Cars
The Hypertech Max Energy Spectrum flash programmer is a device designed for the performance-minded individual looking to extract the most from their car or truck. This advanced programmer allows for full control of the vehicle’s ECM, enabling the user to adjust a wide range of parameters that influence the vehicle’s performance.
Adding a nitrous spray bar to an intercooler is a proven way to lower the intake air temps and consequently give a more dense charge to the combustion chamber for more horsepower. We’ve been seeing more and more intercooler spray bars popping up on both performance and show-n-go cars.
We saw extreme boost levels in our quest for horsepower from the little supercharged V-6 with out ’94 Supercoupe. With the Magnum Powers MPx supercharger clearly capable of more airflow than we could support (boost climbing north of 23 psi), it made sense to work on the heads-and-cam combination to better deal with some of that boost.
Pickup trucks from the ’30s were never meant to be high-quality hot rods, but several builders, including Jeff Lilly Restorations, are ready to change that theory. Lots of beater trucks are being built and driven frequently, and it’s great to see some of the cool ideas that come from these old farm or service trucks. Pickups are hot right now, and while some rodders are using low-gloss paint for their final coatings, many opt for a super-slick appearance with precision gaps and laser-straight panels.
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.
Sketch out a few ideas on paper, or some people like to put tracing paper over an actual photograph. Somehow come up with a plan for your paint scheme. We opted to “visually lengthen” the car by using a base scallop to connect both sides. This pattern flows to the side chrome, and extending this outline from the front to the rear gives the longer appearance. The stock Mercury body is thick. By putting the scallops below the trim line on the car, your eye is automatically drawn downward, giving the Mercury a lower, thinner appearance.
The Honda Prelude may not be as popular as the Civic or the Integra, but it does have a rather large tuner following. One of the reasons that the Prelude isn’t as modified as often as other Hondas is that the model’s initial purchase price is considerably more than a Civic Si or Integra GS-R, since the Prelude was better appointed with options and a more powerful engine.
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.