Innehållsförteckning för October 2016 från Hot Rod

What do you write in your first issue as editor-in-chief of the magazine you grew up reading? What introduction, backstory, or automotive autobiography can sum up a life shaped by the ink on these pages? That’s a question I have pondered for the last several weeks. Perhaps, it is best to simply state the obvious: I have big shoes to fill. The knowledge, passion, and talent that have passed through the editor’s chair of this hallowed magazine are colossal. But that isn’t to say I’m not up for the challenge. I owe HOT ROD so much, and now it’s my time to repay that debt. I didn’t come from a car family, and truthfully, I couldn’t tell you what drew me to my first issue of HRM so many years…

HOT ROD Power Tour® always allows a unique opportunity for me, such as traveling to places I have never been, meeting people I have never met, and following up on car leads in places beyond my normal reach. For seven days on Power Tour®, I traveled with a guy named Chris in his topless, old, hemi-powered truck—a real hot rod. We were having a blast and Chris invited me to come check out his property, which was near the last venue. In Chris’s garage was a 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T SE—a crazy-loaded model. This thing had two fender tags full of options, such as a 383 big-block, air conditioning, cruise control, power windows, six-way adjustable seats, and it originally had Plum Crazy Purple paint (though the car was repainted at…

For casual auto enthusiasts, the term “200-mph street car” might conjure up an image of a modern exotic that costs as much as the average American house. Those familiar with drag racing might imagine a rowdy Pro Mod–style car that competes in HOT ROD’s very own Drag Week™ competition. If you’ve been to a standing-mile event, however, you might have a different opinion on what a 200-mph street car looks like. HOT ROD has been sponsoring the Top Speed Challenge with the East Coast Timing Association (ECTA) since 2005. At that time, the ECTA was running at Maxton, North Carolina, but since 2012 it has been holding events at the Wilmington Air Park in Wilmington, Ohio. The Challenge is open to street-legal vehicles in two categories. Rules for the Real…

How many pounds of boost can a dirtcheap, stock LS bottom end take? Apparently, the number is 31 psi. Chris Bishir pushed his $200 Chevy Avalanche– sourced 5.3L as far as it would go. It lasted him four whole seasons of racing and 100-plus 8.5-second passes. He even ran a record quarter-mile pass for a stock LS bottom end of 8.19 seconds at 168 mph at the True Street competition in Norwalk, Ohio, in 2015. Oh, and all this wizardry was done in a little, old 1982 S-10 Pickup. Chris purchased the truck 11 years ago because it was lightweight and cool, yet not all that popular. He got to work immediately, planning on doing a street/strip build. He threw in a small-block Chevy, then six months later he added…

Sometimes car maintenance is less about bolts and oil, and more about checks and stickers. When you have many cars, keeping track of registration and insurance can be harder than keeping them running. I’ve automated most of my bills so I don’t forget to pay them, but they don’t offer an automated service to put the sticker on your plate and proof of insurance in your glovebox, and that’s how I found myself inside the guard shack at Edwards Air Force Base near Rosamond, California, hoping very much that the young man with the gun would not think the out-of-date registration on the Opel was a sign of a terrorist plot. A friend in a Lamborghini club had invited me to Edwards, which was hosting an Italian car meet. I…

In the shadow of the Capitol Records building in Hollywood, California, we have the Beach Boys from December 1963, posing with LA Roadster member Sam Conrad’s A-V8 roadster. Just back from a surfin’ safari (from left to right), that’s Brian Wilson, Al Jardine, Carl Wilson, Dennis Wilson behind the wheel, and Mike Love enjoying the good vibrations of that six-carb Olds. Where are all of the California girls? As for the highboy, it’s not a little Deuce coupe and not powered by a fine 409, either. It’s a 1929 Ford roadster body sitting on 1932 Ford rails clipped up front, with a chopped windshield, mahogany wood firewall, Deuce grille shell, and 1958 Olds engine packing six-Stromberg 97s, rolling on polished Halibrand magnesium mag wheels. Conrad was one of the original…

There’s quite the backstory to the Corns family’s love affair with airplanes. Gary and Alice’s youngest son, Adam, was obsessed with flying when he was about 13, so his parents got him a ride in a stunt plane for his birthday. Seems pretty sweet, right? But it all went horribly wrong when the plane clipped some power lines and crash-landed right in front of Adam’s terrified family. Incredibly, Adam wasn’t even hurt and the pilot only suffered a black eye—Adam joked that even that was only from his mom punching him. She didn’t, of course, but she probably wanted to. Even after that, the Corns liked airplanes, but decided to keep them on the ground in the form of aviation-inspired cars. Adam Corns is now 27 and works with his…

We all wish we could have our first car back, and many a project has started with the desire to replicate that long-lost part of our past. Truth be told, probably most of our first cars were not worth longing for, but some of us did have stellar first cars. Fewer have kept them for 50 years, but Ken Lowe from Westfield, North Carolina, did. This 1963½ Galaxie 500 “Sportsroof,” Ford’s midyear answer to the aerodynamic woes of NASCAR racing, was a trade-in at the dealership where Ken’s father, Wayne, was working back in 1966. Thinking it would make a perfect first car for his son, he bought it for a little over $1,000. To say Ken was stoked would be an understatement, but to imagine he would keep it…

After four years in a front-engine Nostalgia Eliminator dragster, Krista Baldwin made her debut in Top Alcohol at the 2016 NHRA Winternationals in Pomona. Daughter of Pomona hometown hero Bobby Baldwin and granddaughter of Chris “The Greek” Karamesines, Krista was well aware of her family’s legacy, yet seemed at ease when we spoke to her in the pits during qualifying. “It’s really interesting being here at my home track because my dad passed away in 2001 and he used to drive Top Fuel. So it’s like a dream come true to drive where he drove in a nitro-burning dragster. It’s unbelievable.” Her new ride is the McLeod Racing A/Fuel dragster that competes in Top Alcohol. Krista walked us around the car as she and Crew Chief Jake Sanders gave us…

We are slowly losing another one of the design staples of the automobile as we have known it for more than 100 years: the sedan. With FCA killing its Dart/200 PF-platform (suggesting it would consider picking up somebody else’s platform to badge-engineer a new midsize car), Buick just killing off its midsize Regal with no replacement announced, and Ford’s new Taurus only available in China, it’s apparent a new sedan in a company’s lineup is definitely not a given anymore. SUVs, crossovers, and plush pickups have overtaken sedans in the hearts and minds of the consumer—and manufacturer. Manufacturers are just building the type of transportation consumers want, and it would seem they don’t want a sedan. The big question is what will happen to Chevy’s SS and FCA’s 300 and…

Q: I had an engine shop rebuild my 327 smallblock Chevy. Everything was brand-new, including the rods, pistons, crank, cam, and heads. After fire-up and with 100 miles on it, it washed a ring and completely wore a lobe off the cam. The shop rebuilt it again, and this time they fired it up and ran it before installing it back in the car. Again, at 100 miles, the rocker arms loosened and a lobe had worn off the cam and worn the lifter in half. The engine shop checked everything: The spring pressure was fine, the oil flow through the block is good, the hardness of the cam and lifter were OK, and there were no bent pushrods or anything else that would point to the problem. No one…

We first saw David Meyer’s gorgeous 1966 Belvedere in May 2015 when we stopped by famed custom builder Rad Rides by Troy in Manteno, Illinois. The Mopar was painted, the engine was in place, and final assembly was well underway. Still, plenty of the final bits were left off, allowing us to really appreciate what a well-engineered and finely crafted machine it was. The 528ci Gen II Hemi appeared to be naturally aspirated, although sizable intake plumbing running out of the rocker panels and into the fenderwells hinted otherwise. A look underneath the car revealed a pair of 69mm inducer Turbonetics turbochargers that would push the already potent big-block well into four-digit horsepower. Then we learned that David planned to compete with this beauty in Drag Week™, and we were…

The GT40 was a loser long before it was a winner. As originally raced, it was a beautiful machine that was underdeveloped compared to its main rival, Ferrari. By 1965 the whole racing program was flipped to Carroll Shelby, with general acknowledgement that too many hands and too much misplaced energy was spent on the GT40 program, and it was time to turn it over to the hot rodders to fix the car and save face from the onslaught of Italian race-car supremacy. Still, it took some time. After accessing the cars, Shelby and his entire crew at the Venice, California, shop started making changes. Ducting was improved, chassis and body weight were reduced, and superfluous features like the air ducting for the seats were pitched in the name of…

It’s been a long time since we were on a school field trip, but it all came rushing back as we watched school buses pull up outside the NHRA Museum in Pomona, California, and kids of all ages came pouring out the doors. The students came from local junior high and high schools, as well as vocational colleges like the Universal Technical Institute (UTI), and they were participating in a free program called Youth and Education Services (Y.E.S.) courtesy of the NHRA and the U.S. Army. The Y.E.S. program allows science, math, and technology teachers to sign up to bring their classes to the racetrack for a day. Ticket costs, museum entrance, and presentation are free, schools pay only for transportation and their lunches. “We have been running the program…

Many hot rodders prefer to set the engine’s ignition advance using the total-timing method: initial timing plus centrifugal timing, as checked on the harmonic balancer with a timing light at 3,000 rpm or so. That’s relatively easy to do if you have an aftermarket, fully degreed balancer, but not so easy with a stock balancer with just a zero line for top dead center (TDC). However, a little patient measuring and some simple math will let you accurately place a total-timing mark on a stock balancer: Multiply the diameter of the balancer by π (Pi, or 3.1416) to find its circumference. Divide the circumference value by 360 (the number of degrees in a circle), then multiply the product by the total timing number in degrees. The result is the location…

The Old Guy HOT ROD’s new editor is the youngest guy to ever hold that chair, so I’ll accept the role of the dinosaur in his first issue. I didn’t really feel that way until today when I packed up my office and walked out of our El Segundo, California, building for the last time. Nope, I’m not fired (cue disappointment from select members of the audience), but the building may be wreckin’-balled by the time I’m back in town. In six months or so, The Enthusiast Network will rehome into all-new digs built on the same patch. But, for now, evacuation. Boxing up my hovel of a man-cave/library/storage room/kitchen/office is what walked me back in time. I’ve been through it before, first in the mid-1990s when we moved…