on a his/her pair of 1970 Plymouth Superbirds. Their son also owns a Super Bee—a 1970 440 Six Pack car, 1 of 499 produced with a four-speed manual. CONTACT RYAN! Want Ryan to visit your stash? Drop him a line on the cool stuff you…

Brian Schnuck just wanted to build a car, something he’s done at least a dozen times during his hot rod–infested life. “I’ve constructed everything from muscle cars to hot rods. But then life throws in a bunch of obstacles, and things don’t go the way you planned. This last project—this one almost made me quit being a car guy. Well, almost,” Brian says. Brian’s adventure started one night after some online hot rod hunting. What he found was his next project: a needy, sunburnt 1962 Chrysler 300. All he had to do now was win the auction. Unfortunately, things didn’t go as planned. Though he was outbid, things worked out somehow. “I ended up making a deal with the seller when the original auction winner couldn’t pay up. I was…

HOT ROD usually focuses on rides that have perfect paint and interior, but in recent years, we’ve seen a massive surge in the popularity of patina at shows all across the nation. Viva Las Vegas at The Orleans Hotel and Casino attracted perhaps the most patina we’ve seen in one location outside of a junkyard visit. Seeing how years of use and exposure to the elements has weathered these cars and given them so much character is mesmerizing. Every sun-baked spot, rusty dent or scratch, and patch of worn-off paint has a story to tell and makes these cars interesting to look at. Cars painted by Mother Nature might not appeal to everyone, but someone could look at these vehicles a million times and still notice something new with every…

Power Steering For Your Ford Comet or Falcon Flaming River // 800.648.8022 // FlamingRiver.com Early 1960s Ford products didn’t always come with power steering. If your Comet or Falcon is one of those cars, Flaming River has you covered with its Power Rack and Pinion Cradle Kit. The company has designed this kit for easy installation; it attaches to the factory mounting holes with basic handtools, and the kit can be purchased with a column shift, floor shift, or no steering column at all. The Billet Power Rack and Pinion allows 6 inches of travel while maintaining a full turning radius. There’s no need to worry about ancillary details, as all the hardware, joints, wiring, and parts are included in the kit. Price: No column, $1,890; floor-shift tilt column, $2,020;…