Innehållsförteckning för September 2021 från Hot Rod

@john.mcgann This is a tough one to write. Remember in last month’s column when I described damage sustained to the Number 8 cylinder in the small-block I had just dropped into my ’67 C10? I had just changed the accelerator pump nozzle, then all hell broke loose after I started the engine and revved it a few times to see if the nozzle change worked. There was a brief clanging sound that stopped as suddenly as it started, but the engine developed a miss as a result. Peeking in that cylinder with an inspection camera revealed gouges on the piston and in the cylinder head, so obviously something fell into the engine. What could it be? I didn’t drop anything into the carburetor when changing the pump nozzle, right? Wrong!…

“The art of building a car knows no color,” said actor/comedian Kevin Hart in an exclusive interview with HOT ROD in anticipation of the new show, Kevin Hart’s Muscle Car Crew. His words are true and that’s a fact I’ve witnessed over my nearly two decades in the industry. Cars bring people of all walks of life together. The shared passion among enthusiasts breaks down perceived differences in age, demographics, and social status. No matter what you look like or where you came from, you can always recognize a cool car and share a conversation with a stranger over it. As a colleague and friend for many years loves to say, “If the world were run by car guys (and gals), it would be a much better place.” Kevin Hart…

COMEDIAN/ACTOR 1965 Mustang Coyote 5.0L/10R80 Upgrades: None needed! It’s good to go. Trivia: The Mustang is one of more than 20 classic and exotic cars Kevin owns. During production of the show, he won a 1959 Corvette at Barrett-Jackson with a bid of $825,000. Earlier this year, he bought an all carbon-fiber 1970 Charger built by SpeedKore with Dodge’s 1,000 HP Hellephant crate engine.…

Why do great cars get parked outside for decades? The answer is the same for John Graham as it is for anyone. “I was gonna fix it up, like everybody else does, put bigger brakes on it,” he says. “So many things got in the way. It never happened.” Graham purchased the 1966 Chevelle SS396 in 1966 after walking into LaPointe Chevrolet in downtown Charlotte, North Carolina, with the intention of buying a new Super Sport. He had priced GTOs, which “were way too high.” He even test drove a new Oldsmobile 4-4-2, which was a 1965 model and “did not have the sail panels on the back,” a feature he liked on the Chevelle. After deciding on the Chevelle, Graham ordered a four-speed transmission over the standard three-speed, bucket…

❱ When he’s not busy co-hosting the video series Engine Masters, Steve Brulé is in charge of the day-to-day operations at Westech Performance Group in Mira Loma, California. In that capacity, Steve sees a huge variety of engines. When one catches his eye, it’s something we want to check out as well. Such is the case with this 331-inch small-block Ford. Sources AFR; 661.257.8124; airflowresearch.com ARP; 800.826.3045; arp-bolts.com Edelbrock; 888.799.1135; edelbrock.com Holley; 866.464.6553; holley.com MSD; 888.258.3835; holley.com Superflow; 262.252.4301; superflow.com Westech Performance Group; 951.685.4767; westechperformance.com www.quickperformance.com HOTROD.COM/EVENTS www.RockAuto.com www.hothemiheads.com…

WRITER/PRODUCER 1970 Chevelle SS 502/4L80E • Ron Davis Radiator • Wilwood Brakes • Schott Wheels • Carpet and upholstery by Gabe’s Custom Interiors Upgrades: It didn’t need much since it was the most modified car from the beginning. For the show, it was dyno tuned at New Era Performance with two settings: a valet tune and the OMG tune. Trivia: Harry is a US Navy veteran. His car was at a couple different shops before taking it to Bent Custom & Performance in Chatsworth, California, where it was completely rebuilt. Harry used this experience to help develop the concept for the show.…

Remember the good old days when cars came straight from the factory with actual style? You know, back when the highways of America were lined with sweeping rooflines and oh so much chrome? Not like today where almost every automobile looks like a glorified bar of soap. There really was something special about car design in the 1950s and ’60s that we just don’t see today. Take, for instance, a 1961 Chevy Impala—a bubbletop as it’s affectionately known. From a side view, it is perfect: a thin, sweeping A-pillar followed by no B-pillar whatsoever, then an equally lean C-pillar that blends in with that iconic rounded rear glass. Styling features like these are what inspired John Huval to build a 1961 Chevy Impala for himself. “I’d always loved the classy…

❱ It was 1993, the Petersen Publishing offices were moving from our old headquarters at 8490 Sunset Boulevard to a big new building on Wilshire Boulevard, and, understandably, organized chaos ensued. I was executive editor at HOT ROD, and everyone in the building had a job to perform in preparation for the big move. I took a break and ventured up one floor to the photo lab and one of my favorite hiding places: the Petersen library. Jane Barrett, the librarian, was completely stressed. There was no plan for the library at Wilshire. Worse, she and much of her meticulously nurtured material were no longer needed. In a large box marked “Trash” was a stack of what looked like baseball cards. But instead of a likeness of Braves third baseman…

❱ One of the first upgrades any hot rodder does is to the car or truck’s gauges. Why? Well, to be blunt, it’s because in most cases the classic factory gauges are woefully lacking when it comes to providing useful information. Typically, factory gauges will give you a speedometer and a fuel gauge. Automatics might incorporate a gear indicator, and manual trans cars might get a tach. Engine “health” gauges? The higher-optioned cars might have some, but the lower ones will be lucky if they have a water temp gauge. The rest will be idiot lights. Why are they called that? Because they only tell you there’s a problem after it happens, as in, “Hey idiot, take your car to the dealer or call a tow truck.” For your high-performance…

❱ Technology has changed a lot since the small-block Chevy was first introduced in the 1955 model year, and we enthusiasts have been able to reap the benefits of innovations applied to this engine family over the last 60 years. One of those innovations is an accessory system driven by a single serpentine belt. The 1984 Corvette had a serpentine accessory drive from the factory, and GM slowly rolled that piece of tech out to its entire model line-up over the remainder of that decade. A serpentine belt driven accessory drive system offers a cleaner appearance, a more compact setup, and because the belt offers greater surface area compared to the older V-belt system, there’s less chance of slippage and tossing a belt at high rpm. About the only disadvantage…

As Drew Hardin recalled, “Back in 1964, the term Funny Car wasn’t capitalized and was usually surrounded by quotation marks, because the cars those words described had altered wheelbases that made them look ‘funny.’ Steve Bovan from Blair’s Speed Shop in Pasadena, California, built one of the most memorable—and successful—early funny cars, with plans to match race it around the country.” Bovan and fellow Blair’s employee Mike Hoag built the car using a 1965 Chevy II and one of, if not the, first 396 big-block Chevy engines on the West Coast. Both the car and engine were supplied by Indy racer Sam Hanks, a friend of Steve and Don Blair. Car Craft’s Bud Lang documented the Deuce’s buildup in a story called “The Circuit Rider” (Jan. ’66). “The first thing…

■ The show chronicles the journey of the Plastic Cup Boyz as they immersed themselves into classic car culture. As Harry explained to us, “When we first went to Cars and Coffee, we experienced all the different cars and cultures that were there—Lowriders, sports cars, pre-war—and each group had people who were experts in their range of cars. People would come up to Kev and ask questions like, ‘what transmission are you running? Is that a 4L80?’ He had no idea what they were saying. He couldn’t speak the jargon or the lingo. We thought it would be funny to have a show about guys who aren’t afraid to admit that we don’t know much about cars. We don’t know, but we’re willing to learn. We have this passion; we…

On April 1, 1970, American Motors Corporation introduced the AMC Gremlin, arguably the first American subcompact car on the market. While it was homely to look at and derpy to love, it sold nearly 30,000 copies in its first year and stayed the death of AMC for nearly two decades. At the same time, AMC launched several vehicles that were aimed at the booming muscle car trade. With names like Javelin and Matador, AMC cars of the 1970s had large V8s with plenty of fins and flippers to attract America’s youth. Here are the greats in no particular order. AMC Gremlin 1970-1978 In the ’60s, American Motors Corporation was widely known for the Rambler and other wonky economy cars marketed to people who weren’t interested in performance. That changed in…

❱ By now, we’ve done nearly a dozen of these Week To Wicked builds, and while we’ve fine-tuned the process, the task of putting together a car in just a week is still a daunting challenge. Believe it or not, in all of those previous builds, the project has never been a first-gen Camaro. Obviously, we rectified that situation in this Week To Wicked build, presented by POL, by taking on the build of a 1969 Camaro in just a week. Also, for the first time our LS swap was going to include a ProCharger supercharger system. The key word here is “build.” Since we don’t do paint, body, and crazy stuff during the week, we’ll let Hollywood try to fool you with that sort of project nonsense. We start…

❱ Pure Vision Design, in Simi Valley, California, is approximately halfway through the build of a 1972 Plymouth Scamp, and we’ve been following its progress. The complete drivetrain is installed and the crew at Pure Vision is now in the process of reassembling the car. Sources Dynamat; 513.860.5094; dynamat.com Gear Vendors; 800.999.9555; gearvendors.com Pure Vision Design; 805.522.2232; purevisiondesign.com TTi Performance Exhaust and Headers; 951.371.4878; ttiexhaust.com WWW.DAKOTADIGITAL.COM/HR sales@scottshotrods.com ScottsHotrods.com…

@davidfreiburger ❱ A couple months ago I took one of journalism’s greatest risks: I wrote a column listing a number of people I’d met who had since passed away, and of course, one of them had not. Charlie Henry remains alive and well, though Larry Henry, who was Charlie’s nearly 20-year coworker at Mopar Performance, has passed away. The worst thing you can do is kill someone off erroneously. Former HOT ROD editor Jeff Smith, who hired me in 1991, often said, “Doctors bury their mistakes. We publish ours.” Another former boss, Angus MacKenzie, was fond of pointing out that if you don’t have a few failures, then you’re not trying hard enough. I’m pretty sure Angus wasn’t championing hideous breaches of accuracy, but I take his statement as a…