his is our second article on the 1968 Camaro being built at Roadster Shop.

Perhaps more than any other component on a car, the wheels and tires can really set the character of a build, especially for performance-oriented cars. It is not uncommon that the ideal wheel and tire combination will not fit inside the factory wheelwells. When serious modifications take place, careful attention is required to keep everything looking balanced and in proportion.

Mike O’Brien, the lead engineer at Roadster Shop, used scans of the body and chassis to experiment with various tire diameters and widths in order to achieve the desired look. They landed on 18×11 315/30R18 fronts and 18×12 335/30R18 rears, with BFG Rival S tires. The wheels were designed in-house by Chris Gray, and machined by Greening Auto Company in Cullman, Alabama.

ot rodding is all about improving the breed. It might be a move like dumping those spindly, 9.5-inch drum brakes on a 1966 Chevelle in favor of four-wheel discs along with adding a power brake booster to make the whole driving experience a little bit easier.

That’s all well and good until the brakes don’t work right. Either the brake pedal feels spongy or the brakes drag so badly the car won’t move. Clearly, there’s a problem, but where to look? Wilwood engineers have had to deal with this often enough that they created a simple little tool to prevent you from singing the “Gimme a Brake” blues.

Like all good automotive ideas, once you see the simplicity around this tool, you’ll think “Why didn’t I think of that?”

The issue with early Chevelles is that even a stock small- or big-block Chevy engine with a stock oil pan is a tight fit to the crossmember and steering linkage. Our all-original big-block 1966 Chevelle revealed dimples in the oil pan from the inner tie-rod end grease zerks hitting the oil pan when the steering was twisted to full lock.

he Southeast Gassers Association prides itself with authenticity and a healthy dose of “wow” factor, thanks to a fraternity of like-minded drag racers who battle it out on eighth-mile dragstrips all year long. The racing organization features a championship points series for all six classes, which include A/Gas, B/Gas, C/Gas, H/Gas, A/FX, and Super Stock. Each class has a very strict set of rules to keep the playing field even, while another aspect of the rules focuses on the appearance of the car. The bottom line is that every Southeast Gassers Association race car has a manual transmission, no matter what class it competes in. This, in itself, is enough to draw a crowd, but when you consider the outrageous horsepower these racers are squeezing out of old-school small- and big-block Chevys, it makes for an exhilarating experience, even as a spectator.

We were on hand to photograph the Southeast Gassers Association action at the 2025 Ram Clutches Nationals at Knoxville Dragway. There are plenty of Chevy combinations within each of the classes. You’ll see Tri-Five Chevys, Chevelles, Novas, and there is a flat black 1958 Chevy that gets everyone’s attention. It belongs to Todd Oden of Birmingham, Alabama, and this hefty hot rod runs in the C/Gas class, which requires the cars weigh 10 lb/ci. Todd has had a rough start to the 2025 season and had a long day of wrenching to put his “Double XX” Chevrolet in the winner’s circle. The runner-up in C/Gas was Ernie Smith in the “Saturday Night Special” Nova.

hen it comes to engine stories in the typical car mags, it’s almost always about the big four: heads, camshaft, intake, and exhaust, which is understandable because those are the easiest and most effective ways (except maybe for bolting on a turbo) for improving the horsepower on an existing engine.

But this time we’re going to throw you a curve. After all, when’s the last time you’ve seen a legitimate harmonic damper test? And we promise you, the results are pretty interesting. In fact, we made power by going heavy.

Dampers are normally considered a component that’s necessary for an engine’s health and longevity. And that’s true. A harmonic damper is critical for absorbing damaging harmonic vibrations that travel up and down the crankshaft every time the air/fuel mixture is ignited in one of the combustion chambers. Every time a cylinder fires some of that energy produced actually causes the crankshaft to twist or flex. Even if it is a minute amount, those torsional forces can destroy bearings or even eventually break a crankshaft.