Innehållsförteckning för June 2019 från Hot Rod

Network Content Director @douglas.glad What’s your favorite car?” When I am confronted by the local-news paparazzi on Power Tour® or any other major event, that is the most asked question. My answer? “Camaro.” The real answer is any Group B rally car from the mid-1980s. Here’s why. Before Formula D, Ken Block, Roadkill, or four-wheel-drive yellow/blue WRXs, there was the World Rally Championship (WRC). Started in 1973, the WRC brought together rallies from all over the world under one sanctioning body. As is the case with all popular forms of racing, WRC quickly evolved from grassroots fun in the snow and mud to an international battleground for manufacturers to prove their equipment’s mettle. By the 1980s, battleships like the Audi Quattro showed the WRC that four-wheel drive and unlimited boost…

For most of us, planning a project-car build is more fun than actually building the car. In the world of the theoretical, when you sketch the car out on a piece of paper, the sky is the limit: You have an unlimited budget, all the parts fit together, and the engine starts on the first turn of the key. These thought exercises are an invaluable part of a custom build process. It’s when your creativity is unhindered that the best plans take shape. The persistent and perhaps more stubborn of us will then figure out how to make that build become a reality within the constraints of budget, time, and working conditions. It also inspires the crafty among us to pick up a body hammer, welder, and paint gun, with…

Over the years, the Chevrolet Corvette somehow became affiliated with a phenomenon known as a midlife crisis, but back when it was introduced in 1953, these sporty coupes appealed to a much younger demographic. The Corvette’s performance capabilities increased rapidly in its early years, and the endorsement of the second generation of this machine by some of our nation’s famous astronauts helped rocket the vehicle’s popularity to stratospheric levels. By the time the third generation rolled off the factory floor—with its sharp, angular styling resembling a mako shark—Chevrolet’s halo performance offering had arguably become one of the most collected cars in automotive history. Enter Garrett Randall, who sports flannels and flat-bill hats, rather than jean shorts and white tennis shoes. At age 29, Garrett brings a wrinkle-free complexion to the…

Newer engines like as the Coyote, LS, and G3 Hemi have an ignition coil for each cylinder. This modern approach is called coil near plug (CNP), and it replaces the distributor with eight small coils and eight short plug wires. Eliminating the distributor saves space in tight engine bays and reduces mechanical complexity. The eight individual coils have a lower duty cycle than a single coil because they only fire once per cycle, and the short plug wires are less likely to create interference with the radio or other plug wires. Even though newer engines have been using CNP technology for almost 20 years, it can be a challenge to find the parts to convert on older engine to this configuration. To help simplify the process, Holley recently introduced a…

The 1982–1993 GM 700-R4 (also known as a 4L60, without an “E” suffix), remains a popular four-speed automatic overdrive. The compact transmission is relatively easy to retrofit, not just into earlier Chevrolet applications, but also across other GM divisions’ engines and even non-GM engine families via widely available adapter plates. No computer is needed to make it work. We asked Rollings Automotive to give us the skinny on 700-R4 TV adjustments. The methodology he uses is also applicable to a 200-4R, which uses similar TV valves and cables. Basically, there’s an optimum ratio between the amount of throttle-valve-linkage opening on the carb or throttle-body versus the amount of throttle-cable movement. A properly setup installation should first choose a mounting bracket that fits your carb or intake while positioning the cable…

Brackets for GM’s perennially popular 700-R4 and 200-4R are widely available to fit many different carburetors, intake manifolds, and price points. Here are just a few of the literally hundreds available. Pricing is as of February 2019 and subject to change. 01] HOLLEY PN 20-45 Fits: Small-block Chevy standard intake manifold (angled bolts) Summit Price: $15.24 Amazon Price: $20.38 Although listed as fitting a TH350 kickdown cable, the retainer also accepts 700-R4 and 200-4R TV cables. It’s a handy solution if you want to mount the TV cable on a conventional (non-Vortec) small-block Chevy intake. 02] EDELBROCK PN 8036 Fits: Small-Block Chevy standard intake manifold (angled bolts) Summit Price: $28.75 Amazon Price: $28.75 Another Edelbrock intake-manifold-mounted universal bracket, this one fits standard small-block Chevy intakes with 3⁄8-inch bolts. It can…

Executive Editor @john.mcgann Like many things in life, what starts as a relatively simple job blossoms into a bigger project than anticipated. This is especially true when working on cars. For example, HOT ROD Garage co-host Lucky Costa and I installed a Ridetech 4-/6-inch suspension lowering kit on my 1993 GMC C1500 about a week ago. On the surface, it’s a simple weekend job—drop spindles, lowering springs, C-notch, rear axle flip kit, and new shock absorbers—but it’s critical to keep in mind that cars are a network of complex systems that need to work in harmony with each other. Knowing this, you can be ready for unexpected things that may arise as a consequence of your “simple” weekend install. Lowering the GMC that much puts the tires closer to the…

The sights, sounds, and smells of drifting are unique in the world of motorsports. The brash cars, billowing tire smoke, and shrieking engines lend themselves perfectly to the multimedia of today’s young enthusiasts who have grown up on video games and social media. Add to that a relatively low cost of entry, and it’s no wonder that drifting has blown up across America. Many local tracks now offer a night for drifting for as low as $25, and several sanctioning groups like Lone Star Drift, FD Pro Am Series, and The Drift League have sprouted up for hopefuls looking for a chance to break into the pro series, Formula DRIFT. Though the sport may be foreign to most HOT ROD readers, drifting is as much about ingenuity and engineering, high…

The El Mirage dry lake is synonymous with the earliest days of hot rodding, a place where many young individuals obsessed with speed came to see how fast their vehicles were. George Callaway, a retired aeronautical engineer who worked for Lockheed and NASA, has lived there for decades on property adjacent to the lakebed; a pillar in the racing community, he has come to be known as the “Mayor of El Mirage.” Over the years, he has amassed a collection of forgotten projects, old land-speed cars, and even a jet engine, all sitting a stone’s throw away from one of the most famous racing surfaces on the planet. “How about a steamroller? You guys wanna take that home?”— George Callaway “Different is good—hey, that’s my reputation all these years. They’ve…

Ford’s first-gen four-speed automatic overdrive features an easy-to-adjust TV cable, at least when used with the 1986–1993 Mustang 5.0L-H.O. SFI engines. In stock form, it rarely requires adjustment, and when it does, Ford offers a handy gauging tool (OTC PN 307-152 or Ford PN T86L-70332-A) to accomplish this. But the factory setting produces early, soft, mild shifts—not ideal with steeper gears or a big cam. Advanced Engineering West’s Mark Sanchez uses the following procedure on hopped-up cars. About the most sophisticated tool needed is a feeler gauge.…

Q: I have a 1978 Ford Granada two-door with a 351-Windsor (351W) that I want to change over to a factory-type serpentine beltdrive. I have all kinds of suggestions, from pricey aftermarket to Ford Explorer systems. Do you have a recommendation for a low-buck, user-friendly system that I can buy and install, and still get my replacement stuff at the parts store when needed? A: There are no “stock” 351W serpentine beltdrives for cars. Factory 351W serpentine FEAD (front engine accessory drive) systems exist for pickup trucks, vans, Explorers, and the like, but they require more space and may not clear a car’s lower hood line. Generally, Ford expert Mark Sanchez at Advanced Engineering West advocates adapting a FEAD from a 1985–1993 Mustang 5.0L V8 as the preferred, relatively economical…

Phillip Thomas Staff Editor @texasthomas Every Fiber of My Being If there was one event that changed my perspective on life, it was the 2012 Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. The 90th running at America’s Mountain was a slice of hard-knock reality. I was asked to handle data-logging the Time Attack class Subaru STi of Brianne Corn Racing while doing any mechanical work needed. The start of the week was picturesque: The mountain is always a gorgeous space for a motor race, and PPIHC’s notoriously early mornings weren’t butting up against increasingly shorter nights (that came in later years). But the moment that cemented my love affair for the hell week came after the turbulent finish of 2012’s race. That’s when a Mitsubishi found the road’s edge before Devil’s Playground,…

Years ago, I came across a gentleman who could be considered a mad scientist. He took big-block Mopars and made them into two-cylinder trike engines, put Mopar long-ram intakes into a 1969 Chrysler Newport, a first-gen Hemi into a Dart, and so on—a variety of weird, cool projects. I was finally able to arrange a visit to his home, where a majority of his projects sat. On the way to his storage barn, there were a few Mopar A-bodies, including an original 1972 Plymouth 340 Duster. Inside, I was greeted by a 1970 Plymouth Satellite (with Road Runner taillights), and things got crazier from there: grilles and taillights in the ceiling, walls of engines, and cars from just about wall to wall. And when he ran out of floor space,…

There are two kinds of performance enthusiasts: those who resist change and those who embrace it. Which one are you? When Chevrolet first introduced electronic fuel injection to the original small-block, the carburetor guys threw their hands up in disgust, thinking it was the death of performance. Not only was this untrue, but it can be argued that fuel injection ushered in the modern muscle-car era. The same thing happened when GM introduced the LS engine family to replace the legendary small-block, and now the LS market is the biggest thing going in the performance industry. Now, the new LT engine platform, introduced in 2014, represents a further step up the small-block performance ladder. Thanks to refinements like variable-valve timing (VVT) and direct injection, the LT engine family not only…

Before the advent of fully computer-controlled electronic overdrive automatic transmissions, the first-generation of factory overdrive automatics—including GM’s 700-R4 and 200-4R, Chrysler’s A518, and Ford’s AOD—relied on a throttle valve (TV) in the transmission valvebody to regulate hydraulic pressure. The valve was actuated by a mechanical TV cable or linkage connected to the carburetor or throttle-body, and even on stockers, sometimes required adjustment. That represented a huge departure from a simple kickdown cable or (in the case of GM’s TH400) an electric solenoid switch that only regulated full-throttle “passing-gear” downshifts on most GM and Ford muscle-car–era three-speed automatic transmissions. If you didn’t mind manually downshifting that old transmission, a kickdown cable wasn’t even needed. You could get away with this because the old classics used a vacuum modulator to regulate automatic…

Back in the day, there was a “classic muscle-car–era” three-speed automatic that used TV linkage to control both line pressure and shift quality over 25-percent throttle input: namely, Chrysler’s TorqueFlite, a trans ahead of its time. The term “throttle valve” wasn’t then in common use (if it even existed), so Chrysler called it a “kickdown linkage,” which confused everyone and probably caused a bunch of trans failures. Everyone else’s old-school auto trans had a kickdown, but they also had a vacuum modulator, so leaving off a simple passing-gear-only kickdown on those other guys’ units wasn’t a world-ender. Not so with the vacuum modulator–less Chrysler; yet discouraging its retention was a complex mechanical setup using rods, levers, bellcarnks, and lots of monkey motion to actuate the throttle valve inside the trans.…

1964–1970 Mustang EFI Conversion Holley // 866.464.6553 // Holley.com Holley now offers 1964–1970 Mustang EFI fuel-pump modules capable of supporting up to 550 hp. These drop-in modules eliminate the need for a new fuel tank or any fabrication or modifications; the stock fuel hard line can be retained if desired. Because the fuel pressure is preset at 58 psi and regulated internally, there’s no need for an external pressure regulator. The module includes a fuel-level sending unit pre-calibrated to work with the factory fuel gauge already in your car. A direct replacement factory pick-up and sending units, these modules come with a 255-lb/hr in-tank fuel pump and Holley’s revolutionary HydraMat fuel reservoir. The HydraMat reduces fuel-starvation issues during cornering, acceleration, stopping, and when the tank is low. Each kit comes…

Roadkill @davidfreiburger I’m writing this on the highway from the passenger seat of a Suzuki Samurai into which I have butchered a Mopar 440 powerplant. Nothing about it is a good idea, but it’s also not as bad as you’d think; how could I have known unless I tried? I’m now one of probably two people in the world—my pal, Steve Dulcich, being the other—who knows how to build a better big-block Sammy the next time. The “Super Sammy” is far from the stupidest thing I’ve done. A couple months ago, Mike Finnegan, Leah Pritchett, and I had a great goof at Colorado Auto & Parts where we cut two 4x4s in half and welded them to each other to create a contraption with two engines, two drivers, and two…