Online Hot Rod Magazine and Custom Car Pics

My Friend Made it Look Easy! Custom Metal Flake Looking for help with: How to setup a Harbor Freight paint gun for shooting flake. Please email me.   At car shows, especially the good ones in California, you'll see some stellar custom metal flake paint... like the shot below from the NorCal Knockout, the custom paint of all types is well represented.   See some amazing examples in this story: Custom Metal Flake Paint   After observing, and of course digging the look and appreciating the skill, I wanted to try it for myself. Then, my buddy Joel helped me customize a severely worn out plastic trim piece for my 1963 Falcon Wagon. Here's that piece:     I watched Joel do it, looked easy. Soooo... I tried it myself. Step 1: Base coat of gold     Step 2: FAIL!   So let's hear it... what'd I do wrong? Anyone willing to show me how it's done in a good story with a few pictures, please get in touch: Email pikesan   I'm especially looking for stories about how to set-up a gun for spraying flake, and something like,...

Spectator Tickets Available for: 2013 OPTIMA Ultimate Street Car Invitational Sixth Annual OPTIMA® Invitational Promises to be Another Thrilling Automotive Event   More info about the rides racing at the OUSCI   Today OPTIMA® Batteries released a limited number of spectator tickets for its sixth annual OPTIMA® Ultimate Street Car Invitational presented by K&N Filters and Royal Purple. Spectator tickets to the Pahrump, Nevada event, which sold out in 2012, are available for purchase online. Spectators are invited to watch the action-packed event where participants – both up-and-comers and industry favorites – from around the world compete for the OPTIMA Ultimate Street Car title. Fans are advised to act quickly because the 2012 event sold out of spectator tickets.   Last year, the OPTIMA Ultimate Street Car Invitational brought in massive crowds with a sold out event, more thrilling moments and record times, ultimately crowning Mark Stielow and his custom 1967 Chevrolet Camaro as the 2012 OPTIMA Ultimate Street Car.   "We’re looking forward to another exciting year of this growing event as we continue to layer on different challenges and elements for a new experience for fans and...

1930 Ford Hot Rod with Traditional Style (Click to see Trent's great pictures full size)   Time – that one thing you can never truly get back and the one thing you can never seem to have enough of. There are those times though when a little patience, a bit of preparedness and a calculated bit of timing pay off dividends when a long awaited opportunity raises its head.   For Kopis Georgalos, that time came at the 2008 LA Roadster show. Despite a good rep as a fabricator and custom builder, with a mild 1951 Pontiac custom to showcase his work, Kopis long had plans in the works for a project yet to occupy a space in his garage – a traditional rod. Notice I said his garage, not so and so’s customs or such and such’s garage. Nope – this build wasn't simply just for Kopis to have the traditional rod he had always wanted, but a chance to push himself, test his skills and learn some new tricks along the way.   Kopis knew an open car, maybe a roadster would be right for him. Coupes...

Hot Rod Art: Hand Painted and Lettered Old Truck Doors   As soon as we stepped into the swap meet at the 2013 LA Roadster Show, we found Gary Crisp and his custom painted doors.   In a time where patina is IN and faking patina is about a common as the real stuff, Gary’s work is tough to beat! Who knows what condition the doors were in when he got them, let’s figure they were rough… but the end product is outstanding! The lettering and art, even up close, look to be good’n old.   Gary’s a custom painter by trade. Mostly hot rods and bikes from what he told me, but now he’s just having fun painting doors. As you can see, he’s fairly successful at it with a few of the doors already marked as “sold” and I heard an order for one happening as I waited to say hi.   Get your own custom doors by reaching Gary by email. He’s a little old school when it comes to computers, so give him a few days to respond. Thanks Gary!...

Courtney Force beats John Force in New England   There's nothing better than doing what you love - drag racing - and getting to do it with your family. Courtney Force and her dad John Force have it made! On Courtney's birthday weekend, she got the win, but it was revenge for their last final round win when John took the win on Father's Day. That's fair I guess! John Force Racing press release follows...   Photos courtesy of Gary Nastase Photography COURTNEY FORCE WINS INAUGURAL NEW ENGLAND NATIONALS   EPPING, NH ---- In a rematch of their Father’s Day first round battle in Bristol last weekend Courtney Force came out on the winning side today taking out father and 15-time NHRA Funny Car champion John Force in the final round of the Inaugural Auto-Plus NHRA New England Nationals. The second year driver won for the second time this season and third time in her career outpacing her teammate 4.301 seconds to 4.361 seconds in front of a capacity crowd at New England Dragway.   “I told him I was definitely going to try to get revenge, but last time...

Looking Back on Hemi Cuda Funny Car Development   By Moore Good Ink Photos courtesy of Jim White Forty-eight years ago, toward the end of the 1965 drag racing season, Chrysler and their Southern Californian Plymouth Dealers Association underwrote the costs of constructing and operating a blown nitro 426cu in rear-engine Plymouth Hemi Barracuda Funny Car. The proposition that brought together the Chrysler Corporation and the Southern Californian Plymouth Dealers Association was conceived by the late Lou Baney. Lou, who was already running the Mongoose in the Yeakel Plymouth Center’s Fuel dragster, could see the potential for exploiting a new Hemi Barracuda Funny Car in exhibitions and match races. The moment was right and the deal was struck and B&M Automotive were contracted to construct the car, Dave Zeuschel to prepare the engine and Tom “Mongoose” McEwen to drive it.   The origins of the Funny Car The term Funny Car had derived from the appearance of Chrysler’s Ram Chargers a year earlier. The corporation’s competition department had moved the rear axle assembly forward on the chassis in an attempt to improve weight transfer under acceleration, thus increasing the...

By Ben Mozart Photos by Moore Good Ink Ever heard of a "dual clutch"? My experience with dual clutch systems is in Audi. Their DSG system makes your automatic feel like a manual, somewhat, with the goal of achieving faster shifts and a better feel. It also eliminates the torque converter. So when I read that Tremec made a dual clutch system, I had to know more... Here's a bit more info. Keep your fingers crossed this will appear in a hot rod Mustang near you! FOR ROAD-GOING CARS THE DUAL CLUTCH IS THE APPARATUS OF THE FUTURE. Equipped with two input shafts (one inside the other), torque interruptions are imperceptible during gear shifting. In fact its gear-shifting technology is so rapid the “head-bob” is eliminated. With half the gears on one main shaft and half on the other and a cluster between them, the dual clutch brings the two transmissions together. Odd number gears reside on one shaft, even number gears on the other. When shifting from one gear to the next the second gear is already pre-selected and the dual clutch operates in 200 milliseconds. For racing...

Never Calibrate your Speedometer Again   I found the perfect solution to finding out how fast I'm going in my roadster without hooking a speedo-cable into the transmission. I mean, I wish I could, but the speedo input is right next to the frame. I'd have to do some major surgery to make it work. No worries with the GPS setup... and it'll be more accurate, even if I change tire size some time in the future... read on! From Auto Meter: Monitor speed accurately, on or off road with satellite signal technology from Auto Meter! New GPS Rally-Nav speedometers are engineered to interpret data from an included high speed  antenna assembly providing lightning quick response and eliminating the need to ever calibrate the instrument for gearing and tire size changes. In fact there's no reason to interact with the transmission or driven wheels at all, resulting in a simplified installation. Built in the USA utilizing race proven, rugged and precise digital stepper motor drives for smooth pointer readings and heightened resistance to shock and vibration. Rally-Nav red LED digital display includes standards like odometer and trip, in addition...

Artist's Eye on a Model A Hot Rod   Which do you prefer? The real thing or Haropcat's drawing? Check out the "real thing" in the feature story I did on Voodoo Larry's Voodoo Psychosis! from the Detroit Autorama.     The engine shown was featured as a "Top 11 Hot Rod Engines of Detroit" and it was very cool to meet Larry down in the basement of the Detroit Autorama.   Check out more of Harpocat's cool drawings in his garage at MyRideisMe.com. Then, get your...

My First Land Speed Racing Friends Get Their Record If you've never heard about the kindness of folks involved in land speed racing, at Bonneville Salt Flats or at El Mirage, let me reiterate. You're bound to meet some of the greatest people on the planet. I met "Bonnieville Bob" and his son Rocky on my first trip to Bonneville in 2009.   Bob's been racing long enough to, literally, know everyone out on the salt. Like you'd expect, Bob and Rocky introduced me to everyone and now, years later, I owe most of my friendships on the salt to these guys.   Well, after years of trying, Bob and Rocky have their 200 mph hats from El Mirage with sites locked on Bonneville in August for Speed Week.   Rocky text me the good news and sent these pictures:     Then, in Rocky's words.... We got there on Friday and went through tech without any problems. Saturday morning, my dad made a run and the car ran 220.576 mph! He didn't even know he ran that fast since he couldn't see the gauges and drove by the...

Valve-Lock Inspection to Save your Engine By Fergus Ogilvy Photos by Moore Good Ink   This advice may only help hard core race engine builders, but any time we have a chance to publish high quality tech like this info from Trend Performance, we'll do it. Wish I would have saw this before putting the valves back into my Falcon! (course that's anything but a racing engine!) Enjoy!   Assemble the valve locks on a valve and using your thumb and forefinger raise the spring retainer to its full height. If the assembly defies gravity and remains in place and doesn't rock, the quality of the valve locking assembly is superior. If, however, the assembly falls apart, the valve locking mechanism is deficient in one or more of its dimensions. The three critical dimensions of the valve lock 1. The outside angle: The precision of the outside angle, which might be 7, 8, 9, or even 10 degrees, is properly measured on a sine vice. For ease of valve lock removal, high revving racing engines often use locks with the greater angle. The greater the angle, however, the more...

Bad Blown Nova from Arizona Our good friend Glen Bolz, with his insane blown Nova, let us know he'll be in the August issue of Chevy High Performance magazine. Here's a short video to remind you why you care:   [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W52BmkYEU1k[/youtube]     Then, here's the cover to watch for soon:...