Innholdsfortegnelse for March 2018 i Hot Rod

The story of how I got to this chair isn’t typical of past HOT ROD editors. There is no long history of fiddling with 1932 Fords in my grampa’s garage or camping out at Bonneville. My ignition point was a model-car kit I got in 1969 at the age of six. That, and about a zillion muscle cars pounding the pavement in my hometown of Greensboro, North Carolina. By the time I got a driver’s license in 1979, the party was over, but the fire still burned. My first car—a more-door 1972 Malibu with a lame 307—might be Freiburger-approved in 2018, but was the butt of jokes in 1981. By then, my interest in cars extended to NASCAR, a time when “stock cars” still resembled the ones in showrooms.…

You could probably build this engine with just a hand drill; it’d take a lot of time, but you could do it!”— Joachim Hall It was while describing how he engineered his own hall-effect-triggered, ignition-control module that we knew Joachim Hall, or Makerj101 as he’s known on YouTube, was perfect for Hot Rod Anything. The 22-year-old engineering student started off admitting that he learned more from the prolific online streaming service than in any textbook: “I read very little, so most of the knowledge I’ve gained is from YouTube and the internet,” he explained. “I usually look at YouTube first, and if I find nothing else, then I’ll find an article to read. I try to give back by sharing my builds and experiments on there.” It was through finding…

It all started with a tip on a kind of barn find. Richard Rawlings had heard about a car tucked away in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The second owner’s sons had contacted Richard’s Gas Monkey Garage and told their story of a hot rod that hadn’t seen daylight for decades. Richard told us, “We answer every single email, snail mail, tweet, text, you name it.” A lot of the projects they find come from those tips. This prospect seemed almost too good to be true. The car in question was a 1934 Ford three-window coupe, so Richard called Brian Bass—the man behind Bass Kustom in downtown Dallas, just 20 minutes from Gas Monkey Garage—and asked him to come along on the drive and see the car in person. Gas Monkey Garage has…

Beginning in the mid-1970s, Tom Derych tore around town and was a regular at New York National Speedway in a 440-powered 1974 Dart Sport. “The car was fast and a lot of fun, but to me it was never a true muscle car,” he explains. “I really wanted something earlier, from 1969 or 1970.” Derych was always on the lookout for the right car, but as time marched on it became increasingly difficult to find something really nice. Then one day in the summer of 1989 he came across a stunning, Sublime Green 1970 Charger at a show. It was born as a Charger 500 with a 383, Torqueflite, and air conditioning, and the original owner babied the car for the first nine years of its life. The second owner…

Street Race Small-Block Power-Adder quite possibly has the most rules and restrictions of any class at HOT ROD Drag Week™, but that hasn’t hindered the competition one bit. According to the official rules, the Street Race category is strictly designed for cars with OE bodies and frames using primarily bolt-on performance parts. In an attempt to keep this class full of real-deal street cars, they must meet very specific requirements. These rules call for a completely original body (except for the hood and bumpers), factory safety glass in every window, factory floorboards from front to rear, a fully upholstered interior, a race weight of at least 3,000 pounds, and a factory suspension configuration, which makes these cars a handful when combined with the 11.25-inch maximum tire width and power-adder-assisted small-blocks.…

There’s a reason why the LS platform is an incredibly popular candidate for engine swaps in everything from prewar hot rods to Pro Touring muscle cars, and even drift cars that in stock form never saw anything larger than a four-banger. That’s because the LS has found that magic mix of affordable horsepower in a relatively compact package. But as the LS continues to grow in popularity, it only serves to make the oddball engine that much cooler. On the surface, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to go against the grain and put more effort and money into an engine that will wind up making less power, but those of you who march to the beat of your own drum make the world go round. And we love…

An important header-system design consideration is an engine’s number of cylinders and their geometric layout—inline or V-style. To achieve optimum exhaust scavenging on a four-stroke engine, each cylinder should fire every 180 degrees of engine rotation. That amount of firing-pulse separation creates enough system vacuum to help pull the exhaust from the next cylinder. This is so efficient that collector outlet diameter needs to only be about 20-percent larger than the primary-tube diameter (about two tube sizes, in terms of cross-sectional area). A 180-degree firing sequence is standard on inline four-cylinders. Not so on 90-degree V8s, where successive cylinders fire only 90 degrees apart. Engineers try to alternate firing pulses sequentially from one bank to the other, but regardless of the firing-order scheme, two cylinders on each bank must fire…

When building your dream car, there are two ways to pay your dues: up front with the cost of a clean car as the foundation, or financed over the course of the build, cobbling together and repairing a lesser canvas. Start with a workable platform and refine it from there. That is exactly what John LaCome did when he purchased his 1956 Chevy Bel Air drop-top more than 20 years ago. LaCome said, “It was complete, with only a bit of surface rust on the body. The floorboards were great and all the body panels and trim were in really good shape, as were the bumpers.” Knowing the car had good bones, he purchased it but didn’t begin work immediately. “It took a few years for me to really get…

When new technology shows up, it’s up to a hot rodder to see if it’s worth working into our way of building cars. As each newly accepted tech becomes the norm, a new wave of thinking bounces through our heads. The last time we saw this was in the 1980s when the billet craze took hold of everything from Deuces to Tri-Fives; machined aluminum parts became the hot ticket during the smooth and pastel 1980s aesthetic, bringing a new dimension to custom fabrication. Nowadays, billet aluminum components (whether by hand or CNC) are standard practice for speed and style parts. New tech doesn’t replace the old—you still see manual lathes and vertical mills churning in shop corners despite the rise of CNC—but it’s always worth a look to see if…

Success comes overnight for some, but for the return of my 1970 Dodge Challenger, it’s been a slow crawl. Last month, I left you with a handful of flung belts and an over-rich tune on the new 505ci big-block in the Dodge. Now, new pulleys and new belts later, with a jet change on the carb and a gear change in the pumpkin, I finally felt ready to take a big step in any new car debut—the first car-show appearance. “What’s the big deal?” you might be asking. “Just show up and park. How is that a challenge?” You, my friend, have clearly never been at a car show when someone leaking, running on seven, or otherwise poorly tuned came popping and farting through. Junior-high mean girls aren’t even on…

The red numbers below refer to detailed art on the following pages. A] Starter/flexplate gear mesh (01–07) B] Voltage tests, wiring changes (08) C] Better grounds and terminals (09–16) D] AWG 6 charging wire (17) E] Remove ignition resistor wire F] Clean out bulkhead connector (18) THE COMBO Kenosha, Wisconsin’s Dave Miracle has been into cars since high school. Like many of us, he took time off to raise three kids—that is, until he discovered a bare-bones 1966 Chevelle that had laid dormant in a friend’s garage for 20 years. “Even though it was basically just a shell with a bunch of parts and boxes, it was too good a deal to pass up,” Miracle relates. About the only drivetrain part remaining was the original factory 3.73:1 12-bolt Posi rearend.…

Chrome Long-Tube BBC Dragster Headers Afco // 800.632.2320 // Afco.com Intended for racing and off-road use, these 16-gauge, chromed-steel, long-tube big-block headers from Afco are CNC-machined with surface flanges and engineered for heads that incorporate factory BBC bolt patterns. The kit includes either standard or 2.125-2.25-2.375 merge collectors. This product comes with a full one-year warranty. Price: $1,599.99 Front/Rear Road-Race Kits For 2015–2018 Mustang Wilwood Engineering 805.388.1188 // Wilwood.com Configured for matched performance with the OE master cylinder and fully functional with ABS and all electronic controls, Wilwood’s sixth-generation Mustang road-race kits are manufactured from forged-aluminum Aerolite 6R/ST (front) and Superlite 4R/ST (rear) racing calipers. Finished in a long-lasting, quick-silver finish, the kits also include 14-inch-diameter alloy directional-vane GT competition series, face-slotted rotors and dynamic-mount forged-aluminum alloy hats. Brake pads…

Hidden deep in the woods of Michigan sits a Quonset hut full of treasures. A family that had worked for generations at Chrysler was thoughtful enough to tuck away a variety of cool Mopars and memorabilia from their time with the company. Inside, there was a 1969 Dodge Superbee, a 383 big-block car with air-grabber hood, a 1930s Plymouth coupe, and a 1971 Dodge Dart Swinger. All were safe and dry in the building, so none had really deteriorated. The cars were not the only treasure, as the family had been able to save rare pieces of Mopar memorabilia like jackets and cufflinks.…

“The first time I laid eyes on that pretty blue with white stripes, I knew I wanted it,” Brenda Wallace says. Brenda has lived in a small, rural town just outside of Clarksville, Tennessee, her entire life and is still the proud owner of a 1970 Chevelle SS396 she purchased new. “In July 1970, I decided I wanted a new car,” Brenda says. “I asked my brother, Danny Wallace, to accompany me to make sure I was treated fairly, and we headed to Wright Chevrolet in Clarksville to look at the new 1970 models.” Brenda was currently driving a 1965 Ford Galaxie four-door and was in the market for a sharp, eye-catching, two-door sport coupe. “When my brother saw the 1970 Chevelle SS396, he said that’s the one we need,”…

In 2016, Brent McCoy started what is now an unofficial tradition at Drag Week™: the Stick-Shift Shootout. Brent noticed there was a bit of downtime between rounds of the Street Machine Eliminator brackets, so he approached Frank Romano with his plan. Brent knew fellow gear-slinger Frank was in cahoots with several other Drag Week™ racers who survived the races with their stick-shifted cars, so they assembled a list of interested parties and asked Drag Week™ staff if they could form their own single-elimination bracket. We had no objections, so a handful of racers ponied up $20 each for an entry fee, with the winner taking the whole purse. The Stick-Shift Shootout’s inaugural run ended with Frank Romano grabbing the win and the cash. For 2017, many of the same players…

John Kaase and Royce Brechler’s 473ci MEL engine rocked the dyno at the University of Northwestern Ohio with an amazing performance. Built to the 2017 Engine Masters Challenge Vintage class rules, the engine produced a plateau of torque that never dipped below 630 lb-ft during the entire scored rpm range of 3,700 to 6,200 rpm, carrying them into the lead with a peak of 769 hp along the way. Vintage class rules required factory iron head castings and prohibited welding or filling ports with epoxy. That rule is thanks to Jon Kaase’s Y-block entry from 2015 that had totally reshaped ports that essentially turned the top end of the engine into a high-flowing small-block Chevy. How could the MEL’s unimpressive factory heads produce such numbers? A quick glance at the…

Q: Early in 2017, HOT ROD successfully rescued my 1956 Ford pickup (May 2017 issue and online at HOTROD.com—Editor). Equipped with a supercharged, electronic-fuel-injected, 5.0L small-block that’s backed by a 4R70W automatic with a C4 Corvette IRS bringing up the rear, it had been experiencing severe driveability problems. That problem was fully solved and the truck has been running great ever since. Thanks, HOT ROD! Recently, my truck developed a leak out of the oil-pan gasket. The clearance to the front suspension is pretty tight, so I had to remove the motor to replace the gasket. While doing this, I noticed the face on the sheetmetal block plate that goes between the engine and trans was pretty beat up. I figured since the oil pan was coming off anyway, I’d…

If you’re one of those who start reading magazines from the back, then I’ll be the one breaking this news to you: HOT ROD has a new editor. It’s Johnny Hunkins, one of the few editors at the company who has been in the magazine game longer than I have. Flip up front to read his introduction. He’ll live up to this title’s legacy. But, as a job, what does “editor-in-chief” really mean? In the most traditional version, it’s the person in charge of every word, photo, and layout in the magazine. During my tenure, that included two complete redesigns of the magazine. Day to day, the editor conceives an editorial direction and chooses stories and crafts issues that support it. That extends from big vision down to picking which…