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From a distance, this roadster appears to be from another place, far from American shores, as much as from another era. On closer approach, the Borrani wire wheels conjure thoughts of European heritage, although the shape borrows as much from past Indy roadsters and Sprinters as it does from the great design houses of Italy. Then there’s the engine, a flat giveaway to the true nature of this amazing crossbreed.

ONE FREAKY RIDE!

Question: What has 861 all-wheel-drive horsepower and 773 lb-ft of torque-driven “grunt,” which can carry around an object the size of a grand piano? The answer? John Frey’s Loveland, Colorado-based twin-turbo 1991 GMC Syclone pickup truck, that’s what! Ah, better cancel that piano—this light-duty sport utility vehicle’s hauling days are over. The only thing Frey (who’s the CEO of Bully Racing Enterprises) is interested in hauling is—well, you know what we mean.

Tasty Taillights

If you are building a street rod, sooner or later you will have to select the taillights you want to use. As with so many other parts, the taillights should match the style of the car you are building. A smooth, high-tech rod should have taillights of the same style, perhaps flush-fit diode lights that match the shape of the body. If you are building a resto rod, the stock taillights are generally used, stalk and all. Internally they can be updated with bright bulbs or a diode kit. If you are building a nostalgic or a traditional rod, there are several different lights that were used by builders in the ’50s and the ’60s. The rod seen in this story is being built in a traditional style, so there were many lights to choose from.

Spotlighter

Hydro-Boost Brakes

These Units Will Ensure Adequate Stopping Power for Your Street Rod

Nothing is more terrifying than cruising down the street to the fairgrounds when some idiot pulls out in front of you and you have to jump on the binders. Making a panic stop can be difficult when you are trying to stop 800 throbbing horsepower with a set of 9-inch rotors and single-piston calipers. You might even wonder if it will stop as you mash the brake pedal. When it comes to street rods with big motors, one braking concern is vacuum pressure. Is there enough? Many high-performance camshafts add power to the motor but produce low vacuum levels. This is something to consider when selecting your engine components. Of course, if the motor fails, you will have no vacuum, so stopping will be a real problem.

Author

Josh Mishler

Words & Photography

Why Brakes Often Get Overlooked

When building a street rod, we deem many areas of the car important. For example, the majority of street rodders like to have the best paint job around, so that becomes an area of concentrated focus. Sometimes we get so wrapped up in particular aspects of our cars that we forget about other areas that are equally important. Typically, when we spend our cubic dollars, we will spend the majority of our funds on the motor, paint and interior. However, we sometimes neglect to spend it on areas that really count, such as the brakes.

The Problem With Vacuum-Assisted Braking

Nothing is more terrifying than cruising down the street to the fairgrounds when some idiot pulls out in front of you and you have to jump on the binders. Making a panic stop can be difficult when you are trying to stop 800 throbbing horsepower with a set of 9-inch rotors and single-piston calipers. You might even wonder if it will stop as you mash the brake pedal. When it comes to street rods with big motors, one braking concern is vacuum pressure. Is there enough? This is something to consider when selecting your engine components. If the motor fails, can you stop your street rod?

The Birth of the Hydro-Boost Solution

Thankfully, that problem was on the mind of mechanic Roger Jackson some 20 years ago. Since he works on cars and trucks all the time, he noticed the hydraulic brake boosters that were used on diesel trucks, motor homes and semis to cure vacuum problems associated with braking. He soon started trying to figure out how he could make one work on a street rod. Before he knew it, he had one on his own street rod, and it was stopping on a dime.

Recognizing what his father had discovered, Rusty Jackson, owner and operator of Odd Rod Creations, started thinking about a way to engineer them to fit industry standards. Once Rusty had figured it out, he had a product that would be easy to install and marketable to anyone building a street rod.

How Hydro-Boost Brakes Work

These newly developed Hydro-Boost brake units for street rod applications work off of hydraulic pressure from your power steering pump and bolt directly to power brake assemblies from manufacturers using the common 7- or 8-inch booster. If you don’t have power steering, that’s not a problem because it is not required; the pump on the engine is all that you’ll need.

There will be no more worries about low vacuum as these units come pre-assembled with a pushrod, rod end, adapter plate, number 6 AN fitting adapters and all other necessary mounting hardware. Each booster has a built-in accumulator to provide one-time power brakes upon engine failure. These boosters are new, not rebuilt, and are for use with GM master cylinders and any type of power steering pump.

So if you’re looking for a way to make your street rod stop better than it has before, then check out these units and just how easy they are to install.

Here is the new unit for street rod applications that are designed to work off of hydraulic pressure from the power steering pump. It bolts directly to the power brake assembly using the common 7- or 8-inch booster.

First, you must mount a bracket to your frame in the desired location. We’ve located the bracket on the frame under the driver’s-side floor.

The hydro-booster unit is bolted to the bracket mounted on the frame using four 9/16 nuts.

Next, we are going to use a preset four-wheel proportioning valve from Master Power Brakes on our master cylinder.

With the proportioning valve properly installed on our master cylinder, it is now ready to be hooked up to our hydro-booster.

We have taken the master cylinder with the proportioning valve and attached it to the hydro-booster. We also connected our brake lines at the same time.

The unit gets pressure from the hydraulic pump on the engine, so power steering is not required; however, the pump on the engine is. We must determine which fittings are required for the power steering rack gearbox to convert to a 6 AN fitting.

For our application, we have found that Pure Choice banjo fittings work the best. Since the booster is equipped with Pure Choice AN fittings, everything works well together.

If you have power steering, install the banjo fittings on the power steering gearbox and direct the connection points in the desired direction.

We will now start plumbing our lines by installing the pressure side first. We ran the pressure supply line from the pump back to the booster, through the booster and back to the rack.

On the pressure side, we will use hydraulic hose from our local parts store. To make sure that everything fits properly, gauge the depth that the hose should go into the fitting and mark the hose. This way we can make sure that the hose is the right length.

Now that we have hooked up and cut our hose to run from the pump to the booster, we will plumb the hose from the booster to the steering gearbox.