Cars
Tom Lawson was attending the Goodguys West Coast Nationals with his family and friends when a friend of his father-in-law, Bill, also a street rodder, walked up and started talking to everyone in the group.
Have you ever looked at another enthusiast’s ride and noticed something unique, yet very clever, that made the vehicle stand out or perform better and thought, “Why didn’t I think of that?” Well, we’ve done some of the homework, legwork and research to provide you with a similar advantage. We scoured the tuning shops and interrogated the pros to find out what tips they have done that our readers could apply to their own vehicles.
We learned that Underground Motorsports in Little Rock, Arkansas, was going to build one fast daily driver, so we thought we’d take a peek and drop some knowledge for you. We were looking for any tech procedures that may illustrate for readers how a car of this sort is built from scratch.
If you own a Ford or Chevy, most of the parts you will need to build a street rod are readily available, and from a variety of suppliers. We have written numerous stories about kits for these cars in our family of rodding magazines, and some of them were a direct replacement for the original. By and large, they worked perfectly and bolted right in, as designed. These types of kits are convenient for many street rod builders, as well as street rod shops, and they are part of what has helped grow our hobby into such a broad special-interest group. But in addition to the “normal” and most popular rods, there were many other great cars made in the pre-war era, and some of them can be a real challenge to street rodders because there are no pre-manufactured parts, and no kits that make them easy to build. Sounds like the old days, right? Well, that’s the modern world for you–even our hobbies have become targets of convenience.
The new E46 BMW M3 comes equipped with some serious OE HID headlights, but what if you’re still not happy? You want something different; you want to add some spice to your headlight setup. Well, this story is just for you.
When a B16A-equipped CRX EF came into the Rage Performance shop for a Skunk2 intake manifold install, the crew dove into the job with a fury. With cameras at hand to document the swap (’88-’91 CRX) for your personal pleasure, the job took no time at all and the owner of this Honda is deliriously happy with the results.
Advanced Fuel Dynamics has developed kits for many makes and models, and our focus today is installing a PROFLEX DX Adaptive Flex Fuel System on a 2022 Ford Mustang GT Premium.
The automotive and racing world was rocked by the sudden passing of racing phenom, internet sensation, and master of all-things automotive Tom-foolery, Ken Block on January 2nd. Hoonigan, Block’s automotive lifestyle and clothing brand, reported that Block was riding snowmobiles at his Utah ranch, where a single snowmobile incident on a steep incline claimed the life of the 55 year old.
Call ’em tech tips, building tips, details or whatever you like, but this is the stuff we see at events and shows while shooting features or doing shop tours, not to mention things we’ve discovered while working in our own shops. It’s like when you’re foot-cruising an event with the boys and pointing things out to each other, or when you have a stroke of genius while working on your own project.
We always find it amusing when a bench racing session turns to building street rods. It seems there is a huge contingency of rodders and observers of street rodding who believe that every car in the fairgrounds area was built by a professional shop. We’re not about to argue the point that a lot of people now pay to have work done on their cars, whether it’s chassis work, bodywork or upholstery. However, there is still a large group of people who spend evenings and weekends out in the garage forming brackets, repairing rust, blocking panels and wiring hot rods. In short, they are building cars the old-fashioned way—at home with the help of a few friends.
