Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2011 i Hot Rod

REALGAR GEEKS “This is a car that should be on YouTube doing something illegal.” That was Mustang Boss 302 Chief Designer Darrell Behmer talking about his baby at the Boss 302's press ride-and-drive event at Laguna Seca Raceway last February (see the story on page 44 of this issue). That was something you don't often hear from a high-level official at a car company. Normally, you'd expect a Ben Stein-ish delivery of the facts, often focusing more on noise/vibration/harshness (NVH) than on the style and performance of the new car they're selling. The general stereotype, based on the typical OE engineer, is that of a geeky dude in the standard '60s-style engineering uniform of black pants, white-button-down shirt, and skinny black tie, huddled over a drafting table and horrified by…

TRANS AM Beginning on page 44 of this issue is the story of the epic battle of Mustang versus Camaro, with an overview of the ' 12 Mustang Boss 302 and speculation on the forthcoming Camaro Z28. Both of those special models became icons thanks to the exploits of their forefathers in the late '60s and early '70s SCCA Trans-Am series in which the Boss 302 and Z28 both dominated. This shot from the HOT ROD archives shows Parnelli Jones in the No. 15 Bud Moore Boss 302 at the '69 Mission Bell 250 at Riverside Raceway in California. Mark Donohue, in a Penske Z28, went on to win that race, and GM won the manufacturers championship on points, even though the Boss 302s won more individual races than the…

Matt Snow's self-named company, Snow Performance (SnowPerformance.net), is known for water/methanol injection systems for force-inducted cars, so it's not surprising that its latest project car is so equipped. What makes this Fox-body Mustang different is, a) it's a fairly collectible '93 Cobra, b) it has a legit NASCAR Cup engine in it, and c) its 9,000-rpm motor is fed by a centrifugal supercharger. That's mixing circle track and drag racing technology, but in a cool way. The car is meant to be a track day and street-driven sleeper, so externally there aren't many clues that it's fast. Under the hood, however, there's that Yates/Elliot, NASCAR, 358ci smallblock Ford with a ProCharger F2 blower. It makes a little more than1,000 hp on pump gas and uses a 12-quart, dry-sump, BigStuff? EFI,…

Ever since Al Slonaker got the promotional brainstorm to award an 8-foot-tall trophy to America's Most Beautiful Roadster at his first Oakland Roadster Show in 1950, the event has been on the cutting edge of car show innovation. Hell, it was the cutting edge—it was the first indoor, competitive, custom show as we know it today. He called it a roadster show instead of using the freshly coined term hot rod, and didn't mention customs. But customs were there, and that's the point of this story. Custom cars have always been part of the hot rod mix, since shortly after young roadster jockeys began stripping down Ts and As to build how jobs in the '30s. 'The whole idea behind this Depression-bred enterprise was to take cheap, castoff, or used-up…

Everywhere we look, guys are running around in rat rods and straight-axle nosebleeders motivated by leftover small-blocks stacked with tunnel-rams, zoomie headers, and other conglomerations of seemingly mismatched speed parts, all in the cause of sights and sounds. But how much does all that stuff really hurt performance? Or does it matter? We decided to find out. Key to that decision was our hypothesis that we could build the engine in a snap, just like any guy in any garage or carport. Speed was key. You're holding one of those issues of the mag where everything fell apart in the face of freakishly wet SoCal weather and deathbed-level flu for a couple of staffers. We needed to replace some of our planned stories in a jiffy. We pulled this off,…

EARLY MUSTANG LIGHTWEIGHT REAR SEATSHELF Cobra Automotive 203/643-8054 CobraAutomotive.com One of the biggest battles for hot rodders and racers is weight, and Cobra Automotive is here to help with a replacement rearseat shelf for '65 to '66 Mustang fastbacks. The shelf completely replaces the trap door and assembly to the trunk, as well as the rear seat assembly itself. The original piece weighs 20 pounds and the new kits, made from Corematt, cut that by more than half to 9 pounds total. It comes ready to slide in, with precut holes for the spare tire hold-downs and shock access. Price: $480.00 TURNKEY SUPER CHARGED FORD ENGINES B&H Superchargers 877/482-1253 BHsupercharged.com B&H Superchargers has introduced super efficient and complete turnkey Ford 302 and 351ci engine packages. They are exclusive with Magnuson/Eaton…

Easy, Easy, EASY!” Those are the words that escaped Steve Strope's mouth as he rode shotgun in the Anvil Mustang, watching through the windshield as it spun and looked to be headed toward the dirt and its certain peril. The location was the road course at Streets of Willow in Rosamond, California, the car was the very trick (and expensive) '69 Mustang that Strope, of Pure Vision, had just finished for Matt Lazich of Anvil Auto, and the occasion was a low-key Hotchkis Performance open track day. Fresh out of the Grand National Roadster Show only a few days before, Strope was understandably nervous to put this car on a road course or anywhere else it could possibly be in harm's way. But that's what we required of the car…

It's always cool to see a vehicle do something that it was never meant to. That's probably why Monster Garage was so popular. They'd turn a PT Cruiser into a wood chipper, or a Miata into a jet ski—goofy, entertaining stuff like that. Mark Blair's wheel-standing Jeep Cherokee is kinda like that. You don't expect to see a Jeep with a luggage rack run low 9s. This thing stands on the bumper thanks to an S&W back half with a four-link, a 4.56-geared 9-inch with a Detroit Locker, 31x15 Hoosier slicks (on the track, and Quick Time Pros on the street), and power from a 930hp, 505ci Dodge motor (with 300-500 hp-worth of nitrous) and a 727 automatic with a brake and a TCI converter. The Jeep has run as…

SEE IT SLIDE, HEAR IT RUN Watch the HOT ROD video of the Z28 test day on the video page of HOTROD.com, at YouTube.com/HotRodMagazine, or on your handheld device by scanning this code. The plan has come together. In the Jan. ‘11 HRM we launched the makeover of an ugly but solid ‘79 Z28, and subsequently we’ve done a drivetrain swap, painted it, hopped up the suspension, and remade the interior. Now, the results. First, a hardware refresher. The core of the project was GM Performance Parts’ smog-legal E-Rod crate engine, a 6.2L LS3 like that in a ‘10 Corvette. A Hurst Driveline Conversions kit helped us install a Tremec T56 Magnum six-speed with ratios nearly identical to those in a ‘10 Camaro, and the 3.73 gears in the new…

LSPRELUBER I'm building a '54 Studebaker with a '97 LSI out of a Corvette. The engine had 19,000 miles on it when the car was wrecked, and it has not run for approximately 3 years. At one time you could pull a distributor and drive the oil pump with a drill motor to circulate oil in an engine that had been sitting before starting it. Not so easy with an LS-series engine. Do you have any suggestions to follow as a start-up procedure? I'm concerned about engine lubrication as well as the lifters pumping up properly. Ken Lemmon Cedar Hills, UT Pressure-lubing a new or long-dormant motor is a problem on many late-model engines, including the GM Gen III/IV small-block (LS-series), Ford modular family, and Chrysler new Hemi. All these…

THEY'RE BAAAACK!? That's right hot rodders and hippies, prepare to have flashbacks to the hottest rage of the late '70s: VANS' No, HOT ROD is not going all-vans-all-the-time like we did back then, but those over-the-top vans and their owners have maintained the buzz all these years. More interesting, those in the younger crowd who aren't old enough to understand the stigma that vans hold in the hot rodding community are getting into them and creating a small but present resurgence in the van culture. Check out blasts from the past as well as the current scene in next month's issue. On sale May 17, 2011 Meanwhile, Get Your Car Fix at HOTROD.com Facebook.com/HotRodMag And YouTube.com/HotRodMagazine…

THE 59TH DETROIT AUTORAMA What's the greatest indoor hot rod show in the country? Left coasters say it's the Grand National Roadster Show, currently held in Pomona, California, while Midwesterners vote for the Detroit Autorama, now in its 59th year. HOT ROD shrewdly claims neutrality. The top trophy at the Motor City show is the Ridler Award, which went to Bruce Ricks' '56 Ford convertible. The impossibly straight ragtop bested one of the more diverse fields of Pirelli Great 8 finalists in recent history, which includes Derick Samson's '52 Chevy business coupe, Jim Marciniak's chopped '63 Riviera, and the roadsterized '47 Chevy pickup of Tim Gunsalus. Not a single '32 Ford made the final eight this year, which is a bit of an upset in itself. The attendance at Cobo…

OK, consider this a poke in the eye to the readers who took issue with our cover feature on the Derelict '52 Chrysler/DeSoto wagon in the Apr. '11 issue. While we'll take some deserved heat for calling it a beater when it should have been labeled a rat cruiser, the fact remains that Icon 4x4's driver was one of the coolest, most functional cars we've driven in a long time, even if it didn't have pretty paint and the latest 20-inch wheels. Get over it. Are rat rods just un-pretty hot rods with minimal attention to fit and finish as a trade-off to get the things on the road and enjoy them, or are they a conglomeration of junk held together with bubblegum welds, wood screws, and coat hanger spiderwebs…

It's gone bloodthirsty, and we love it. In the lace of meltdowns, bailouts, recoveries, corporate molasses, media doomsayers, legislative killjoys, and green initiatives, today's muscle cars are still thrusting madly with the bayonets of horsepower and retro imagery. In fact, car-mag stories on the revitalized ponycar wars have' already become a cliche—but if you love cars, business, fight tactics, and retrospect, then it's a story that can't get old. Boss, GT, Shelby, SS, ZL1—all in action. It's been more than 40 years since HOT ROD's Oct. '70 cover line arbiter of disaster, “'71 Cars: Will They Perform?” The staff knew the end of OE performance was near, and indeed it was. The first signs of recovery came with the Dec. '81 issue's claim that the all-new '82 GM F-car was…

Hot rodding has always been a culture that richly rewards those with the creativity and acumen Io build their own cars. Sell-taught customizers—from Dean Jeffries out west to the Alexander Bros. in Detroit—are legends in our world. Today, fabricators are hailed as heroes on television. Painters are gawked at like demigods at car show's. Engine builders are the cool kids at the track. Hone any combination of these skills at home and you'll be the neighborhood kingpin, and save a ton of cash by doing things yourself. Better than lame or fortune, though, is the pride that comes from being able to say, “I built that.” Learning to stick two pieces of metal together using electricity offers a sense of self-reliance that few skills can match, so we asked fans…

Introduced in April 2009 as a ‘10 model, the fifth-gen Camaro is the newest entrant in the Big “Three’s renewed ponycar wars. Despite the car’s late start, loyalists aren’t taking a back seat to anyone; they’ve been beating on the cars, finding what goes wrong, and applying good old hot rodding engineuity to fixing the issues while giving the other guys a run for their money. Still, the new chassis remains a work in progress. Expect big improvements in the top driveline offerings for ‘12, but in the meantime, here’s the scoop on the cars as they are now configured. Our consultants include hard-core Camaro specialists Lingenfelter Performance Engineering (LPE), Livernois Motorsports, IPS Motorsports, the School of Automotive Machinists (SAM), and other insiders. All quoted power levels except for the…

VERIZON CHARGER WINNER We finally realized what car those Dodge keys belonged to when we got a letter from Joshua Boudeman of St. Louis, Missouri, thanking us for our help in delivering the Verizon Championship Racing Dodge Charger to him. With help from the team at Pure Vision and Orange Coast Chrysler Jeep Dodge in Costa Mesa, California, the transformation from an unassuming 5.7L Charger R/T to a look-alike of Jason Allgaier's Nationwide-series No. 12 out of Penske Racing was complete. The promotion, which was exclusive to HOT ROD and our sister title Motor Trend, generated a ton of response from race fans and Dodge enthusiasts. Thanks to Josh's note, we can now send him that extra set of keys. POWER TOUR® ACTION The Hot Rod Power Tour® presented by…