397hp, 428ci Windsor Ford - Horsepower!

In April 2009, GM officially killed the Pontiac Motor Division. But for true believers, GM's Widetrack division is far from deceased. Edelbrock is doing its part by adding to its Pontiac performance parts lineup with a new cylinder head, something the majority of Pontiac guys have been patiently anticipating. The first Edelbrock Performer RPM aluminum head for Pontiacs, introduced several years ago, was patterned after the high-perf Pontiac Ram Air IV, 455 HO, and Super Duty heads with round exhaust ports. These OE performance heads were highly prized but never built in significant numbers. When Edelbrock replicated these much-sought-after performance heads, the E-Team also retained the RA IV's unique exhaust bolt pattern and round-port configuration. Unfortunately, these ports are not interchangeable with the stock Pontiac D-port exhaust version. This meant you had to find the more rare Super Duty, RA IV, or 455 HO exhaust manifolds or headers to use those Edelbrock heads.

America might rank near the bottom of the barrel among industrialized countries when it comes to standardized math scores, but by golly, we know bogus arithmetic when we see it. According to many Pro Touring guys, real street machines need a minimum of six forward gears for performance and streetability purposes. While we appreciate cars that can accelerate, turn, and brake like stink, do you really need a double-overdrive transmission to roll your car off a trailer and jockey it around a parking lot full of cones? Something just doesn’t add up. Anyone who answered yes probably has the means to blow $2,000 to $3,000 on a prebundled manual trans conversion kit. There’s nothing wrong with that, as these setups are pretty slick, and let’s face it, someone has to stimulate the economy. However, for those on a more modest budget, that kind of money might be more than your entire car is worth. Fortunately, stepping outside the blister-pack norm and exercising a little bit of creativity can get you on your way to banging gears like a hoodlum for peanuts.

After rescuing parts from the boneyard, one usually drags them back to a home shop to clean, modify, and install. That means working with greasy parts, solvent, gasoline, cleaners, and all sorts of combustible materials. After you’ve worked on cars for a while, you begin to take all these hazardous materials for granted, and fire safety is generally the last thing you think about when a project is at hand. This fact smacked us in the face a few months ago when we learned that longtime hot rodder Tom Medley, one of the original Petersen Publishing Co. employees and the creator of the Stroker McGurk cartoon character, lost his garage in a fire. Tom’s ’40 Ford coupe backfired, and the resulting flames turned the car and Medley’s garage into charred wreckage. Thankfully, Medley was not injured, but the shop was totaled.

The adrenaline shakes take over in your left leg as you probe your subconscious for the list of things that will keep your car off the guardrail. In your right hand is the shifter connected to a reverse-manual valvebody in the automatic. With 800 pounds showing on the brake-pressure gauge, you floor the gas pedal, letting loose the dogs and bumping off the rev limiter in the water box. With a slow count to three, you release the button on the line-lock and roll to the starting line. With your foot on the floor you sidestep the brake pedal and head for the rev limiter before pulling the shifter down for the one, two, three. You pass the stripe at 145 mph and lift. The engine freewheels, muting all but the sound of the pebbles bouncing in the wheeltubs.

Yup, More Oil

Last month, we tossed a cam, an intake, and an NOS Cheater nitrous kit at a Goodwrench 350 crate engine from Scoggin-Dickey and made 524 hp with a 200hp shot (“Saturday Night Special,” May ’12). On the normally aspirated side of the ledger, Mr. Goodwrench managed to squeak out 330 hp and 350 lb-ft of torque. These numbers were OK, but we had greater expectations. The goal this month was to bolt the motor in our ’66 Orange Peel Chevelle, run a normally aspirated 12-second pass, possibly squeeze an 11, and not break anything. But before we dropped the 350 into the engine compartment, the original short-block needed enhancing.

Hands On

There was a time when you’d hole-saw your muscle car’s dash for a set of Sun Tune gauges, just to know how much gas you had in the tank. That was before the price of a rare Mopar convertible wiggled its way into the seven-figure price range. That tide floated your crusty B-body north of $25,000, and now could be the time to sell. To hook interested buyers, your heap has to look good and be right. That includes a properly functioning, stock-appearing dashboard.

While old muscle cars are cool, drum brakes are not. There probably isn’t a breathed-on Camaro, Cutlass, Tempest, or Buick Special left in the world that doesn’t already have front disc brakes. But we’ve noticed that rear drums are still hanging in there. If it’s the cost involved with a $900 aftermarket conversion that has you clinging to those antiquated rear drums, we have a simple and inexpensive solution. Our pals who prowl purgatory yards have noticed that third-generation V8 Camaros and Firebirds were commonly fitted with generous, 11.5-inch rear rotors and aluminum, two-piston calipers. This caliper and rotor package remained consistent between 1988 and 1997, offering a 10-year span of F-bodies from which to choose.

With much of our attention focused on the new Cobra Jet Mustangs, this new engine completely snuck by us. It's billed as the most powerful V8 in the world, and we're rather embarrassed for not having known about it until we read the press release. Packing 650 hp and 600 lb-ft of torque, this thing is insane. Ford SVT hasn't revealed any performance figures, but wild rumors on reputable car-magazine websites are speculating 0 to 60 times dipping into the 3-second range, quarter-mile times in the 11s, and a top speed of more than 200 mph--all that performance in a 3,800-pound car with a full factory warranty. The car itself is the '13 Shelby GT 500 Mustang, which debuted in November at the Los Angeles International Auto Show.

There's a reason people refer to the body shop as "paint jail." Painting a car is a huge undertaking. In this line of work, we meet and interview hundreds of people about their cars every year, and the majority of them describe the paintjob as the most problematic part of the build. We've heard so many horror stories of botched paintjobs, con-artist painters, chicken-wire repairs, and Rip Van Winkle timelines that we could write several seasons of an autobody-based reality TV show.

There's no meaner look than a set of fender-wall headers hanging down behind your car's front tires. Sure, you'll need to slash away some factory tin to get clearance, but you'll also gain the benefits of simplified exhaust routing, the elimination of header-to-front suspension-interference hassles, and better engine breathing.

Horsepower!

A Fluid Answer

Is Your Local Machinist Your BFF? If He Saves Your Cracked Block, He Better Be On Your Christmas Card List!

Bob Bondurant once told us that last year's race car is the oldest car in the world. The reference to physical age is clearly a metaphor for the evolution of technology in road racing, but there is another meaning: Buying last year's race car is cheaper than building your own. If you don't have a specific vision for how the car needs to look, you can get a used race car for a third of the price of doing it yourself. As with anything, there are traps. The wrong 'cage or wrong combination of parts can undo the savings and stick you with junk. We recommend going to your local racetrack and hiring the tech inspector or a known chassis builder as a consultant who will go with you to look at race cars. That and following the advice below will keep you from getting a bad deal.

Face it, you'd have a better chance of finding an honest Congressman than you would of discovering a used 12-bolt rear axle assembly in the junkyard. Sadly, the days of stumbling onto one of those are over. If you really want a 12-bolt, the easiest find is an aftermarket housing from Moser, but be prepared to spend upwards of $2,500 for a complete, road-ready unit. For those willing to spend the time looking for a nearly-as-strong housing for an early Camaro or Firebird, tune your search radar to '72 to '75 Novas that all came stock with 8.5-inch 10-bolts. This is not a new idea, and we've covered this strategy several times in the past. What is new is how to set up one of these rears with far less effort and make it stronger without spending big bucks.

The traditional junkyard is dead. R.I.P., dear junkyard. We shall miss thee. A change has been under way for the last decade or so, and we've noticed it at the self- service junkyards we frequent in Los Angeles County. Useful parts are hard to find. Of course, useful is a relative term. If you're in need of parts for an Accord, Civic, or Corolla, no problem. But finding a car with a V8 engine in the front driving the wheels in the rear has become much more difficult.

Let's Get Regulated

With stand-alone control of electronically controlled overdrive automatics, it's easier to dial in accurate upshifts, and you can just stab the throttle, steer it, and the trans will do the rest. The performance world is changing. While power remains almighty, the new world is all about how to get that power to the tires. The best way to control an automatic transmission is to use one of the new, electronically controlled overdrive gearboxes. But swapping one of these newer e-trannies into an older muscle car requires some type of aftermarket, stand-alone transmission controller. Names like EZ TCU and Simple Shift made us wonder if these controllers could live up to their hype. The only way to know for sure was to put them to the test.

Way back in our Aug. '11 issue, we ran an article titled "Coilovers for the Coppers," in which I gave you the lowdown on installing coilover shocks and an Addco sway bar on the front of my '03 Crown Victoria Police Interceptor. I also glossed over the installation of a pair of Eaton Detroit 1-inch lowering springs in the rear. At the time, my main goal was just to lower the car. It was too tall, even for a stock vehicle. I realize police cars are made to jump curbs in the pursuit of perps, but my car looked like it could leap small buildings. This time around, I had the time to finesse the setup, and in the process I learned some valuable lessons that apply to any car, not just late-model, fullsize Fords. So don't turn the page in disgust at the sight of a four-door sedan. There's good info here.

Lightweight TIG Welder

Our plan was simple. Drag home this cool, half-built, Pro Street Demon and finish the job. The car had a Chris Alston’s Battle Cruiser back half, so naturally we added Alston’s front frameclip to get the car on its wheels.

Measuring engine specs is really just simple math, but just the thought of manipulating numbers can make some car guys cringe. Count your author among that crowd. The more oddball the number, the more I shudder, and don't ask me to work with fractions unless you want to watch my head explode.