here is certainly a time and place for pulling an iron-block 5.3 out of a pickup truck or a work van and throwing it into your beater along with a low-buck turbo of unknown origin you found on eBay. The bottom-dollar ethos is a cornerstone of hot rodding, and that should never go away.

But sometimes you want to push a few boundaries.

Drag racing is all about exploring the boundaries when it comes to how far you can push engine parts to maximize speed, even if that means occasionally blowing up. But you can’t win championships if you are scattering your connecting rods across the track too often. So, if you are into the science of building rockets that consistently cross the finish line ahead of your opponent, quality and precision become pretty dang important.

here are a variety of opinions when it comes to personalizing a car. For some, it often seems the goal is to make a change for change’s sake. The problem with that is change with no purpose is often counterproductive and makes the result less appealing than the original form. The trick to making any car look better is to improve the fit and finish of individual components and simplify them, if possible. That’s exactly what Dayton Eitner of MetalWorks in Eugene, Oregon, did to this second-gen Chevy Nova.

Eitner was tasked with what would seem like a simple chore: clean up the front bumper, make it fit better, and give it a “cleaner” look. The process began simply enough. The first to go were the bumper bolts. The holes were filled and studs were added to the back side, a pretty standard customizer’s trick.

With the boltholes filled, the bumper brackets were modified to bring it closer to the body and also lower it ever so slightly so it would match the accent line in the fenders. Next, Eitner cut the bumper in the center then reshaped it to fit the shape and the peak of the grille precisely, then welded it back together. The ends of the bumper were cut off and reattached to tuck them closer to the body and align their peaks with the peaks in the fenders.

his story will approach the art of tuning street carburetors and ignition timing from a slightly different angle. Instead of just listing the information in a generic manner, this story will attack this issue from a real-world problem standpoint by offering information that is rarely addressed by Online experts.

A recent small-block Chevy tuner experienced an interesting problem. As he described it, his big-cammed, small-block 383 fitted with a Holley 4150 carburetor was idling with an exhaust smell he said would make his eyes burn. He assumed this was because of a rich air/fuel mixture. But he was perplexed because his newly installed air/fuel ratio meter reported the engine was idling lean with an air/fuel ratio of 17:1.

Right from the start, his description pointed out two important clues. The first is that his engine was equipped with a cam that he described as idling at less than 10 inches of manifold vacuum (10” Hg). The second important piece of evidence was his air/fuel ratio meter reporting a 17:1 air/fuel ratio.

urchasing a running/driving vehicle can be a huge step in the right direction when it comes to building or restoring a classic Chevy muscle car, but buyer’s remorse is a real thing and sometimes that sleek street machine turns out to be a bridge too far. Our good buddy and lensman extraordinaire, Ryan Foss, recently decided to dive into the foray that is classic Chevy vehicle ownership, purchasing a well-heeled 1992 Chevy Camaro that has seen plenty of action on the streets and on the track.

Unfortunately, that action reared its ugly head when the Camaro developed a strange noise coupled with vibration emanating from the drivetrain. A cracked or otherwise damaged flywheel was thought to be the initial culprit, but closer inspection from the local transmission shop cleared that hypothesis. Further probing revealed excessive crankshaft endplay, which meant at the very least, the crank thrust bearing surface was toast. A history of hard autocross on throttle/off throttle driving made sense of the singular damage. Postmortem report, the engine would need to be rebuilt or replaced.