Table of contents for Winter 2024 in Hot Rod

@john.mcgann Long live the V-8! Our parent company, MotorTrend Group, is on the verge of releasing an in-depth look at the American V-8 engine and its enormous impact on our world as performance car enthusiasts. The film is called V-8: the Engine of America. In it, we trace the history of our favorite engine configuration with industry superstars such as Jim Farley, Tadge Juechter, Mike Copeland, Norris Marshall, and Jay Leno, as well as our local talent David Freiburger, Johnny Hunkins, and Brian Lohnes. They even interviewed me, which was an honor. More than history, though, we also look ahead and try to predict the future of this engine platform. It’s not all doom and gloom, either. Yes, some manufacturers are discontinuing their V-8s, but not all are. Personally, I…

When it comes to the futuristic Pro Mod-style Hurst/Olds Cutlass that Rod Tschiggfrie has dubbed Sorceress, he has always been consistent in his messaging. “I don’t call it a street car. It is a street-driven Pro Mod car,” he says. “There is a difference.” Street car or not, one thing is obvious: The Sorceress is a masterpiece of engineering and innovation. When it comes to performance, it’s already been deep into the 5-second range at more than 260 mph. And he’s got bigger and much more ambitious plans ahead. Tschiggfrie, who resides in Dubuque, Iowa, and operates a number of successful businesses including an excavating company, has owned the car since he was a teenager, supervising every step in the process that has transformed it into the 5,000-horsepower…

A new kind of event took place in 2005, and it was designed to settle the argument about who has the fastest street car. It is a feud that has raged on for as long as anyone can remember. HOT ROD began searching for a national competition to settle the score, first in 1992 with its Top 10 Fastest Street Car Shootout during the NMCA finals in Memphis, Tennessee, and then with various events afterwards. In 2005, when David Freiburger and his HOT ROD staff built Drag Week, not only did it create a new genre of drag racing but it also provided a way to answer that burning question. This year we marked the 20th annual HOT ROD Drag Week Presented by Gear Vendors Overdrive, and we…

When you think about the most impactful innovations when it comes to making horsepower in the last 100 years, there are plenty of good options. You might nominate turbochargers on gasoline engines (yes, turbos on planes and diesel engines date back more than a century), or maybe the introduction of the Chevrolet small-block, which created a revolution in hot-rodding. But we think it is hard to argue that electronic fuel injection has had the greatest impact imaginable for most people when it comes to making power. Of course, we need to be clear that we aren’t specifically talking about pure horsepower here. It’s a pretty common misconception that fuel injection makes more power than a carburetor on the same engine, but the truth is a well-tuned and optimally operating…

Justin Keith was well-intentioned for all of 150 miles — which is to be expected from a guy who’s owned as many as 60 cars of varying degrees of modification by the age of 37. Justin drove his then-new Orange Crush-hued 2019 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1, nicknamed NEMO, off the lot and put a few workday commutes worth of miles on the odometer before dropping a roll cage in it. Then came the performance enhancements, in his words, “right after I got back from putting the cage in it.” It’s been a downward trajectory in elapsed times ever since. “You could tell where my head was at there,” the Lees Summit, Missouri resident tells of the Camaro’s short life as a stock automobile. “I had a white 2017, and…

A PAIR OF GARRETT G30-770 TURBOCHARGERS PROVIDES AROUND 30 PSI FOR THIS PARTY. Tim Lynch is a Georgian racer who has built quite an extensive resume in the outlaw-style drag racing ranks during his 20-year run on the scene. He is credited with scoring the first 6-second quarter-mile pass in an Outlaw 10.5 car and has racked up racing championships in NMRA, World Ford Challenge, and Fun Ford Weekend event series. These days his racing attire remains in the closest as he focuses on being one of the foremost authorities on building 2,500-plus-horsepower VR38 engines (that’s the engine that comes in the Nissan GTR sports car). Hopefully we've painted a clear picture of Lynch’s history, because it sets you up for understanding his idea of a street car.…

I grew up on music That we call Western Swing It don’t matter who’s in Austin Bob Wills is still the king.–Waylon Jennings Sure, that’s a lyric from an old Waylon Jennings country song you likely have not heard. Hell, you may have no idea who Bob Wills is, but the man was a pioneer. He founded a genre of country music called Western Swing, a genre that inspired people like Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings. Wills was a man who made something, a man who sparked something, a man who had people singing songs about him long after he had left the charts. See, here’s the thing: People have hit more home runs than Babe Ruth, run more yards than Walter Payton, but those names and so…

It was more than 25 years ago that Gearstar founder Zack Farah got his start in the remanufacturing industry, working at Tristar International, his family’s business, where something like 100 transmissions and 300 torque converters were sent out the door every day. The volume was impressive, but Farah was more interested in the specialty builds, specifically high-performance and racing transmissions. He knew the performance weaknesses of the popular automatic transmissions from the Big Three and realized there was an opportunity to build performance transmissions with a business model that balanced the efficiencies of bulk-style production with the personal attention of custom assembly. “At the time there were few choices for anything more than off-the-shelf transmissions,” says Farah. “I knew for the customers who needed high-performance and racing transmissions, they…

"THE VIPER ALWAYS MADE POWER, BUT FEW PEOPLE PUT THE EFFORT INTO MAKING THE CAR WORK." From a dig or from a roll, drag racing is all about going as quickly and as fast as you can in a straight line. When it comes to the quickest and fastest street cars that are top-of-the-class in both disciplines, Nth Moto’s “Kratos” Viper stands alone as a two-wheel-drive overachiever in a sea of all-wheel-drive exotics. As Nth Moto’s Aaron Miller told us, “It’s simulating a highway roll-and-hit-it type of thing. Some people think that it is simple, and you hear comments like, ‘They can’t figure out how to make it work from a dig,’ but a lot of people see roll racing as being more applicable to their type of…

Bryant Goldstone’s 1973 AMC Javelin is the 2024 Fastest Street Car in America thanks to a decisive victory at this year’s HOT ROD Drag Week Presented by Gear Vendors Overdrive. It's just the second time in history that an Unlimited didn't capture the Overall title. Goldstone competes in the Ultimate Iron category. It was a week of ups and downs for the newly crowned champ, beginning at National Trail Raceway with a solid 6.523 at 223.88 mph. Day two was the start of a wild 48 hours of action and hard work at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park. The team rolled out a stout 6.507 at 224.96 mph, solidifying its lead in the event when Unlimited’s Ned Dunphy pulled out of competition 60 miles into the second day’s…

“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I’ll spend the first four sharpening my axe.” Abraham Lincoln said that more than 150 years ago, and while it’s a metaphor with all sorts of applications, it perfectly encapsulates the approach John Lohone took to racing in this year’s HOT ROD Drag Week. With Jeremiah Kirby wheeling Lohone’s 1972 Chevelle, the pair rolled through the Pro Street NA (Naturally Aspirated) class, averaging an 8.46 e.t. to win the week. It was a well-earned victory for a couple of reasons: it was their first-ever Drag Week, and they also outlasted a couple of admittedly quicker competitors who had to drop out because of engine failures. “You have to finish to win,” says Lohone, a longtime engine builder at Ionia,…