Bonneville Salt Flats Hot Rod:   One piece of the Bonneville Speedweek recipe that can't be forgetten is the get together on Friday and Saturday night at the Golden Nugget in Wendover. From a Salt insider, the Nugget Car Show is not an official car show. You won't find any websites announcing the Car Show, but it just sort of happens. It has become a tradition. Enter Jerry Armijo and his 1933 Ford Pick up hot rod.     As I was strolling the Nugget parking lot soaking in the hot rods, I saw this pick up full of Salt. It was not the only hot rod with salt covering it, but it appeared to be the rod with the most.   One of my favorite parts of the Bonneville Salt Flats is how the salt gets everywhere. These open wheeled hot rods are especially good at flinging the salt. I started snapping pictures of this rod and how the salt was basically covering the windshield when I met Jerry, the proud owner.Here's what I found out about this cool ride.   It's a 1933 Ford Pick up. When...

It was an early morning wandering around the quaint streets of Stevensville, Montana. The last thing I expected to see was a slammin' 1934 Ford Hot Rod Pickup. If it wasn't for my own pre-morning-coffee-haze I would've gone into the Full Moon Saloon and inquired who the owner was. Lucky for me (and you) that I ran into this pretty truck along with its owner Ken Scobie, once more that evening at the Stevensville Summer Picnic & Car Show. With 2 trophies under its belt in a mere 4 weeks since being completed, this truck is worth giving a peek. Its been built from the frame up by Ken Scobie, a San Diego native that migrated on up to Montana 35 years ago while still working as mechanic. He's since retired, and at the age of 69 says "For a poor kid growing up in the days of cool rods it has always been a dream of mine to build a rod in the old school style." Build a rod he did! "Finding this beauty was the real treat. She was in Helena, Montana behind a house out in...

If you've visited MyRideisMe.com before, you know I have a 27 Ford Roadster with a fairly hot 2.3L Ford four cylinder that's better known as a "Pinto Motor". I've got a not-so-cool problem with the Weber 44 IDF induction setup right now though... When I get into the throttle, not that I'd ever do that, I get a misting of fuel over the top of the carbs. OK, it's less of a mist than a toxic ozone killing cloud of gas vapor. (I'll commute tomorrow to make up for it!). I owe you a video of this, before and after. So what I'd do? I knew Inglese Induction Systems are the experts.  Inglese has been making intakes for this setup for a long time so they must know what's happening and how to fix it. Even more cool? Inglese is now owned by the Comp Performance Group that also owns, Comp Cams. I've always had great success with Comp Cams in my Ford V8's and my pops has been really happy too. Having 2 great reasons, I called over to Comp Cams. "...should get the torque to come on...

Fabrication, Welding and how-to's for your home built hot rod from WelderSeries.com Dear Welder Series... I have a 1956 Chev truck and want to put a 4 link in the back .was thinking of a triangulated one. would that work? the frame is 34 inches wide.or should i use a parallel 4 bar and a panhard bar and which kit # do you recommend ? thank you Dave Dave, this is a good question... There are several considerations when choosing a rear suspension system. An important one is frame width. A typical triangulated rear 4-link has the upper bars mounting off of the frame boxing plates and angling back to each side of the differential housing. The narrower the frame, the less triangulation is possible unless the upper bars get shorter. Shorter upper bars cause greater pinion angle change. The upper bars could be angled from wide apart on the axle tubes to close together off of a crossmember to get more triangulation. A parallel 4-link and Panhard bar is not as sensitive to frame width. The bars should be mounted as wide apart as practical to stabilize the...

Ford Falcon: Turbo Race Car I met, Kelly McLearran at the Speedworld Nostalgia Drags and found out she's was more then just the pilot of this 10 second quarter mile 1963 Ford Falcon.   As if that blasting 10's with 2 less cylinders than the average racer weren't enough, she's also known to turn a few wrenches, they run E85 instead of race fuel and I'm delighted to say she's a breast cancer survivor.   If you didn't know already I'm a Ford Falcon fan. Pops was a Ford mechanic for 25+ years, so when it came to drag racing, sprint cars or of course NASCAR, we were always routing for the blue oval boys.   So when I found this killer home built Falcon at the drags way up town at Speedworld, I had to take a look. I've seen this car before and heard about the woman driving it from the forum at fordsix.com. Between rounds, we had a chat about how she made a Ford six cylinder run that hard and why, My Ride is Me. Kelly's website, Quarter Mile for a Cure, tells her story....

Before I dive in, let me introduce myself real quick.  I go by Hechtspeed on all the car forums I join.  I'm a certified car nut.  It doesn't matter what type of car, if its modified and customized, I can dig it.  I'm really excited to be blogging for MyRideisMe.  Hopefully I can bring cool content that you readers will enjoy.  So, let's get to it shall we?  The internet is home to thousands, even millions of websites. That means there has to be cool websites out there displaying hidden hot rod treasures. This "Internet Barn Finds" series of blogs will venture into the world wide interweb to see what we can find. Part 1 takes a look at a couple cool Scale Miniature Hot Rod engines. These are not your typical scale plastic model kits you put together during Christmas vacation, these are billet aluminum, high precision, CNC machined engines that actually run, some even powering 1/4 scale radio controlled hot rods. The first Barn Find is from weberprecision.com. Searching through Weber's website you'll find detailed pictures of both the end product and the tools/machines used to build...

I've always liked my car... Good thing, right? I guess I always wanted a hot rod. Bonnie, as in Bonneville, sure has changed since I bought her at a Goodguys show. The 3 pictures shown here are the 3 evolutionary changes of the car. Step 1: As I bought her: I was thinking of buying a Zipper bodied Lakes Modified until I found out there's a 6 month wait to get one. I felt pretty lucky to grab this when I did. You'll see the long split wishbones hooked to a 3 inch dropped axle. The rear axle is a old school banjo. The wheels are the 1935 style wires with some hard as hell bias ply or tractor style tires. I'm not sure what kind of paint the original owner used, but that yellow is tough as NAILS!! The engine block hasn't never changed, but it did get updated. I've got the original header on it too. The quarter elliptical spring suspension front and back is there, but there's friction shocks (only better then nothing at all!) in the front and nothing in the rear. Step 2: My...

Not a Rat Rod Custom Woodie Story submitted by MyRideisMe.com member: Woodbutcher This project started out as a 32 chevy woody pedal carI built for my daughter, she put it in two local shows and won 2 1st's. Took it to goodguys KC and won "Best Bitch'n" pedal car. So why not build me one? Mine started as 2 1/2 ton dual wheel flatbed truck. I bought the cowl for $85.00 took a pile of parts in the shop, and came up with a plan. I took the pile of part's and a concept to Matt Schroeder of Newton KS. He built a all custom 100 inch chassis with 20" kick up in rear, front axle over frame 10 bolt posi with stock trailing arms and direct port air bags in rear. I got the chassis back and my work began. I ran all brake lines installed 305 with vintage offenhauser intake /edelbrock 600 carb, chrome Sanderson shorty headers. (Matt also fabed a full exhaust with tail pipes) and it doesn't need any more then that. It's all backed by a flip-o-matic turbo 350 trans.   After I had...

Ron Ginn from Albuquerque, New Mexico ain't playin' when it comes to building ridiculous horsepower Model T's. I asked Ron, "Why two blowers?" and he kindly expanded on the theorem: "Injection is nice... but blown once is twice as nice!" I take that to mean, why the hell not? Like so many folks at the 2008 Goodguys Southwest Nationals in Scottsdale, AZ, you're gawking at 572 cubic inches of Chevy power in this highly detailed Model T. I won't call it a "Ford" because from looking at Ron's garage here at MyRideisMe.com, I think Ron's more of a Chevy guy. Twin Blown Stepping back, the ride Ron calls, "Nas T Too" was a 4 year build with everything but the paint and interior done by Ron in his home shop. That includes milling or turning several custom pieces on the car. Ron said that "dipping" into the hot rod fund to buy a mill and lathe was essential. He made alot of chips (scrap!) before he made any parts, but you might have guessed that there aren't many off-the-shelf pieces available for twin blown big blocks! Looking closely, there...

Customer service pays off. Or should I say, bad customer service doesn't pay. If you haven't seen my 1927 Ford Roadster called "Bonnie" then this may be your first time to MyRideisMe.com. In that case, WELCOME! Please stay a while and if you dig it... JOIN here. My roadster kinda odd because I run a 2.3L Ford Motor. That's right! It's a Pinto motor and I'm proud to be part of the 4 banger world. The 2.3's are easy to find, cheap to get and can be made to run hard, but that can get expensive. I wrote a bunch about modifying the 2.3L Ford Motor in my garage blog. Check it out. So trying to save a few bucks, I bought a Mallory dual point distributer. Why a dual point with all the electronic points systems out there? And why not just run a factory Ford electronic distributor? Good questions. For both cases, you often have to deal with a vacuum advance system. My motor makes poopoo vacuum. (does that rhyme?) and those vacuum modulators don't look good. Also, most of the electronic setups are big bucks. Dual...

A person seeing my photography for the first time usually pauses for a moment, gazing, trying to understand just what it is they are looking at. I start to smile, knowing what is coming next. I say, “No…It’s a photograph”. The reply is almost always, “Really, I thought this had been airbrushed or something.” The beauty of a well-designed automobile, truck, or, motorcycle inspires me to photograph them. I have a true appreciation for all the time and effort needed to bring a vehicle to a prime conditioned state. I see photography as a means of permanently recording that beauty. When I first began searching the internet for a more artistic type of photography, I came across a series of photographs from Trey Ratcliff at the website: www.flickr.com/photos/stuckincustoms. Trey produces amazing photographs with HDR, a computer generated enhancement tool. To fully understand all the nuances of HDR, check out the website, www.HDR.com. The HDR technique I use blends several photos together bringing to life the color and texture that is seen, but not recorded by a single photograph. Every reflection, color, and shadow is enhanced to a degree that...

When I had the 289 CID motor in this car, engine oil temperature was not a problem and at times it ran cool. The installation of the 383 (stroked 351W) changed all of that. Any extended driving or repeated hard acceleration would push the engine oil temperature up to 240º, and sometimes to the end of the gauge at 250º. Water temperature appeared to be stable, and no more than a couple of degrees warmer than with the smaller motor, so it appeared I had to remedy an oil temperature problem. Some of the options for mounting the cooler were: 1) In front of, or behind the radiator which created problems directing the oil supply hoses to and from the cooler. The design of the car has the engine radiator sealed by body/hood panels to ensure forward motion air pressure is forced through the radiator with minimal losses around it. Attaching the oil cooler to the radiator would require cut or modified body panels, extended lengths of hose, and the general dissatisfaction of having a cooler attached to the radiator through the fins using the typical plastic fasteners. The...