Innholdsfortegnelse for July 2010 i Hot Rod

TOOLS OF THE TRADE It’s not true to say you never know you need a special tool until you need it to accomplish something. Quite the contrary. I was just flipping through a few catalogs, and they were packed with tools and equipment that I need to have. The same thing happens when I walk through Harbor Freight. Years ago, I had a Harbor Freight Visa card, and the company would send me a $20 gift card for every $1,000 or so I’d rack up in credit. I’d walk into our local HF store armed with a pocket-load of those cards and easily find stuff that I had never thought about but could no longer live without. Worse yet is Russ the Tool Guy, who shows up at the Long…

Chevrolet has unveiled yet another limited-edition Corvette, this one called the Z06 Carbon. Slotted into the lineup between the Z06 and the ZR1 models, the Carbon is based on the LS7-powered Z06 but with the giant ceramic brakes of the ZR1, competition suspension tuning, and carbon-fiber body components. Michelin PS2 tires run on black 19-inch (front) and 20-inch wheels, while Magnetic Selective Ride Control is offered for the first time in a Z06. Corvette chief engineer Jorge Juechter says the Carbon should be 3 seconds a lap quicker than the standard Z06 on a tight, technical track like Laguna Seca. Special Carbon features include an ebony leather and suede interior with stitching color-keyed to the exterior paint, while production will be limited to approximately 500 units. But should you desire…

In the Dec. ’04 issue of HOT ROD, we ran a feature on Dan Carter’s ’32 Vicky show car. The title of the story was “The Conundrum,” and the subtitle asked, “Street rods imply performance, or at least they used to. Today, they are megadollar show cars. Is there still a place for them in HOT ROD? Or do we need an attitude adjustment to appreciate them for what they are?” As predicted, and as has happened every time we ask a similar question, the opinions were all over the map. Many readers want to see the highest of high-end cars, though many hate that stuff and want to see real-world, homebuilt rides they can relate to. A large group of readers wants it all. So that’s our job—to not…

When we first walked up to this thing, the thought was, Cool, an injected four-banger! What is it? The attention span on that was about 3 seconds as we became overwhelmed by discovery after discovery of the details that evade a first glance on this knockout ’27 T coupe. It was a week later when we picked up our jaws and finally got around to asking the question to owner Rob Johnson from Santa Ana, California. But that’s not important right now. What’s important is the source of all those critical knickknacks, which in most cases was Rob’s dad. Butch Johnson was a hot rodder from way back, including all through his time as a WWII soldier serving in the Philippines. By the time Rob was born in the early…

Your mom was right—she knew that when you washed the kitchen floor, if you opened the front and back doors, the floor dried faster. Such is the case with today’s high-tech paints. Especially in the case of waterborne paints that are now required in several parts of the country, it’s all a matter of airflow and application. If the paint (or your mom’s floor) is really dry, the final result is superior quality, and the greater the airflow the better it dries. If you understand that concept, then you’re ready to learn more about today’s paint offerings. And while waterborne paint may be getting all the buzz, there are still numerous solventbased paints that can be used even in highly restrictive locations like the East and West Coasts. THE FACTS…

Besides your skill level, there are a few things that will give you a huge advantage for high-quality workman ship—specifically, the consumables for the project. Cutoff discs, grinding wheels, and MIG wire are not created equally. To properly butt-weld sheetmetal, you need a thin gap between the pieces. Lawson 3x 1/32-inch cutoff wheels are as close to being 1/32 inch thick as anything we’ve found, while cheaper wheels are often more than twice that. We can’t overemphasize the importance of a thin gap for butt welding. Also, though we’ve never taken specific measurements, we’ve found the Lawson discs to last much longer than the cheapos we’ve used in the past. Grinding discs are another area where you can’t cheap out. A fresh disc cuts amazingly fast and doesn’t build too…

There are still a bunch of hardcore real Pontiac enthusiasts out there keeping the old Indian alive, and they remember the glory days when a well-built Pontiac could run up front with anything. The only things lacking to do the same today were modern 21st century cylinder heads. That’s where the guys at Roland Racing came in: They took a clean sheet of paper and designed a canted-valve cylinder head for the traditional Pontiac V-8 that still uses many off-the-shelf parts from other engine makes to keep costs under control. The end result is a state-of the-art head with intake flow numbers akin to such mainstream big-block Chevy heads as Brodix’s BB-1 series. With modern, high-flowing Pontiac heads finally available, big-inch Pontiac motors are no longer just head-limited torque monsters—they…

1971 FLOPPER MADNESS This will set the mood for the huge Nostalgia Funny Car pictorial in this issue. That story was photographed at the ’10 March Meet in Bakersfield, California, and this shot by HOT ROD Photo Editor Mike Brenner depicts the final round of Funny Car Eliminator at the same event in 1971, with Jim Dunn overcoming the L. A. Hooker team of David and Steve Condit and Gene Beaver. Dunn’s was one of the cars in the 6s, running 6.99. Those were the days when Funny Cars ruled all; HOT ROD had a special Funny Car issue (Funny Car All Stars, an illicit use of Car Craft’s term) in Apr. ’71. Car Craft itself was no doubt mandated to follow the leader, releasing its mammoth Funny Car pictorial…

WIN A ’10 EVENT CHEVROLET PACE CAR CAMARO SS AS PART OF THE HOT ROD POWER TOUR® SWEEPSTAKES. See page 141 for complete rules and information or visit HotRod.com/PowerTour/2010/Camaro_Sweeps and enter online It’s Power Tour® time again, so HOT ROD stopped by the General Motors Tech Center in Warren, Michigan, to see what the folks at title sponsor GM Performance Division are taking along this year. They weren’t prepared to show us everything, but they did line up a few of the vehicles that will make the entire Long HaulTM. When we asked for a piece of pavement to set up a quick photo shoot, the tech center’s helicopter pad—most often used by Vice Chairman Bob Lutz, who will have retired again by the time you read this and who…

To start with, there’s really no right or wrong way to spray metalflake. Ask 10 painters how they do it and you’ll probably get at least eight different answers. It’s all about experimentation, experience, and sometimes just dumb luck. But we spent a day with Mark Oja at Custom Rod Garage in Huntington Beach, California, to see how he applies metalflake to automotive flanks, and it doesn’t seem all that difficult, at least not on the small panels we used as examples. Painting a complete car is certainly a whole ’nother ball of wax, but here we captured the basics. In this example, the metal flakes were mixed into a clearcoat and sprayed on the car over a color basecoat, followed by several coats of nonflaked clear, plenty of color-sanding,…

EIGHT STACK EFI Inglése 866/450-8089 inglese.com Mechanical fuel-injection stacks are just plain cool. Converted to electronic fuel injection, they’re actually usable on the street. Inglése’s new Eight Stack Induction System is a mechanical looking fuelie setup with cast-aluminum, 50mm, IDA-style throttle bodies controlled by FAST’s EZ-EFI fuel injection for the best of both worlds. A handheld EZ-EFI tuner means you don’t need a laptop. Simply answer a few easy questions on the controller and it will use that information to establish the baseline tuning file and then learn as you drive, while homing in on the optimum tune. The custom-engineered, low-profile fuel rails sit below the stacks and between the throttle bodies for a clean look. Aircraft-quality aluminum linkages are employed to provide smooth actuation, and systems are available for…

PACE CAR GIVEAWAY The big news for the ’10 HOT ROD Power Tour®, presented by GM Performance Division, is that one lucky person will win a ’10 Event Chevrolet Camaro SS Pace Car as part of the HOT ROD Power Tour® Sweepstakes. With only 350 of these special edition cars being made, the ’10 Chevrolet Camaro SS Indianapolis Motor Speedway Pace Car will be a collector’s item. Rather than give you all the details here, get out your magnifying glass and see page 141 for complete rules and information. You can enter to win at any of the ’10 Power Tour® stops or visit HOTROD.com/PowerTour/2010/camaro_sweeps and enter online starting Saturday, June 5. We’d also like to welcome our latest sponsors to the Power Tour®. Surf City Garage will bring its…

MARCH MEET WRECKAGE There were more than a few guardrail encounters at the 52nd March Meet, and we caught two of them. Matthew Bond Denny’s B/Gas (8.60 index) Stude managed to roll during his burnout. The unidentified digger had photogs scrambling.…

Welcome to the Hot Rods section of the mag, where all the car features live. Know of a great ride that should be here? Got killer photos of cars in action along with details about them? Tip us off: email HOTROD@hotrod.com or mail to HOT ROD Hot Rods, 831 S. Douglas St., El Segundo, CA 90245. Scott Mock was hard at work on his second Camaro buildup, a Pro Touring Z/28 clone, when a buddy recommended a book to him: The Unfair Advantage, the late Mark Donohue’s autobiography. Not just a rock-solid technical guide on race car prep but also one of the greatest racing memoirs ever written, the book hooked him hard. “I was so enthralled, I read the whole thing from cover to cover in two days,” Scott…

“IF IT AIN’T BLACK, IT NEEDS PAINTIN’.”—BOBBY OODRILL Drag racing’s version of the Wild West has to be the crazy Outlaw 10.5 action most popular in the Southeast. Run on eighth-mile tracks, the class has few rules, creating some of the most radical race cars you’ve ever seen with the most ridiculous full-bodied-car engine combinations on the planet. It’s awesome to watch. One of the biggest sanctioning bodies for this insanity is the Outlaw Racing Street Car Association (ORSCA), where Bobby Dodrill campaigns Miss Misery, a 3,000hp, blown alcohol, ’76 GMC 4x4 pickup. And yes, all four wheels push this truck to a best of 4.95 in the eighth. Bobby was always a truck guy, but his racing bent was in the mud. He got so good at it that…

This is a shocking moment for me and for the diehard readers who recall this car and have asked for 11 years—with varying levels of deference or derision—if I will ever finish it. After all, it was my first car, I’ve now owned it for exactly 27 years, and in the ’90s it was a HOT ROD magazine project that got stuffed with a Dick Landy 484ci Hemi. Why would I abandon it? There was a time when I drove this car everywhere, starting when I bought it for $ 1,800—and it only had 82,000 miles on the clock—on April 15, 1983, before I even had a driver’s license. I was 15 years old. Effie, my paternal grandmother, promised to buy me a Honda ATC if I was able to…

The tough guy in you says to stab that cam in retarded a few degrees for maximum top-end horsepower, while your more practical alter ego suggests advancing it a hair for improved low-end torque and driveability. As tempting as it may be to let your tough side deliver a swift kick to your practical side’s shins, the installed centerline you settle on is often a compromise between the two extremes. How-ever, as the Big Three have started integrating variable valve timing (VVT) into production V-8s, that needn’t be the case anymore. Now you can have the best of both worlds. The performance potential for VVT in a hot rod motor is huge, but relatively few enthusiasts have embraced it. To test the merits of VVT in a highperformance application, we…

MYSTERY HEMI Think this is a Chrysler Hemi? Think again. We unearthed this gem by finding it on eBay of all places, then tracked down the owner and sent Detroit Editor Bill McGuire down to Oceanside, California, to get the details. We’re not going to tell you precisely what it is (read all about it next month), but we’ll give you a few hints. It is indeed a hemi, but not of Mopar roots. It was created and raced by one of the most legendary hot rodders of all time. Finally, it’s super rare. Can you guess what it is? Get the full scoop and many more retro stories the Aug. ’10 issue of HOT ROD. SEE THIS AND MUCH MORE IN THE AUG. ’10 HOT ROD MAGAZINE. On Sale…