Table of contents for Volume 4, Issue 37 - January 2024 in All Chevy Performance

Growing up on an island completely void of anything muscle car–related makes the story of how this ’67 Chevelle came about somewhat of a longshot and one worth telling. Owner John Spanos grew up on a small Greek island where there was an abundance of motorcycles but no muscle cars to speak of. “Where I grew up, everyone rode motorcycles, so I was naturally drawn to them,” John explains. “With half my childhood being spent there, I suppose that makes me a late bloomer when it comes to the muscle car scene.” John’s first car was a ’91 Pontiac Firebird purchased from a family member mainly as a commuter while he was attending college in the States. It had a V-6 that, of course, lacked a good amount of power,…

Hot rodders and racers of all sorts have long understood the advantages to coilover suspension: the spring rate can be easily changed, the shock absorbers are available with fixed, single- and double-adjustable damping characteristics, and ride height can be quickly altered. While coilovers are often found on a variety of vehicles, it was always considered too difficult to retrofit vehicles that came equipped with coil springs from the factory. That all changed with the availability of what can best be described as hybrid coilover kits, like those available from Aldan American. Aldan has been a leading manufacturer of suspension components for well over 40 years. All their shocks and coilover kits are manufactured in the U.S. from lightweight, high-strength 6061-T6 billet aluminum, which makes them incredibly strong and light weight.…

If you’ve ever wondered where the term “Funny Car” came from, it may become apparent with one glance at this wildly altered Chevelle drag car. The odd proportions were the result of moving the rear axle forward to achieve better weight transfer, but the reality is that these funky-looking creations didn’t last long before the one-piece fiberglass flip-top bodies became the norm. The name Funny Car stuck, even though the floppers of the late ’60s had much better proportions. But for a brief time in 1965 and 1966 the cars were wild, and they literally got wilder with every week that passed. This meticulously restored drag car is one of the founding fathers of Funny Cars, as it is the world’s first tube chassis, center steer, full-bodied drag car. This…

Owen Simpson raised more than a few eyebrows on a cool September morning when his ’70 Yenko Deuce cut the beams in 11.88 seconds at Mid Michigan Motorplex—a track more than 200 miles away from his home in rural Ontario, Canada—during the Pure Stock Muscle Car Drag Race. It was not only the quickest pass for a Chevy at the race—and second-quickest overall, behind only a Hemi Mopar—it was the quickest-ever pass for a small-block-powered car in Pure Stock Drag’s history and the highlight for a competitor who’s been coming to the race since his high school days more than 15 years ago. It’s a legacy that builds on his father “COPO Pete” Simpson, who’d been a fixture at the event since its very beginning until his death about a…

1. GB3C Designed in collaboration with the renowned team at Goolsby Customs, the Forgeline GB3C wheel features a unique concave 12-spoke design with two alternating sets of spokes (six of each) with a deep scallop on the inside of the larger spoke and a flat reverse-lip outer. This wheel is available in both a deep concave profile (for the most striking appearance) and a shallow concave profile (to create a staggered look or to accommodate higher-offset applications). The GB3C is fully customizable in fitment and finish, including center lock applications. For more information contact Forgeline by calling (800) 886-0093 or visit forgeline.com. 2. REPRO GRILLE Classic Industries announces the arrival of the new OER reproduction of the stamped aluminum upper and lower grille assemblies designed for use on ’66 Impala,…

Critics have been calling for the death of the internal combustion engine for decades now. And, as you very well know, so far they have been sorely disappointed. That’s because smart engineers and innovators have been continually finding ways to make gasoline engines more efficient until we have the marvels of modern engineering that hot rodders are enjoying today. One of the latest innovations that has made a really big difference is direct injection. Like a diesel, direct-injection engines squirt the gasoline directly into the combustion chamber instead of into the intake port above the valve like on previous-generation port fuel-injected engines The biggest benefit of direct injection is you can squirt the fuel into the combustion chamber whenever you want and not have to time the injector to when…

We’ve all seen it; the lifelines of similarly bred muscle cars can vary greatly. It all depended on what the purchaser had in mind when he laid his hard-earned money down on his future dream ride. Did you buy that big-block bruiser for a life on the street, dominating your local enthusiasts at every streetlight standoff? Or was it purchased to be a standalone racer to do its dirty work a quarter-mile at a time? Of course, they could have been bought to do both, delegating time between the two extremes. However, as you will see, this pair of ’69 COPO Camaros have lived their lives in totally different fashions. One a local street crawler, ready for two-lane blacktop action; the other, a no-holds-barred racer—an armed and dangerous speed freak…

If you’ve ever daily driven an old car, then you know about the perpetual repair and maintenance process. The more you drive it, the more issues you’ll uncover, but there comes a point where things settle down and you can just turn the key and go. Our example is a ’77 Chevy Nova, which you’ve seen before on the pages of All Chevy Performance in other tech articles. We addressed the brakes in previous installments and now we’re moving onto the fuel system. The car runs and drives great, but one look under the rear was enough to tell us the fuel system needed some attention. The rust and crust had accumulated to a great degree, but our initial hope was that the inside of the tank was clean. That…

There’s a lot going on with this Vette, and at first glance you wouldn’t even know it. The front valance under the grille has been extended down to match the rocker height. Underneath that is a small front lip that matches the bottom of the side pipes. The rear of the car features a very intense diffuser/pan that terminates with a center exit exhaust. Small detail adjustments were made to the factory turbine-style wheels to make them a bit more unique. Inside the cockpit everything appears fairly stock, but it’s a fully built interior. The door panels mimic what GM had going on, just with more detail and depth. Bolstering has been added to the seats and custom inserts keep them looking vintage. In the rear is a storage system…

In the early ’30s, Bell Auto—located, you guessed it, in Bell, California—was a hot rodder’s hangout, the place to be and be seen at the time. Owner George Wight started out with a wrecking yard, but his interest in performance parts along with his talent in refurbishing them turned his focus into what became the first and most important speed shop in the country. We could go on about what made Wight so successful and how he bought and improved the Valve-in-Head for Model A Fords, as it’s a very cool story, but we’re here to dig into Rick Van Unen’s impressive ’57 Chevy Bel Air. So why even bring up George Wight and Bell Auto? Well, that’s the place Rick worked as a teenager back in 1963 and, as…

It’s not like you woke up one morning and told yourself “I’m going to become an engine builder.” That’s rarely how it starts. It more often begins when you find yourself buying a torque wrench, a dial caliper, or maybe a universal piston ring compressor. Pretty soon, there’s a growing collection of gear in your tool cabinet, but to do the job correctly, you know you need to get serious, and that demands better tools. We thought it would be worth the effort to assemble a collection of the popular LS engine building tools that any self-respecting master of the micrometer should have in his or her possession. This is not a complete set of ideas but rather a collection of the tools that experience shows are necessary for this…

I grew up loving the second-gen Camaro body style. To me they always looked fast while standing still; knowing that, my dad picked up this ’79 Camaro for me when I was 15. I didn’t even have my driving permit, but it was a smart move to grab it while it was available. We both knew we could build it into a dependable street/strip car,” Nick Trial of Babylon, New York, says. The young gun felt like the luckiest kid in the world when his dad, John, had the wherewithal to purchase this ’79 Berlinetta for his very own. “The Camaro was a clean, original ride, with a spotless interior and a 350 underhood. It had sat for over 25 years, but my dad saw the potential. I remember the…