Innehållsförteckning för March 2023 från Hot Rod

You’ve never seen another flathead like the one in this ’32 roadster. This engine is one of a kind, full of unique engineering ideas from the nimble mind of Dick Raczuk. Dick is one of the fortunate ones who can say, “I never went to work a day in my life.” He always loved what he did for a living. Still sharply focused at age 83, he’s been tinkering with things mechanical since he dropped a Cadillac mill into his Model A as a teenager. He has owned several businesses over the years, starting with a go-kart shop in the 1960s. A few years later he owned Kerker, which in the ’70s and ’80s was the No. 1 motorcycle exhaust company in the world. “We sold 50,000 exhaust systems a…

I know from experience that racing can be an intense, stressful experience that requires concentration and patience. Imagine preparing not only your own car, but also three customers’ cars. Such is the job of Jay Dean of Nostalgia Ranch in Fallbrook, California. Jay grew up in Essex, England, where he completed a traditional automotive apprenticeship in the family’s chain of dealerships. It gave him the best possible grounding for the career that followed. In 1988, at age 19, he moved to California. A hot-rodder in England, Jay was soon immersed in the SoCal scene and drag racing an oval window VW Beetle. He built his first tube chassis at age 23 and ran an AA/Altered Fiat Topolino at the local Carlsbad Raceway. Jay’s enthusiasm for all things automotive led him…

Years ago, if you wanted your hot rod to have a truly high-performance, lightweight, and strong front suspension system with proper tire-to-track geometry, it was a matter of tearing off all the OE stuff from your vehicle and fabricating a race-style system. Now, however, there are guys like Chris Alston, the founder of Chassisworks, who have recognized the need for better handling and developed a wide-ranging menu of suspension kits for upgrading vintage classics. This 1964 Chevy II had already spent a fair amount of time cruising the street. The car is a longtime passion project for owner, Mark Krzystofczyk, a full-time car mechanic who was drawn to the shapely Chevy II but longed for it to have cornering capabilities like the late-model BMWs he repairs on a daily basis.…

For Rich Rossi of West Nyack, New York, having an Olds in the garage brings back copious memories of good times from his well-spent youth. “When I was in high school, I had a ’57 Super 88. I loved that car. As a Vietnam veteran and having grown up in the 50’s and 60’s, Oldsmobiles just seem to bring me back to those enjoyable and raucous days of my teenage years,” states Rich. The hot rod aficionado has had many cars of assorted models since then, but somehow he’s always ended up going back to the Olds brand. So, while looking for a similar ’57 to build into his next dream ride, he stumbled upon an interesting ’56 Olds 88 Holiday Hardtop Coupe for sale online out of Florida. “I…

A couple of fun, old-school categories are nestled in the wide range of categories that make up the eBay Motors Powers HOT ROD Drag Week Presented by Gear Vendors Overdrive event: Gasser and Hot Rod. Both category titles are self-explanatory, with Gasser broken up into A/Gas and B/Gas to represent blown and naturally aspirated. Meanwhile, all Hot Rods are contained under one title. Old-School Rules: Gassers This unique style drag race vehicle is most notable for its straight front-axle arrangement and is primarily built using a vehicle produced from the 1930s to the 1960s. The iconic look is typically a Willys or Tri-5 build, however Drag Week brings out a wide array of cars with an assortment of powerplants that range from mild to robust supercharged Gen II Hemi combinations.…

Love them or hate them, the Ford Pinto is an icon of American automobile manufacturing from the ’70s. Ford’s subcompact Pinto, designed to compete with the likes of the Vega and Gremlin, went on sale in September 1970 as a 1971 model. Production continued to 1980, with more than 3 million units sold. Though a station wagon version was available, most Pintos were either the familiar fastback sedan, with an enclosed rear trunk; or the Runabout, with larger rear glass and an opening hatch. Within a few years, the Pinto became of interest to the NHTSA over concerns of rear-end collision safety, ultimately ending in two noteworthy legal cases and Ford recalling 1.5 million cars for modifications to the fuel-filler neck and the installation of a polyethylene shield around the…

Email us at hotrod@motortrend.com We’re fortunate to work with some excellent photographers—the best in the country, I’d confidently argue. When choosing the team to help cover HOT ROD Drag Week, it was easy to select the line-up I did. Wes Allison is the best photographer I know—and I know many really good ones. Plus, he’s covered Drag Week since its inception. He could probably do it in his sleep. Kevin DiOssi is an experienced track photographer who also possesses the creativity to take a good picture while hanging out the window of a speeding car or recognizing a good spot to stop and catch cars driving down a rural two-lane road. Renz Dimaandal is a staff photographer for MotorTrend who skillfully translates his fine art style of photography to motorsports and…

The 1957 running of Speedweeks at Daytona Beach was a busy time for Editor Wally Parks and Research Editor Ray Brock. Their top priority was for Parks to hustle the Hemi-powered Suddenly Plymouth Savoy across the Florida sand in search of a new speed record, but they were there to also document the other speed contests taking place on and off the sand. In those years before the tri-oval Speedway was built, NASCAR held its stock car races on a 4.1-mile course with a 2-mile straightaway on the beach and another 2-mile straightaway on an adjoining road, “connected by two tight, banked turns that are so dry and ‘loose’ that it seems almost impossible to abuse wheels, hubs, steering components, or other parts of the chassis,” Brock wrote in the…

Cars from all over California and as far away as Arizona, Washington, and Colorado made the trip to Santa Margarita Ranch for the sixth annual RPM Nationals Flathead Drags on September 24, 2022. Located halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, Santa Margarita Ranch is a 14,000-acre property with everything you would expect from a ranch: rolling hills, trees, old barns, cattle, and a vineyard. What’s unexpected is that in the middle of it all is an old, paved runway—the perfect location for an old-school eighth-mile drag race. The rules for the RPM Nationals were simple: Entries had to be model year 1936 or earlier and had to be powered by a flathead four-cylinder or V8 engine. All race cars had to be period-correct and appear to be from the…

There’s no denying that the LSX engine family has been hugely successful and impressive, and aftermarket support for it has been plentiful, boosting the platform’s horsepower-making ability. We’ve seen impressive power output from these engines over the years, but enthusiasts have pushed the OE components—as well as many aftermarket parts—well beyond their design envelopes. The result can be an unreliable engine program, and that’s the last thing you want when you’re spending big bucks for big performance. Steve Morris of Steve Morris Engines (SME) decided to build an LS engine that could not only surpass all aftermarket offerings in the power-delivery department but do so with drag-and-drive reliability. Morris knows exactly what it takes to make an engine survive hundreds of miles of street driving per day while still being…

When you look at a modern Chevy engine, that’s not what you’re really seeing. Instead, it’s a GM “corporate” engine that is used across all the various brands (at least those that are still with us). But back in the day that wasn’t the case. In the golden era of muscle cars, GM divisions (Oldsmobile, Buick, Pontiac, and Chevrolet) had a lot of freedom to develop their own unique drivetrains, helping fuel the horsepower wars of the late ’60s and early ’70s. For example, Olds, Pontiac, and Buick all had 455-inch big-block V8s, but aside from the displacement, they had very little in common. Duplication of effort? Waste of company resources? Yeah, you could argue that. But it also led to innovation. It was 1968 when Oldsmobile unveiled the Rocket…