It glitters in the sun, but it isn't a diamond. It makes the hippies grin, it makes the graybeards chuckle, and girls don't understand it at all. It's metalflake, and we've discovered that it looks as good on your '60s street machine as it does on your bass boat. So check this trip as we add a little sparkle to the CC/Rambler.
inline_mediumwraptextrightCC/Rambler25614377/techarticles/ccrp_0912_metalflake_paint_jobccrp_0912_02+1967_AMC_rambler+metalflake_paint_job.jpgTrue

Editor Glad admits it freely. Our '64 El Camino shop truck is a beater. His prepurchase criterion of having a rust-free cab was validated. There is no rust around the windshield, back glass, and cowl, and that's a major score. But the floorpans and quarter-panels were pretty much junk. Those are big enough flaws to keep us from truly enjoying our Pro-Beater parts hauler. The flappy quarters are an eyesore to all who set eyes on its Shamrock Shake flanks, and the holy rusted metal (Batman!) floors, while novel at first, merely provide an entrée for fumes and road grime that ultimately overwhelm the driver and unlucky passenger.inline_mediumwraptextright26811046/techarticles/ccrp_0912_rust_repair_restorationccrp_0912_01_z+1964_chevy_el_camino+rust_removal.jpgTrue

1,450HP, 299ci, Short-Deck, Small-Block Chevy
Ron Main and George Poteet, Saticoy, CA
Bonneville racing is all about heavy doses of reliable horsepower. Decades ago, it took four supercharged engines in a streamliner to even consider going 400 mph. Now, Ron Main and George Poteet are planning an assault on the Salt pushed by a tiny, 299ci, small-block Chevy built by legendary turbo-engine master Kenny Duttweiler. The engine is specifically built to run in the Main & Poteet Speed Demon car that claimed fame as the first flathead-powered car to break 300 mph. Next came a Duttweiler-built Mopar four-banger Midget engine, followed by a turbocharged Duttweiler-built 2.2L GM Ecotec four-cylinder that set an SCCA record at 343.494 mph in 2008, running 390 mph out the back door. Duttweiler says this newest engine should put them close to their goal of 430 mph. That's 630 feet per second or more than the length of two football fields every second. At that speed, don't blink or you'll miss it all.inline_mediumwraptextright25613813/techarticles/ccrp_0912_land_speed_small_block_chevyccrp_0912_01+land_speed_small_block_chevy_engine+.jpgTrue

Electrical Components
Here's where we could probably fill the entire magazine with ideas, parts, and wiring kits, so we really had to exercise self-control and not stuff this section with part numbers. While most car crafters don't worry much about what wire they buy, they really should. The wire you find at the local hardware store or auto parts store generally uses an inexpensive insulator that can quickly become brittle. We found a company called Del City that supplies many aftermarket companies with high-quality electrical wire and components. Del City's SAE spec wire is designed to withstand continual exposure to as high as 257 degrees F. Generally, you would expect to pay more for a quality wire like this, but we purchased 100-foot spools of 18-gauge black and red wire for less than $7.00 each. When we checked at the auto parts store, we found a 30-foot roll for $6.99, so by purchasing in bulk, you get three times as much wire that's also a superior quality.inline_mediumwraptextrightWeatherpak connectors are great for quick-disconnect wiring and also excellent at maintaining the connection over long periods of time. The connectors require a special crimping tool.26812816/techarticles/ccrp_0912_small_parts_guideccrp_0912_09+small_parts_guide+.jpgTrue

It doesn't take long when reading car magazines to realize how each story always comes off looking easy. Even if the tale is all about trial and frustration, it can seem like another chapter out of Aesop's Fables. That's because the reader is always spared the fits and starts, and the story takes barely 30 minutes to read. The only thing more fantastic than a quick magazine story is a complete muscle car buildup in 42 minutes on reality TV. So when we tell you Ken Crocie spent months on this Pontiac turbocharger restoration and all but slept at Westech's shop in search of respectable Pontiac power, it was all in the name of doing the project justice. We came along for the ride as intrigued observers, but trust us-the suffering was all Crocie's.inline_mediumwraptextrightThis may not look exotic, but nearly 750 lb-ft of torque qualifies in our book as something special. And it boosts through a stock-appearing Quadrajet.26726278/techarticles/ccrp_0912_turbo_pontiac_400_buildccrp_0912_01+turbo_pontiac_400_engine_build+.jpgTrue

Step Two
Edelbrock E-Street Heads
429 hp at 5,300
481 lb-ft at 3,900inline_mediumwraptextrightFor the sake of comparison, we looked at the numbers from a set of factory GM iron Vortec heads flowed previously on the same flow bench. The E-Streets were within 2 to 3 cfm through midlift then flowed 12 to 14 cfm more through the intake after 0.500 lift and 10 to 12 cfm more through the exhaust after 0.400 lift. The E-Streets have 185cc intake and 60cc exhaust ports.26784358/techarticles/ccrp_0912_small_block_chevy_buildccrp_0912_08+sleeper_small_block_chevy_engine+build.jpgTrue

Nitrous Cams

The joke among guys is if your car is making a strange or irritating noise, turn the radio up. But there are some noises you just shouldn't ignore, and the whine coming from the pump area of the 4R70W transmission in our ex-Santa Barbara County Sheriff's '03 Crown Victoria would surely leave us stranded by the roadside if we took that advice.inline_mediumwraptextright31211562/techarticles/ccrp_1001_4r70w_transmission_rebuildccrp_1001_01+ford_4R70W_transmission_rebuild+.jpgTrue

Though we car crafters like to think of ourselves as a more sophisticated bunch than the average car guy, the truth is we all have a warm spot in our collective hearts for excessive and gratuitous displays of horsepower. And few things scream wretched excess more than a supercharger jutting through the hood. The bigger, the better, too. An 8-71 on a small-block Chevy-why not?inline_mediumwraptextright26989516/techarticles/ccrp_1001_supercharger_guideccrp_1001_01+supercharger_guide+.jpgTrue

If you go too fast at the dragstrip, you're gonna get booted. We've been racing the CC/Rambler for a couple of years now with that notion in the back of our minds, tiptoeing on the brake pedal or simply lifting in the lights to stay above the e.t. cutoff. Ya see, the '09 NHRA rules say you must have a rollbar if your car runs faster than 11.49 (or 135 mph) and the CC/Rambler ran a string of 11.60s on the motor. With the extra 2 seconds on tap from our NOS Fogger, a 10-second run was definite if we opened the big blue bottle. There is no way we'd get away with that without the proper safety gear, and we really wouldn't want to.inline_mediumwraptextrightCC/Rambler30809691/techarticles/ccrp_0911_rollbar_installationccrp_0911_02_z+1967_AMC_rambler+rollbar_install.jpgTrue

The Four Corners
After we installed all the lightweight parts, the final test was to put the Orange Peel Chevelle back on the Longacre four-wheel scales to see if we made our weight. As you can see from the above graphic, we achieved our goal of trimming the Chevelle to our 2,993-pound race weight. This is without driver, which we also plan to cheat by putting staffer John McGann in the driver seat, who weighs almost 50 pounds less than the author. This would put the Chevelle's starting line race weight at around 3,150 pounds.inline_mediumwraptextright26584918/techarticles/ccrp_0911_chevelle_weight_reductionccrp_0911_12_z+1966_chevy_chevelle+weight_reduction.jpgTrue

Car crafting is all about adapting late-model factory pieces to our older muscle cars. The conversion has to be simple, easy to work on, and best of all-inexpensive. Our show car cousins love those all-billet serpentine beltdrive systems because they're so cool looking. But most of us don't have two grand to drop on a pile of billet aluminum parts. However, the idea of a serpentine beltdrive system has serious merit-not the least of which is the simple fact that one belt drives everything. And with a spring-loaded tensioner, you can remove that belt in about three seconds. No more wrestling with multiple adjusters, misaligned slots, and a pile of obscure stamped brackets to retain an alternator and power steering pump on a short water pump V-belt system. There's a much better way.inline_mediumwraptextrightHere's a serpentine accessory drive installed on our 383ci small-block Chevy. We used new parts from Rock Auto for the pumps and alternator, but the brackets and pulleys are easy-to-find used parts.25353017/techarticles/ccrp_0911_serpentine_belt_driveccrp_0911_01_z+chevy_serpentine_belt_drive+install.jpgTrue

This whole LS engine phenomenon is really rockin', and we wanted to dive right into the party. The difference between Car Craft and the rest of the magazine world is that we're like you-we don't have the $13,000 to drop on a brand-new, all-aluminum crate engine that makes tons of power. Instead, we went the more tradition route of building our own stroker motor.inline_mediumwraptextrightThis is what Lester looked like after arriving at the loading dock all greasy and gnarly. With the addition of some simple machine work and a stroker crank, we'll turn this milquetoast mannequin into a main street marauder.31241472/techarticles/ccrp_1001_gm_ls_engine_buildccrp_1001_01+GM_LS_stroker_engine_build+.jpgTrue

Can you guess what we learned? Zilcho. As in zero difference anywhere in the power or detonation characteristics of the iron versus aluminum heads. Even the optimum total ignition timing was the same at 36 degrees. Regardless of coolant temp, rate of acceleration, steady state, or through a sweep, the dyno curves for the two styles of heads were identical. If anything, we could squint and guess and mumble that maybe aluminum heads were better by 2-3 hp. But the one thing we could never say is that the iron heads retained more heat and made more power than the aluminum. Maybe it's different on some engines with a drastically different water-jacket design, but we'll stand up and say that the old bench-racing line just ain't true.

572 CI, Twin Turbocharged, 3,700HP Big-Block Chevy
Mike Moran, Taylor, MI
Drag racing has always been a showcase for pushing the limit of internal combustion engines, and Mike Moran is right there in the middle of the fight. We first met Moran back in the early days of Fastest Street Car racing when he surprised everyone with an 8-second, nitrous'd, Cleveland-powered Pinto wagon. Moran garnered even more respect with the first Fastest Street Car to run 200 mph. Today, Moran is pioneering a twin-turbocharged car in NHRA Pro Mod. That alone may not be newsworthy, but it is when you discover Moran is the first to combine hair dryers with electronic fuel injection and methanol.

AOD-E/4R70W

While everybody knows what the oil pump's job is and why it's there, few enthusiasts consider the lowly bubbler as a possible engine tuning resource. We've come to appreciate that it takes power to pump that oil, and as lubricants have improved over the last 10 years, we needed to know more about pressure, volume, and viscosity. Westech's Steve Brule proposed a flogging of four Milodon small-block Chevy oil pumps on a 372ci small-block Chevy. While somewhat mild, this small-block cranked out nearly 500 hp through two grueling dyno days of constant flogging with never a whimper. Even more impressive was the small-block's excellent consistency. If you're looking for a rock-solid small-block crate engine, the SHP is an excellent choice.

Twin Turbo 400ci Small-Block Chevy
Kenny Duttweiler, Saticoy, CA
Turbochargers are the new buzzword if you want to talk big-time horsepower. Combine a hair dryer with EFI and you have a killer street package, which is exactly what Kenny Duttweiler built for a mystery car owner from South Central Los Angeles. Duttweiler built this monster about two years ago, and it's in line right now for a bigger exhaust and a few other subtle changes to make even more power. The old package made a mere 1,200, and Duttweiler thinks the tune-up will pump out 1,400 big ones. All of this is stuffed into a tubbed black Buick Grand National that is going to need traction control to hook all the power to the pavement. Amazingly, all this plumbing fits into the stock Buick engine compartment with the air-to-air intercoolers wedged between the front bumper and the radiator.

We've got a big motor in the works for the CC/Rambler project car, and big motors mean big twist. Add that twist to a flimsy econobox body and you get a bent race car. That's where frame connectors help. When the tires are hooked and the suspension is trying to lift the front left corner and twist the body to the right, frame connectors transfer the energy to the suspension where it can be used to load the tires and launch the car.inline_mediumwraptextrightWhen do you need to add frame connectors? Add them as soon as you do any racing on a dragstrip or road course. We've brought this '67 Rambler American from a six-cylinder wheeze box to a glorious 11-second street machine using all AMC parts. We are about to go into the 10s, so we need to step up the chassis.26581243/techarticles/ccrp_0909_subframe_connectorsccrp_0909_01_z+1967_rambler_project+side_view.jpgTrue

524HP L-88 427 Big-Block Chevy
Jim Grubbs Motorsports, Valencia, CA
Today, a 1,000hp power-adder street engine is almost commonplace. At this escalated power level, it's easy to forget that not all that long ago, a 500hp big-block Chevy was considered the holy grail of street runners. When Chevy replaced the aging W-engines with the MKIV big-block in 1965, it was the equivalent of Chevy landing D-Day troops on the shores protected by Ford and Mopar. The initial 425hp 427 engines in the Corvette were heavy hitters. By 1967, the Bow Tie brigade launched the L88 427 with then-unheard-of factory aluminum heads. According to Al Colvin's book Chevrolet by the Numbers, Chevrolet never officially released '67 427 L88 horsepower numbers, waiting until 1968 to claim 430 hp with conventional wisdom placing the actual number far greater. L88 was the RPO code for the engine that became famous overnight, only to be eclipsed by the all-aluminum 427 ZL1 in 1969. While the all-alloy ZL1 was Can-Am exotic, the L88 was nearly affordable, and you could purchase a complete engine or short-block right over the counter. The first-design L88 427 included a four-bolt main iron block, a forged 1053 steel crank, 7/16-inch bolt rods, 12.5:1 compression, a solid lifter cam with 0.562/0.584-inch lift, aluminum heads with 106cc closed chambers, 2.19/1.84-inch valves, and a dual-plane intake with an 850-cfm Holley carburetor. This was top-drawer stuff all the way through the mid-'70s because at that time there was no such thing as aftermarket street heads for a big-block Chevy. This engine was built by Jim Grubbs Motorsports (JGM) for a customer who wanted this original L88 rebuilt with a few subtle additions. Tested with open headers and the original dual-plane intake manifold, its 524 hp is no doubt close to the actual power these engines made 40-odd years ago.

Dyno Test
Here's where our testing became interesting. Ultimately, we discovered that this engine wanted less fuel to make more horsepower with the air/fuel meters peaking at around 13.3:1. As the power kept increasing, the spark plugs all looked good. Most of the change in power during this test can be attributed to the jet change (two leaner in the front and four in the rear), since that has the effect of lowering the entire curve but really doesn't affect the shape of the curve.

The Turbo 350 and 400, along with the C4, 6, and Chrysler's 727 are mainstays of high-performance street and strip transmissions. They have been around for decades, are well supported by the aftermarket, and can be built to handle big horsepower numbers.

Once you've established the camber, caster is the next angle to check. With the bubble gauge installed on the hub, turn the tire inboard 20 degrees and level the gauge. Using the center caster adjustment knob underneath the gauge, zero the caster reading. Now turn the tire 20 degrees out and the gauge will read the amount of positive or negative caster. A safe starting point for caster is 2 to 3 degrees of positive caster. Positive caster is achieved by either adding shims to the rear bolt or removing shims from the front attachment point for the upper control arm. This will probably affect camber, so you will want to check it again after modifying the caster. On early Mustangs, for example, Ford employed a strut rod attached to the lower control arm that can be moved either in or out to adjust the caster. Shortening the rod (moving the lower control arm forward) increases positive caster by moving the bottom of the spindle forward.