TRIPLE BYPASS SPECIAL
November 11, 2024
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THE AUTO BUILDER
Featured
MULTITASKING FOR THE MASSES
Say you drive an older pickup in which the original designers weren’t all that interested in engine management. Thanks to the addition of that high-horsepower engine, however, you are very interested in what it is up to. But you are also interested in keeping the dash area clean and don’t want to put a bunch of holes into it. You also don’t really want to have an old-style gauge panel hanging beneath the dash. What to do? For those who drive a 1947-’53 Chevrolet pickup truck, the ideal way to handle this problem is to install Haneline’s 3-in-1 gauge clusters.
FALKEN TIRE DRIFT SHOWOFF
THE FALKEN Tire Drift Showoff was a hit, to say the least. The event was held at Irwindale Motor Speedway on a beautiful, sunny afternoon. Thousands of people attended, which goes to show the outstanding marketing job that Falken Tire is doing to help make a difference in the tuner car movement. The company took it upon itself to give us a taste of what the Japanese market has been enjoying for so many years. Among the thousands of spectators, a healthy number of show cars showed up as well—and why wouldn’t they? This was an Import Showoff event, but this car show was a bit different from the norm. It was a JDM versus DTM show. In other words, Japanese against Euro. The cars that came out were very hot, with enough JDM and DTM on hand to kill you. All the heavy hitters and the big crews such as Team Hybrid, Flux, Tuningwerks Competition and Art-N-Motion came out to show their stuff. While this was a huge attraction, it was far from the main one.
PRODUCT SPOTLIGHT: ARP’s Head Stud Kit for 1927–31 Ford Model A 4-Cylinder Engines
In a world obsessed with the latest engines and newest technology, ARP (Automotive Racing Products) just proved something important—progress doesn’t only move forward. It also means going back and applying everything we’ve learned since.
Spotlighter
SMOKIN’ SS – Part 4
Installing a Wilwood Brake System and Fabricating Custom Seats
In part 3 of Smokin’ SS, Mark Davis and his students designed, fabricated and installed custom suspension components that will make this Monte Carlo handle like a racecar. Custom tubular control arms and hand-built spindles now ride under the car, along with AFCO coilovers on all four corners. Such an inspiring suspension is great, but to pull off this car, and to allow it to operate within its intended envelope, the Monte Carlo also needs a matching brake system.
For that, Davis knows the Wilwood brake component lineup—he used them for years—so the choice for this project was obvious: race-ready brake parts from Wilwood. In fact, he ordered the entire braking system, including the pedals and master cylinders, from Wilwood. When the parts arrived, the students went to work fabricating brackets for the calipers and welding them to the rearend housing and custom spindles.
After setting up the rotors and calipers, the crew mounted the pedals with a mock-up seat in place to make sure it would be comfortable for any person willing to slide behind the wheel. First and foremost, Davis wants his students to drive the car, but before any of this can happen, and to eliminate the problem areas going in, considerable work needs to be done, including seat fabrication, deciding just where those pedals will go and how that relates to the steering wheel, and the list goes on.
As progress continues on the Smokin’ SS Monte Carlo, we see more and more function, as well as innovative details throughout the car, ensuring that this will not be your average street machine. Functional details such as a true cowl induction were not overlooked, but more than that, every part of this car has a function, and that reveals Davis’ racing background.
If there was ever any doubt about this car being fast—and it will be fast—plans call for a small block that will make well over 500 hp at the flywheel, but we’ll elaborate on that in a later installment. For now, take a look at the steps involved to set up the braking system, fabricate custom seats and build a custom air cleaner for the true cowl induction system.
ARTICLE SOURCES
Metalcraft Tools SkillCenter
17 Park Lane Spur
Crossville, TN 38571
931/707-7778
Speedway Engineering
13040 Bradley Ave.
Sylmar, CA 91342
818/362-5865
Wilwood Engineering
4700 Calle Bolero
Camarillo, CA 93012
805/388-1188
