hot auto review

Available in aluminum or cast iron, bare or assembled styles to meet any
need

RHS(TM) Pro Action(TM) 24-Degree Big Block Chevrolet Cylinder Heads are available in
aluminum or cast iron, these cylinder heads are offered with 320cc or
360cc intake port runner volumes and a 119cc combustion chamber size.

RHS(TM) Pro Action(TM) Big Block Chevy Heads outflow competitive aftermarket
heads by up to five percent and offer excellent “as cast” port and
chamber finish quality, a great benefit regardless of whether or not you
intend to further modify your heads. Important design features include
extra thick deck surfaces, a highly efficient water-jacket design,
radiused exhaust valve seats and hardened valve seats. In addition, the
unique multi-angle inlet and radius exhaust valve seats outflow the
competition by up to five percent. The improved valve guide design
delivers tighter tolerance and extended durability.

For more information about the RHS(TM) Pro Action(TM) online at www.racingheadservice.com

Quick Summary

Product: RHS(TM) Pro Action(TM) 24-Degree Big Block Chevrolet Cylinder Heads

Part Number: Application Specific

Features & Benefits:

* Bare or fully assembled versions available in aluminum or cast iron

* 320 and 360cc intake runner volume heads with 119cc combustion
chambers

* Multi-angled intake valve seats & radiused exhaust valve seats
hardened to extend durability

* Highly efficient water jacket design for better thermal conductivity
and “hot spot” reduction

* Manganese intake valve guides and Phosphorous Bronze exhaust valve
guides provide superior heat dissipation and wear characteristics

* Extra-thick deck surfaces for machining & durability

These days, the automakers work hard on their street cred. They spend lots of time and money persuading consumers that the people who design and build their products are real car guys with a passion for performance. But at the Chrysler Corp. in 1958, no posturing was necessary. Over in engineering, the company had an entire crew of speed-happy maniacs it couldn't beat back with a stick.

These young gearheads were graduates of the Chrysler Institute's class of 1957, its largest ever, and naturally, they were crazy about drag racing. Every day at lunch-in the Highland Park engineering cafeteria, at a long table near the windows-they gathered to bench race and trade ideas. Some of the guys had hot street cars they raced on Woodward Avenue and at the strip. Tom Hoover ran a '57 Plymouth with a 392 Hemi and a homebuilt tuned-port setup, while Wayne Erickson had pieced together a replica of the A311 race Hemi (a factory-experimental engine developed for the Indy 500) for the '53 Dodge he raced in C/Gas. Since it was simply the done thing among hot rodders at the time, they decided to form their own car club. Chrysler employees and Mopar loyalists to a man, they invented the name "Ram Chargers."

Ram Chargers was originally two words-"Ram" for Dodge and "Chargers" for Chrysler's work with ram tuning. But due to sloppy copy editing in the hot-rod press, the two words became one, and the club decided it was easier to go along than to reverse the mistake. So they became known as the Ramchargers, and contrary to popular belief, the club never protected the name. Over the years, the Ramcharger brand would be applied to a Michigan auto parts chain and a rust-prone SUV, but the original members never saw a dime from it.

In late 1958, the members, then numbering 21, decided to pool their resources to build a club car for drag racing only-no compromises for street use. They may have been young hot rodders, but they were also trained engineers. They approached the project like scientists, dividing themselves into committees with group leaders and clear lines of command. Tom Hoover and Skip McCully chaired the engine committee; Herman Mozer directed the body group. The chassis program was headed by Troy Simonsen, while suspension, steering, and traction were managed by Dick Burke and Fred Gluckson. "That was the beauty of it," Dick Burke says. "It was run like any formal engineering program." After careful study of the NHRA rule book, the team decided to attack the Altered categories. For their car, they made a strange but shrewd choice: a '49 Plymouth three-window business coupe. It was no thing of beauty, but it was light and had the shortest wheelbase of any postwar Mopar. The odd little coupe became the starting point for one of the most unusual and innovative drag-racing cars ever built.

In the late '50s, by far the limiting factor in dragstrip performance was traction. Slicks were primitive, offering very little grip, and quarter-mile chassis science was in its infancy. "Drag racing grew out of the dry lakes and Bonneville, where it was all about keeping the car low to the ground for wind resistance and handling," Hoover says. But the Ramchargers were Michigan boys who didn't share any of those traditions. All they had to guide them was their engineering degrees. "We approached it as a simple problem in physics," Hoover says. "Accelerate a vehicle over a fixed distance in the minimum elapsed time."

So the Ram Rod, as the car was first called, would depart from hot-rod practice and go in a totally new direction: straight up. The chassis was jacked up more than a foot over stock, raising the vehicle's center of gravity for maximum load transfer under acceleration to shift the car's weight onto the rear tires for maximum forward bite. To elevate the car's mass even higher, the driveline was raised in the chassis until the crankshaft was a full 3 feet off the pavement. But while the approach may have been basic physics, these radical modifications gave the car an appearance unlike anything else on the dragstrip at the time-like something from another planet. To reduce the car's frontal area, the Ramchargers chopped the top more than 4 inches. That got the car back down out of the wind a bit, but it made the coupe look even more bizarre.

To bias even more weight onto the slicks, the rear axle was relocated 1011/42 inches forward by whacking the framerails just ahead of the kick-up and moving everything to the front. Then extensions were welded to the frame to support the rear of the body. This modification also shortened the wheelbase to 10111/42 inches, further increasing weight transfer. A half-dozen years later, this very same trick would be applied to Chrysler's '65 factory altered-wheelbase racers. Their strange appearance would earn them the name Funny Cars.

The Plymouth also featured what may have been the first adjustable four-bar rear suspension in a drag car. For inspiration, the chassis committee drew from the Jaguar XJC, one of the last great live-axle sports racers. But with a twist: According to Ramcharger Bill Shope, the Ram Rod used a telescoping left upper link. The setup was intended to work as an offset three-link on acceleration, reverting to a conventional four-link under braking, when the slip-link bottomed out. With the lousy tires available, they had to maximize traction however they could. Since any uneven distribution of load between an axle pair will reduce the total grip of the pair, counteracting driveline torque was a top priority. And the rear suspension worked well-too well according to Shope: On its first full run under power, the car got up on two wheels and bicycled off the starting line. "The NHRA people had never seen a car do anything like that, and they made it clear they did not ever want to see it again," Shope says. So the boys ran a bolt through the slip joint, converting the rear suspension back into a standard four-link.

With the stock Plymouth suspension in the front, coil springs from an old torque-tube Buick (the softest they could find) were installed out back. "All the rear springs did was hold the body off the ground," Burke says. "The roll couple was all to the rear, none in the front. Anything to get the rear tires to grip the pavement." The crew continued to work with the four-link's wide range of adjustments until the grip was equal on both rear tires. "That's when we knew we had it perfect," Burke says. "With the car going forward dead level and two nice black streaks of equal length on the pavement. Not smoke, but about 6 feet of black rubber. That showed we were really biting into the pavement."

The Ram Rod's engine was a 354 Hemi salvaged from warranty returns. Some 392 heads were installed for their larger intake valves, along with a '58 Chrysler 300D cam, but beyond that, the engine was surprisingly stock-internally. Externally, it was another story. Using their experience in pressure-wave tuning (as it is called today), the Ramchargers created unique intake and exhaust systems for the Ram Rod. The intake manifold-probably the first tunnel-ram ever seen on a drag car-arose from the development work that produced the ram-tuned SonoRamic Commando '60-'61 Plymouths. Two Carter four-barrels and a fabricated airscoop rested atop the tall structure, towering over the coupe's roof line. The wild exhaust megaphones were apparently inspired by a Norton motorcycle technical paper. They were 48 inches long with eight divergent cones streaming from the fenderwells instead of collectors. Who knows how well the pipes worked, but everyone agreed they were mighty loud. "It was actually intimidating to the other racers," Burke remembers. "We always had the loudest car out there, including the dragsters."

The Ramchargers debuted the Ram Rod at the '59 NHRA Nationals in Detroit, breaking in the engine in the inspection line. Not quite prepared for national competition, they lost to Billie Rasmussen's '32 Ford coupe for C/Altered honors, though they did set top speed for the class at 109.75 mph. A series of drivers handled the car, among them Herm Mozer and Jim Thornton, as the Ramchargers campaigned around the Midwest, setting the C/A national record. By the next year's Nationals, they had the car running in the high 11s at 117 mph, easily winning their class. The Ram Rod now sported rear fenders, a sponsor on the doors, and a coat of fresh white paint over the hideous blue-green primer it had worn the year before. And somewhere along the way, with its ridiculous ride height, shattering performance, and ear-piercing exhaust blast, the car had earned a new nickname: the High and Mighty.

The rest, as they say, is history. The Ramchargers' demonstrated expertise with high performance was quickly tapped by Chrysler, as the company attacked the growing youth market of the early '60s. With factory support over the next decade, the Ramchargers' Dodges won in Super Stock, Funny Car, and even Top Fuel. Club members, including Tom Hoover and Dick Maxwell, rose through the corporate ranks as Chrysler expanded its presence in musclecars, drag racing, and NASCAR. But tragically, one of the founding team members didn't get to take the ride with his buddies. Wayne Erickson was fatally burned at the NHRA Nationals when a flywheel explosion in his '53 Dodge slashed the fuel lines. "It was horrible. He lived for 12 days," Hoover says. "He was my best friend." After 47 years, Hoover still chokes up.

The original High and Mighty disappeared years ago. The car you see today is a re-creation performed by members of the Chrysler Employees Motorsports Association. Organized much like the Ramchargers, the club is made up of Chrysler employees but operates unofficially within the company. Volunteers led by chairman Bob Lees spent more than two years rebuilding a Plymouth coupe into an accurate replica of the Ram Rod as it appeared in 1959. They call their car the High and Mighty II.

The '32 Ford is a canvas that automotive artists have been painting on for 75 years now, which of course means there aren't many things that haven't already been done to one. However, a look doesn't have to be totally different from the bottom up to garner attention; sometimes it just takes a bit of a twist on standard street-rod style to create something unique. That's precisely what Matt Markstaller was going for with this '32 roadster. The idea was to build a car that combined street-rod style with memories of his youth.

The catalyst that fueled Matt's imagination to create this '32 roadster was an engine-the new 5.7L Hemi. "When the new Hemi came out, I had an immediate appreciation for its reference to the past and its engineering and really wanted to do something with it in a hot rod," Matt says. The new, 345ci Hemi reminded him of two past Hemis he had owned: a 392ci in a '57 Chrysler Imperial and a teeny 241ci Red Ram that had powered a '32 Ford. The later correlation is what inspired the moniker for this project: the Red Ram Special.

Beginning with a 5.7L engine, Matt stripped away all the plastic cladding, wiring, and hoses that hid its identity and set the stage to create a more appropriate early Hemi look. The plastic factory intake wouldn't fit the theme, so Matt fabricated a vintage tunnel-ram from aluminum and hid the factory throttle body within the scoop and plenum. The look may be radical, but the 5.7 is actually a much milder engine than it appears and retains the factory fuel injectors, sensors, and computer without issue. "It was a bit of a gamble to change the intake hardware, but even though the look of the intake is completely different, I kept the basic internal geometry the same so that it would work with the factory computer and sensors," Matt says.

And what about those memories that inspired that look? That red-scallops-over-bare-metal facade is more than just street-rod flair to Matt. He grew up around vintage aircraft and regularly traveled to the Reno Air Races to watch WWII-era planes with their thundering engines, mirror-polished aluminum, and scallop paint jobs streak across the sky. Imagery like that doesn't fade easily and led Matt to get his own pilot's license, and eventually inspired the look of his street rod.

Matt's three sons wanted to be involved in the project, but they had one condition: The roadster had to have a rumble seat so they could all ride. Matt was able to locate a body from Lone Star Classics (www.lonestarclassics.com) that could be configured to accommodate a rumble seat, and the build was under way. To get the vintage aircraft look he had in his mind, Matt wanted the scallops to look like they were laid over a bare metal body-not an easy task with fiberglass. The convincingly real metallic finish came from a new paint called MirraChrome from Alsa (www.alsacorp.com). Sprayed over a black basecoat, MirraChrome is intended to look like chrome, but using white for the basecoat helped Matt achieve a softer aluminum look.

While the body was being treated to its faux-metal finish, Matt put his Brigham Young University education and his mechanical-engineering background with OEM vehicle design to work designing a chassis and suspension that looked traditional but functioned better than most radius-arm cars do. For the foundation, he started with a perimeter frame and crossmember built by Schroeder Speed and Custom with Dearborn Deuce rails. Matt's past experience designing suspension systems for open-road-race cars on weekends while still holding down a design job with an OE manufacturer came in handy in designing a suspension that had the right look but functioned far beyond vintage equipment. The front started with an aluminum Super Bell I-beam axle, but to achieve better handling than he could get from a buggy spring and solid axle, he cut the axle in half and bushed and pinned the two axle halves behind the Model A crossmember to conceal it. The effect is a suspension that has the drilled I-beam look but functions and handles as an IFS.

For the aluminum hairpin radius rods, calculations told Matt that even though aluminum is about half as strong as steel, he could stay with a traditional 7/8-inch od on the hairpins as long as he used solid rod instead of the 1/8-inch wall tube that the steel units are made of. To tie the radius rods to the axle, he fabricated a set of aluminum bat wings, complete with lightening holes to match the style of the axle. The rear suspension uses a ladder-bar setup fabricated from aluminum, but again, the difference is that everything was carefully calculated first. The length and mounting angle of the bars as well as the placement of the Afco coilovers on an 8.8-inch rear axle were designed to eliminate squat while making the '32 as responsive as possible.

To truly create the vintage aircraft feel, the interior had to have a bare-bones feel reminiscent of a slightly refined B-29. Though he had never attempted panel fabrication before, Matt decided the only way to get everything exactly how he pictured it was to do it himself. After getting access to sheetmetal shears, a drill press, a sander, and a bead roller, he proceeded to waste a few sheets of brushed aluminum until he got the hang of it and eventually turned out the interior panels and bomber-style bucket seats.

The final result of all that time and effort achieved the effect Matt was after: a street rod that combines the vintage fighter-plane vibe he wanted with contemporary technology that allows him to drive the wheels off it. The dramatic paint may have come back to bite Matt, though. The roadster tends to draw a crowd, and ironically, most onlookers are usually debating whether the body is aluminum or stainless steel or speculating on the origin of the engine, usually getting both wrong while overlooking the well-thought-out fabrication work.

Quick Inspection: '32 Ford Roadster
Matt Markstaller * Portland, OR

Powertrain
Engine: The engine is an '03 Dodge 345ci Hemi that is internally stock. Matt fabricated several custom items including milled and polished valve covers, remote-mounted coils, an aluminum intake topped with a Mr. Gasket Street scoop, and zoomie headers with stainless steel baffles. To clean up the front end, he removed anything that was unnecessary and redid the serpentine drive to run the water pump. Everything was given a painted, satin, or polished finish and screwed together with button-head stainless bolts.

Power: Matt hasn't dyno'd the engine since the new induction, but it shouldn't be far off the stock 345 hp.

Transmission: It's a New Venture Gear five-speed.

Rearend: A Ford 8.8-inch Traction-Lok from a late-model Ranger was narrowed 2 inches on one side to center the differential and result in an overall width of 56 inches.

ChassisFrame: The Dearborn Deuce rails were boxed and tied together with a Darryl Schroeder tubular X-member, a tubular rear crossmember, and a Model A front crossmember.

Suspension: A Super Bell Alum-I-Beam was cut in half and pinned to the center of the front crossmember. Fabricated aluminum hairpins, bat wings, and shock mounts with Afco coilover shocks and a modified sandrail steering rack from Dan's Performance Parts complete the independent front suspension. The rear suspension consists of fabricated-aluminum ladder bars and a Panhard rod with Afco coilovers.

Brakes: Braking chores are handled by a dual master cylinder with vented, slotted, and drilled rotors and Dynalite calipers at each wheel end, all by Wilwood.

Wheels: They're American Racing Salt Flat Specials in 15x7 (front) and 17x8 (rear).

Tires: They are Pirelli Scorpion STRs, 205/70-15 and 265/65-17.

Style
Body: Starting with a Lone Star '32 Ford roadster body kit, Matt added a steel inner structure and a rear roll pan, removed the windshield bead, and molded in a transmission tunnel.

Paint: The red is a custom PPG basecoat/clearcoat called Hellrot. The polished-aluminum look is Alsa MirraChrome over white primer, applied by Ben Conley. Al Perreira provided the striping. Chrome doesn't complement this car, so the DuVall windshield, headers, front spindles, and a few other steel parts were ceramic-coated at Russ Meeks' Finish Line Coatings.

Interior: The panels and bomber seatbacks were formed from aluminum sheet with a bead roller and old-fashioned hand beating. The leather seat bottoms, rumble seat, and wool carpet were stitched by Carl Griffis.

Big trouble starts with small things. In Die Hard, it's just New York cop John McClane deciding to visit his estranged wife and family in Los Angeles over Christmas. In Romeo and Juliet, it's an ancient grudge between the Montagues and Capulets so trivial Shakespeare doesn't even tell us what it is. And for Jeff Mann, trouble started when he bought his '57 Chevy-or when he decided it would be cool to own a Hemi. Well, if it wasn't trouble when he decided to buy the engine or when he bought the car, it surely came the moment he decided to combine the two.

Today, Jeff is a successful motion-picture production designer; he's the guy who conjured up the secret underground command center in which Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines concluded, decided exactly what expensive stuff Mr. & Mrs. Smith would have in their home to destroy, and put together the team that built the Eleanor Mustangs in 2000's Gone in Sixty Seconds. But back in 1984, he was 19 and working as a mechanic on offshore boats in his native San Diego. And every day on his way to work, he drove past an oxidized blue '57 Bel Air coupe. There wasn't a "For Sale" sign in its window, it was very rough, and he didn't have a garage to put it in. But he found the owner, turned on the adolescent charm, took out a $2,400 loan at 26 percent interest, and bought it. "I was deluded," he recalls. "It was a pant load. The guy I bought it from had found it buried in an Oklahoma oil field."

So, shamelessly exploiting a relative's goodwill, he stored the '57 at a cousin's house in Point Loma, California, while more and more of his time and all his mechanical skills were put to work helping friends produce music videos until eventually he stopped wrenching on boats and began working in show business full time. And big-time show biz is in Los Angeles. So he moved. His career expanded while the old Chevy hibernated under an ever-growing mountain of Danchuk restoration parts ready for someday installation.

Jeff had just finished his first movie as art director (1993's Kalifornia, starring a then nearly unknown Brad Pitt) when he finally turned his attention to the '57. He even built a 327 small-block Chevy for the car. But, he says, "Even as I was building that engine, I was already bored by the idea of another '57 with a small-block in it. You know, bored like the rest of the western civilization."

One way to fight boredom in Southern California is to read The Recycler, where legions advertise their junk hoping to find buyers who'll consider it treasure. "I saw an ad in there that said "'58 Chrysler New Yorker, $500, runs good,''and suddenly I thought I really needed to own a Hemi," Jeff recalls. "I didn't think about putting it in the '57, I just thought it would be neat to own an early Hemi. So I called this guy and went to see the car. He lived in one of those parts of L.A. that seem like they're South Dakota or something: totally rural, totally derelict, and still totally in the middle of L.A. I bought the car, drove my truck up to his house, pulled the engine and trans out right there, and then sat on the New Yorker's fender for three hours waiting for Memory Lane (a SoCal wrecking yard) to come pick up the hulk. I took the Hemi home, took it apart, and then it sat for a couple of years."

Almost simultaneously, Jeff was working on The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles around the rural Southern California town of Piru, where he met and began talking with Ellery Engel, of Ellery Engel Restoration Specialties, well known for quality restoration work, despite its obscure location. Jeff eventually decided to ship the '57 up to Engel, where he began separating the body from the frame and then replacing the entire floorpan, both rear quarters, and both rockers with fresh metal. "There's no mud on the car at all," Jeff claims.

The chassis, though, was shipped to Tony Tierno at Tierno's General Fabrication in Los Angeles, where the question of what exactly was going to power Jeff's '57 came to a head. "I was thinking of a 409 with Hilborn injection" Jeff says, before combining the 392 Hemi already in his possession with the old Chevy came to mind. From there, it was a matter of construction. "It turns out, the Hemi is the same length as a small-block Chevy, so that was no problem," Jeff explains. "But it wouldn't clear the steering box. So eventually, we swapped the entire stock front suspension for one from Jim Meyer Racing that uses custom A-arms, rear-steer Camaro spindles, coilover shocks, a front antisway bar, and rack-and-pinion steering." The rest of the chassis is straightforward: a 9-inch rearend scavenged from a Lincoln Versailles, Posies leaf springs mounted inboard using a TCI kit, and Bilstein shocks. A PBR-based Baer Racing braking system was installed with 13-inch rotors up front and 12-inchers in the rear.

Now that the powerplant fit, the chassis was essentially complete, and the body was in the hands of a competent shop, Jeff's attention turned to finishing the engine. "I called Street & Performance, and they had an intake on their shelf for the 392 Hemi," he says. " a TPI-style system with a custom sheetmetal intake that was supposed to work with a GM computer. So I got that."

Early Hemis and '80s-spec GM computers weren't meant to go together, but optimism reigned supreme as the block was fit with a Crower billet crank that added a half-inch of stroke (for a total displacement of 450 ci). Todd McKenzie of McKenzie's Head Service ported the Hot Heads aluminum chunks, which are the topper to a spectacular early Hemi.

As the body was being finished-firewall smoothed, DuPont Lime Gold on most of it, metallic charcoal on the roof, engine-turned panels along the rear quarters-a Richmond five-speed manual transmission became a surprise addition to the mix.

With the Hemi installed and the '57 finished around a Ciadella custom interior incorporating a Glide front bench seat, reproduction stock upholstery, '68 Impala door-panel fabric stretched into a headliner, Daytona Weave '55 Corvette carpeting, and an engine-turned dash, Jeff Mann was finally ready to drive his car-a mere 17 years after he acquired it.

"I immediately took it to the chassis dyno and was totally disappointed," Jeff recalls. "I was only making like 350 hp at the rear wheels. Totally limp. But at least I was driving it. Coming home from the dyno, I was on the 210 freeway when the oil pressure started dropping. The aftermarket oil pump I'd insisted on installing had worn its gear down on one side completely. The oil-pump shaft seized up and cracked the block's webbing, and that was that for that block. I think I'd put something like 100 miles on the car."

At this point, Jeff had a choice: heave the car out of his life or double up and invest again in achieving the brute-force monster he'd envisioned. Since the car is on these pages, the choice he made is obvious.

"I found another block, and a friend said, 'You know, we could put a Vortech on this thing,'" Jeff says with a sigh. "At that point, it was sort of, well, why the hell not? I'd already thrown so much cash into this thing; at least it ought to be fast."

Using the crank, heads, Ross forged pistons from the original Hemi, and a new block, Jeff had that friend assemble the engine and work out a scheme to plumb in a Vortech blower. "My friend's shop is pretty close to Kenny Duttweiler's in Saticoy, , and after he built the engine, including a front plate to mount the blower, we took it to Duttweiler's to have Kenny dyno it," Jeff says. "And the first thing Kenny tells us is, 'You know, the blower is mounted on there so it rotates backward.' That was a pretty basic problem, so we ripped the engine apart-again-and Jim Bassett at Bones Fab in Camarillo, , redesigned the accessory-drive system with a single serpentine belt and the blower spinning in the correct direction." Bones Fab (www.bonesfab.com) also built the custom headers, figured out how to make the Vintage Air A/C system blow cold, and generally handled most of the final assembly chores.

Duttweiler added a crank-trigger ignition, a big Accufab throttle body, wideband sensors, and an Accel DFI engine-control computer, and on the dyno, it was finally making serious power: 830 hp at 5,500 rpm and 823 lb-ft of peak torque at 4,900 rpm at the crank while running 12 pounds of boost on pump gas (and over 900 hp when running race fuel). And with Duttweiler tuning, there was reason to believe the car would be driveable, too. After about 30 pulls on Duttweiler's dyno that included a rocker-arm failure and numerous gasket leaks, the engine just went, according to Jeff, "poof. So Kenny pulled the heads off and one of the pistons had burned through at the crown. Like the edge of a hot dime had been pushed through the crown. There just wasn't enough material on the dome of these naturally aspirated pistons to handle the blower pressure. So, poof." Another set of pistons was ordered with what the brain trust hoped would have the appropriately rugged, blower-ready, material heft. Those pistons were installed, and the engine was reinstalled into the '57 at Bones Fab.

Then, on the drive home from the Bones shop, Jeff blew another head gasket. "This time, I pulled the heads off and there was another hole in a piston-this time near a valve relief. We'd moved the ring land so close to the valve relief that it developed a hot spot. So we built the engine again-with a set of JE custom blower pistons-and this time, we moved the ring lands down so they actually crossed the wristpins."

All that brings the car to late 2006-22 years after Jeff bought it-and finally he's driving it regularly. "I've got a couple thousand miles on it now," he says with some relief. "It runs cool, it has more than 600 lb-ft of torque at 2,000 rpm, and it's very driveable. It's a wicked car-more than I ever expected." All he had to do to get it was endure an improvised, advanced engine-development program that started with a simple notion and veered straight through too much time and a mound of cash.

"I'm no millionaire, so I never could have afforded to do this if it meant writing one big check," Jeff says now. "But over 20 years, I could afford it. Of course, my daughter is 6 now, and when it comes time for her to go to college, well, I'm going to have to be dead and she's going to have to sell the car."

Quick Inspection: '57 Chevrolet Bel Air
Jeff Mann * South Pasadena, CA

Powertrain
Engine: The '58 Chrysler 392 Hemi block is stuffed with a Crower 11/42-inch stroker crank (for a total displacement of 450 ci), Crower 7.1-inch billet-steel rods, and custom JE forged pistons. Hot Heads aluminum cylinder heads ported by Todd McKenzie of McKenzie's Head Service are fitted with Comp Cams stainless valves actuated by a Rocker Arm Specialties roller valvetrain and Smith Bros. pushrods. The single-pattern Comp camshaft features 0.571-inch lift and 242 degrees of duration at 0.050. A Vortech V-7 YSi supercharger driven by a Bones Fab-engineered serpentine drive setup throws 12 pounds of boost into the engine through an Accufab 95mm throttle body on a Street & Performance-fabricated sheetmetal intake. Fuel and spark are controlled by an Accel DFI computer and an MSD crank trigger. Bones Fab also built the custom headers and exhaust system with Flowmaster Delta Flow mufflers. A Be Cool aluminum radiator is aided by twin electric cooling fans. Everything works because Kenny Duttweiler at Duttweiler Performance in Saticoy, California, established the fuel map and tuned it on his dynamometer.

Power: On the Duttweiler dyno running pump gas, this engine produced 830 hp at 5,500 rpm and 823 lb-ft of peak torque at 4,900 rpm.

Transmission: A Richmond five-speed is hooked to the engine through a McLeod twin-disc clutch, a Wilcap custom flywheel, and a Wilcap adapter plate with a McLeod Chevy bellhousing.

Rearend: The Ford 9-inch rearend (from a Lincoln Versailles) was fitted with Mark Williams 31-spline axles and a Detroit Locker centersection carrying 2.91 gears.

Chassis
Frame: The stock '57 Chevy frame was powdercoated black and modified to accept the Hemi by Tierno's General Fabrication. In back, the rear leaf springs were moved inboard for increased tire clearance, while the entire front suspension was replaced with a Jim Meyer Racing system.

Suspension: The Jim Meyer Racing front-suspension system uses tubular A-arms, QA1 coilovers, second-generation Camaro spindles with rear steer, and a power rack-and-pinion steering gear. It's finished with a 111/44-inch Speedway Engineering antisway bar. The rearend is suspended on Posies leaf springs and Bilstein shocks with a 111/48-inch Hellwig antisway bar.

Brakes: They are Baer Racing PBR 13-inch rotors in front with two-piston calipers and 12-inch rotors in back with single-piston calipers. The system was fabricated by Bones Fab.

Wheels: The round things at each corner are Colorado Custom Leadville 17-inch wheels.

Tires: Those wheels are wrapped in P225/55R17 front and P255/60R17 rear Toyo tires.

Style
Body: It has been completely restored with new sheetmetal by Ellery Engel of Ellery Engel Restoration Specialties. The firewall was smoothed, and the rocker moldings and dashboard were restored. The hood and trunk emblems were shaved, and custom driving lights were fitted into the front bumper in place of the rubber bullets.

Paint: The body is painted DuPont Lime Gold with the roof finished in Charcoal Metallic. The distinctive Bel Air panel inserts on the rear fenders have been replaced with machine-turned steel panels.

Interior: The interior was covered with Dynamat insulation and stock-pattern Ciadella upholstery on a Glide front bench seat. Ciadella's '55 Corvette Daytona Weave carpeting was also used. The headliner was fabricated from the door-panel fabric for a '68 Impala. The power windows operate using the stock window cranks as triggers. A Colorado Custom Leadville steering wheel tops the ididit tilt steering column. A Classic Instruments gauge cluster is set into the dashboard alongside engine-turned panels

The Dr. Performance Nitro Series Dodge Dakota drag truck set new Diesel Hot Rod Association (DHRA) Pro Diesel class records at the 2007 ATS Diesels on the Mountain event: 8.48 seconds at 164.23 MPH.

The Dr. Performance Nitro Series Dodge Dakota drag truck set new Diesel Hot Rod Association (DHRA) Pro Diesel class records at the 2007 ATS Diesels on the Mountain event: 8.48 seconds at 164.23 MPH. This elapsed time and top speed, set at Denver’s Bandimere Speedway, are both records. DHRA rules require a “back-up” run within 10 percent for a record to be official: Charlie Stewart backed up the 8.48 pass with an 8.312-second run.

“Unfortunately, we stuck a piston on the faster pass and weren’t able to back up that time,” Dr. Performance Nitro Series driver Charlie Stewart says. “We have about 100 passes on the engine, and we’re amazed that it’s lasted this long without a rebuild.” Team owner Kenny Laughlin adds, “Our goal for this season is to get an official time in the sevens, and we’re right there if you take into account Bandimere’s elevation .”

Previously known as the “Predator,” Dr. Performance’s renamed “Nitro Series” 5.9L Cummins-powered Dodge Dakota has run a best “fluke” time (yet to be backed up by another time within 10 percent in the same year) of 7.82 seconds at the 2007 DHRA Indiana Diesel Nationals. “This sport is fairly new, and there are still a lot of things we haven’t tried yet,” says Stewart. “We’ve only been running 40 pounds of boost. Since Houston is the last event of the year, we’ll crank it up on each run to see what happens when we run 60, 80 and maybe even 100 pounds. We think we can get in the 7.60s.”

Click here to see a video of the Dakota’s record 8.61@157 pass at Vegas

The history of Chrysler's 300 series cars is a convoluted one, with many starts and stops over the past half-century. It began in 1955 when the company dropped a dual-carbed 331ci Hemi-the most powerful production V-8 engine of its day-into a two-door Chrysler Windsor along with the egg-crate grille from the up-market Imperial and a few extra bits of brightwork trim. The result was the C-300, a luxury coupe with 300 hp. Arriving nearly a decade ahead of Pontiac's GTO, it was arguably the first American musclecar and unquestionably the progenitor of current luxury sport sedans such as the Cadillac CTS-V, the BMW M5, and its own namesake, the latest Chrysler 300C.

The original C-300 was a performance icon of its era, showcasing the abilities of the early Hemi engines on the hard-packed sands of Daytona Beach. It was there in 1955 that a C-300 posted a 127.580-mph two-way average in the flying mile, more than 7 mph faster than its nearest competitor. In the hands of pioneering NASCAR team owner Carl Kiekafer, the C-300 went on to win the '55 NASCAR Grand National Championship, a feat repeated by its 300B sibling in 1956.

The C-300 and 300B were followed by the seminal 300C of 1957, which defined Chrysler styling in the late '50s with its swoopy, jet-age fins and optional 390hp, 392ci Hemi. The letter-series 300s ran through the alphabet for the next eight years, skipping the letter I and concluding with the 300L in 1965. By the mid '60s, the 300's performance receded as Hemi and Six-Pack-powered Road Runners, Chargers, and Cudas took the forefront. As the years went on, the 300 series gravitated more toward luxury than performance, with later non-letter series iterations based on the whale-like proportions of Chrysler's fullsize sedans and powered by various pedestrian versions of the RB-series big-block wedge engine. The 300 nameplate was mothballed in 1971 but made an unfortunate one-year reappearance in 1979 as a Cordoba trim option. It lay dormant for another 20 years until it was resurrected in 1999 with the DaimlerChrysler LHS-based 300M. This front-driver employed DaimlerChrysler's unique cab-forward architecture, but despite being named Motor Trend's 1999 Car of the Year, it did nothing to further the 300 series' reputation. Then in 2005, the 300 series returned gloriously to its roots thanks to the automaker's merger with Daimler-Benz, reincarnating into the 5.7L Hemi-powered rear-wheel-drive Chrysler 300C, a car that is truly a spiritual descendant of the original C-300, especially in its 425hp SRT-8 form.

As a gearhead growing up in Detroit, Alan Kalter followed all these developments with interest, mostly through the pages of HOT ROD Magazine, which he began reading in the late '50s. The original C-300 captured his young imagination, and being part of the age group on the leading edge of the musclecar generation, it held a strong appeal when he decided a few years ago to build a hot rod. Now a high-powered Detroit advertising executive whose company has handled big-name accounts as diverse as Mazda, BFGoodrich, and Quaker State, Kalter had the means to build a car with a near-limitless budget, but what he really wanted was something he could drive and enjoy regularly, not merely admire as it rotated on an indoor platform.

Kalter credits his wife for helping him choose to build a C-300. While attending Detroit's Woodward Dream Cruise a few years ago, the couple came upon a C-300 in Chrysler's display. She said, "This is the car you should restore," Kalter recalls. Armed with permission from the boss, he set out to find a suitable candidate.

Locating a pristine C-300 wasn't simple, as only 1,725 were built in 1955 and just a couple hundred of them are believed to have survived. The C-300 Kalter eventually found was owned by a collector in Palm Springs, California, and had fewer than 30,000 original miles on the odometer. The recipient of a mid-level restoration in the late '60s or early '70s, it had been featured in several musclecar books, and as a clean, unmolested example but not a true survivor, it was a good foundation for a project. According to Randy Clark of Hot Rods & Custom Stuff in Escondido, California, which performed the restoration and modifications, when the former owner dropped the car off at his shop, Clark was under strict orders from Kalter not to even hint at the possibility that any non-stock modifications might be in store. He was instructed to say only that he had been hired to do a "pre-shipping" inspection. "Don't tell the guy we're going to cut it up," Clark says Kalter told him.

Of course the plan was never really to cut it up and the result can hardly be called that, but after putting a few shakedown miles on the C-300, Kalter says "the memories were better than the reality. It floated all over the road. How was that car running at Daytona?" Although Kalter believes the C-300's styling holds its own in 2005, modern performance standards had far surpassed its abilities. "Back in the '50s, these cars were known as Beautiful Brutes. It was still beautiful in 2005, but I wanted to give it an '05 version of the brute." The plan he worked out with Clark called for retaining an appearance as close as possible to stock but with performance that would live up to the C-300's reputation.

Although purists might cringe at the thought of pulling apart an original C-300, dropping in a 720hp all-aluminum Hemi with a 727 TorqueFlite and a Gear Vendors overdrive, and then grafting on the front suspension from a Chevy Caprice, the reality is that Clark and Kalter's creation is unerringly faithful to the original. The only noticeable external modifications are cutouts in the rear bumper for dual 3-inch exhaust tips and the replacement of the original 15-inch wire wheels with 17-inch replicas. Beyond that, the rest of the car, including the luxurious interior, was restored to high concours standards. Under the hood it's a different story. The original plan was to upgrade the engine, drivetrain, and suspension but leave the rest of the car untouched.

To provide improved handling and absorb the abuses of the car's 5,000-pound curb weight, Clark looked beyond the usual street-rod suspension systems, most of which are based on the Mustang II front suspension, a system not exactly known for either great handling or weight capacity. Clark instead wanted to use a traditional worm-gear steering box and centerlink arrangement, which he felt was better suited to a heavy car than a delicate street-rod rack-and-pinion. His quest for a good-handling big-car suspension led him to the front clip from a '95 Chevy Caprice, a platform that is well-known for its durability under millions of taxicabs and police cruisers. To fit the Caprice guts under the C-300's sheetmetal, Clark cut the stock suspension off the Chrysler's frame, narrowed the Caprice clip by removing a couple of inches from the center of the main crossmember, and grafted it back onto the 300's framerails.

Kalter briefly considered a Viper V-10 swap but opted to maintain the car's Hemi-powered lineage, since that engine "has defined Chrysler performance even through to today." A carbureted 528ci all-aluminum Hemi crate engine was ordered from Indy Cylinder Heads and installed by the time Kalter came out from Detroit to drive the upgraded C-300 for a second time. He put about 100 miles on it and came back with three requests: "Fuel-inject it, tear it apart, and paint it red," Clark recalls. " was just a monster and too rough leaving stoplights," Clark says. "We should have gone with fuel injection to begin with."

So began a concours-grade frame-off restoration that required purchasing two parts cars just to acquire several unobtainium trim pieces, a new windshield, and replacements for a few other unusable items. The engine was sent back to Indy to be converted to EFI, and the body was stripped and repainted its original Tango Red. "We got to build that car the way you want to build a car," Clark says of the process that involved assembling the components, working out the bugs, tearing it apart, and reassembling it from scratch. "We don't get to do that very often. But the result is that this will be a great car for years to come." Maybe even the greatest Chrysler 300 ever.

Quick Inspection: '55 Chrysler C 300
Alan Kalter . Ann Arbor, MI

Powertrain

Engine: The 528ci Street Legend Hemi was ordered from Indy Cylinder Heads. It includes an aluminum Indy Maxx block with a 4.500-inch bore, an Eagle forged-steel 4.150-stroke crank, H-beam rods, Wiseco 10.25:1 pistons, Indy Legend CNC-ported heads that flow 440 cfm, and a Comp mechanical Street Roller cam with 0.660/0.636-inch lift and 268/264 degrees duration at 050. It breathes through an ACCEL-modified intake manifold and custom 2-1/8-inch headers and is controlled by ACCEL Gen 7 DFI.

Power: Indy rates the Street Legend crate engine at 720 hp and 640 lb-ft.

Transmission: A TCI Street Fighter 727 TorqueFlite with a 3,600-stall converter is mated to a Gear Vendors overdrive unit.

Rearend: A Currie 9-inch housing holds 3.70:1 gears with a Traction-Lock differential and 31-spline Currie axles.

Chassis

Suspension: The '95 Impala front clip is upgraded with 1-inch drop spindles, QA1 adjustable shocks, Energy Suspension bushings, and a 1-1/8-inch antisway bar along with a Detroit Speed & Engineering steering box mated to a modified stock column. The rear parallel leaf-spring suspension is upgraded with 2-inch-drop Eaton Detroit springs and Competition Engineering Slide-a-Link traction bars.

Brakes: There are 13-inch Stainless Steel Brakes discs on the front and 12-inch discs on the rear.

Wheels: The 17-inch wheels from Wheel Vintiques duplicate the original 15-inch Chrysler wire spokers.

Tires: Finding wide-white radials in 17-inch sizes is tough according to Randy Clark. Eventually he discovered Whitewall Candy Store, which supplied the P255/60R17 wide whites.

Style

Body: It's all stock with the exception of a slight modification to the rear bumper to clear the dual exhaust tips.

Interior: The interior is so completely stock that only the most knowledgeable C-300 expert would notice the slightly recontoured bench seats designed to hug the occupants a bit more snugly than the stock cushions, upgraded gauges, a modified shift gate, and the Alpine CD changer hidden in the glovebox. The only other interior modification is the adaptation of Chrysler Imperial power-window mechanisms to work with the stock manual window cranks.

Paint: It's PPG '55 Chrysler Tango Red by Hot Rods & Custom Stuff.

Haynes’ new site now offers more helpful tips, videos and resources the Do-It-Yourselfer.

NEWBURY PARK, Calif. - Haynes has unveiled its new consumer web site (www.haynes.com) with the following features:

*    Free tips and information to help the consumer save time and money

*    Learn from the pros: Free video downloads on a variety of repair
topics showing you how easy it is to perform basic vehicle maintenance
and repair

*    Haynes “live garage cam” so you can take a behind the scenes look
at how we write our manuals

*    Complete detailed information on the full array of Haynes
automotive and motorcycle repair books

*    Haynes retail store locator to allow consumers to find a manual
quickly

Every Haynes manual is written from hands-on experience based on a
complete teardown, which is the step-by-step procedure of dismantling a
particular vehicle part-by-part. This is followed by the detailed
rebuilding of the specific model it documents. Writing each manual takes
30 man-weeks, with authors working as teams to shorten the production
time and avoid fatigue during the difficult process. Hundreds of
photographs accompany each manual’s step-by-step instructions. The books
are written from the actual experience of Haynes’ own expert personnel
using only a basic set of tools and presented in a style that any DIYer
can follow, even a beginner.

There is an extensive selection of auto repair books, written in both
English and Spanish, 125 motorcycle repair books and more than a dozen
ATV manuals.

Legendary Charles Patterson Collection Of Vintage Cars And Motorcycles To Sell Without Reserve At Old Bridge Township Raceway Park!

WHERE: Old Bridge Township Raceway Park, Englishtown, NJ 07726 WHEN: September 30, 2007 TIME: 1:00 PM TERMS: Cash, cashier’s check, bank letter of guarantee for your check, or on-site financing up to 100% of purchase. Price will be available. Englishtown, NJ-2007 - Collectors and enthusiasts from across the country and world are expected to turn out in droves for the No Reserve, No Minimum Bid Auction on September 30 th. The auction will feature a collection of cars and motorcycles that have sat un-restored and untouched for more than 50 years, shrouded in mystery. The collection belongs to legend Charles Patterson, known famously across New Jersey and beyond. Patterson, approaching the age of 87, has always left his home open to friends and visitors who needed advice, parts or just company. It was very exceptional for Patterson to part with any of his vehicles. Patterson has engaged Brian Nelson Jones, of Bloomington, IN, to auction approximately 45 vintage cars and 25 motorcycles dating back to 1910. The majority of these have been in storage for dozens for years. Some motorcycles are incomplete, yet still usable. Patterson owns a few Buicks from the 1930’s, as well as an original 1940 Limited 4-Door Sedan with side mounts. He also has a 1953 Roadmaster Convertible and a 1953 Roadmaster 2-Door hard topÖa truly scarce car! In addition, Patterson has a 1934 Chevrolet Standard Phaeton, a 1929 Chrysler Dual-Cowl Phaeton, a Crosley Station Wagon, as well as its sister, the Crosley Convertible with low miles. Among the Fords are a Model A Roadster and a Model A Roadster pick-up truck, three early Flathead V8 Phaetons (4 door convertibles) from 1932 and 1933 and a 1934 home made V8 Pumper. The collection also includes a 1967 Lincoln Continental 4 door convertible, five desirable Packards from 1936 through 1938 and two 1934 Pontiac 603 convertibles. “The Pontiac is positively incredible,” said the Pontiac Club claiming that there are only six still in existence. Patterson also holds onto a 1973 Volkswagen “Thing” and an early 50’s Willys Jeepster 4-Cylinder convertible, still with the original side curtains. There is also a 1939 Cadillac 6167 2 door convertible that is about to see the highway for the first time since 1959. The glass back window still features a sticker from Rutgers University, and the engine is rebuilt with factory-new parts. The most important car in the auction is the 1938 Packard 1608 V12 Town Car, with a custom hand-crafted body by Rollston, which was originally built for tobacco heiress Doris Duke. Though the car needs total restoration, it does fit the definition of a truly historic car, and is expected to someday show up at Pebble Beach. The motorcycles include brands such as Harley-Davidson, Honda, Henderson and Indiana. More definitive descriptions of each vehicle will be available as the barns, sheds and other storage buildings are cleared out. Brian Nelson Jones has auctioned significant automotive and other collections in 18 states across the nation. His auctions are truly “no reserve”. There will be no buy-backs, helpers in the audience or “cousins.” Every item will sell without minimum price. This is a genuine “car-in-the-barn” story that is impossible to duplicate. Patterson and his generation are thinning out. The cars and motorcycles that he sheltered over the years are finally available to you, so try to be sure to attend, as an actual episode of American automotive history makes its way into the record books! BUYER’S PREMIUM OF 10% WILL APPLY ON ALL PURCHASES. EVERY ITEM WILL SELL REGARDLESS OF PRICE. THIS IS A REAL AUCTION, NOT AN EXERCISE! THERE WILL BE NO BUY-BACKS, “HELPERS” OR “NEPHEWS” IN THE AUDIENCE CREATING FICTITIOUS BIDS! EVERY ITEM WILL SELL AS IT IS AND WHERE IT IS WITH ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED. YOU WILL PUCHASE ENTIRELY UPON YOUR OWN KNOWLEDGE AND BELIEF.

California Bill to Require ANNUAL Emissions Tests for Vehicles 15-Years Old Moves to Senate Appropriations Committee

Legislation (A.B. 616) to require annual Smog check inspections for
vehicles 15-years old and older has been approved by the California
Assembly and the Senate Transportation Committee.   The bill now moves
to the Senate Appropriations Committee for consideration on August 20th.
 A.B. 616 would also require that funds generated through the additional
inspection fees be deposited into an account which can be used to scrap
older cars.  You may recall that in 2004 a new law was enacted in
California to require the lifetime testing of all 1976 and newer
model-year vehicles.  Pre-1976 motor vehicles would remain exempt under
A.B. 616.

We Urge You to Contact Members of the Senate Appropriations Committee
(List Below) Immediately to Oppose A.B. 616

* A.B. 616 ignores the minimal impact vintage cars have on air quality.  

* A.B. 616 could entice vintage car owners into allowing these vehicles to be scrapped.  

* A.B. 616 ignores the fact that vehicles 15-years old and older still constitute a small portion of the overall vehicle population and are a poor source from which to look for emissions reduction.

* A.B. 616 ignores the fact that classic vehicles are overwhelmingly well-maintained and infrequently driven.  

* A.B. 616 would increase costs by creating an annual inspection fee for owners of these vehicles.  

* A.B. 616 represents another attempt by California legislators and regulators to scapegoat older cars.

* A.B. 616 would dramatically impact the ability of fixed and low income motorists from owning and driving their older vehicles.

Please contact members of the California Senate Appropriations Committee
immediately by phone, fax or e-mail to request their opposition to A.B.
616.

Please e-mail a copy of your letter to stevem@sema.org.  Thank you for
your assistance.

Senate Appropriations Committee

Senator Tom Torlakson (Chair)
Phone: (916) 651-4007
Email: Senator.Torlakson@senate.ca.gov

Senator Dave Cox (Vice Chair)
Phone: (916) 651-4001
Email: Senator.Cox@senate.ca.gov

Senator Samuel Aanestad
Phone: (916) 651-4004
Email: Senator.Aanestad@senate.ca.gov

Senator Roy Ashburn
Phone: (916) 651-4018
Email: Senator.Ashburn@senate.ca.gov

Senator Jim Battin
Phone: (916) 651-4037
Email: Senator.Battin@senate.ca.gov

Senator Gilbert Cedillo
Phone: (916) 651-4022
Email: Senator.Cedillo@senate.ca.gov

Senator Ellen Corbett
Phone: (916) 651-4010
Email: Senator.Corbett@senate.ca.gov

Senator Robert Dutton
Phone: (916) 651-4031
Email: Senator.Dutton@senate.ca.gov

Senator Dean Florez
Phone: (916) 651-4016
Email: Senator.Florez@senate.ca.gov

Senator Sheila Kuehl
Phone: (916) 651-4023
Email: Senator.Kuehl@senate.ca.gov

Senator Jenny Oropeza
Phone: (916) 651-4028
Email: Senator.Oropeza@senate.ca.gov

Senator Mark Ridley-Thomas
Phone: (916) 651-4026
Email: Senator.Ridley-Thomas@senate.ca.gov

Senator George Runner
Phone: (916) 651-4017
Email: Senator.Runner@senate.ca.gov

Senator Joe Simitian
Phone: (916) 651-4011
Email: Senator.Simitian@senate.ca.gov

Senator Darrell Steinberg
Phone: (916) 651-4006
Email: Senator.Steinberg@senate.ca.gov

Senator Mark Wyland
Phone: (916) 651-4038
Email: Senator.Wyland@senate.ca.gov

Senator Leland Yee
Phone: (916) 651-4008
Email: Senator.Yee@senate.ca.gov

Proceeds from the Long Island Cruizin’ For A Cure car show happening on September 9th benefit prostrate cancer research and education.

The Long Island Cruizin’ For A Cure is the only East Coast Car Show whose proceeds support Prostate Cancer Research and Education on Long Island. Happening on Sunday, September 9th, the show is open to all Rods, Customs, Muscle & Classic, Specialty Vehicles, Motorcycles and Antique Fire Apparatus. There will also be free prostate cancer screening at the show. Show hours are 9:00 am to 3:00 pm.

For more information, maps, how to register and a look back at last year’s event visit www.licruizinforacure.com or call 1-888-LICRUIZIN.