Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2009 i Hot Rod

THE FIRST CAR It was a hot summer day in 1980 when we first really noticed them. In a small field across the dirt road from my George West, Texas, house were a ’68 Cougar, a Rambler convertible, and a ’69 Charger. My friend James Long and I were 16 and 15, respectively and had officially caught the car bug. I had actually been bit a little earlier, but I could see my 16th birthday coming and the real itch had begun. The Rambler and Charger sat semi-covered in weeds, languishing behind the elderly couple’s mobile home, and the Cougar was in the driveway. One day, a “For Sale” sign showed up in the Cougar’s window and I got all excited. My dad knew about my car jones and had…

PROJECT WILLY While deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, my friend SSG Robert Whitman and I found an old Russian Jeep in a junkyard. We towed it to our motor pool to see if we could get it running. It had a four-cylinder hand-crankable gas engine, a four-speed manual transmission, and a three-speed transfer case. We pulled the drivetrain and replaced it with a 6.5L V-8 diesel and a TH350 automatic transmission. We started this project in November 2007 and had the first road test on Christmas Day that same year. Over the next nine months, we have added a GM Blazer rearend and made the transmission shift electronically. We also added some little stuff just to make it unique, like a dashpanel from a Blackhawk helicopter, a fuel…

COBRAJETS ROLLOUT Ford Racing has begun delivering its first batch of FR500CJ Cobra Jet Mustang drag cars. Unveiled at the ’08 SEMA show in Las Vegas, the factory-built racer is designed for NHRA Sportsman competition. Like the original Cobra Jet Mustangs back in 1968, initial production will be limited to 50 cars, and they’ll all be refrigerator white, though the ’68 color known as Wimbledon White has long since been replaced by a color coat/clearcoat finish called Performance White. Factory list price is $69,900, with all 50 of the initial ’08 production run already snapped up by Ford dealers for delivery to customers. Based on a Mustang V-6 body shell for light weight, the CJ features an Eaton-blown 5.4L Modular V-8 with a cast-iron block and four-valve aluminum heads, which…

SHAKEDOWN AT E-TOWN Six years ago Dave Hance had an idea to hold a race for Outlaw racers to compete heads-up, and along with Raceway Park in Englishtown, New Jersey, he came up with the concept for the Shakedown at E-town. This year’s running of the Al-Anabi Shakedown at E-town presented by Speedtech had $100,000 up for grabs in cash and prizes and was broken down into six classes with a cool 20 grand going to the winner in the top two classes. The other four classes had ten grand and five grand up for the winner to take home. The most important story in the fastest class, Speedtech Pro Mod Nitrous presented by Western Beef, was whether the 5-second barrier would finally be broken and who would do it.…

People have short memories. About every five years or so, the world of auto racing anoints the sport’s next great female pioneer: Janet, Lyn, Angelle, Sarah, Danica. With all due respect to these great and capable racers, baloney. Motorsports already has its greatest and bravest female pioneer, and she has the arrows in her back to prove it. Before any of them, Shirley Muldowney smashed through all the barriers to become the first woman to truly excel as a professional racer. Shirley won three NHRA Top Fuel World Championships, in 1977, 1980, and 1982. The first woman to win an NHRA national event in a pro eliminator (at Columbus in 1976), she collected 18 national event victories in NHRA competition—and several more under IHRA and AHRA sanctions. In 2004 she…

ALUMINUM STREET AVENGERCARBURETORS Holley 800/H0LLEY-1 www.holley.com Holley created the original Street Avenger carburetors as a simple bolt-it-on, make-two-small-tuning-adjustments, and drive-off option. Now Holley offers the same features in a lightweight, tumble-polished version that’ll shave approximately 5 pounds off the top of an engine versus its original zinc counterparts. Street Avenger carburetors are available in 670-and 770-cfm sizes with or without an electric choke, are 100 percent wet-flow tested, and include a fuel line kit and a comprehensive installation and tuning DVD. Price: $399.95 to $479.95 F-BODY ROAD RACE BAFFLE Improved Racing http://www.improvedracing.com Ready to put an F-body on a road course or autocross track? If it’s still got the stock oil pan, Improved Racing’s LSI road race pan baffle will improve the oil control and reduce starvation during long, high-g…

IT’S THE MEMORIES While each feature for HOT ROD has its merits, some are particularly satisfying. In the Jan. ’09 issue, in response to a letter, we inquired how many readers still had their first cars. The inpouring of mail was so overwhelming that we gathered the best submissions together in a photo album of first rides in this issue. Some of the old photos are absolute must-sees. What’s great about this gallery is it highlights the history of the owner with the car, and it’s those personal stories behind the cars I love most. I firmly believe a car with a story is what genuinely captures the imagination and imparts significance. For most people, their first car occupies an extra special place in their memory, and that’s certainly the…

MANAGEMENT GROUP ACQUIRES WELD RACING Through a partnership with Granite Creek Partners (www.granitecreek.com), Weld Racing has reacquired its assets from American Racing Equipment and plans to return to operation as an independent wheel manufacturer. Structured as a management buyout, the acquisition places ownership and leadership of the company in the hands of Kyle Fickler, formerly of Aeromotive, and Scott Rider, engineering and motorsports group manager of American Racing/Weld Motorsports. Granite Creek Partners, a Chicago-based investment firm cofounded by six-time IHRA Top Fuel Champion car owner Peter Lehman, provided the capital for the transaction. In addition to Weld PR.O. Race, Weld Sportforged, and the newly unveiled Weld RT Series, Weld Racing will also continue to manufacture and sell the American Racing Pro Series drag wheels. Fickler tells us the business plan…

There are a lot of firsts in life: first steps, first kiss, first drink with your dad, and, of course, first love. All of those are important landmarks in life, but for gearheads, they all take a back seat to the preeminent life-changing first of youth— your first car. It’s the open road, it’s responsibility, it’s freedom, and it’s the first time you get to be a real member of the hot rodding community. Sometimes your first isn’t the car you really wanted. More often than not, it’s a case of what is affordable, but in the end, that’s not really what matters. The car itself isn’t as important as the memories made in it. Times change, styles change, and preferences change, but those memories are irreplaceable and your first…

MOPAR BOLT-ONS PG.80 We take a plain-Jane small-block Satellite and flog it on. O I the dyno to see what new cylinder heads, cam, intake, and carburetor are worth in terms of power. Sec, we’re not all about Chevys. 802CI PUMP-GAS MONSTER PG.86 It’s absolute insanity. Sonny Leonard builds the biggest mountain motor for the street that runs on (jump gas and makes an unholy 1,400 bp. Wow. 1,000 HPATTHETIRES PG.90 Hellion Power Systems’twin-turbo kit fur the ’03 to ’04 Mustang Cobra uses compounded boost for 1,000 streetable horsepower at the rear wheels. The GT500 kit is even more repressive. TESTANDTUNE PG.104 Automotive art, three-valve Ford cams, F-body oil. -LUH pans, and pinion-yokes… there’s something for everyone this month. PITSTOP PG.110 Chevy versus Ford and the power potential of a…

In the ever-escalating war of large-displacement engines, Sonny Leonard is one of the field generals. Sonny’s Automotive Racing is well known for building big-power, huge displacement racing engines, but it’s just as adept at streetable pump gas combinations. A really big pump gas engine is what popped into Dave Traitel’s mind when he thought about the kind of car he’d like his company, TKO MotorSports, to build for fellow extreme car enthusiasts, so he called Leonard to bench race. “I chose Sonny because of an article I had read about one of his engines,” Traitel explains. “I was really taken by the amount of power this motor was making. Yet, while I like horsepower, I also like torque. I remembered from my ranching days that torque is a great friend…

Every April since 2005, HOT ROD has sponsored the annual Top Speed Challenge, run by the East Coast Timing Association (ECTA) at a WW II runway in Maxton, North Carolina, and we’re going back this year. This is a standing-mile event, meaning you see how fast your car, truck, or motorcycle can get up to in a mile. It’s the best way to discover how fast your hot rod is without the danger of going to jail, and the atmosphere is serious on safety but otherwise totally laid-back. It’s one of our favorite events of the year, and if you’ve never been, you need to come play with us. We award Top Speed Challenge jackets to the racer who turns in the fastest time in the Street and Super Street…

We love getting emails from readers commenting about the magazine because it allows us to better tailor it to the audience. You tell us what you want or don’t want, and the best, most well thought-out letters end up in Bench Racing. But here are a few handy tips to give your letter a better shot at getting published. First, don’t type in all capital letters. Its annoying to read. Second, always put your first and last name as well as town and city at the end of your email. Third, reread what you wrote before hitting the send button. If it doesn’t make sense to you, it won’t to us either. Finally, if you’re sending photos, they need to be roughly 1,500 pixels wide and tall. Otherwise, they’re too…

1966 LLOYD BRIDGES In addition to publishing, our founder, Robert E. Petersen, had this hand in moviemaking, mostly in the period from 1966 to 1970. The feature film Hot Rod Action from 1969 was the most well known of these movie ventures. A ’’ surf movie was done around the same time. Predating both of those was 1966’s Wonderful World of Wheels, an hour-long TV special presented j as a Petersen Color Spectacular in conjunction with DuPont. It “ aired September 8, 1966, on CBS. The show featured slot cars, sports cars at Riverside, a ride in a Shelby Cobra, the crash of Craig Breed-love’s Spirit of America at Bonneville, Fuel dragsters and other cars in action, and vignettes with ’ Big Daddy Roth. While Petersen promotions always insisted “the…

TOXIC 66 With the goal of taking the classic lines of a ’66 Mustang fastback and streamlining them in steel, Eric Vidmar and Jimmy Lieder’s Pro Street-inspired project dubbed Toxic ’66, which is going together at The Hot Rod Shop in Clovis, California, has a long list of custom metalwork on the exterior. Inside, Eric crafted a custom steel dash and a full rollcage that is built into the body so it can be hidden within the interior panels. To earn the 15-inch-wide rear wheels, a Ford Racing 351-based four-bolt main dry-sump block was stroked to 408 ci and topped with stage three Canfield heads and a BDS 8-71 blower. Behind that, a paddle-shifted Bowler AOD-E and a narrowed 9-inch with Moser 31-spline axles, 4.11 gears, and a Detroit Locker…

“The power comes on real quick, and with the close-ratio ’ l trans, let’s just say I have to shift very fast.” —Ted Nguyen If you feel like burning this issue to a crisp after reading this story—assuming you actually make it to the end—we feel your pain. Why would anyone pull an automotive Pearl Harbor by putting a Toyota Supra motor in a ’67 Camaro, an original show-quality RS/SS at that? We’ll save the message board trolls some time by throwing out our own official “WTF?” For decades, Chevy boys have been chuckling on the sidelines while Mouse motors and LS1s were dropped into everything from Porsches to Datsuns to BMWs to Mazdas to Hondas and even Fords. The purists balked. The heretics went fast. Now that the tables…

At the very heart of the idea of hot rodding is the notion of taking something you’ve got and then pulling out the wrenches to make it better. The ’71 Plymouth Satellite we recently acquired illustrates this sentiment precisely. Although camouflaged with enough grease to fool you, the engine actually ran pretty sweet. But even before the cash changed hands on the initial buy, thoughts were flying about how to make it better. Under the hood, we could look at the parts combination and spy some items we knew left plenty of room for improvement. The previous owner had installed a 340—a Mopar engine known for surprising power even in stock form—but in place of the rare and somewhat valuable 340 high-performance exhaust manifolds hung a lowly and restrictive set…

Driving a car with a legitimate 1,000 hp on the street is nearly impossible without killing yourself and every innocent bystander around, but oh boy is it a lot of fun. Fifteen years ago, making that kind of power meant a 2,000-rpm idle, horrible street manners, and 4-mpg fuel economy. Thanks to the wonders of turbochargers and EFI technology, it’s now fairly easy to make four-digit power— but you still have to use expensive race gas to get there, right? Not anymore. John Urist, the three-time consecutive NMRA Super Street Outlaw champion, has a company called Hellion Power Systems that specializes in turbo kits for late-model Mustangs. Hellion has systems from mild, everyday street drivers to full-on 7-second race cars, but the ones that piqued our interest are his two…