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contents hotrod.com hot rods 26wild 27 buick rod 28chopped riviera 29the depot hack 30 6.1l hemi kuda feature stories what happened at the 61st running of the fastest show on wheels plus we explain how bonneville racing works and what all those funky class designation letters mean 36bonneville 09 after a 40-year absence the hot rod magazine drags returns to promote late-model muscle 48ford vs gm vs mopar cover story the late 70s and early 80s are hip again especially as they apply to street machine styling here are examples of the era done right 60street machines on the cover after stylist hollie williamson and makeup artist jessica deben were done with model nikki gray photographer robert kerian captured her with the crusher camaro inset wes allison the poteet main speed demon on the salt ready for 401 mph see pg 36 hot rod december 2009 3

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contents hotrod.com tech 68return of the crusher camaro 78more 10 camaro bolt-ons building 84race rod the revamping our famous project car from the mid 90s with a gnarly late 70s/early 80s vibe groovy 8 starting line 10 holeshot could street machine styling hits and misses the in your face story of bonneville 08 revisiting the hot rod test car camaro with ported heads a bigger cam and long-tube headers 12the firebird return here srandom roddin at evidence of maybe phil cool 20 wherethe original hotbegandrags it all rod magazine s roadster and 104 test and tune 110 pit stop a distributor that looks like a magneto sweet new parts you need to buy to keep the hot rodding economy going the story of how roughly 20 people attacked a factory five racing 33 ford kit and built the entire thing in five days really 92self-tuning fuel injection we test the new ez-efi from fast the race rod nearing the end of a five-day buildup see pg 84 120 world of hot rod cool new retro-styled drag signs and more 122drag weektm next coming rod hot 4 december 2009 hot rod

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would you rather have a claim or a guarantee only valvoline guarantees your engine for up to 300,000 miles it s simple register your car at valvoline.com before 75,000 miles and we ll guarantee your engine for up to 300,000 miles get guaranteed at valvoline.com © 2009 ashland inc see valvoline.com or where products are sold for detailed benefits and limitations.

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hotrod@hotrod.com editorial editor-in-chief david freiburger editor rob kinnan managing editor kristen prescott senior technical editor marlan davis copy editor michelle mccarthy hotrod.com editor glen wilkinson art direction and design art director edwin alpanian photo editor taylor le director of photography randy lorentzen contributors detroit editor bill mcguire correspondent christopher campbell the performance group on the web www.carcraft.com www.chevyhiperformance.com www.corvettefever.com www.hotrod.com www.moparmusclemagazine.com www.modifiedmustangsandfords.com www.mustangmonthly.com www.50mustangandsuperfords.com subscription services email hotrodmagazine@emailcustomerservice.com call 800/800-4681 386/447-6385 international or write to hot rod p.o box 420235 palm coast fl 32142-0235 please include name address and phone number on any inquiries for change of address six weeks notice required send old as well as new address to hot rod p.o box 420235 palm coast fl 32142-0235 occasionally our subscriber list is made available to reputable firms offering goods and services we believe would be of interest to our readers if you prefer to be excluded please send your current address label and a note requesting to be excluded from these promotions to source interlink media llc 261 madison avenue new york ny 10016 attn privacy coordinator back issues to order back issues log on to www.primediabackissues.com or write to hot rod back issues 2900 amber lane corona ca 92882 cost $6 each plus $3 shipping and handling please specify magazine and issue date see web site for availability if this is not specified your check/money order will be returned to you please wait 3-4 weeks for delivery advertising information please call hot rod advertising department at 323/7822325 related publications include 4-wheel off-road four wheeler jp super street eurotuner rod custom circle track 5.0 mustang super fords mustang monthly modified mustangs fords corvette fever mopar muscle car craft and chevy high performance reprints contact wright s reprints at 877/652-5295 281/419-5725 outside the u.s and canada to purchase quality custom reprints or e-prints of articles appearing in these publications copyright 2009 by source interlink magazines llc all rights reserved printed in the u.s.a.

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advertising publisher jerry pitt marketing manager jenny schmitz group advertising director warren kosikov account executive brian cox account executive bob mehlhoff advertising coordinator monica strock publisher s assistant mimi hirata west los angeles 6420 wilshire blvd los angeles ca 90048 mark dewey scott timberlake 323/782-2000 placentia 774 s placentia ave placentia ca 92870 714/939-2559 east new york 261 madison ave new york ny 10016 adam mayerson 212/915-4405 craig mura 212/915-4406 north detroit 333 west fort st suite 1350 detroit mi 48226 joe didato 313/967-5119 midwest chicago 500 n dearborn suite 1100 chicago il 60610 glenn bucher 312/396-0606 southeast tampa 9036 brittany way tampa fl 33619 brit white 813/675-3479 southwest dallas 3117 saint croix dr dallas tx 75229 steve arndt 214/904-9811 performance automotive group sr vp group publisher doug evans vp sales and marketing ira gabriel group operations director amy diamond senior operations director pauline atwood officers of source interlink companies inc chairman and ceo gregory mays president and coo james r gillis president source interlink distribution alan tuchman chief administrative officer douglas bates chief financial officer marc fierman general counsel cynthia l beauchamp source interlink media llc president digital media greg goff sr vp chief creative officer alan alpanian sr vp operations chris argentieri sr vp manufacturing and production kevin mullan sr vp integrated marketing brad gerber vp finance colleen artell consumer marketing source interlink media llc sr vp single copy rich baron vp circulation planning and operations arlene perez consumer marketing enthusiast media subscription company inc vp consumer marketing tom slater

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editor s letter i want one again this month s cover theme is about the style of street machines in their heyday which was the late 70s and early 80s checking out all the images for this story threw me into a time machine and transported me back to when the world didn t seem so complicated and i spent hours every day poring through car mags it was ironic that freiburger picked the time period between 1978 and 1982 to illustrate the story since that s exactly the time frame when i got hooked i first really started reading car magazines in 1978 in eighth grade study hall i remember drooling over some of the very same cars he pulled photos of and dreaming of one day building my own my automotive education came from those magazines and my early styling sensibilities good and bad came from that era looking back at old photos reminds me where i hit and where i missed on the street machine fashion front but through it all i was convinced that my car was the coolest in town everybody does don t they the american vector wheels my christmas present for 1982 on an early camaro look pretty dated today but back then they were totally bitchin i chose them for two reasons one they were the same wheels that were on the general lee two i saw a set on a camaro in one of the car mags and it lit my fire and i get extra bonus points for goodyear eagle gts high school graduation present with raised white letters also really cool at the time but now a little iffy were the trans am exhaust tips you know the ones chrome with four tips poking out downward from the quarterpanels i got a lot of comments on those i probably would today too but maybe not the same type another glaring style error was the highback second-gen camaro buckets in my first-gen convertible i bought them used and torn from an ad in the paper and eventually had them reupholstered when a light pole tore through the top don t ask they were comfy but now i feel like the seatbacks shouldn t be higher than the doors in a convertible offsetting the questionable seats were my rev-limiting mallory tach and the pièce de résistance the hurst lightning rods shifter talk about a conversation starter that thing got me out of three tickets and provided all kinds of amusement jacking with people who were confused by it hurst needs to bring this one back i mean it under the hood were good and bad the good were the m/t valve covers braided lines high-pressure teflon stuff but with hose clamps instead of real fittings and of course accel wires and that big yellow super coil the bad were the twin fenderwell-mounted fram oil filters with a relocation adapter from super shops handy tech tip never use heater hose for oil flow ask me how i know and stickers everywhere anytime i d get a new part it would come with at least one sticker in the box and guess where those puppies went yep anywhere under the hood that they d stick once there was no more room they went on the underside of the trunk lid my favorite was the black iron cross that came with my schneider cam on the styling fence depending on your opinion were the aluminum-coated blackjack ak5000 headers greasy fingerprints dug into that coating like an anchor but they never flaked in the six years i owned them with all the cheesy 70s style there was some definite good and freiburger s remake of the crusher hit some of them i still like my m/t valve covers better than the gold-anodized morosos but those are still cool and do a better job of screaming the decade satin-finish center line auto drags man those just instantly made your car a second faster didn t they and remember when 15-inch mags were the thing to have they still are sometimes i always thought the low-hanging fram filter behind the front bumper was dorky though and thank god i never painted a name on the spoiler will there be a resurgence of this style or are we just out of our minds rob kinnan email me hotrod@hotrod.com 8 december 2009 hot rod

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some corners you just don t cut these days it s tempting to try to save a buck or two but your inner car guy knows your engine is no place to skimp just look for the big yellow jug and you re always covered prestone® 50/50 ready-to-use extended life antifreeze/coolant is formulated to protect any make or model car and mixes with any color antifreeze it s perfectly pre-mixed so you just pop pour and protect only prestone is prestone

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editor-in-chief s letter our camaro in 2008 with its legal junkyard-and-hardware-store air dam spending a week at the bonneville salt flats covering the annual speed week for this issue reminded me of a really good story that went down last year during my brief respite from employment at hot rod you would have only heard this one if you were following the website i was working for near its end of days the tale starts with me and my racing partners keith and tonya turk deciding that the former hot rod spl 80 camaro which you ve seen in these pages many times would revert to its old so-al racing banner and return to the salt for speed week 08 it would be the fifth straight year we had raced as a team and we had our eye on records in three different classes i freshened the gm zz572 crate motor that had been in the car in 2006 and topped it with a vortech supercharger so we could improve tonya s aa/classic blown fuel altered record from 2007 we did that handily as tonya reset the record at 246.767 mph and in the process achieved her goal of obtaining an aa license by exceeding 250 mph during her record-qualifying pass perfect next we reconfigured the car to run in aa/classic gas coupe this class was a first for us since the car has traditionally run in altered and the change required us to unblock the headlights and grille and to remove our wind tunnel­proven rear spoiler those omissions created a major aerodynamic disadvantage we also unbolted the supercharger and then put my friend and business partner chad reynolds in the car as driver taking advantage of the firstever third track the scta had provided in 2008 we got chad his a license for times below 250 mph in two quick days and he also qualified for a record with a 216-mph run interestingly he spun out on his record return run but still went faster backward than he had on the qualifying run and set the record at 218.793 mph we were ready to put the blower back on and go for a third record in yet a different class but then the fun began we soon got word that another racer in aa/cgc one who had previously set the record at 209 mph had protested chad s record after a little infighting and reflection on the rule book we finally agreed that the protester was correct the rules in gas coupe were slightly different than in altered and required the top edge of our front air dam to be mounted about an inch lower than it was rather than require the scta to uphold the protest we forfeited the record nevertheless we felt that the infraction was not a tangible performance advantage and that the protest was a cheesy way for the other guy to keep a record we spotted some minor infractions on the car belonging to the protester but decided not to retaliate with paperwork instead we just told the dude that his car was a lot like a race car only slower honestly we were jerks to the guy we now regret that what we don t lament is our more upstanding comeback we re not the types who back down from a challenge so we started hunting the pits for a replacement rubber nose for our camaro the hunt led us to the shop of racer ed goodrich about 140 miles away we cannonballed to idaho where ed s family let us strip the bumper from one of his parts cars and bought us pizza and beer we then freight-trained back to wendover utah near bonneville and ransacked the hardware store for supplies to build a new air dam that was as legal as it was hideous then i got in the car and smacked the record back to 225.339 mph which in truth was a lot like a record only slower even so the thrash stands next to our run of five records in a single week 2007 on our personal gloat list but now it s 2009 and the latest scta rule book has a lot of new bold text with our names all over it a bunch of camaros showed up at speed week with revised air dams rear spoilers and hoodscoops our savior ed goodrich ran faster than he ever had we made amends with the protester and racer bob griffith made a moot point of the whole story wiping out our hardearned aa/classic gas coupe victory with a new record of 240.778 mph but we may know how to fix that david freiburger email me hotrod@hotrod.com 10 december 2009 hot rod

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letters news more send stuff in email hotrod@hotrod.com· mail hot rod 6420 wilshire blvd los angeles ca 90048 photo requirements minimum size 1,600 x 1,200 pixels message board hotrod.com the new firebird as we all know by now the pontiac division is dead accordingly gm will not be offering a firebird based on the latest-generation camaro that stinks in the opinion of ken lingenfelter and the crew at lingenfelter performance engineering lpe so they are developing their own ponchoinspired variation on the new camaro called the lta lingenfelter trans am we presume lpe plans to display the car at sema in las vegas and if the response is sufficient production versions will follow the company says lpe s vision for a 21st century firebird features a 71 trans am interior/exterior theme as shown in the clay styling prototype pictured here special front and rear fasciae fender vents honeycomb wheels a new hood with a functional shaker scoop and unique interior pieces perform the transformation the most interesting part power will be provided by a real pontiacbased 455ci v-8 using an aftermarket aluminum block and heads will the firebird be reborn well the car is named after the mythological bird that perpetually rises from its own ashes bill mcguire granny s first drag car this is a 64-year-old great-granny s first drag racing car a saturn with a stock 98 chevy truck 350 vortec engine with a th350 transmission the car weighs 3,040 pounds granny jane hickerson-giles runs consistent eighth-mile times of 8.0 and reaction times in the 0.01s not bad for her first drag rac ing experience i built the car specifically for her to race and have a combined total of about $2,200 in the car its name is junkyard dawg since most of its parts were purchased from junkyards bill giles husband of granny via email 12 december 2009 hot rod

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hotrod.com an amazing find at bonneville we ve flopped this photo so you can read the name and number on the tags they are actually folded with the backside facing out it was a shocker to us that none of the racers we spoke to at this year s speed week at bonneville even those who had been visiting the salt flats for 40-plus years knew about a small gravesite that s at the edge of the great dry lake it s marked by a white cross now half sunk into the salt with only one word on it vanley the grave is stacked with airplane shrapnel remnants of a training crash that took a pilot s life in 1954 even 55 years later the area is littered with hunks of fuselage from 1 to 6 inches long as well as pieces of rubber electric motors gauges and more visitors tend to gather the stuff from the desert floor and stack it near the cross this year racers ken and inez carlson were doing just that and inez found the pilot s dog tags perhaps nature has brought the stainless steel tags to the surface in the past but fate put inez in the right place and time to discover them the tags reveal the man s name to have been vanley johnson it s unusual that it s not his surname on the cross online research gave us the date of his crash and that he was from hardin county kentucky but little else is known ken is an army reservist who just returned from iraq and he is going through channels to see if any surviving family members can be found so the dog tags may be returned failing that do any of you have more information on vanley johnson email us at hotrod@hotrod .com and we will forward it to the search party david freiburger here s the seemingly forgotten grave of a wwii and korean war veteran who lost his life near the bonneville salt flats in 1954 the hot rod i was reading the apr 09 issue of hot rod about barn finds and survivor hot rods and would like to tell a tale of a surviving homebuilt hot rod in my own family my grandfather steve caroleo owned a small shop in carnegie pennsylvania back in the 50s where he worked on cars and sold welders he built a car for his first-born son my uncle don when i say built a car i mean home-built the car by creating his own frame and using parts from many different cars to build a sleek twoseater a true one-of-a-kind hot rod my father and i still refer to this car as the hot rod the build began back in 1953 with a dodge front suspension a ford transverse-sprung rearend and a corvette windshield that was sectioned in the middle all the body panels grille and bumpers were hand-fabricated around the homebuilt chassis and welded together by my grandfather custom louvers were worked into the one-off hood to reduce engine compartment heat the fabbed bumpers grille and many of the suspension parts were sent out for chrome plating a custom dash and interior with red and white upholstery are complemented by studebaker gauges power for the hot rod comes from a 48 mercury flathead that was rebuilt with a hot cam two carburetors and a custom must-see air intake system that mounts a filter on each side of the body to receive fresh air the bodywork and car e-engine-red were finished in 1955 with a fire-engine-red paint job at the same time my uncle was ready for college he felt the hot rod was too nice for driving around at college and left it in my grandfather s garage where it still resides today i spent a lot of childhood years in the mid 70s with my grandfather who took the time to teach me the fractions of an inch the different types of tools and how to use them he even taught me how to weld little did i know back then that my grandfather was prepping a third-generation hot rodder me my grandfather is now 94 years old he still gets around pretty good but is quickly losing his eyes and can no longer drive the hot rod but i have pictures from one of the last times he did drive it dave caroleo via email hot rod december 2009 13

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roddin at random more power tour® memories i want to thank you on behalf of my family for having the hot rod power tour® the event was used as a male bonding experience for my son emmet nephew nic father walter and myself my father s health has been failing recently and i wanted to give the old hot rodder an adventure like none he has ever had also i wanted his grandsons to share this with him and come away with memories for a lifetime that mission was accomplished i chose to take my wife s 67 olds cutlass wagon and was able to rebuild everything under it but ran out of time on the bodywork but that didn t affect our excitement the four of us will never forget the week we spent together traveling through nine states from west virginia and back in an old rusty wagon we all became closer and have memories that no one can ever take away from us plus with the elusive long haultm status still left hanging out there for us [ed note transmission problems kept them from the starting point in madison wisconsin i am sure we will be back jeromy rose richwood wv mystery solved your oct 09 issue has a picture of the munster koach in the where it all began section the location was at fuel check at the indy nationals in 1966 the people from left to right are dale schafer dr dean hill and roland schmidt on the headset we all worked for the nhra the man drawing fuel was r.v parker i do not remember who the two with the car were it was staged to promote the tv show r.v parker owned lassiter mountain dragstrip in birmingham alabama dr dean hill started the fuel testing for the nhra and roland schmidt was the manager of a dragstrip i managed the dragstrip at albuquerque new mexico the hat hanging in the background was one of the official hats that was given to workers i still have mine and the shirt too the station wagon was northwest division director terrell poague s nhra car he ran fuel check and the scales at the national events i started working for the nhra with dean hill at pomona california in 1964 we were given sack lunches and a carton of milk at noon at the races after lunch wally parks would walk down to the timeslips fuel check and scales and ask us how the lunches were dale schafer albuquerque nm cool thanks for id ing those guys dale this was found in the rolling hills of north carolina it was pulled from a building that was falling in and being torn down the car had been parked in it for about 20 years and you guessed it it s not for sale at any price joseph spurlin via email not for sale

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4 9/52 034 50 2 4 342 74 8 44%2 7 2 02/4 4 4 7 4here are synthetics !nd then theres #astrol 7ith an advanced full synthetic formula thats proven to safeguard against friction and engine failure 3o do whats best for your car 2esults based on industry standard 3equence 6 wear test 43 2 4 534 43 15 2 4-

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