Innholdsfortegnelse for August 2010 i Hot Rod

USED CAR ON MY TERMS Looking for your next project car is a lot of fun. The excitement of walking the aisles of cars at a swap meet is something we all share, cash in pocket or not. You never know when you’ll turn a corner and there she is, either just what you’ve been looking for or a gem that makes you say, “Man, that’s cool. How come I never noticed these before?” Buying an example of the latter is nearly always a dicey move, often resulting in serious buyer’s remorse a few days later. Of particular evil are the local trader papers and online ads, which are like global swap meets. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been at 7-Eleven buying a Super Big Gulp and…

THE DANDY Dick Landy’s most recent shop on Bahama Street in Northridge, California, was not the site of the ’60s heyday, but it did include relics of that time (many of which were wrecked in the 1994 earthquake). One of those remembrances was a huge photo of this ’68 Hemi Dart in wheels-up mode; it was at Lions, if our mind’s eye is seeing clearly. That was one of the cars that inspired us as kids and the reason we were thrilled to work with Landy on the engine that appears in this month’s “Rehashed Hemi” story Actually, all the Landy cars in 1968 were cool, and that year may have marked his biggest racing fleet. In addition to the Hemi Dart, he ran a Dart GTS 440, a Hemi…

Vintage drag racing is one of the hottest segments of the hot rodding world right now. Don’t believe it? Go check out either of the NHRA Hot Rod Reunions, the March Meet, or any number of other nostalgia races and see for yourself. Everything from diggers to Funny Cars to Gassers is dusted off, brought out to the track, and either raced or cackled in a tribute to what most people consider the glory days of drag racing. One notable recent display was that which we reported on in the June ’10 issue—the 50th Annual NHRA Winternationals in Pomona, California. As part of the NHRA’s ’10 season opener, a special corral was set up to honor a group of historic old drag cars and re-creations thereof to remind old guys…

“Don’t be afraid to jump in and cut up something. Metal can always be reshaped back to what it was.” —Jamie Muro, 27 The family that runs the Hot Rod Ranch would make for a lousy reality television show. Producers seeking the next Osbournes are sure to reject a cast that’s more Ozzie Nelson than Ozzy Osbourne. How boring would it be to watch three grown brothers drive back from their rod shop to their childhood home to have lunch with their parents, day after day? My Three Sons had nothing on these three sons. On paper at least, the Muros appear to have the makings of an explosive, made-for-TV mix. Gil Sr., 59, is a lifelong gearhead and recovered street racer from the working-class Los Angeles suburb of Whittier…

Installing highly accurate, nonstock gauges has been a part of hot rodding since the earliest days, from aircraft surplus stuff in the ’40s and ’50s to the radical designs from the aftermarket that are available today. But just wiring a set of gauges into your hot rod does not by itself make it any different from the rest of the crowd. What if you could create your own gauge layout and design custom faces that match your car? Well, you can—Red line Gauge Works can take pretty much any design idea and turn it into reality. Redline’s Shannon Hudson has been working with factory and aftermarket gauges for about 20 years and is the go-to source for many of the top hot rod builders in the country. His clients include…

WHAT I DID ON MY SPRING VACATION Once in a while I sneak my 4x4 passions into these pages, and that’s often repelled with screams of, “That stuff ain’t hot rodding!” My definition of that and my range of gearhead obsessions are broader than most, but I think the story of my recent vacation is something that most car guys can dig. A friend and I flew to Phoenix, bought a 60-year-old Jeep that had not moved in 15 years, hacked it together, and drove home to Los Angeles. It gets better. This type of trip is called a D.E.D.: Dirt Every Day. I’ve done similar ones many times with Rick Pewe, editor of 4-Wheel & Off-Road magazine. We drove from Phoenix to Alaska in a WWII jeep, motored an…

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. “I TRY TO DO EVERYTHING MYSELF THREE TIMES, AND IF IT DOESN’T TURN OUT RIGHT, AT LEAST I LEARNED I COULDN’T DO IT.” —SCOTT MILLER It’s rare to find a nearly 80-year-old car that has changed hands a mere two times, but Scott Miller is indeed the third owner of this ’30 Model A, and he’s transformed what was originally a Southern California Edison utility vehicle into a slick retro hot rod done just…

“MY DAD DOESN’T USUALLY SHOW A LOT OF EMOTION, BUT HE GOT PRETTY EXCITED SEEING THE FUNNY CAR AGAIN.” —JOHN LIPORI It’s hard to decide which is better, this great old funny car or the story behind it. Actually, there are a whole bunch of stories, so we’ll just dive in here: In 1966, Jerry Lipori and Steve Malise were co-owners of a New York race shop, Brooklyn Speed and Machine, as well as partners in a series of blown gas dragsters. Steve’s family also operated a local new-car dealership, Mid-County Buick. Deciding to cash in on the red-hot funny car craze (which started with Experimental Stock and other names before Funny Car became a class), Steve somehow persuaded 19 different Buick dealers in the area to pony up some…

Not long ago in HOT ROD, we told you the story of Mickey Thompson, the greatest hot rodder ever (“Life at 400 MPH,” Dec. ’08). But really, there might be hundreds of stories about M/T that need to be told. Here’s one of them. Back in 1964, Mickey created this wonder: a 427 Ford FE engine with aluminum hemi heads of his own design. A shrewd money racer, Mickey deftly maneuvered himself as the Detroit automakers drifted in and out of motorsports. When GM chairman Fred Donner pulled the plug on all racing activities in 1963, Mickey wasn’t without a factory backer for long, quickly landing a Ford deal for 1964. His multicar IndyCar team, previously powered by Buick and Chevy aluminum small-blocks, including a DOHC Chevy in mid-development by…

The turbocharger, or exhaust driven centrifugal supercharger, is the world’s most efficient power-adder, but it is also the most complex to install. It’s been six years since HOT ROD examined turbocharger design, selection, and system setup (see HOT ROD, Dec. ’03, Jan. ’04, and Feb. ’04). In that time the technology has continued to advance to the point that turbos in racing clearly dominate beltdriven superchargers or nitrous oxide. If anything, turbos used in competition have become victims of their own success: Rule makers have been forced to legislate against turbos, adding vehicle weight, reducing engine displacement, restricting the turbo’s size or numbers per engine, relegating turbos to a separate class, or even banning them entirely. Meanwhile much of the technology previously seen only on high-end racing units has trickled…

Why would we let our perfectly good Hemi rot for a decadeplus? We’ve long rehearsed an answer to that: because it’s too radical for a street car and too slow for a race car. Now we’re aiming to fix both ends of that dilemma. Last month’s cover story retraced the life of project Rumble Bee, a ’70 Dodge Super Bee that was partially built in the pages of HOT ROD in late 1995 and early 1996. It was also featured in Car Craft in 1999, then forsaken in a dusty garage. Until we pulled the engine out of the car for the conclusion of the article in our previous issue, the Dick Landy 484ci Hemi hadn’t made noise for 11 years. Terminal neglect was an ignominious end for an engine…

TRADITION MEETS FORD’S COYOTE Our pal Josh Russell of Raybestos knows how to make things happen. He combined the “respect tradition” mantra of Hollywood Hot Rods’ Troy Ladd and the ’32 Ford roadster pickup illustrated here. With Corky Coker and the team from Chattanooga helping with the treads, Troy is able to take the modern ’11 Ford 5.0L V-8 engine, dubbed Coyote [HOT ROD Apr. ’10 issue) and give the hot rod world a kick in the proverbial behind thanks to some assistance from Ford Racing Performance Parts. Tune in to HOT ROD Television in August exclusively on Speed to check out the trick RPU and learn how Raybestos plans to celebrate the revival of its unrivaled brake and chassis product lines. For more information on the Raybestos Roadster Pickup…

CARTER’S FLAKY T-BIRD If you owned a Funny Car in the ’70s or ’80s, you wanted it to have a Billy Carter custom paintjob. All the top runners had ’em. Pisano, Prudhomme, Ivo, and Beebe and Mulligan all ran drag cars draped in colors squirted by Carter Pro Paint in the San Fernando Valley. Well guess what? The old man’s back act it again—but this one’s for his own personal enjoyment. “The government owed me some cash, and when some checks all came in at the same time, I ran down and bought this ’59 T-bird for three grand,” stated Carter, who currently practices his paintwork at Fennell Enterprises in Santa Clarita, California. “Yep, this one’s for me.” True to form, Carter called his longtime friend and talented rendering specialist…

“I MADE SOME NEWER ADDITIONS BUT TRIED TO HIDE THEM OR INCORPORATE THEM IN SOME WAY SO THEY DIDN’T STAND OUT AND SAY, ’NOPE, TOO NEW.’”—RANDY MANNING Having a retro-style car does not necessarily require living with ’60s technology, so long as the builder is careful to hide the offending modern parts. Case in point is Randy Manning’s ’55 Chevy wagon done up Gasser style. By nature, a Gasser is retro. But to be truly retro, a car cannot have any details that smack of modernism, such as disc brakes, later-model engines, or billet anything. Randy played it hit and miss here in a few areas but overall achieved the retro vibe pretty well. While waiting for a buddy to get cash out of an ATM at the Pomona Swap…

We’re glad Gary Reinero is the kind of guy who hangs on to stuff. The Merced, California, racer bought this Willys way back in 1962 from a neighboring goat farmer who hauled his milk cans to the local market on a wooden platform bolted to the coupes roof. Gary built the $25 junker into an A/Gasser, initially running a Chevy 409 and a B&M Hydro. In 1964, he installed a new 426 Hemi race engine, the hottest thing going at that moment. He installed a set of Hilborns, and the Hydro was soon discarded in favor of a Clutch-Flite with a 40-pound flywheel and a Dana 60 rear axle. He raced the Willys all around Northern California, parking it a few years later when, like so many Gasser campaigners, he…

“We spent a whole ton of your money over the winter,” Race Director Keith Turk told the assembled members of the East Coast Timing Association on Saturday morning. We were listening in at the drivers’ meeting for the April meet, which we like to refer to as the HOT ROD Top Speed Challenge™. “But I think that once you’re out there, you’ll notice what all we’ve done,” Keith added, referring to all the recent patching and smoothing performed on the ECTA’s 68-year-old race course where cars are tested for top speed over a standing mile. While the former WWII airbase runway just outside Maxton, North Carolina, will never be mistaken for a new-age F1 circuit—with the original concrete still loose and crumbly in a few spots, it’s no pool table—the…

Turbo installations can be expensive, so in these hard economic times some rodders are seeking affordable alternatives. The traditional econo route was trying to make wrecking yard units work on a nonstock application. This approach has a low success rate. As Hellion puts it, “Finding a turbo in a junkyard most likely will lead to a missized unit that will spool too slow or too fast, and have durability issues.” Adds Precision Turbo, “Simply modifying or changing one system will ultimately have an effect on many others. Adding a turbo to a car without considering the total package will not yield beneficial results.” Another money-saving possibility is rebuilding a used turbocharger. Turbo City is one source for refurbished turbos, as well as do-it-yourself rebuilder kits. The latest alternative is new…

STACKABLE FUEL PRESSURE REGULATORS Aeromotive 913/647-7300 AeromotiveInc.com Aeromotive’s new fuel pressure regulators [PN 13217) for carbureted applications are stackable, allowing control over multiple pressure points with a single fuel pump. They’re ideal for multistage nitrous systems, are completely serviceable in the field without removing them from the car, and are compatible with the Aeromotive A2000, A1000, Eliminator, and Pro-Series pumps. Racers can simply bolt together as many of these regulators as needed using the provided capscrews, and they seal together with O-rings. They’re made of billet aluminum, are adjustable from 5-12 psi, and have a -10 flow-through port and two -6 outlet ports. Price: $163.50 each ANNULAR NITROUS NOZZLES Induction Solutions 815/341-8853 Induction-Solutions.com Nitrous oxide might have been around the drag racing world since the ’70s, but companies continually find…

SNAKE BITES What car guy older than 35 didn’t build a Snake and/or Mongoose Funny Car model in the ’70s? It was a rite of passage, really. The models represented the rides of Don “The Snake” Prudhomme and Tom “The Mongoose” McEwen, a marketing duo tour de force that played out its rivalries on the track as much as on the glue-covered kitchen tables of America’s youth. Snake quit driving in the ’90s but maintained a very successful team with various drivers. He hung it all up last year after the economy wrecked his sponsorship hopes. Tunc in next month for part one of our look back at Snake’s storied career, winning cars, and legacy. SEE THIS AND MUCH MORE IN THE SEPT. ’10 ISSUE OF HOT ROD MAGAZINE On…