Suspension
Makeover
Using Early Second-Gen
Sheetmetal on a ’78
Using Early Second-Gen Sheetmetal on a ’78
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Wes Allison, Tommy Lee Byrd, Ron Ceridono, Grant Cox, Dominic Damato, John Gilbert, Tavis Highlander, Jeff Huneycutt, Barry Kluczyk, Scotty Lachenauer, Jason Lubken, Steve Magnante, Ryan Manson, Jason Matthew, Josh Mishler, Evan Perkins, Richard Prince, Todd Ryden, Jason Scudellari, Jeff Smith, Tim Sutton, and Chuck Vranas – Writers and Photographers
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rowing up in Southern California during the ’70s there was no shortage of cruise spots to roll onto any given Friday or Saturday night. I’m sure just about every city in the country had their own popular cruise nights, too. Yet, in living in the Pomona Valley, home of the NHRA Winternationals, and with Irwindale Raceway and OCIR just a quick freeway drive away, those dragstrips had a big influence on the cars that showed up to one of the many SoCal hot spots.
In the mid-’70s, I had yet to possess a driver’s license, so I was limited to hitting up the cruise spots closest to home, as my main mode of transportation was a ’71 Schwinn Orange Krate (thankfully, I still have it).
Each cruise had their own local group of cars that would show up, and all the “Ricky Racers” who drove the really badass rides would meet up at one spot, brag about how they had the fastest car around, then prove it by challenging someone to a street race on the outskirts of town later that night. The information regarding the time and place was sketchy at best as we relied on word of mouth for the latest intel. This was pre cell phones, so it was common to get bogus information or there would be a last-minute change in venue to keep the cops off the trail. I compare it to the scene in American Graffiti that takes place on a very early September morning sometime in the early ’60s. A long trail of cars follow Milner, in his ’32 Ford coupe, and Falfa, in his ’55 Chevy, to a deserted road where they attempt to settle the score on whose car rules the streets of a small town in Southern California with an impromptu drag race. The movie is iconic–an absolute must-see.
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Text and Rendering by Tavis Highlander
Vehicle Build by: Hickman Creations, Gunter, Texas
Owner: Jerry Judkins
hen you find an original fuel-injected C1 Vette your mind first goes toward plans of restoration. However, when the drivetrain is gone and the original body has seen much better days, your options widen up a bit. Owner Jerry Judkins decided to take this project in the restomod direction, but with some extra attitude.
A quick look reveals a super-low stance thanks to an Art Morrison chassis. Moving that chassis along is a 550hp LS7 backed by a 4L75E transmission. Sparc Industries machined up the wicked one-off wheels and also the steering wheel. Fabrication, interior, and paint were all done in-house at Hickman Creations.
ertain events remain lodged in the brain and are pretty much impossible to delete—the time and place continue sitting right up front of the brain’s recall center. One such incident for Richard Miller was the infamous 1994 Northridge earthquake. At 4:31 a.m. on a crisp January morning, Southern California shook like a giant paint mixer on steroids for 20 very long seconds. That 6.7 magnitude trembler set Richard back two cars, both of which were damaged beyond repair in the massive quake. If there was one bright spot that came from the seismic upheaval, it’s this here ’65 Chevy II Nova that he found soon after in an Auto Trader ad posted by the original owner. “I needed a car right away, so I went to see it in person, and without hesitation I handed the guy his asking price of $1,100 for it. To me the car was a diamond in the rough—to my friends it was just ‘rough’ with no diamond in sight. They just laughed and thought it was a total POS,” Richard chuckles. “The paint was original and faded, the interior was held together with duct tape, and the straight-six engine was beyond tired, but it ran, and that beats walking.”
uel pumps used to be simple. They bolted to the side of your engine, were 100 percent mechanical in nature, and usually had enough capacity built in to handle some basic engine upgrades. Plus, they were cheap, simple, and easy to replace. As the induction systems that power our rides have evolved, so have the fuel systems required to power them. With modern EFI, choosing the right fuel pump is more critical than ever to longevity and power.
t’s not every day that you get the chance to relive the past surrounded by memories of your local dragstrip. With weekend eliminations burning plenty of high-octane fuel, there was no better place to be while growing up. It got even better for Jim Reid Jr. of Hanson, Massachusetts, since his dad, Jim Sr., owned and operated Reid’s Automotive, one of the most prestigious engine shops in the region.
In the early ’60s, Jim Sr. became friends with local street racer Les Lucier. Not long after they paired together to field a ’57 Corvette in the Street Eliminator Class at NHRA events with Lucier at the wheel and Jim Sr. building the engines. Packing a 427ci big-block the car became a fierce competitor, well known at tracks across the Northeast. Wearing California plates from a time when Lucier lived on the West Coast the car quickly became known as the “California Corvette.” During this time, the experiences led him to become a second-generation engine builder right alongside Jim Sr. at the shop they still run and operate today in Whitman. The ’57 Corvette laid out across our pages pays homage to the original drag car with a twist of LS power under its skin.
Part 2: Buildup and Framerail Mod
elcome back to our multi-part series on our second-gen Camaro conversion. Last time we covered this project we addressed the teardown of our ’78 Camaro that we are converting to a ’71-73 steel-bumper car. It is a pretty straightforward process where we removed the entire back end of the car with the exception of the roof, package tray, and framerails. You can catch that in the June ’22 issue of All Chevy Performance.
This time around, we cover the modifications that you will need to make both framerails, proper location of the trunk floor, prepping the panels for installation, and mocking them up properly to get those gaps nice and tight.
With this conversion there isn’t a ton of fabrication needed, making it a very approachable conversion. We are back with Auto Metal Direct and Craig Hopkins of The Installation Center. We’ll follow along to see how Hopkins tackles that framerail situation and how he aligns the AMD panels to make this conversion a breeze.
ome of us are old enough to remember riding in the back of a station wagon with the rear glass down, cruising on the freeway—or “highway” if you grew up outside of California—sucking in fumes pulled from the tailpipe and into the party section of said wagon. The practice seemed harmless at the time, but so did a lot of things we did back in the ’60s.
Joe Seeno has fond memories of wagons. He’s since taken his passion for muscle cars, which began at a very young age, and felt it was time to build a vintage grocery getter with some attitude.
n high school, the last thing you ever wanted to be was the third rail. You know, that awkward situation when your buddy picks up a girl at the dance and you’re stuck as the odd man out. In some ways the third ring in a piston ring package also seems like it receives very little attention. But smart race engine builders have figured out that there’s hidden horsepower ready to be unleashed in the form of reduced friction if you plan your piston ring order carefully.
We’ll show you a couple of oil ring details and how even a mild, normally aspirated street car engine can make more power, spin with less internal friction, and still deliver proper oil control.
ver the years, we’ve watched build standards for Pro Touring vehicles accelerate well beyond the concept of simply building a muscle car that handles like a modern sports car. In the case of Douglas Cooper’s immaculate Pro Touring machine, you’ll find that functionality is blended with high-end details all wrapped up in the skin of a ’69 Camaro. Douglas is no stranger to first-generation Camaros, and he bought this one several years ago at Barrett-Jackson’s West Palm Beach auction. It was a well-built COPO clone but left a lot to be desired when it came to handling and performance. Since it didn’t have true COPO history, Douglas didn’t hesitate to go the distance with a full Pro Touring build.
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BY Ron Ceridono Photography by Rob Fortier
1. Performance Online supplied all the parts and pieces to update our ’65 Chevelle. Virtually everything that was done to it is applicable to ’64-72 GM A-bodies.
BY Ron Ceridono Photography by Rob Fortier
Brake and Suspension Upgrade for GM A-Bodies
he ’60s were interesting times. The average new house was around $20,000, gas was roughly 30¢ per gallon, miniskirts were popular, and the Rolling Stones were touring the U.S. Of course, for many gearheads, the high point of the decade was the introduction of General Motors’ A-body lineup in 1964. It included the new Chevelle Malibu (and El Camino) as well as the Oldsmobile 4-4-2, Pontiac GTO, and Buick Skylark. A V-8 Malibu carried a window sticker of around $2,600, and the others were similarly priced.
Although GM’s A-bodies were great cars and well received in their day, by today’s standards they have some shortcomings when it comes to stopping power and handling. GM began installing disc brakes on ’65 Corvettes, but the rest of GM’s offerings had to wait until 1967 for a disc brake option. There were some notable A-bodies with lots of go and very little whoa. And while the performance versions of these cars had impressive straight-line performance, thanks to their spongy suspension, bending them around corners at speed often resulted in white-knuckled drivers, while the tires squealed loudly in protest.
Recently, we had the opportunity to follow along as a number of brake and suspension improvements were made to a typical A-body by the team at Performance Online (POL). POL has been in business building and restoring custom and classic cars as well as selling performance products for over 30 years.
veryone involved in the performance automotive hobby lives with a level of passion that follows not only each and every build but also the excitement generated in the privilege of ownership. Regardless of whether you’re into factory-perfect restorations, canyon-carving Pro Touring styles, or hard-core motorsports, the adrenalin rush is the common thread that pulls it all together. For Mark Dykeman of Tewksbury, Massachusetts, a lifelong involvement in drag racing has given him the ability to compete nationally while also building rewarding relationships from coast to coast. His latest Chevy, the ’72 Camaro laid out across these pages, personifies a level of performance that bridges the gap between the street and track. As owner of Dykeman Welding and Fabrication, specializing in structural steel and miscellaneous metals, he’s been able to fuse his talents into every build passing through the shop.
BY John Jackson, Barry Kluczyk, Wes Allison, Tommy Lee Byrd, John Machaqueiro, Chuck Vranas, Tim Sutton, Scotty Lachenauer & Grant Cox
n the previous issue of All Chevy Performance we connected with a few knowledgeable automotive industry insiders to get their interpretation of a couple common terms us muscle car enthusiasts use on a somewhat regular basis—Restomod and Day Two Resto—and to also inform us of the differences. Hot rodders and muscle car guys/gals tend to have their own definitions, however loose they may be, so we asked longtime magazine editors Jeff Smith, Steve Magnante, and Tony Huntimer to give us their take on what those terms mean to them. It was a fun and enlightening read that gave us a clearer idea of how those terms came about and have evolved over time.
In our second installment of muscle car terminology, we asked our panel to give us the definitions and origins of Pro Touring, Pro Street, and Street Freaks. These terms also lend themselves a bit of latitude and don’t necessarily have a precise definition, but they do require a gauge that we can use when describing the variety of muscle car builds we see on the road and at shows today. Once again, we got some great information of what these terms mean and bit of a history lesson on how they came about.
We always appreciate input from our readers, so feel free to drop an email on this subject to nlicata@inthegaragemedia.com.
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