Innehållsförteckning för April 2019 från Hot Rod

Network Content Director @douglas.glad Duh. This revelation split my head after I noticed a gooey spot of oil in the driveway. I was having a causal conversation with my neighbor when I suddenly turned and went to a knee, then dabbed, smelled, and studied the goo in the light. It was gear oil, and worse yet, it was off to the driver side instead of centered in the driveway. It could only mean an axle-seal leak. Walking to the back of the car, I noticed the pinwheel drool marks on the inside sidewall of the driver-side slick. I left the neighbor wondering what was I doing. For seasoned car guys, this is completely normal. You put a leaker on a clean driveway and I can probably tell you which bearing,…

O’ll just say it: In stock guise, the Chevrolet Nova never did it for me. They were nice-looking in a box turtle sort of way, but in my opinion, there were plenty more stylish options on the market to choose from. Maybe it’s because as a kid growing up in Brooklyn in the 1970s, Novas were everywhere. Back then, they weren’t cool or overly muscular. Instead, they were basic transportation that you’d see dented and parked on the street with rusty rockers and holes in the quarter-panels. Sure, every now and then a side-piped and shackled fat-tire Nova SS would roll by, but for the most part, we never gave them a second look. As time goes by, tastes change, as do industry trends and the visionaries who set them.…

Walk into a Dodge, Chevrolet, or Ford dealership, plunk down the cash, and you can drive away with 500, 600, 700, or even 800 hp. Whether you fancy corner carving or straight-line acceleration, today’s hot rods give you amazing performance, and they do so without sacrificing driveability. In most cases, you get reasonable economy and can check the option box for every creature comfort imaginable—right down to heated and air-conditioned seats. But long before any new performance model makes it to the showroom, engineers develop an idea, build prototypes, test theories, and sometimes even hit the track to see if the bird will fly. Even when the engineering proves to be sound, however, no project is ever guaranteed a green light. One such project that’s worth mentioning is the insane…

Old-school muscle. For most of us, that means a big-cammed, big-carbed V8 bolted to a four-speed in a late-1960s or early-1970s body. These days, however, that big V8 has been replaced with an LS-series engine, and that’s just fine. After all, you can’t find cheaper horsepower. But what about the transmission? While most LS swaps involve a 4L60 or similar automatic transmission, those who want to row their own gears are left with only a few options. The T56, while a great transmission, comes with a hefty price tag. Same with the T5, though not quite as much. Meanwhile, the classic Muncie four-speed is left on the shelf, waiting for some old SBC project to show up. Or is it? What you may not know is you can bolt that…

Flex-Fuel Tuner for SRT Hellcat Advanced Fuel Dynamics // 866.902.3835 AdvancedFuelDynamics.com The ProFlex Commander from Advance Fuel Dynamics is as simple as it gets when it comes to plug-in E85 capability, and it’s now available for the SRT Hellcat. AFD’s BlendSense technology constantly monitors ethanol content in a vehicle’s fuel tank and dials in the engine’s performance on the fly, mitigating the need to completely switch fuel types and tunes for different applications. The ProFlex Commander features Weather-Pack connectors, an inline fuel sensor with quick-disconnect fuel lines, and a control module that can display real-time ethanol content in your fuel tank via the ProFlex Connect app Bluetooth connection. AFD claims about a one-hour install time with basic tools and no tuning required to achieve up to a 70hp gain! Price:…

@john.mcgann In the back of this issue, David Freiburger lays out a case against autonomous cars in a cogent and logical set of arguments. It’s a good read and worth your time to look over. Personally, I agree with all his points. I don’t want the invisible hand of technology wrenching the steering wheel from my hands because its algorithm thinks it knows better. David’s arguments resonate well because they address the issue of technology versus personal responsibility—who is making decisions and based on what criteria—and that is a thorny path to traverse. On a personal note, I don’t want a car that drives for me. I was opposed to daytime running lights and rain-sensing windshield wipers when those features were first introduced. Last summer, I drove a few different…

Admirers of this car are likely wondering how it came to be. There was much more to the construction of it than simply welding sections of 1969 Camaro fenders and quarter-panels on the sides of this Nova. Like most of these one-off builds, the design came from a concept formulated by Steve Strope and his team at Pure Vision Design. Joe Rogan contacted Pure Vision to commission a car build. They decided on a Nova, a few particulars like a modern fuel-injected engine and independent rear suspension, then Joe left it to Pure Vision to come up with the rest of the details. Steve was looking for a way to alter the looks of the Gen 3 Nova mainly to accommodate wide tires without adding fender flares. Chevrolet did this…

Seven years ago, a local Jersey guy named Meldon Van Riper Stultz decided he needed more action at his car shows. He wanted less sitting around and more moving around. Inspired by the early days of speed trials on Daytona Beach, Mel organized an oceanside race of traditional hot rod enthusiasts and their vintage motorcycle-loving comrades just north of Asbury Park, New Jersey. It was such a big hit that they needed a bigger beach by the second year. In 2013, The Race of Gentlemen (TROG) moved to its new home on the vast sands of Wildwood, New Jersey. The TROG encampment on the Wildwood shoreline grew with each passing year. For 2018, Mel put together the largest field of any TROG event yet, with 150 hot rods and rails,…

As you’ve seen in recent stories on HOTROD.com, our 1,200hp, twin-turbo, Coyote-powered Drift Rod project is rollin’ along—literally and figuratively. We’ve successfully assembled the truck into a roller, and in this segment, we overview the front-suspension assembly. Factory Five’s 1935 Truck borrows the front-suspension design from its proven 1933 Coupe. The cantilever-style front suspension is a design adorned by performance supercars around the world. “The cantilever design was chosen for both the ’33 and the Truck because of the option to run the car either open wheel or with cycle fenders,” explained Jim Schenck, director of research and development at Factory Five. “Also, due to the narrow front end of the body shape, it made sense for just the general packaging as well.” The front geometry is the same between…

Phillip Thomas Staff Editor @texasthomas Tough Luck in College Station It was a sound you’d never forget: the dull, abrupt thud of a pipe going through a radiator. At a 2013 SCCA Rallycross National Challenge, we had spent the previous winter wrapping up a build at Brianne Corn Racing that entailed a tweaked WRX engine in a flyweight 1996 Impreza (400 hp at 2,300 pounds), backing it to a close-ratio five-speed, and throwing on the long-travel AST coilovers. Driver Brianne was unloading it when a pipe that was laying below the grass line found its way into the core support, puncturing the radiator. It was one of those freak things where no one is to blame; in fact, we were all kind of impressed, but it was still the night…

The historic “movie ranch” immolated in last fall’s firestorm twice hosted USAC stock cars on a 2-mile sports-car track in rural Agoura, California. Contemporaneous publications proclaimed it to be the first figure-eight road course in the West. Ironically and tragically, its most notable feature—a tunnel that enabled the elevated cross traffic seen in HRM photographer Eric Rickman’s overview—became notorious for ending the lives of both the racetrack and the amateur sports-car racer who was ejected after skidding into a concrete upright. His was the second death of that final weekend in December 1957. Most of the film and TV “Westerns” supposedly set in Southwestern badlands were really filmed much closer to Hollywood. Their dusty trails and Main Street storefronts were installed just over the hill, literally. Studio chiefs accurately calculated…

We discovered this Model A parked in the back of a barn, past the cows on one side, with cats snuggled against the old windows for warmth. It was covered in the patina that only comes from decades of sitting. The doors were off and the wheels had no tires, but all of its parts were still there, scattered around the barn. Even the four-cylinder engine looked as though it could spring to life with a little gas and some love.…

Here’s something different. It looks like a 1953 Ford Ranch Wagon, right? But there’s something kind of odd about this classic grocery-getter. The tires look a bit oversized, but they belie their size on first review. The interior is all redone and looks pretty classy; owner Troy Martin reveals that the leather coverings required a hefty donation of eight full cowhides to create. Is that a short-throw six-speed shifter jutting from the custom-built console? Hey, what gives here? What gives here is the amazing handiwork of Martin, who took only 11 months to build this incredible vehicle in his shop in Ventura, California. While he originally built the car for a customer, through a strange set of circumstances, he made a trade for the ready-for-paint Ranch Wagon and completed the…

Street racing on Woodward Avenue has been happening for 50-plus years, but for the past three years, only one day out of the year has it happened legally; Roadkill has gotten away with some crazy shenanigans on the street, but this may just top them all. Roadkill Nights powered by Dodge shuts down this historic stretch of road and sets up a nearly eighth-mile dragstrip in front of M1 Concourse in Pontiac, Michigan. This year brought out the biggest crowd yet with more than 44,000 spectators who showed up to watch 100-plus cars race heads up on the street. In addition, there were Dodge Thrill Rides, a huge car show, Leah Pritchett and Matt Hagan Top Fuel burnouts, flamethrowing hot rods, and so much more! “Only the combination of Dodge,…

The Dream Giveaway started in 2008 as a way to raise money for national charities. Since then, the company has given away more than 50 classic and late-model cars. This year, the newest sweepstakes includes this 1969 Camaro and a 2019 Silverado High Country edition with a Sundowner 19-foot car trailer. The team at Dream Giveaway doesn’t build the cars, they buy them and send them out to get inspected for safety and quality. After they bought the Camaro, it was sent to the dyno, where it made 400 rwhp. They then added a set of Billet Specialties 18x9 and 18x10 wheels and 275/35ZR18 BFG tires. The drivetrain consists of a GM Connect and Cruise LS376/480 and 4L75-E overdrive transmission, and a Currie 9-inch. The interior is cream houndstooth on…

Q: I’m in the process of transplanting an L77 from a 2012 Caprice 9C1 PPV [police pursuit vehicle] along with its 6L80E [six-speed, longitudinally mounted electronic automatic overdrive transmission] into a 1959 Rambler Cross Country station wagon. One of the weak spots in these engines is the valve lifters for the active fuel management (AFM), so I’m going to do away with it. Since this will require a new cam (among other parts), I’m looking at a mild upgrade to get the horsepower up to around 400; anything beyond that will be overkill in a roughly 2,800-pound daily driver.I know that when a lot of guys do the AFM removal, they also delete variable valve timing (VVT), but things I’ve read about VVT suggest that it can give you the…

Roadkill @davidfreiburger I am a dinosaur, contrarian, and a technophobe, so know that going into this: I’m outraged by today’s hysteria of insistence upon a future with electric and autonomous cars. The most compelling argument against an all-electric-car world is self-evident to me: using electricity rather than gasoline simply pushes myriad environmental contamination into areas currently untouched by petroleum—the ultimate NIMBY. And if Southern California grids can’t handle air-conditioned summers without brownouts, what will we do when every household and business is charging a car or three? Likewise, if a modern car can’t reliably connect to my phone via Bluetooth, are we really ready to go all-in on self-drivers? I accept that there will ultimately be tech solutions to the issues of electrical demand and to the digital complications of…