I have been reading Car Craft since 1985 and held a subscription since 1998. Since I have held my subscription, David Freiburger and Matt King have built Car Craft into the best magazine out there for real hot rodders. When I started reading Car Craft in 1998, I was excited to find a magazine that catered to all makes and models. If they did an engine buildup between Ford, GM, and Mopar and the Mopar came out on top, they printed it that way. They didn't slip on a single-plane intake and rev the GM a little higher or make excuses as to why the Mopar won, they just printed it. I believe what Car Craft says about an aftermarket part, engine combination, or new car. A few years ago when they tested a bunch of new performance cars, Car Craft said that the Cobra was slower than the others (lousy low-end torque) but had good ergonomics. I believe they even compared it to a four-cylinder car at low rpm. The truth hurts, but Car Craft was vindicated later when the news of the '99 Cobra debacle came out. When GM canned the Camaro, Car Craft blamed the poor quality and user friendliness. They told the truth. When Car Craft pointed out that the Monaro (GTO) looked a lot like a new Mustang, they told the truth.
I'm a Mustang guy (I have a '67 fastback and a '91 LX 5.0), but I lamented the loss of the Camaro, because without the Camaro, I am afraid Ford will either start chasing the Vette and price the Mustang out of reach for most enthusiasts or turn it into a "Grand Tourer" and make it heavy and slow.
I cannot warm up to the imports, so myself and others like me need a magazine like Car Craft in its present iteration. Jeff Smith, don't forget that some of us drive GM products, some drive Fords, some drive Mopar and some even drive AMCs.
Bucky W. Edwards
Phenix City, AL
Hooked
I'd like to pass along my story of woe so that others might learn from my mistakes. It starts with a friend who races NHRA Stock Eliminator. After hanging out with him at a couple of races, I got hooked. I took my '67 Mustang out to Infineon Raceway (Sears Point) the next time they had a Summit Racing ET event and tried my hand at it. The light came down much more quickly than I expected. This would later show in my 1.140-second reaction time. I got a rude awakening when I picked up my timeslip-17.10. I knew this was bad because a friend just hit 14.40 with his stock four-cylinder Subaru. It was still pretty cool to live the whole experience, though.
I decided the time had come for some changes in my 289! Over the next few months I added a bigger cam, '69 351W heads, Performer RPM intake, TCI Street Fighter stall converter, rejetted my Demon carb, and went to a full manual reverse pattern valvebody in my C4 with its Cheetah shifter from Turbo Action. I even swapped out my 9-inch 3.25-geared Traction Loc third member for a mini-spool and 3.79 gears to turn the 275/50R15 Goodrich Drag Radials. After each major change I went back to the track and saw little change in performance, though I did get to 15.95 and cut my reaction time to 0.540.
Dejected, I accepted the fact that I had to wait until I could afford to convert one of my '69 351W blocks into a 408ci stroker. Only then would I see real performance gains. All this time I had chosen not to pull the engine out because I wanted to save that big job for when I completed the stroker. I even went so far as to give away a complete '85 roller 302 in parts to keep the temptation away. I know, dumb. I talked to my buddy again and borrowed his leakdown tester. I decided to test the motor and see if it had any real problems. Surprise, how does five holes at 43 percent and three at 72 percent leakage grab ya? That also explained the incredible amount of crankcase pressure.