Compact Cars
When starting any project that requires bodywork, rebuilding or even repainting, the first question is always, “What could possibly be lurking under the old paint that could come back and haunt us later?”
Holley carburetors have long been a staple in the go-fast world of high-performance motoring, whether it’s NASCAR, drag racing or on the street. Much like other performance-oriented products—perhaps even more so with a carburetor—a carburetor requires a fundamental setup and a degree of maintenance, and that’s considering you have chosen the correct-size carburetor for your application, at least to get it in the ballpark. Knowing how to adjust, maintain and even repair your Holley carburetor goes a long way toward helping to ensure that your carburetor will make optimum horsepower for a long time. Because of this, we decided to compile a few troubleshooting and repair tips for the popular 4150-series Holley carburetor, which is the series designation for Holley’s street/strip and racing carburetors.
Alternative-fuel sources and hybrid cars are all the rage today. Everyone from major automakers to backyard inventors is pursuing alternative fuels and energy sources. While the ultimate goal is generally to eliminate dependence on foreign oil, for hot rodders there is also the desire to invent and create a better-performing engine.
Since we don’t really have to search for vintage parts anymore, gone are the days of scouring the local “Pick-a-Part” in search for that illusive part that will interchange or convert your muscle car to bucket seats, tilt steering, A/C or some suspension upgrade. But there was a day when you and a rodding buddy could venture to your favorite junkyard and come home with a whole truckload of cool vintage goodies that would aid you in your rebuild, all in the span of a day.
Well, those days aren’t completely gone. While at the local wrecking yard looking for any useful hot rod parts, we stumbled across another enthusiast, Sean Rievley, who is in the progress of upgrading his ’71 Chevelle chassis
Crankshaft trigger mechanisms have been used in racing applications for a considerable length of time. In truth, they’ve actually been in service for decades. It’s a simple known fact that one of the best ways to improve engine performance is to ensure that the ignition timing is stable. That’s the whole purpose behind such a system, and that’s why racers regularly use them.
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After recently purchasing a ’62 Thunderbird, it became obvious very quickly that the car needed a new engine. Our plan was to turn the car into a daily driver, and so, as long as we needed a new engine, we figured we’d add air conditioning to the car while we were at it. And if you really know your Ford history, you also know that the ’62 was the last model T-bird to come with a generator rather than an alternator—one more reason to consider an upgrade.
Enter Carl Casper, a man best known for building custom cars and promoting his huge custom car show every year in Louisville, Kentucky. Casper has long been a self-thinker and innovator with plenty of experience under his belt, and he was intrigued with the concept of alternative fuels, hydrogen in particular. During our conversation with Casper, he summed it when he said, “I feel many of the solutions will come out of the car guys. I want the mechanical wizards who have taken street rodding and auto racing to the highest levels imaginable to start putting their creativity into alternative-energy systems. I’m putting my money on them. Everyone seems to be waiting for the big corporations to pull us out of this energy crisis, and they tend to forget that from the very beginning of time it’s often the little guy with a shop behind his house who creates the next great idea or invention of our time.”
Even though we all dream of blasting through the desert at 130-MPH like Robby Gordon, most of our 4×4 adventures take place at a much more reasonable pace. Unfortunately for our engines crawling along a boulder strewn dry river bed or climbing a goat trail through a mountain pass does not always allow enough airflow to keep our engines cool with a belt driven mechanical fan. Belt driven fans are designed to keep your engine cool when traveling down a street or highway not while crushing boulders at 3-MPH and 1,500-RPM. So what can we do to keep our rigs from boiling over this summer? Follow along with us as we install a pair of 11-inch electronic cooling fans along with a programmable fan controller both from SPAL USA.
OK, we all know that it is easy to ignore automatic transmission maintenance—its messy and time consuming and no one really thinks about it until the trans starts to slip. Most transmission pans are simple stamped steel and do not have a drain plug so draining the fluid makes a big mess on your garage or shop floor. If maintaining your automatic trans was easier and less messy you would probably stay on top of the maintenance wouldn’t you?
The lines of ’55-’57 Chevys are almost sacrosanct. They haven’t been modified or changed over the years with very good results. There have been a couple of exceptions, but by and large, chopped tops, restyled fenders and other modifications that alter their original lines don’t come off looking real good. The problem is in the proportions. We’re not sure if it’s because the factory got them so perfect right out of the gate, or if it’s that most have been left alone over the last 50 years, so a chopped top looks strange. Whatever the reason, the classic “greenhouse” roofline, long fenders and slab sides all work very well together.