Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2005 i Hot Rod

22 YEARS IN THE MAKING ’69 AMC Hurst SC/Rambler Matt and Valeri Wilson Uniontown, PA More than two decades after seeing an SC/Rambler for the first time, Matt finally jumped on the chance to buy one. When this car was originally delivered to an AMC dealership in 1969, the owner’s son hid the car from him in the basement and took it drag racing at night. A week later, the owner heard of a certain AMC that was beating up on everyone at the track. He figured out what was going on, all hell broke loose, and the SC/Rambler was sold to Bob Crayton. After adding a cross-ram intake, a mild cam, and headers, Bob had the car running 12.60s. He kept it in good shape for the next 31…

INSIDE GM’S IMAGE ENGINE PLANT Tucked away in a converted warehouse in the corner of a nondescript industrial complex just a stone’s throw from Ford’s massive Wixom assembly plant north of Detroit, General Motors’ new High Performance Build center houses a state-of-the art engine-building facility dedicated to crafting some of the finest high-performance powerplants ever produced by GM Construction of the facility began just over two years ago, and by the time you read this, the first production engines will have rolled out of the center destined for ’06 Corvette Z06s, Cadillac STS-Vs, and XLR-Vs. Led by Site Manager Tim Schag, a crew of about 50 handpicked UAW members will hand build the 500hp LS7 and 440hp supercharged Northstar V-8 engines used in those cars side by side on three…

Travis Bell doesn’t believe in waiting around hoping his dreams will come true. As cofounder of the North American General Lee Fan Club, last year the 32-year-old Indianapolis, Indiana, disc jockey brought together fans of The Dukes of Hazzard in Covington, Georgia (the town where the first episodes of the TV series were shot), and had stuntman Corey Eubanks actually jump a General Lee orange ’69 Dodge Charger over the very same ’74 Dodge Monaco cop car that was jumped over in the very first jump executed for the series in 1979. This year he turned his attention to that classic of cinematic mayhem: 1980’s The Blues Brothers. Fans of the film remember when Jake and Elwood Blues (John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd), driving their Bluesmobile ’74 Monaco former Mt.…

POWERTRAIN Engine: In place of the original 427 big-block is an LS1 out of an ’02 Corvette with an F-body oil pan. A Magnuson blower pushes 6 psi of boost into a stock long-block. Katech valve covers and relocated coil packs tidy things up, and a Be Cool radiator maintains the coolant temperature. A Howell wiring harness simplified the retrofit. Performance: Despite maxing out the fuel pump and a non-optimized exhaust, the Vette puts down 400 hp and 425 lb-ft at the wheels. Transmission: A Tremec T56 was swiped out of an LS1 Camaro and matched up with a factory Z06 clutch. Rearend: The Dana 44 IRS is out of a C4 Corvette and features 4.10:1 gears and a custom New man Car Creations differential cover. The weathered ball joints…

Fast guys interpret the rules to their advantage. This time, we got cocky enough to read between the lines of the inflexible laws of physics. But did we win? You make the call. This story will give you a lot to think about. See, there’s a new buzz out there: rod-ratio discussions are passe, and the current talk is all about bore-to-stroke ratios. In other words, for a given displacement, does your engine’s application prefer a big bore and a short stroke (an oversquare design) or a smaller bore and a longer stroke (undersquare)? It’s the classic torque versus horsepower argument. For years, magazines have claimed that longer crankshaft stroke equals more low-end torque, and a shorter stroke equals more top-end horsepower. But we weren’t buyin’ it. So, in a…

For those who march to the beat of a different engine who dream of a unique powerplant that stands out from the crowd, this story is for you. If you want a cookie-cutter, me-too V-8 engine, look elsewhere, ’cause we’re about to give you the lowdown on Chevy’s un-V-8, the ’62-’90 inline six cylinder engine (“L-6” in Chevy-speak) built in displacements ranging from 194 to 292 ci. As the base engine in passenger cars and working trucks, millions of these torquey engines still pump along in the daily grind, and there are more than you’d think in use by traditional street rodders, entrylevel oval-track classes, and Bonneville racers. It has even found a niche in certain Competition Eliminator drag classes. One of the prime Chevy six masters is Mike Kirby…

MICKEY THOMPSON DRAG WHEELS Mickey Thompson 330/928-9092 www.mickeythompsontires.com The biggest name in drag tires now has its own set of lightweight drag wheels to match. Mickey Thompson’s new ET Drag wheels are built from forged aluminum then CNC-machined and polished for a brilliant finish. The one piece front forgings come in 15x3.5-and 17x2.125-inch sizes, and are available for spindle-mount applications. The three-piece rears can be had in a variety of 15-and 16-inch sizes that fit a number of different bolt patterns. RACE-RITE HEADS Brodix 479/394-1075 www.brodix.com Touted as the most user-friendly big-block Chevy heads on the market, Brodix has introduced its new Race-Rite castings. It bolts directly in place of stock cast iron heads allowing reuse of the intake manifold and pistons, and ensures better header flange fit by retaining…

2005 J.C. WHITNEY “DREAMSTAKES” J.C. Whitney offers you the chance to win $50,000 to buy a new car, truck, Jeep, or up to two motorcycles then load up on parts and accessories from the J.C. Whitney Everything Automotive catalog. Details and official rules are on www.jcwHR.com. Entrants must be licensed drivers at least 18 years old. Enter the easy way online at www.jcwHR.com, or mail a 3x5 card with your hand-printed first and last name, address, daytime telephone number, e-mail address (if available) and your date of birth to: JC Whitney Automotive Dreamstakes, P.O. Box 3992, St. Cloud, MN 56397-3992. Mail-in entries must be postmarked by October 1 and received by October 8. The e-mail entry deadline is September 30. You can only enter once, and there’s absolutely no purchase…

Most of the mail we got this month focused on two subjects from the April issue: Freiburger’s Starting Line editorial column and our cover story on the Real Women of Hot Rodding. Freiburger’s “Love Letter” was a plea to his fiancé, Karen, for her to allow him to buy an old Suburban. As a bunch of men pointed out, we’ve all been there—but as Felicia Casteen so entertainingly wrote, so have our wives. As for the Real Women of Hot Rodding, that type of story forces us to leave out many more possibilities than we can include. But we knew you readers would point out our mistakes of omission. Our call for more Readers’ Rides submissions has our in-boxes, both electronic and paper, bulging from the response. Keep it up.…

A VERY INTERESTING GENTLEMAN Andy Dixon bought this ’55 Chevy wagon from, in his words, “a very interesting gentleman” in Monrovia, California. The guy was the original owner and had stored the car in his backyard for more than 20 years. Andy says it took 31∕2 hours to get it out of the yard. The car has the original paint and interior, but Andy’s doing a frame-off build on it. IT’S REAL Former Car Craft and Popular Hot Rodding editor Cam Benty found this one in Hemet, California. He said it’s a real Hemi ’Cuda left to rot as a tree stand—“The good news: no rust. The bad news: bring a chainsaw.” A friend of Cam’s has already retrieved it and says it has a good VIN plate and front…

SUMMIT SUPERSTORE COMING TO ATLANTA Like it or not, mail order and the Internet have revolutionized the way we shop, and the undisputed leader in performance-parts sales is Summit Racing. Most Summit customers order their parts over the phone or online, but locals enjoy shopping at the company’s retail stores in Tallmadge, Ohio, and Sparks, Nevada, for more immediate gratification. Summit will soon open a third retail superstore near Atlanta (just off of I-75 and Highway 155) in McDonough, Georgia, featuring 25,000 square feet of race, street, truck, and sport compact parts, plus a mobile electronics area with the latest stereo and video gizmos. Check ’em out in person or at www.summitracing.com. —ROB KINNAN HOW THEY MAKE IT: CARRILLO RODS Since its founding in 1963, Carrillo Industries has been the…

From the moment the ’05 Mustang was announced, speculation was rampant about the next Cobra from Ford’s Special Vehicle Team. As early as last year, we correctly assumed the next-generation SVT Mustang would be powered by some variation of the Ford GT’s blown 5.4L modular V-8. Now Ford has lifted the veil on its latest hot rod and thrown us an interesting twist. The next Mustang from SVT won’t just be a Cobra, it will also mark the return of the legendary Shelby name to the Mustang stable. In the storied history of Ford’s remarkable Mustang, no name looms larger than Carroll Shelby’s. His association began shortly after the original pony-car’s 1964 debut with the legendary ’65-’66 Shelby GT350s and GT350Rs, and continued through to the late ’60s with the…

By golly, them there are some big ol’ wheels, 20s up front and double-deuces in the back. As even pre-peach-fuzz adolescents at a Hot Import Nights gathering can attest, rollers that extreme are strictly a fashion item. Maybe that’s OK, though, especially if you’re in the business of making cars look good. When generations of hot rodders have been rubbing your pasty elixirs onto their paint for that Mothers shine, visual impact is a must for your company’s own project car. Propped up against a backdrop of aluminum diamond plate and iridescent red, the El Camino pops off the page as if basaltic lava was harvested from Mt. Kilauea and mixed into its BASF Glasurit paint. Between the chaos of Overhaulin’ shoots, Chip Foose designed the stunning two-tone scheme that…

This is exactly how hot rodding should be. You get a few like-minded buddies together. You find an old castaway body in a field or a wrecking yard. You agree to meet at one guy’s garage (usually the one with the most tools—or at least a good welder) once a week. You have some sort of inspiration for the type of car you want to build. And whatever you can’t produce from your own small pool of talents and parts, you beg, borrow, or cajole from a wide circle of friends and family members who are so-equipped. That’s what Sam Strube, Tim Sage, and Terry Pehrson did. No, they’re not in a club. They’re just three Livermore, California, hot rodders who decided they wanted to build a low-buck, old-timey, dedicated…

DRAG WEEK DETAILS • Open to any four-wheeled-vehicle make or model, import or domestic. • All vehicles must have current license, registration, and proof of insurance. No dealer plates. • All vehicles must meet all NHRA safety rules for the e.t. and mph they are capable of. Running quicker than the safety equipment allows is cause for instant disqualification. • Any vehicle found being towed or hauled during the course of the event will be immediately disqualified. • Support vehicles of any kind are prohibited. All supplies must be carried onboard the vehicle, or in a trailer pulled by the vehicle. • Any repairs, changes, or modifications may be performed on the vehicle at any time. There is no impound. EVENT LOGISTICS • All racetracks will be open and ready…

SUBSCRIBE TODAY & SAVE! HOT ROD has been at the scenes for nearly six decades. If we weren’t making automotive news we were chronicling it.Our renewed commitment to you means we’ll get the stories other rodding magazines can’t. We’ll showcase the cars you want to see, give you the practical tech and how-to guidance you need, reveal every trick and money-saving tip in the book, and put it all into a package that’s bigger and better than ever. • COMPLETELY REDESIGNED • 32 ADDITIONAL PAGES • NEW AND EXPANDED SECTIONS • MORE PHOTOGRAPHY • A PRICE THAT CAN’T BE BEAT Discover the all-new HOT ROD magazine for yourself at a special low price. Where It All Began. Subscribe today! Call 1-800-800-4681…

The Where It All Began bit on Don Schumacher’s Wonder Wagon Vega Funny Car in our April ’04 issue inspired former HOT ROD editor and occasional contributor Pat Ganahl to dig through his archives and send us this old shot. Pat says, “It was taken at the monthly drag-parts swap meets that used to be held in the pits at Orange County International Raceway. This would be some time in the mid ’80s. As you can see, this bracket-bomber Vega flip-top wagon is no Buttera-built piece, but I think the asking price was around $1,200. Then-HRM staffer Philippe Danh (who I am sure is the only person who built and ran a ’glass-bodied, blown Hemi Citroen Flopper F/C in France) was seriously considering buying this to rebody his car—in Wonder…

MORE LEGIT The Real Women of Hot Rodding is definitely more legit than the airheads in swimsuits favored by the tuner and biker magazines. Too bad some of the real women didn’t bring their real cars to the photo shoots. We’d much rather see each of them racing or wrenching than just posed. Still, it’s a leap forward for our hot rod sisters. John Gatliff Mustang, OK FORGOT ONE There is one real woman that I feel deserved to be included in your list. Michelle Theriault is a young star on the rise in the Hooters Pro Cup series, and she has quite a list of accomplishments for someone so young. Check out her Web site at michelletheriault.com. And no, I’m not related. John Gatliff Mustang, OK FORGOT ONE There…

1975 THE BARRIS BLOW-OUT About a week after this issue hits the stands, the annual Cars & Stars Gala at the Petersen Automotive Museum will feature an exhibition of more than 80 cars built or owned by legendary customizer George Barris. On May 14, they’ll all be on the block during a Bonhams & Butterfields auction at the Petersen. It’s kind of fitting, since the relationship between Robert E. Petersen and George Barris has been a long one. As you may know, Petersen was the founder and publisher of this magazine and many others. As you may not know, George Barris and his brother Sam built custom cars long before George’s affiliation with TV and movie cars, and the brothers reportedly had the only custom car in Petersen’s very first…

ANOTHER ONE FROM STEVE’S Designer Chris Ito and Steve Frisbie of Steve’s Auto Restorations are at it again with a new project called the Phantom Airflow. The ’35 DeSoto Airflow will go from a four-door to a coupe, and when it’s done it won’t even resemble the factory car, save for the distinctive grille and headlights. It’s going to have a tube chassis with Air Ride bags and a Hemi engine, and Steve’s is predicting it will be the “hot rod of the decade.” One thing’s for sure; you don’t see a hot rod DeSoto every day. —ROB KINNAN THE HEMI HURRICANE Bunky Bobo is just about done with the restoration on the Hemi Hurricane, his Willys gasser that won the A/G class and Comp Eliminator at the ’67 Daytona…

Chevrolet’s Corvette has always been a unique animal amongst the vast array of savages terrorizing the performance-car kingdom. Too compact and agile to be a traditional muscle-car, yet replete with the finest of pure-Yankee powerplants, the Vette could more than hold its own against spry European sports cars and beastly Detroit contemporaries alike. And when it comes to lust factor, a big-block ’67 Vette ranks right up there with the ’70 454 SS Chevelle and the ’70 Hemi ’Cuda. However, with all due respect to second-gens that aren’t as well endowed, small-block ’67 Vettes just don’t have that same visceral appeal. Well aware of the potential repercussions, Matthew Gober substituted an LS1 where a 427 once lived. This guy certainly has some explaining to do, but after hearing his side…

Ask Craig Fraser a leading question—something like, “What are the hot custom paint trends these days?”—and the answer you’ll get will more than likely be a wide-ranging, rapidly spoken soliloquy that touches on centuries-old architecture, popcultural references, and (eventually) paint. “Customizing is not about what everyone thinks,” Fraser says to us at one point.“You do what the client wants, but you have to inject yourself into the job. It’s the customizer’s responsibility to know the difference between Hotel California and The Macarena, between Milli Vanilli and the Beatles.” See what we mean? Fraser is a striper and airbrush artist who splits his time between painting, writing books and magazine articles, and teaching up-and-coming young (spray) guns about the intricacies of “cheap tricks and special f/x” as he puts it. In…

POWERTRAIN Engine: The 0.060-over 283 was built 30 years ago by Kevin Sage and Paul Tidball with TRW high-compression forged pistons milled for valve reliefs, a reground cast crank with new bearings, and stock rods with aftermarket “/z bolts. The solid-lifter cam is from Comp with 0.540/0.534 lift and 255/266 duration at 0.050. The heads were ported long ago and carry 1.94/1.50 stainless valves. The 13/4-inch headers were homemade, and an Enderle fuel injector was converted to Hilborn barrel valve/nozzles/pump by Bob McCray Performance and feeds the engine methanol. Power: Not known, but it’s pretty good for a 30-year-old 283. Transmission: It’s a TCI Power-glide with a transbrake and 4,400-4,800-stall converter. Rearend: A ’57 Olds rearend was narrowed, but they don’t know by how much, and it holds 4.10 gears…

BORE VS. STROKE SHOWDOWN PG.98Throw away everything you’ve been told to believe about the effects of bore and stroke on an engine’s power curve. We still can’t believe it, but our intense test results show that it doesn’t matter. Cubic inches are cubic inches, torque curve be damned. ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE GM STRAIGHT-SIX PG.108Yeah, it’s a little oddball, but then so is Marlan. That’s why we assigned him to tell us everything about making power with a Chevy six-in-a-row. We turned him loose with a camera and a fresh notepad, and here’s what he came back with. A WIDEBAND O2SENSOR FOR ALL EIGHT HOLES PG.120Innovate takes its wideband oxygen sensor the next step forward, developing a system that allows you to read and data log the…

It’s not hard to find Internet experts expounding the virtues of long rods “as long as you cam them accordingly,” but they can’t tell you what, precisely, that means. What is the range from “totally wrong cam” to “perfect cam”? Is it a 5hp swing? Or 25? We’ll never claim to be experts, which is why we relied on designer Billy Godbold at Comp Cams. We thought we’d need to run these tests with a “perfect big-bore cam” and a “perfect small-bore cam” in both engines. Instead, Billy thought that the range of different needs for the two engine combinations was narrow enough that we would be able to use one solid-roller cam (with a split-the-difference 111-degree lobe sep) and test the variables with lash loops. That means altering the…

With the nuts and bolts of the engine buildup for my Camaro-Mustang Challenge road racer covered over the last two installments (“Build a Budget Racer Car,” Mar. and Apr. ’05), this month I’m going to tackle the remaining details of the engine swap. The plan was also to do some final tuning of the combination to get as close as possible to CMC’s rules-imposed power limits of 230 rwhp and 300 lb-ft of torque. Last month’s break-in dyno session left the 302 a bit short of those ceilings with 223 hp at 4,400 rpm and 275 lb-ft of torque at 3,900, but I cut the tuning session short after discovering wicked valve float. Unfortunately, other little problems popped up that prevented me from doing further dyno-testing by this month’s deadline.…