Innehållsförteckning för July 1988 från Hot Rod

Reading Al Kirschenbaum's Milestone Musclecar piece this month on the '66 Fairlane 390 GTs brought back memories of a friend's Fairlane back in high school. We were a part of the class of '72 and last of the high school gearheads. It seemed that after Detroit became more concerned with hydrocarbons than with horsepower, the bottom soon fell out of the teenage hot rod market. Except for our close circle of friends. One of them was Ben Guenther. Right after I bought my SS 396 Chevelle, Ben stepped up with a bright red '66 390 GT/A Fairlane. He worked at the DX station out on the highway, while I worked at a Conoco station in town. Together, along with our mutual friend Jim Littell, we would cruise downtown Boone, Iowa,…

Team Penske's new Chevrolet/llmor-powered PC 17 has undergone extensive testing, thanks to early completion of the prototype chassis. Penske team drivers Rick Mears and Danny Sullivan have both driven the car at various tracks with favorable results, and similar feelings were expressed by Al Unser after his drive. Designed by former Lotus chief designer Nigel Bennett, the new Penske effort is already rumored as a formidable challenger in the Lola- and March-dominated CART Indy Car Series. The car features an all-new pushrod-type suspension similar to that used on most Sports Prototype GTP cars. At 1550 pounds, it is lighter and lower than last year's poor-performing PC 16, and the team is now able to distribute weight around the chassis to balance the car for various tracks. The Chevrolet/llmor powerplant has…

Summer is the best time of year for cars, and now that better weather is here, it's time to hit the streetsBut before you launch into the automotive rites of fair weather, maybe you should take a close look at your ride. Could your cruiser use a few hot licks and slick tricks? Absolutely! And since we know that some of you are more concerned with designing a detailed dream rather than a street stormer, we've come up with a few interesting visual improvements as well as hints on how to make your rod or machine run that little bit better. For you new readers of our purple sage, we've included a wealth of helpful hints covering just about all the pertinent performance subjects. As for you long-time readers, you…

While superchargers come in a number of styles—Roots, axial flow, vane, and centrifugal—the centrifugal is generally considered to be one of the most efficient. By doubling the rpm of a centrifugal supercharger, the boost or volume of air passed is multiplied by the square. Centrifugals have been used on everything from P-51 Mustangs to Miller racing engines and virtually every ultrahigh boost application you can think of. That's why the basic element in every Paxton supercharger kit, including this new IROC-Z offering, is based on Paxton's tried and true, belt-driven centrifugal supercharger Over the years, Paxton pressurizers have factory-boosted the likes of '57 T-Birds and Studebaker Avantis, not to mention a “car-a-copia” of aftermarket applications. So to keep current, Paxton has been researching and developing an easy-to-install blower kit designed…

Once you've overcome the initial shock created by its Georgia Coachworks-applied, custom-mixed pink wrapping, you will discover there's a lot more to Clyde Moyer's Douglasville, Georgia-based '55 F-100 panel truck than pure flash. Enlisting the help of son Jason and friends Carlos Zamot and John Ward, Clyde sliced 41/2 inches off the roof, hinged a ventilated '77 Toyota hatchback in place of the original “cupboard” doors, and had rows of louvers punched in the hood and running boards. A frenched in, one-piece taillight assembly pirated from an AMC, a recessed license plate, and a rolled pan finish off the tail. The prow displays a rolled pan, concealed headlights, and a custom grille. Lastly, Clyde sculpted, some air ducts in all four fenders to kool the brakes, and tunneled a pair…

The '88 Dodge Daytona Shelby Z continues to head the performance contingent of Chrysler Motors' Dodge division. In only a few short years the Shelby Z has achieved a sound reputation among auto enthusiasts, and subtle refinements to the '88 model have enhanced its appeal by addressing quality and convenience items that make the car smoother and more comfortable. In almost every respect the Daytona is worthy of its namesake, offering sleek contemporary styling, plenty of power, and superb handling qualities for a front-wheel-drive car. While it remains surprisingly heavy for its class, the Shelby Z still exhibits the acceleration and handling characteristics of much lighter cars equipped with much larger engines. In short, it is remarkably fast and surprisingly agile. Chrysler's commitment to performance is certainly laudable when you…

Every year, PPG Industries grants an American automaker the privilege of opening up the Cart PPG Indy Car World Series races with a pace car purposely built to efficiently handle the task of leading a herd of screeching open-wheel rockets at over 100 miles per hour on the warm-up laps, and for the inevitable caution periods. The vehicle must meet a list of stringent requirements, such as total reliability, high cruising speed, excellent handling and braking abilities, and racy looks. Pittsburg Paint and Glass (PPG) has been the primary sponsor of the CART Indy Car series for the past eight years and every year exceeds its previous vehicle with a wild PPG-painted effort. For the first time in the series' history, a truck has been chosen to carry the PPG…

Actually, Charlie Tiedt’s Corvette generates a lot less than 1g in the corners these days, but it will definitely spin the old-g-meter for-a loop in a straight fine. Charlie’s ’86 Corvette Pro Street conversion sacrifices some of. its-inherent/cornering agility for the ability to launch-itself-down the quarter-mile in 11.5 seconds at 121 mph-while still maintaining good street manners. Char lie’s friends thought he was a little Crazy, when, after owning the car for only two. weeks, he cut the back end-off and began making preparations to Convert it to Pro Street status: The 2x3-inch boxed frame rails were fitted and a 9-inch Ford. rearend was hung with Koni coil-over, shocks. After adding polished aluminum tubs pd a multipoint chromed roll bar, he had the car sitting pretty on a set of…

What you see here is the result of Australian bureaucracy gone berserk in the state of New South Wales. Since the demise, in 1984, of Castlereagh Dragway near Sydney, the only track still in operation is Oran Park. The few other racing facilities are located in Melbourne, Adelaide, or Brisbane—a mere 1200 to 1500 miles north or south of Sydney. The problem is that Oran Park's 850-foot-long track (shutoff area not included) has been struck by a state-issued noise pollution bill limiting the noise level to 95 decibels (at 100 feet) per car, and 98 decibels per pairing. Supercharged cars are allowed a whopping 100 decibels. Anyone over the limit is sent home…. Bill Oakey, a veteran Alcohol dragster racer, has tried virtually everything to muffle his digger down. He…

Well, thrill-seekers, if speed per dollar is what you're after, welcome to the world of karting. No, not go-karting—karting. In both Europe and America, karting is one of the traditional first steps in a driving career. Just ask Emerson Fittipaldi, Nelson Piquet, Kevin Cogan, and Scott Pruett. It's easy to see why. Karting offers lots of track time, low upfront and maintenance costs, and, most important, lightning-quick, brutally intense competition. In America, karting is governed by the International Kart Federation (IKF) and the World Karting Association. Competition takes three different forms: sprint, road racing, and dirt. In sprints you race on short, tight, twisty paved tracks with an upright seating position. In road racing—the most glamorous and spectacular—you race on major road courses, such as Daytona, Road Atlanta, Riverside, Portland,…

REDO Here are some before and after pictures of my fully streetable Datsun 280Z. After buying it for $100, I did all the work, including chassis and paint, in my backyard. Specs include: a 331-inch Chevy small-block, a Muncie 4-speed, a narrowed 9-inch Ford rear, a 2x3 box frame, a 12-point cage, aluminum interior, and candy paint. Jerry BarthSalt Lake City, Utah CRIPES! Hey hot rodders, I have a problem I hope you can help me with. Two years ago I gave my friend Ronnie Rose my mint '69 Z/28 Camaro. I also supplied him with a '67 Wagoneer and some dollars to create a Creep (that's a cross between a Camaro and a Jeep). The car is basically finished except for this problem: The steering is manual with a…

B&M Automotive Products and Roy Brizio Street Rods have teamed up on a unique street rod project designed to demonstrate the long-term reliability and practicality of supercharged street rod engines using the B&M blower. The car is a '32 Ford highboy built by Brizio. It is equipped with a Ford 351 Windsor engine constructed from a Performance Automotive Wholesale kit. The engine features Ford Motorsport aluminum cylinder heads and a B&M blower. It dynoed at 440 hp with 480 lbs.-ft. of torque, which means that the car had to be equipped with a Ford C6 automatic transmission and a Ford Motorsport 9-inch rearend. B&M's Jim Davis and Roy Brizio will share the driving chores with a variety of media personalities, including several HOT ROD staff members. The projected routes add…

The average-size internal combustion engine develops enough heat to keep a five-room house warm during zero-degree weather. About one-third of this combustion heat is converted into power to drive the vehicle, one-third is carried away into the atmosphere through the exhaust system, and the remaining one-third must be handled by the cooling system. That's quite a task, but Charlie Friend, owner of Young's Radiator Service (1513 Truman, San Fernando, CA 91340, 818/361-6113), a major Los Angeles-area coolant specialist, helped us come up with some cool ideas. Charlie has built radiators for cars, street rods, airplanes, and even power company generators. Your existing coolant system is probably not as efficient as it could be. Starting at the radiator, chances are the fins are clogged with insects, dirt, and miscellaneous road grime.…

Upshifts and downshifts on conventional (nonlockup torque converter) GM TH350 automatic transmissions can be dramatically improved for only the cost of one new spring, a new filter, and a couple of gaskets and O-rings, according to Steve Shaidell at Darrell Young’s Racing Transmissions (7250 Hinds, North Hollywood, CA 91605, 818/503-9055). These mods require some mechanical expertise; you should also have a factory service manual or similar instructional guide that gives detailed disassembly and reassembly procedures for each component. The procedure involves simple modifications to the valve body, valve body spacer (separator) plate, front pump, and intermediate clutch accumulator springs, as detailed in the following photo sequence.…

The Ford Windsor small-block performance renaissance has taken yet another giant step forward with the joint development of an affordable blower motor kit by B&M, Performance Automotive Warehouse, and Dick Landy Industries. When equipped with the newly developed AR/Ford Motorsport aluminum Windsor head, performance of B&M-blown 351W street engines is now on a par with equivalently modified small-block Chevrolet powerplants. Best of all, PAW plans to offer the complete, unassembled 351W long-block kit, B&M blower, and fully assembled aluminum heads for under $5000, which is certainly a bargain considering that on Landy's dyno the package produced 439 streetable horsepower at 5000 rpm and 480 Ibs.-ft. of torque at 4000 rpm with only a mild hydraulic cam. That torque figure is especially impressive because it is about 30 to 40 Ibs.-ft.…

By the mid-’60s, most of Detroit’s intermediates were being factory fitted with all sorts of mega-inch muscle motors. Nearly all of GM’s divisions sold midsize models stuffed with 350-plus cubic-inchers, and Chrysler offered its Dodge and Plymouth B-body two-doors with even larger-displacement engines. Ford, meanwhile, pursued total performance in all types of autosports competition, but its streetiron line suffered from a very limited selection. Even Ford’s industry-leading Mustang ponycar was confined to 289 cubes. Full-size Fords could be ordered with all kinds of big V8 motors, but in contrast to the competition, the Galaxie models were all too heavy. The compact Falcons shared Ford’s limited engine selection with the Mustang line, and even the company’s intermediate Fairlane models were restricted to powerplants no larger than the 289. By late 1965,…

Where would hot rodding be today if it weren't for the easy availability of highquality, high-fidelity reproduction body, trim, and accessory parts? We would probably not be enjoying hot rodding's Golden Age. There would be no easy way to rod or restore obsolete Chrysler, Ford, or GM passenger cars and trucks. We would never know the mystical pleasure of preserving a portion of our automotive past, or enjoy driving our preor post-'48 vehicles to rod-related events such as the Hot Rod Super Nationals, Street Machine Nationals, or NSRA's Street Rod Nationals. We prosper because people build, modify, and restore their cars. As Robert E. Petersen, Chairman of the Board at Petersen Publishing Co., said, “As cars, there will be a HOT ROD Magazine.” Can you imagine what HRM would look…

Former International Sedan series champion Kai Showket used the Daytona to good advantage in winning I MSA's front-wheel-drive sedan championship, and now he is forging ahead with a pair of front-wheel-drive Daytonas built to compete in IMSA's tough GTU series. Chrysler's Team Shelby has already run a modified stock Daytona in the class with encouraging results, but Showket's new cars are purpose-built, tube-frame wonders designed to take maximum advantage of the rules. While IMSA permits silhouette cars based on front-wheel-drive bodies, Showket began his campaign with a tube frame front-wheel-drive car. A rear-wheel-drive version with north/south engine orientation was also built, and the team will evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of both cars at various circuits throughout the season. The car you see here is unique because it is the…

Coupes are for chickens; sedans are for sissies. Closed-cab haulers are for pub crawlers, and if it's got a lid then lose it… for nothing tops goin' topless. Tooling topless is wind in your face, bugs in your teeth, sun in your eyes, and noise-dots of engine/tire/turbo noise. And it's totally bitchin'. Ask the man who owns and drives an open car, such as Prospect, Kentucky's Larry Joel. He happens to be the president of an optical company and was responsible for this eye-opening '69 Camaro convertible. “I originally found the car in Ohio, and left it at a local shop to get its cracked windshield replaced. One and a half years later it came out looking like this.” “Like this” entailed a complete restoration. The entire undercarriage was disassembled…

Harley-Davidson has been in an enviable position lately. The Men K B From Milwaukee have increased their market share against the Japanese; in fact, they're selling every motorcycle they can squeeze out of their assembly plants. And on the styling front they have managed to stay ahead of their Oriental opposition as well. The Japanese are considered to be way ahead in pure technology, but with the new Springer front end on the new Softail, Harley has gotten a jump on the Easterners in both arenas. The Springer, you see, is a shrewd melding of new technology applied to a design from the past. Harley has paid close attention to the styling desires of its hard-core customers, and one design that has appeared on many customized Hogs is the classic…

CARS & TRUCKS '55 BEL AIR. Selling due to illness. $1800. Send $5 for pictures, description, location, and phone number to: Rick, P.O. Box 22583, Memphis, TN 38122. '68 CAMARO. 427 four-bolt, aluminum L-88 heads, roller, Super T-10, 5.38 Dana, metallic brakes, set up for Pro Gas. Best of everything, all new. $20,000 invested; my loss, your gain. Must sell, $8000. Kevin McAfee, 8904 E. 60th St., Tulsa, OK 74145, (918) 250-2653. '55 CHEVY HALF-TON PICKUP TRUCK. 64 Chevy 283 engine, completely rebuilt Turbo 400 trans. Rebuilt 3.90 gear ratio, new paint, four new tires, four new spoke rims, new upholstery, new chrome, $6500. (213) 756-7675 or (213) 7795414, after 6:30 p.m. '51 CHEVY. Stock, very good throughout. $2800. Bob Paugh, 1211 Honeyrun Rd., Chico, CA 95928, (916) 3459379. CONTEMPORARY…

When famed drag racer Tom “the Mongoose” McEwen lost his Coors sponsorship for the 1988 drag racing season, he didn't sob in his suds or tear in his beer. He went out and built a plastic classic—a better shoebox, if you will—to go on the match racing circuit. While the chassis and engine combo remains circa '87 flopper, the envelope is pure nostalgia. Tom, along with Steve Davis, is in the process of “altering” one of Jim Bryant's one-piece, '57 Chevy Bel Air, Thunder Craft fiberglass replicas to take the place of his Coors Corvette body. Armed with backing from the likes of Bill Miller Investments, Sizzler Restaurant, '55-'57 Chevy “repro” leader Danchuk Manufacturing, Goodyear, Pennzoil, and Super Winch, Goose's “Belhair” should be hitting the strip with midfive e.t.'s and…

Olds Indy Pace Car Sports New Technology Oldsmobile's Quad-4-powered Calais Indy Pace Car was seen sporting some interesting technology during shakedown runs at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Most notable was a new Head-Up Display (HUD) that projects vital information such as road speed, pace car flasher operation, and low-fuel warning onto the windshield directly in front of the driver. HUD systems are common in the fighter aircraft industry, but they are just now appearing in the automotive world. Manufacturers are still perfecting the technology so that while the image is projected on the windshield, it will actually appear to be floating just above and in front of the nose of the car, where virtually no eye movement and very little refocusing are necessary to view critical information. The Olds pace…

Unfortunately, far too many hot rods are just that—hot. Not to mention noisy. The prime culprit in both cases is lack of adequate firewall and floor insulation. This may seem obvious, but it's something lots of rod builders overlook. And too many street machines emulate their unupholstered, lightweight, race-car brethren. Let's start with heat. Headers add to the problem. The first thing you need is a good insulating material on your firewall, floor, and trans tunnel. Plain old jute carpet padding is one of the best and is readily available at carpet stores or upholstery supply houses. Don't use rubber padding; use jute, it's much better. Another excellent heat insulator, designed as furnace lining, is Johns-Manville Cerablanket, a “refractory fiber blanket” made of alumina and silica oxide fibers. Second, you…

Equal-length steel-tubing exhaust manifolds, commonly known as “headers,” rank among the top of bolt-on horsepower additions. Unfortunately, for all too many enthusiasts, headers also have a high installation “frustration factor.” But for every problem, there's a solution. To find them, HRM staffers took stock of their own lessons in the “school of hard knocks,” plus sought the advice and counsel of Ed Holman, the veteran customer service and racer promotion manager at Hooker Headers (1024 W. Brooks St., Ontario, CA 91762, 714/983-5871). SELECTION 'You get what you pay for": Premium headers such as Hooker's Super Competition line fit very specific applications; by contrast, budget headers are designed so that one set fits many different cars. That keeps the price down but may result in design compromises such as unequal-length tubing…

Get gutsy. Go green! That's what George Atterbury of New Town Square, Pennsylvania, decided when he commissioned Dick Megugorac (Magoo's Street Rods) to build a “repop” '32 Ford roadster. It has the litany of contemporary rod parts: 'glass body and fenders, repro frame, I-beam front, coil-over rear, Magoo four-links and disc brakes, Magoo three-piece hood, '85 'Vette 350 with a B&M blower and 750 Holley, TH400 automatic, and Champ 500 wheels. There are some nice touches, such as the handmade hood vents, third brake light, Carson-style top and leather interior by Denny Nish, and shortened front frame horns and trimmed fenders. But the one thing that sets this roadster apart—makes it a standout in the red sea—is its color. Magoo, who shot the special-mix urethane, calls it simply Atterbury Green.…

Ford followed the '64 release of its 427 Fairlane Thunder-bolt race cars with the '65 427 Galaxie. For '66, the general feeling was that Ford would roll out 427 SOHO (single-overhead-cam) Galaxies, and when the word got out that some of these cars were slated for street use, orders were actually taken. When preproduction plans for this tantalizing combo were cancelled (mostly due to difficulties with the race sanctioning bodies), however, Ford had some unhappy customers at the door. To compensate, the factory then announced that it would be building lightweight 427 Fairlane GTs for '66. As things worked out, however, even this project didn't develop exactly as FoMoCo originally intended. Some 427 Fairlanes were assembled in '66, but none were GT models, and the only lightweight panel on the…

No one who has followed Pro Stock racing for the last few years would question that it's the most competitive of the professional categories. Other than “the red car"—Bob Glidden's all-conquering Ford Thunderbird—the 16-car fields at NHRA national events are made up of a mixture of the General's finest, with nary a Chrysler-powered machine on the horizon. The news that broke at last fall's SEMA Show of Chrysler's Dodge Division returning to major league Pro Stock racing came as a complete surprise. While some skeptics scoffed at the plan, serious quarter-mile afficionados knew that if anyone could return the Pentastar to its former glory it was the team that Chrysler had selected: Mike Sullivan, David Hutchens, Jim Musgrave, and driver Darrell Alderman of the Wayne County Speed Shop in Fairfield,…

Okay, glue slingers, fire up your Dremel tools and air brushes, because we have just gotten the go-ahead for the third running of the HOT ROD National Model Car Contest. The first two were such successes that major sponsor Revell, Inc. has once again stepped up with a cool grand (hey, that's a thousand bucks!) for the first-place winners in the Adult and Teen categories, not to mention $500 for second, and $250 for third in those categories, plus $750 for first, $400 for second, and $200 for third in the Youth division. In addition, we'll have numerous other prizes from cosponsors such as Sears and AMT/Ertl. The contest will be exactly the same as last year's. It is open to any model car or truck, 1/8-scale or smaller, kitbased…

Ken Smith, 39, and Anthony Cooper, 28, respectively of Silver Springs and Wheaton, Maryland, daringly pulled into the 1987 NSRA Nationals, also known as the Red Rod Sea, at the wheel of a pair of a) nonred, b) non-Ford, c) low-buck, d) fat-fendered hot rods. Fortunately, the two survived to describe the low-fat hot rod diet they created and successfully applied to their '48 Chevy and '39 Buick. Ken has a talent for turning oddball machinery (remember the red, then yellow, '34 DeSoto Airflow Fighboy that shocked the world in 1984?) into creative rods, and his Bow Tie coupe is no exception. Sitting on the stock frame augmented by a '76 Mustang IFS and 10-bolt rear axle, the coupe crawls on Weld alloys with 215 and 235x15 radial donuts motivated…

DESTRUCTION FOOTBALL What kind of madness is this, you ask? It's a cross between demolition derby and soccer (why they call it destruction football beats me). The rules are simple. First, you form a team of six cars—the bigger, heavier, and uglier, the better, just like regular football. Then you (the team captain) decide whether to be the “coneheads” or not. The orange cones mounted on the roof help you distinguish your team of twisted metal from the other guys'. Add a large, paved racetrack infield, a 5-or 6-foot-diameter steel harbor buoy (with the anchor hook cut off so it will roll, of course)—and there you have it: heavy-metal madness. All your team has to do is try to push the ball downfield to your goal. Of course, everyone on…

Every year the NHRA Winston Drag Racing series picks up a little international flavor with the occasional participation of a few foreign teams. The most noticeable foreign effort of late has been that of Australian Graeme Cowin and his Fuel Flopper—who made it to the finals of the 1987 Winternationals. But a Swedish entry also made it (unnoticed) to this year's NHRA Winternationals. Flown from Sweden in the same SAS Cargo DC10 that her '74 Duster was anchored in, Renate Rosen and her three teammates arrived in Los Angeles on January 18, where they met with the team's U.S. coordinator, friend, and reknowned Stock class racer himself, Bob Lambeck. Bob loaned the gang a truck and trailer and they headed to Phoenix for the Super Bowl of drag racing. The…