Chevrolet
If you are towing your rig with a ’99-’06 General Motors truck, or a Chevy or GMC vehicle, there’s a good chance you have experienced a strange clunking noise when making slow turns. The clunking noise seems to originate from within the steering column, and some owners can actually feel a small vibration in conjunction with the clunking. If you have encountered this problem, it’s not your imagination, as there appears to be a unique conundrum associated with Chevy and GMC pickups, and their corresponding SUVs.
The Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) Show engulfs Fabulous Las Vegas annually. It brings together the biggest names in the automotive world to show off the latest and greatest, whether it’s new products, amazing custom builds, or the newest trends. TheAutoBuilder is excited to be in the thick of it all.
While the factory cast-iron four-barrel Q-Jet intake manifolds have performed admirably on literally thousands of GM applications—and if you are picking your engine from a used lot to use in a swap, it will likely be so equipped—every last one of them should be torn off the car and thrown in the dumpster.
Tech presentation is something anyone can do to his or her existing Camaro, since it takes no special skill, yet the results are worthwhile. Those are the rewards of personalizing a cool Chevy, and it’s what drives us in the first place to tackle such jobs.
When it comes to performance, the devil really is in the details. Ever wonder why one engine makes more power than another, when both are seemingly identical? The answer to this very common performance question lies in the attention to detail. Basic performance elements such as engine tuning, spark timing curves, and, yes, even oil selection all come into play when you attempt to extract the maximum amount of power from your existing combination.
The late ’60s was a good time for automobile enthusiasts everywhere. For Chevrolet specifically, it remains a time when the company produced vehicles that are among the favorites of Bow Tie aficionados. Who wouldn’t want a ’67-’69 Chevy Chevelle, Nova or, of course, the ever-popular Camaro? The design of these vehicles, and many others from that era, has stood the test of time, and car manufacturers today are even reverting back to the styling cues of these classics when designing modern production cars.
There’s no denying the popularity of Camaros; they have been a rodding favorite since their initial release in 1967. The first-generation Camaro has always been an enthusiast car because it is small, lightweight and had a sports-car-design feel to it. Underneath, the early Camaros were based on a Nova platform and featured many good mechanical attributes. Right from the start, they became a popular choice for teenagers and young adults, and most of the performance enthusiasts wanted the SS model that came with a choice of a strong-running small- or big-block engine. Things haven’t changed much, because they are still a popular choice for enthusiasts to restore or modify.
The automotive world became a different place when Chevrolet introduced the new ’55. Prior to that time there were many Chevy buyers, but after the ’55s were released there were newborn Chevy enthusiasts. The new Chevys were not only great-looking, but they were also powered with what would become one the finest V-8 engines available anywhere. There was an instant attraction to the ’55, and the interest continued to grow once the ’56 and ’57 were introduced. Fortunately, all three model years became extremely popular, so Chevy enthusiasts took care of them, and many nice examples remain today.
If you are driving down the highway in an older car, you are at a major disadvantage if you have to make a quick stop. Many of the high-performance cars being built today have fantastic stopping power, and if you can’t stop as well as the car in front of you, that could certainly be a big problem. The owner of this ’55 Chevy improved it with front disc brakes that work well, but he wanted the Chevy to stop even better, so he decided to add rear disc brakes.
Getting a ’55 Chevy to sit at the right ride height is as easy as installing a set of 2-inch drop spindles, such as those from Superior Spindles and others. Getting the big ol’ car to slow down offers many more choices as well, and as long as you’re swapping spindles it is an excellent time to install those long-overdue disc brakes. When you think about it, it doesn’t make good sense to put a newly rebuilt tri-5 Chevy on the same road with stock OE cars with ABS four-wheel disc brakes. If ever you came upon a situation where a car ahead of you had to stop in an emergency situation, the performance of even a stock set of disc brakes will far “outdistance” your drum setup, meaning you would not be able to stop in time and could well end up in the trunk of the car ahead of you. Not good.
