Innholdsfortegnelse for August 2011 i Hot Rod

THE OLD PETE GANG HOT ROD's new owners, Source Interlink Media, have proved to be a good company to work for. Whenever you go through a company buyout, like Source's acquisition of former owner Primedia a few years ago, the employees immediately start the rumor train about all the horrible stuff that's about to come. That's happened four times since I've been here. The early days with Source were sketchy at times, but in the last year or so the management put in place has been good, and we're pretty happy about that. But those of us who were around back in the Petersen Publishing days are very nostalgic for that time. Margie Petersen's huge donation to the Museum that bears her and her husband's name (see this month's Roddin'…

REMEMBERING UNCLE DICK Last month we revamped our Rumble Bee project, and this month we recant April's trip to Las Vegas—the first time the car has rolled on public roads for 18 years. When reviewing that car's legacy, we inevitably bring up Dick Landy, whose shop was responsible for the buildup of the 484ci Hemi that was installed in our Bee in 1995. With our car back to life, we're doing the next best thing for Dick Landy—who passed early, at 69, inJanMary200'7—by using this space to remember his contributions to drag racing. He started as a Ford guy but moved to a Plymouth in 1962, and he later became inextricably linked with Dodge when that division sponsored him throughout the muscle car years. Landy was among the first racers…

NASCAR Sprint Cup driver Clint Bowyer calls his '34 Chevy sedan a rat rod, but sorry, bud, you're wrong. There's nothing rat about this car. The craftsmanship, fabrication, and performance make it a hot rod, or a street rod, or all reet (as Baskerville would say)—but in no way shape or form is this a rat rod. We'll forgive his mistake, this time, but honestly, it's his car and he can refer to it any way he pleases. It seems Clint is afflicted with the same disease that we are: eBayitus. That would be the overwhelming addiction to online surfing for sweet iron at affordable prices at all hours of the day and night. We're developing a 12-step program for it as we speak. During one of his times off…

How do you define a race in which a guy with a Jaguar-with a 572ci big-block is worried about racing a four-door Mitsubishi with a four-banger? Or a Gremlin with twin turbos is in the same knife fight with a Studebaker, an El Camino, and a Honda CRX? The hardest part to get your head around is that everyone hanging around this gig thinks this is normal. In fact, they live for it. Welcome to the East Coast Timing Association and HOT RODs 7th annual Top Speed Challenge” in Maxton, North Carolina. This is where competitors take their cars from a standstill and throttle them for 5,148 feet of WWII airport runway. That, while interesting, has no merit. Its the last 132 feet between the timing lights that count, delivering…

CONCOURS HOT RODS While the second week in March has been reserved by the East Coast elite automotive hobbyists for the Amelia Island Concours d' Elegance for the last 16 years, this year Bill Warner and his squadron of volunteers rolled out the welcome mat for two very special hot-rod events. On Friday, March 11, HOT ROD sponsored the Hot Rod Lifestyle Seminar with some of hot rodding's icons, including TV Tommy Ivo. With his new book, “TV” Tommy Ivo: Drag Racing's Master Showman, Tommy brings to life many of the stories of the past with Jeffries and Prudhomme. On Sunday, the show field was lined with more than 300 of the very finest, from the earliest Benz to modern day exotics. In the midst of the frenzy, the Cover…

THE POWER OF EXHIBITIONISTS It was a moment of clarity, right there in the grandstand at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway during the road trip in my Super Bee that you'll read about on page 40 of this issue. I was with staffer Mike Finnegan when Ed “The Outlaw” Jones rolled into the beams in his Candyland Stage. Moments later, Finnie was giggling like a 10-year-old and I was dumbfounded to learn he'd never before seen a wheelstander in person. Noise, fire, Jelly Belly-scented exhaust, and a fiberglass stagecoach with a blown Chevy, shooting magnesium sparks for well over a quarter mile. Finnegan was contagiously tickled. And I felt super jaded. At 43 years old, half my life has been spent in magazine work and at dragstrips nationwide.…

Personal opinion here, but the coolest second-gen Camaros of all time, hands down, are the mid-'70s International Race of Champions (IROC) cars. Wide wheel flares, deep front spoilers, and super wide Minilites just look right on that generation of F-body It's a look we've seen cloned successfully a handful of times, but we're surprised more people don't go that route. We even wimped out on our project E-Rod Z28, wanting the IROC look but deciding instead on a safer, more conventional build. Amir Rosenbaum of Spectre Performance (SpectrePerformance.com) wasn't as lame as we were, though, and transformed his company's workhorse yellow '70 Camaro testbed into a throwback road-race car. It turned out fantastic. “FOR ME, SOME MECHANICAL THINGS TAKE ON AN ANTHROPOMORPHIC QUALITY, AND THEY EITHER AGREE WITH MY PERSONALITY…

“There are no ted dayswhen you're drivinga Hemi through me desert.”—Mike Finnegan We pulled a week of all-nighters to rebuild a car, then drove it around the block three times and hit the road for a drag race 300 miles away. That's a predictable scenario in our world, but this time it's the surprise twist in what was becoming a plodding tragedy: After a dozen years of neglect, best intentions, and failed promises, my '70 Super Bee lives again. The saga began in the last issue with the story “No Sleep 'Til Vegas,” recounting our day-by-day thrash to prep the Bee, which had not seen public roads since 1993, had not raced since 1996, hadn't run since 1999, and that we'd disassembled a year earlier. Our plan was to back…

Here's a secret: It only takes a few well-thought-out custom mods, tricks, and techniques to set your hot rod apart from the crowd. The factories have different priorities than you do when they build a car, leaving you with some panels that aren't as smooth as they could be and generally a lot more trim and badges than you want. If you own a welder and aren't afraid to use it, it's easier than you might think to turn your hot rod into a real smoothie. We recently had a '66 Chevelle straightened and painted by Tony and T.J. Grzelakowski at Advanced Body & Color in Imlay City, Michigan. In addition to top-level body restoration, the guys showed us four mini projects that will help the car stand out for…

LS ACCESSORY DRIVE SOLUTION Visual Impact Performance Systems 704/278-3552 VisualImpactPerformanceSystems.com Aside from the wiring and plumbing, attaching the front accessories and keeping the serpentine belt intact while the engine runs is the toughest part of doing an LS engine swap. Visual Impact Performance Systems' (VIPS) Turbo Trac 6061-T6 aluminum serpentine beltdrive system works with any cylinder head configuration and all LS blocks without drilling. It includes an Edelbrock aluminum water pump, pulleys, brackets, a 105-amp alternator, a Sanden SD-7 A/C compressor, hardware, and Dayco Polycog belts. A power steering pump, a 140-amp alternator, and polishing are optional. Price: From $1,749.99 HOT ROD WHEELS Coker Tire 800/251-6336 CokerTire.com Coker Tire has been around since 1958, selling tires for classic cars before they were considered classics. But people often forget it sells…

WILD ENGINES If you're like us, nothing turns you on quite like wretched excess when applied to anything mechanical, especially engines. Next month is sure to inform and entertain us all then, as we present several examples of “what the …” oddball, extreme engines. Shown here is a radical, Roots-blown, 5.4L mod motor in Melvin Skinner's modern Pro Street Mustang, and it's the tamest in the group. Also in next month's issue is a feature on tine most radical Cobras you've ever seen and a “rod” with which the thought was, two turbos aren't enough, lets use 12' On sale July 19, 2011 Meanwhile, Get Your Car Fix at HOTROD.com Facebook.com/HotRodMag And YouTube.com/HotRodMagazine…

GETTING DIRTYATTHE VINTAGE TORQUE FEST The Vintage Torque Fest in Maquoketa, Iowa, is one in a slew of retro-themed hot rod shows popping up all over the country that mix rat rods, retro hot rods, and the car culture scene. But one thing that sets the Vintage Torque Fest apart from the rest is the dirt-track action. Whether they’re pretty or gritty, all the cars entered in the show are goaded into making a few hot laps around the banked, 3/s-mile oval dirt track at the Jackson County Fairgrounds, where the Torque Fest was held in April. To make it even more entertaining, the track crew soaks the front straight, turning it into a mud bog. Participants are encouraged to keep speeds to a max 40 mph during the two…

It thrills us to live in a world where guys race trucks in an autocross, get taken seriously, and competitors start building stuff to knock the hero off his throne. So far, His Majesty is Rob MacGregor of No Limit Engineering in San Bernardino, California, and his domain is the Truck class at the Goodguys Autocross Series. That race-within-a-car-show has become a major marketing coup for vendors of Pro Touring muscle car goodies, and a few years ago a new opportunity arose when Truck became the third class behind Street Machine ('55-up) and Street Rod ('54-older). In 2010, Rob's '55 Ford won six of the events, clinching a championship of sorts, and in 2011 he's nabbed three wins. The biggest deal, however, was at the '10 Lonestar Nationals, where this…

Larry Larson has owned HOT ROD's Drag Week™ event. The 1,000-plus-mile, drive-then-drag-then-drive-again event is the true test to see who's got the fastest street car in the nation, and he's made it look easy. The car with the lowest average e.t. at the end of the week takes the overall win, and Larson has taken down every single competitor in the no-holds-barred Unlimited class since 2008. Many have shown up with nitrous-fed and supercharged powerplants stuffed into lightweight cars and have taken their best shot at the mile-wide target on the three-time winner's back. All have failed spectacularly. His twin-turbod big-block Chevy II has been untouchable, with a near-perfect record (he runner-upped to Troy and Carl Scott in 2005) and the events first pass in the 6s. The 6.95 at…

BEFORE AFTER A satin-black finish can be done on the cheap and looks tough on virtually any vehicle. OK, maybe not a Prius, but anything else. Stealing a trend from hot rodders, even the car manufacturers are flattening the skins of everything from concept to production cars, and the Japanese and Euro-car crowd are “murdering out” their rides with satin-black wraps. For a long time, you only had one choice for flat black, and that was lacquer primer, which was no good for covering sanding scratches, and it faded after about 10 minutes. There are better options for flat black these days. If you still want to go with a flat-black primer, we suggest using a product such as PPG DP90, which is a nonsanding epoxy primer. It's fairly expensive,…

FORD 347 TIP-IN PING This is a follow-up to a Jan. '11 letter (“Ford 347 Build and Max Compression Ratio”) from the guy planning on pushing the compression ratio on a 347 build. I wish I'd read his letter and your response to it three or four years ago. Be that as it may, I'd like to know what steps I should take to maximize power while keeping detonation in check. I have a '65 Mustang running a naturally aspirated 347ci Windsor stroker using the following parts: • Eagle crank and rods (3.4-inch stroke, 5.4 inch center-to-center rods) • SRP flat-top pistons (-5cc valve-relief volume, 0.000 to 0.0025-inch deck height) • Ford Racing M-6250-E303 cam installed straight up (0.498-inch valve-lift, 220 degrees duration at 0.050, 110-degree LSA, 110-degree intake centerline)…