Part Number
912-0011

Have you ever noticed that as a guy gets older he likes to add a few refinements to his car that just weren’t as important to him as when he was a kid? Take the interior for example. Instead of accepting a folding beach chair for a seat, with a floor shifter to grab onto in case the driver-side door flies open around a curve, a set of proper seats might prove more desirable. Such was the case for the ’70 Camaro seen gracing these pages. Its owner got tired of the worn-out Vette buckets he’d bootlegged in with homemade mounting brackets years earlier, and sought out a better solution.

Easy View

An Adjustable Crescent Wrench

Let’s say you’re pulling your race car with your dualie through the countryside, and pass an Amish commuter in his horse-drawn buggy along the way; the irony here is that the truck, trailer, buggy, and race car all share the same primitive leaf-spring suspension. Although it’s true that some drag racers have managed to run mid-7s on leaf springs, they still have some severe limitations when asked by the chassis to turn or stop. As such, dumping them in favor of street-style four-link conversion kits has become very popular. By allowing the springs to do the suspending, and the control arms to locate the rearend, four-link systems provide dramatic improvements in handling and ride quality. However, they’re not the only game in town anymore.

Have you ever noticed the number of parts that can be taken out in one shot when we break our hot rods? I have a great example of this. I was racing my roadster at one of our local races here in Fontana, California (luckily, I was close to home). I made my first time run of the day and rolled up to our pits and shut everything off, cooled the car, recorded the weather, and downloaded my data logger. Everything looked great, and we went up to make a run with Daniel’s wagon. I went back to my roadster when they called us for our second-time run. I hopped into the car and fired the engine. When it started it sounded like there were marbles in a coffee can being rattled around in the cockpit. I immediately killed the engine and thought to myself, did it have oil pressure? The RacePak dash in my car has warning lights and nothing lit up. I cranked the car and the pressure was right there. I jacked the car up and looked to the flexplate, hoping to find it cracked or the converter bolts loosened up. No luck. Next, I fired the car again and put the car in First gear. The noise was immediately gone. Well, like I said I was glad that we were close to home since I didn’t have a spare transmission.

Holy heaps of lb-ft, Batman, this 572 Rat is wicked. Although Robin has a reputation for getting excited far too easily, there’s good reason for his enthusiasm this time around. The Smeding Performance 572ci crate big-block presented before us makes 692 lb-ft of torque, but that’s not the impressive part. That 692 figure isn’t peak torque, but rather the motor’s average torque throughout its entire 2,600- to 6,000-rpm rev band. Yikes. Peak torque checks in at 740 lb-ft at 4,400 rpm, and better yet, the massive Rat kicks out 700-plus lb-ft from 3,900 to 5,000 rpm. Now that’s what you call kicking some serious heinie throughout a very broad rpm range. That said, man does not live by lb-ft alone, and torque without horsepower is nothing more than a glorified dump truck motor. Fear not, for the Smeding big-block backs up its impressive torque tally with 737 hp. Can you say block-long burnouts with 2.73:1 gears? Now this is our kind of motor.

Get Mounted

The great thing about buying a beat-down classic A-body is that you don’t need to hock household items or sell off family members to medical science to afford one. The bad thing is that it has a low buy-in for a reason. Lots of wear, lots of tear, but then again making treasure out of trash is what this hobby is all about.

It’s the little things that add up and in this case, we’re talking about port matching the intake manifold to a pair of cylinder heads. If you recall, we recently put together a potent, Dart-based, 434ci small-block (“The Bigger Mouse,” Mar. ’12). The whole point of this build was to showcase how a well-thought-out combination could produce big-block–like torque and be perfectly streetable with a thirst for cheap petrol.

The potential for making a ton of twist is merely a game of cubic inches and compression. In other words, the more cubic inches you’ve got to pack air and fuel into, the more power you’re going to make.

It’s that time of year again; time to pull the cover off your car now that winter has passed. Yes, winter is a good time to spend with your family, but it’s also an even better time to get some of the items checked off your to-do list in the garage. With the shift in car show vibe from sit and watch to get up and play, we’re seeing more owners expressing interest in road racing.

The Richard that I’m referring to is Richard Maskin, president of Dart Machinery. Dick and I have been good friends since 1980 and we had the good fortune of running into each other at a local event last week. I hadn’t seen Dick in many years since he was Jeg Coughlin’s crew chief of his Pro Stock car. I think the last time we spoke at Pomona, I told him of a project I was working on with Flowmaster and Don Hardy of Hardy Race Car fame. We were building big-block Chevys to run in the irrigation fields of Northern Texas; these engines ran 24/7 for months at a time on natural gas. Don needed more torque at 1,800 rpm to pump more water and use less fuel in the process. We built a special set of custom headers and single exhaust system, this in combination with a very short camshaft gained about 50 lb-ft of torque at 1,800 rpm.

If you’re Bill Gates or that kid who owns Facebook, you can probably spare a million bucks more easily than a regular working man can cough up a thousand dollars. That’s just the way things go, so there’s no sense in being a hater. For car guys, this means that regardless of your budget, whether you have a $3,000 motor or a $23,000 motor in your street machine, you probably bought yourself as much horsepower as you could afford. Given all the cash that hot rodders are willing to dump into an engine without thinking twice, it’s somewhat peculiar that the oiling system is often an afterthought. Not only does the slick stuff touch just about every moving part in an engine, but even if you lose oil pressure for just the briefest of moments, the entire lump can go kaput. That’s not much breathing room, and considering all the money that’s at stake, perhaps it’s time to take oiling systems a bit more seriously.

Assembling an engine is a straightforward gig, but plenty of steps need to be taken prior to stuffing your choice of block with the latest aftermarket goods. One of the more important pre-assembly jobs is to make sure that your rotating assembly is properly balanced and ready to buzz in perfect harmony.

Get Balanced
Rattler Crankshaft Balancer For Small-Blocks

When it comes to taking accurate torque readings, you want a tool that will consistently deliver. Harbor Freight now offers a 1/2-inch drive torque wrench that features a click-stop design and is accurate to +/- 4 percent.

A good set of sockets is a must-have item, especially when it’s available at an affordable price. So whether you’re working on your engine or chassis, Harbor Freight’s 3/8-inch drive with 21-piece socket set will always come in handy.

Have you heard the news? Turbos are in vogue. Everyone wants them. They make ridiculous heaps of torque. They have that “free energy” thing going for them, too. With such a glowing list of positive attributes, turbos must be the ultimate power adder, right? Not so fast. Whether it’s in NMCA, NMRA, ADRL, or PSCA competition, supercharged door slammers don’t just give their turbocharged counterparts a run for their money; they often beat them outright. Nothing puts this into perspective better than the impressively long list of national championships won by supercharged cars in high-profile heads-up racing classes over the years. How on earth can superchargers be putting turbos on the trailer? To get some answers on what makes these supercharged freaks run so fast, we went straight to the source and called up Ken Jones of ProCharger. The company’s F-series blowers consistently dominate heads-up drag racing classes, so we were eager to find out why. In addition to dissecting the anatomy of some of the most advanced superchargers on the market, we discussed a host of forced-induction theory, ranging from compressor maps to intercooler design to impeller design to the relationship between pressure and flow. So here’s the scoop.

No one is born knowing how to file down rings or torque down main caps, so there’s nothing wrong with being an engine-building virgin. Who cares if your more experienced gearhead buddies might bust your chops about it? We all have to start somewhere, and with enough research and practice, you’ll be able to smoke those fools with a kickin’ engine combination that you built with your own two hands. Perhaps the greatest attribute of Chevy small- and big-blocks isn’t so much their prolific horsepower potential, but rather how easy and affordable they are for anyone to build right in your own garage. As hot rodders, the urge to plan and execute your first engine build is only natural; however, knowledge is the best defense against making costly mistakes. Fortunately, help is only a couple of paragraphs away.

We love letters, especially technical questions. Submit your tech questions to Kevin McClelland at chevyhi@sorc.com. Regular shout-outs and good tidings are also always welcome.

Last month, we installed Chris Alston’s Chassisworks’ gStreet suspension on the front of Pat McNeil’s clean ’69 Chevelle. Now we’re moving on to the rear suspension; this should make sure all 765 horses stay hooked up on the street and on the track.

It’s true, nothing lasts forever and all good things tend to have a cycle. In this instance, we’re talking about the lifespan of your cylinder head’s valvetrain. Obviously a lot of this is contingent on its environment; mild performance applications tend to last, whereas those pushed through strenuous conditions will undoubtedly require much more maintenance.

It’s a Gas

Back in the day, electronics referred to transbrakes, delay boxes, and throttle stops. With all due respect to the older crowd, in an era when 3,500-pound door slammers are running 7-second e.t.’s on 275 drag radials, it’s time to reevaluate the meaning of the word. Today’s small-tire drag racers are setting the scoreboards on fire thanks to a one-two tandem punch of staggering horsepower and incredibly efficient power management, and neither would be possible without the rise of modern electronics. If there’s traction to be had on a dragstrip, today’s advanced electronics will find it, and there’s no better way to go faster than to put the power your engine is already making down to the pavement more efficiently.