Innholdsfortegnelse for March 2017 i Hot Rod

No kid imagines his or her dream garage with a single car inside. The idealized man cave is a sea of polished paint hues strewn across an epoxied floor, each car sparkling under the flicker of fluorescent lights. So many of us played repeated host to that daydream, an issue of our favorite car mag covertly tucked into the spine of a schoolbook. As naïve gearheads, we were convinced money would flow like milk into our cereal bowls and our car collections would crest double digits only a few years after our photos were printed onto fresh licenses. While all of our fictional stables housed drastically different rides, the unifying factor was none of them was the same. A bevy of unique makes, models, and styles filled the expanse of…

There are no rules in hot rodding, so you can build anything you want—even an exact replica of the 1959 Indy 500–winning AJ Watson Indy roadster so you can race it at Bonneville. What? Hey, that’s what Bill Wendt wanted, so who are we to question him going to the effort and expense to replicate a 1959 Indy car so closely that even the decals are the same—then try and set a record at the Salt Flats. Wendt wanted something different for Bonneville and got geeked about the Indy class. The record is 176 mph, but Wendt wanted to get into the 200 MPH Club. The rules say you must start with a race car configured from the era it represents, so no later engines or swoopy bodywork are allowed.…

Engines are literally the driving force in motorsports competition, and in drag racing, stock-car racing, and Pro Touring, a V8 is the go-to powerplant. But you already knew that. What you might not know is how to get the most from the V8 engine in your own car that you use for any or all of those applications. That’s where the AMSOIL Engine Masters Challenge Presented by HOT ROD comes in. We pitted teams from across the country against each other inside the dyno cells of the University of Northwest Ohio to learn the secrets to building winning power. The 2016 competition marked the second year with multiple classes and brought a few changes to the classes we carried over from 2015. Regardless of class, each competitor must submit three…

Making an engine designed in the 1950s produce more than four times its original horsepower output is tough. Taking that same engine and winning the 2016 AMSOIL Engine Masters Challenge Presented by HOT ROD—now that’s even harder. Ted Eaton accomplished that exact feat with his Mercury Y-block engine, churning out class-winning peaks of 603.2 hp and 565.5 lb-ft of torque, a far cry from what the original designers ever could have thought possible. How did he do it? Ingenuity, a whole lot of testing and development time, and help from teammates Fred Hertzog, Lonnie Putnam, Jody Orsag, and Steve Culp. We asked Eaton, with all of the engine architectures legal for Engine Master’s Vintage class, what is the allure of a Y-block? “I ran them growing up, and they always…

The expanse of racing and modified cars was built upon the shoulders of giants. So, too, was HOT ROD. Within that world of stories and information founded by Robert Petersen was a unique character that was Petersen’s first employee: Tom Medley. Tom was a gifted writer and photographer who could build an entire car from scratch—even the upholstery—and show how to do it in the pages of HOT ROD. But he brought to HOT ROD something else truly unique. Listed as “Cartoon and Humor Editor” in only the second issue of HOT ROD in 1948, Tom presented funny one-liners to lighten and brighten HOT ROD’s content, as well as a character who was the embodiment of hot rodding: Stroker McGurk. Stroker was a cartoon character in a monthly cartoon drawn…

Why did Ford kill one of its bestlooking models of the 1970s— the Ford Torino Sportsroof Fastback—after only two years? It’s amazing to envision all of the tooling and manufacturing complexity, the logistics of selling and marketing a special car, and then see it last only 24 months. With all of that effort comes an expectation for great rewards and a long shelf life. What forces dashed those plans? I have no inside info on why, but for the Sportsroof, the era of its manufacture and the numbers suggest a simple answer. First, though, the 1972 Ford Torinos were all new and inclusive, with body styles that included two-door and four-door hardtops, the Sportsroof, station wagons, and venerable Ranchero trucks. Total sales for its first year were more…

Q:Back in 1983, I inherited my grandfather’s 1973 Buick Apollo, equipped with a low-mileage Buick 350 V8 engine. The car is mostly stored, but I start it up and exercise it every few years. The last time it sat about four to five years until I got around to firing it up, and this time it had no oil pressure. By packing the Buick’s front-cover-mounted oil pump with grease and spinning the pump with a dummy distributor shaft, we eventually got oil pressure, but now there were lifter noises on the left-side rockers and a little tick on the right side. The noise hasn’t gone away. I’ve been told the lifters are stuck with varnish from the oil and the engine not being started for a long period. How can…

Still resonating with hot rod and drag-racing enthusiasts more than 40 years after the category was eliminated from competition, the Gasser classes continue inspiring builders to recreate these pounding strip stormers for evil street duty. This shot at the 1965 NHRA Nationals at Indy is of Big John Mazmanian’s 1941 Willys and the same of Stone, Woods and Cook (SWC), representing the peak of the supercharged A/GS paradigm. This was the first year the 392 Chrysler Hemi became the de facto engine choice, based on Maz’s dominance with this engine the previous year, especially against SWC’s supercharged Olds. Evil, ugly, loud, and nasty might best describe the high, hard-charging, old coupes laying waste to the quarter-mile. Maz used a succession of veteran Gasser shoes, here with Dick Bourgeous, while the…

I hate to hear about junkyards crushing out. What a sad fate, and one that occurs more and more when scrap prices are high. I tried to get into this particular junkyard for years, but the owner wasn’t keen on people walking around taking pictures. When he passed away, his widow decided to do something crazy: completely crush out the yard. When I contacted her, she was more than happy to wander around the yard with me as I documented some of the cars before their inevitable end. A few months later, the yard closed for good. I drive by there every so often and look out over the open fields, the piles of crushed cars a reminder of what used to be.…

Henry “Hank” Wendt was a blue-collar guy with a black-and-white-checkered dream. The 20-something Pennsylvania native worked days as a union pipefitter in and around the greater Philadelphia area, but spent his evenings hanging out with his gearhead best buds at Chuck’s Flying “A” gas station in nearby Swarthmore. Henry was an up-and-coming racer, and he had his sights set on one day driving a “world-beater” in the NHRA Nationals. Hank was a driven young man with a burning need for speed and had a major stash of cash on hand—a sum he saved pulling double-time at his day job. What do you suppose he did with it? He blew his life savings on the year’s hottest ride: a brand-new 1963 Corvette. COBRA KILLER The new Corvette was certainly a site…

Scott Main and team MPG Heads brought a 404-inch, Cleveland-headed, small-block Ford to do battle against the rest of the Small-Block class at the 2016 AMSOIL Engine Masters Challenge Presented by HOT ROD. Scott likes the small-block Ford platform because of its great cylinder-head design and knew he could whip up a stout competitor with some hardcore time on the dyno and by selecting the proper parts. Scott told us that Cylinder Head Innovations (CHI) is always happy to work with engine builders in developing performance packages and the team there “seemed to be the top of the food chain for that rpm range.” In other words, right where a 400-inch street engine needs to be making power. So how does CHI, an Australian company, wind up making one of…

The Chrysler A-Series Polyspheric V8, or just Poly, was launched in 1956 and was used to bridge the gap between the early Hemi and the LA V8 engine family that debuted in 1964. Stuck between the dragstrip greatness of the 392 Hemi, the muscle-car-era 340, and the ubiquitous 318 and 360 LA V8s that were produced for decades, the Poly engines have been overshadowed and virtually forgotten. It’s exactly the kind of foundation for a high-performance build we’d hoped to see when we created the Vintage Engine class at the AMSOIL Engine Masters Challenge. Thankfully, competitors were more than willing to do all the hard work and show us how to make serious power from an underdog engine. The School of Automotive Machinists and Technology (SAM Tech) has a long…

Holley/MSD Group // 270.781.9741 Holley.com Hooker’s new cast-iron LS turbo manifolds make it even easier to turbocharge your engine. These thermally efficient manifolds (PN 8510HKR) feature V-band clamps and fit with many accessory drive systems. The cast construction also resists cracking to a far greater degree than tube-style headers. Price: TBA XFI Street Engine Management System COMP Performance Group 877.334.8355 FuelAirSpark.com FAST now offers a laptop-tunable ECU designed for customers and dealers with simple EFI needs that prefer the greater flexibility laptop tuning offers. The XFI Street Engine Management System maintains a level of custom tuning without the complexity or cost of a full-race system. Price: $621.09–1,849.95 High-Flow, Direct-Injection Fuel Injectors, Pump, and Camshaft Kit for GM Gen V V8 Lingenfelter Performance Engineering //260.724.2552 // Lingenfelter.com Lingenfelter’s high-flow, direct-injection fuel…

WEB: WWW.FONDMETAL.COM Italians are no strangers to superior design, impressive quality, and technical achievements. If one country could give us the Sistine Chapel, the LaFerrari, Sophia Loren, and Lamborghini– then there’s no doubt it could also give us a major contender in the luxury wheel market. Fondmetal has a deeply rooted history as an elite Italian wheel manufacturer that specializes in luxury, performance, and exotic car applications. Gabriele Rumi, the founder of Fondmetal, comes from a family who has worked within the metal industry for three generations—so you know they’re as familiar with forging as Michelangelo was with his paintbrush. In 1970 Gabriele Rumi opened an iron foundry in Brescia, Italy, making parts for the likes of Maserati and Fiat, which ultimately set the foundation for Fondmetal’s future. After a…

For those of the northern persuasion, snow is the enemy of just about any productivity. For Union Pacific (UP), it’s more than just a matter of a long commute or adventurous uphill climb—it’s frozen dollars, ruined schedules, and a whole mess of customer trouble. When UP began looking for ways to reuse its obsolete steam locomotives, the company began experimenting with the iron horses. The Union Pacific 844 is the last steam engine the company built, and it represented the epitome of steam locomotive technology. The 844 rolled out of American Locomotive Company’s (Alco) factory in December 1944. It was the result of seven years of development on UP’s new 800-series and focused heavily on efficiency and speed to combat the new diesel-electric locomotives that were on the rise with…

In hindsight, it’s ironic that the organizers of The Race of Gentlemen chose California as the site of a second event for 2016 because the weather would be so much better than the hurricane-prone Jersey Shore where the retro sand drags got their start. No one could have foreseen an unseasonable storm front dropping in from the north that, combined with a full moon, created a one-two punch of rain plus a freakishly high tide that did its best to wash away the event venue at Pismo Beach. The race was huge anyway. Had the weather been better, it would have been out of control—but in a good way. The race was and is the most magical and energetic automotive event I’ve ever been a part of. It gives you…

Some engines are luckier than others. They get all the aftermarket support and the sparkly go-fast parts that gearheads swoon over. While not completely neglected, the Oldsmobile small-block certainly lacks the cornucopia of speed parts that surrounds its Chevy brethren. However, Oldsmobile had one unique advantage that no small-block Bow Tie was ever gifted: a diesel block. Beginning with that rigid architecture, Greg Finnican constructed one heckuva Oldsmobile motor to compete in the 2016 AMSOIL Engine Masters Challenge Presented by HOT ROD. “It was a terrible diesel engine, but it makes a great race block,” Finnican said. “It’s bulletproof.” The block, which was originally a 4.085 bore, was hogged out to 4.170 inches—diesel blocks were substantially beefed up to handle the 22:1 compression ratio, so a 0.100-plus overbore is easily…

“People either love it or hate it. There’s really no in between.” — Laurie Peterson Rest assured that someone, somewhere, is thoroughly disgusted by what Laurie Peterson did to this car. For those who don’t know, the Avanti is sort of beyond reproach. Why Studebaker chose to create a flagship car when it couldn’t even cover its bottom line still puzzles historians. But its execution stands as an example of wonderful overcompensation: The car Studebaker created has a rich performance legacy as America’s first production Grand Tourer, first fiberglass four-seater, and its first productionsupercharged sports car. With its high-design background, there’s no mistaking it for anything else and it retained that distinctive shape for most of its 43-year production run. It even survived the demise of several companies that produced…

As the driver of an older vehicle, you often get used to doing weird little actions to counteract minor performance issues. Maybe you kick the throttle pedal up when you let off because it sticks a bit, or you help the window up with the palm of your hand, since the regulator sticks a bit too. For sure at least one self-canceling turn signal doesn’t, so you turn that off without even thinking about it. Most of this stuff is no big deal. It’s just part of the normal driving process, but when you find yourself driving with one hand so the other can hold the headliner up so you can check the rearview mirror, well, it might be time to fix that. I mean, how can you cancel the…

[You can see more on the Road Runner in episode 58 of Roadkillon YouTube and in two episodes ofRoadkill Garageon Motor TrendOn Demand.com. I have a scar about 8 inches long on my left arm; under it are a titanium plate and a bunch of drywall screws. I was 17 years old, walking home from school when I got hit by a car, wrecking my humerus. There was no subsequent lawsuit, but the insurance company threw me some cash, anyway, and by the time I was 19 it was burning a hole in my pocket and I bought a 1971 Road Runner. It was black-on-black Six Pack car with a four-speed and an Air Grabber purchased from the second owner for $3,100. Problem was, my father hated the car.…

Once you read the title and see the rides that grace this page, there’s really not much more to say. From the menacing looks of these vehicles, you can tell that American Vintage Steel is this wheel maker’s passion, which is why it should come as no surprise that the company behind it all is called Mob Steel. The onetime hobby turned automotive lifestyle— and now business—was all executed by Adam Genoi; and now he and his team of artisans have become frontrunners when it comes to designing and crafting the world's most menacing and tricked-out vehicles. We met this team of artisans years ago and since then, they’ve continually pumped out some of the most awe-inspiring project builds we’ve seen in that time. “THAT COMPANY? DETROIT STEEL WHEELS. "…

WEB: WWW.ROLLINGBIGPOWER.COM They say that history and style repeat itself, yet they always fail to mention that it’s a feat that could not be possible without at least one individual, or company, actively re-creating and promoting it. That said, RBP was one of the first companies to actively push and promote the big wheel/thinner tire trend, and for 2016 they’re back with even more style and grace. Since day one, RBP has remained focused on off-road trucks, and they’ve gone on to introduce their own line of accessories and performance products, which include custom wheels, exhaust systems, side steps, grilles, bolt-on fenders, and more. Crafted from world-class materials, Rolling Big Power is a brand that has become synonymous with style and grace, and they’ve continued to be one of the…

WEBSITE: RACELINEWHEELS.COM Lifted Jeeps and 4x4s have stormed the market in record numbers, and when it comes to customization, well that’s taken off too. What started off a few years back as a specialty market has now made way into a movement that is taking the global truck market by storm. Lifted trucks have been in the process of making a serious comeback and now they’ve introduced a whole new segment that sports bigger wheels oftentimes fitted with lowerprofile off-road tires. Of course, we’ve come a long way from the traditional offroad wheels with bubble tires, and here today is a look that’s rough, menacing, refined, and industrial—a look that takes its main styling cues from true beadlockstyle wheels used in off-roading. For those of you wondering, beadlock wheels…