Table of contents for Volume 3, Issue 35 - November 2023 in All Chevy Performance

Tom Schauppner’s roots into hot rodding dig way back to the mid ’60s when he was a self-described 15-year-old hellraiser. “Starting out in Huntington Park, we eventually moved to Newport Beach, California, in 1961. Just about every teenager in my neighborhood had a hot rod of some sort. My buddy, Tom Hargraves, got me into cars. He had a ’57 Chevy and I’d help him wrench on it until I got a cool hot rod of my own—a ’55 Chevy I bought without telling my parents,” Tom reveals. “The deal was short-lived, though, as my parents weren’t big on me having a car like that at the time, so my dad made me sell it back the next day.” Not one to give up easily, Tom bought a ’56 Chevy…

The horsepower race continues to escalate. We have production OE engines now achieving over 800 hp and Chrysler is now delivering a four-digit flywheel horsepower number straight off the factory floor. With these outlandish power numbers also comes increased demand for a high-performance fuel delivery system. On the surface, the solution would seem fairly simple: just add a monster pump capable delivering fire-hose-capacity fuel at the high pressure needed to feed an 800hp, supercharged engine. But add the requirement of a light-throttle cruise down the highway while knocking down 20 mpg and things become a bit more complicated. In the past, this demanded a return system that could bypass a large amount of fuel returned to the tank. What is rarely discussed is the fact that bypassing fuel increases the…

When Jeff Moyer was a kid, he brought model cars to school for show-and-tell and would peek at Hot Rod magazine during reading time. Jeff always seemed to gravitate toward Chevys, probably due to his dad’s taste. “My father’s garage included a ’64 SS and ’70 SS 454 Chevelle, a ’69 Z/28 Camaro, and a ’69 Nova L78 396. Though these were long gone before I was born, the pictures tell the story, and that Nova really did it for me,” Jeff recalls. Jeff’s dad worked at a race shop just a block from their house, so from a young age Jeff was a “shop rat.” He’d hang out, soak in a bunch of knowledge, and later take what he learned to mold his career and personal car builds. Once…

It was great to make our annual trip back to Louisville, Kentucky, for the NSRA Street Rod Nationals. This year celebrates the 54th edition, which was held August 3-6 at the Kentucky Exposition Center. As usual, there were a good number of street rods in attendance laid out over 300 acres, but ’60s and ’70s muscle cars and trucks take up most of the space at the Street Rod Nationals these days. With nearly 10,000 classics on hand, there was a nice mix of makes and models representing, but for us Chevy folks, the Bowtie brand was the majority in attendance, which helped quench the thirst of most hard-core Chevy fans at the event. Regardless of your favorite model or year, the place was crawling with a plethora of Camaros,…

1. PUT A LID ON IT Lokar Performance Products recently announced an addition to their LS Classic Series line with their new GM LT4 Supercharger Lid. With its finned aluminum construction and polished highlights, the supercharger lid provides a slick, vintage look for your modern, supercharged LT4 engine. These lids are a direct replacement and can be installed in as little as 15 minutes, and are made in the USA. For more information, contact Lokar by calling (865) 824-9767 or visit lokar.com. 2. EFISUPPORT Dakota Digital announces a new BIM module to add to their list of supported aftermarket EFI manufacturers. The BIM-01-2-FTCH fits new FiTech LS, TBI, and TCU applications and is designed to read the engine information from new FiTech EFI kits. The BIM-01-2-FTCH module connects to the…

Aftermarket LS accessory drive systems are nothing new, but they play an important role in making our engines look better and perform better, especially when increased horsepower is part of the equation. No doubt we all want our engines to look as good as possible and the fine folks at All American Billet offer front drive system kits for a variety of engines, but for this article we’ll be focusing on their billet serpentine system for LS Gen III- and Gen IV-style engines. While All American Billet offers machined, black anodized, and Silverline Series, this particular system is the polished kit for those wanting to liven up the front end of their LS engine with a little pizazz. While it looks 100 percent more attractive than the stock GM system,…

Over the years many desirable muscle cars have been saved as a result of some form of racing, with drag racing arguably the biggest contributor. Luis and Boni Rosa’s ’67 SS Camaro falls into that category as a former quarter-miler. Their journey with this first-gen Camaro started as an object of desire—they knew the car and the owner but were never able to cut a deal for it. The Camaro’s journey down the assembly line started in 1967 dressed in Bolero Red paint, black interior, and an L48 350 small-block mated to a four-speed. By the late ’70s it was seeing regular weekend track duty at places like Maple Grove Raceway. With each passing year, it crept further away from street trim and was eventually tubbed and caged with a…

Today you’d be hard-pressed to find a new car without air conditioning, but in 1962 that wasn’t the case. That year a new Chevy Impala two-door hardtop sport coupe had a factory price of around $2,800, and adding DeLuxe air conditioning bumped the tab by over $360—that’s roughly 13 percent of the base price. As a result, lots of Chevy shoppers back then decided to tough it out and forgo the A/C and cope with hot days by rolling the windows down and turning the windwings out. Of course, all that did was funnel hot air into the passenger compartment, along with the occasional flying insect. As far back as 1976, Vintage Air has been supplying universal aftermarket A/C systems to make it easy for enthusiasts to keep their early…

This second-gen Camaro build checks off all the boxes and then some. The first hit is the overall look of the exterior: low and mean. A dark, desaturated blue body color combines with black accents and soft gold wheel centers to create a look of its own. Closer inspection shows off many of the handcrafted features that add to the character of the car. The hood, front nose, front valance, and rear spoiler are all made in sheetmetal. The rear fenders have even been gently reshaped to allow for the massive rear tires. The exterior of the car has been sculpted by hand and the mechanical bits have received a similar level of attention. A Nelson twin-turbo LS has custom plumbing and exhaust to integrate it into the engine bay…

Project cars can be tricky. Gearheads always have good intentions but often lose track of time when it comes to upgrades and improvements. A 30-minute job turns into a weekend of torture, and we all know that winter projects are rarely finished by springtime. For Wade McDaniel and his ’69 Camaro, the snowball effect is much more dramatic. He bought it a few years ago as a completed car. It was an older restoration with some outdated modifications so he wanted to freshen it with a new paintjob and cosmetic updates. He contacted Barry Alford and Kyle Kirkman at Dynamic Speed & Custom in Gadsden, Alabama, to handle the job. Painting an old car isn’t a simple process, especially when you’re dealing with someone else’s bodywork underneath. So, no matter…

We all feel a connection with cars. Every one of them has a story. It’s why we write about them, and it’s why you buy this fine publication. Some are tedious to write, especially ones that were bought and just sit in a garage like a piece of jewelry. They are wiped down every now and then and maybe make it to the local cruise-in or ice cream shop, racking up a whopping 50 miles a year. No matter how much they cost, those cars have no soul. Those are the hard ones to write. When Chevrolet rolled the Camaro out to the public, it was an opportunity to deliver a car with numerous appearance packages and option groups. New car buyers could opt for Rally Sport, Super Sport, or…

Not many of us can say we are still in possession of our very first car, and even fewer can state they got said car when they were just 14 years old. Well, Jason Schultz, a Collinsville, Oklahoma, resident who recently turned 50, checks both boxes when it comes to his ’71 Chevelle. As a young teen he became the recipient of the car that was handed down by his great-grandmother who purchased the car brand new off the showroom floor from Bill White Chevrolet in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She used the car as a grocery getter for years, but according to Jason she also had a heavy right foot. “I remember her leaving our house and she would get in the car, floor it, and yell ‘bye-bye butthole,’” Jason laughingly…