old school hot rodding tricks

[Bruce Urie]

hello people; I'm no old time hot rodder by any means but I saw a show (I think on speed vision) where this guy would acid dip his cars body parts to lighten them up but still look stock. Pretty slick.
IBBY

Yep, that is true....the body is thinner and a lot lighter....my late cousin used to do this to his Camaros in the Trans Am series......yep....everybody cheats!!!!

Bruce '87 Grand National

 

[Bruce Urie]

That does work (at least on my car it did) because I've owned a car that I could flip the lid and it would out run my other car. Flip it back and it lost. TRUE STORY

I did this on my '68 Firebird 400 and my buddy did it to his '71 340 Duster, did make it a little quicker, but sound was beautiful.


Bruce '87 Grand National

 

[corsair231]

Cool can for cooling the fuel. this worked great.

D

This made me remember the aluminum foil and clothes pins on the fuel line to prevent vapor lock.

Raising the front end and dropping the rear to aid in weight transfer and any number of ways to add weight to the rear such as welding the bumper up to hold steel shot or filling the spare tire up with water instead of air.

 

[notacarlo]

Spraying down the front end with silicone so the suspension unloads freely on launch.

 

[turbo nasty]

Removing the front bumper off of the tri five chevys cause it weighed a ton.

I was reading through a old Car Craft mag from the late 60's and they said to drive nails into the rubber bushings on the suspension to firm them up...no joke.

 

[Little6pack]

Removing the front bumper off of the tri five chevys cause it weighed a ton.

I was reading through a old Car Craft mag from the late 60's and they said to drive nails into the rubber bushings on the suspension to firm them up...no joke.

That is so TRUE.. When I was a kid in the early 60's I saw lots of cars running around on the street with bumpers off the front. Some guys put on a small dia tube as a fake replacement.

 

[DR BOOST]

ever hear of pouring comet cleaning powder down a carburator to make the rings seat? i was ready to put a hardhat on when i saw some people do this.

 

[dr_frankenstein]

ever hear of pouring comet cleaning powder down a carburator to make the rings seat? i was ready to put a hardhat on when i saw some people do this.

Still quite a common trick, especially for dirt track motors that run hard chrome rings. Ive done it myself a coupe of times.

usually its a teaspoon added to an Elmers Glue bottle filled with water. then slowly squirted down carb throat while at fast idle.

A.j.

 

[novaderrik]

Smokey Yunick old school 7/8ths cars. They were 7/8th the size of their production counterpart. This is the reason the bodies are checked with the jibs....methinks he almost got away with that.

they weren't 7/8 scale.. they were full scale, but every body panel was changed in some way to make the cars sleeker.

 

[turbo nasty]

Still quite a common trick, especially for dirt track motors that run hard chrome rings. Ive done it myself a coupe of times.

usually its a teaspoon added to an Elmers Glue bottle filled with water. then slowly squirted down carb throat while at fast idle.

A.j.

Ive heard of of folks wiping the cylinder walls down with vinegar upon assembly to supposedly help the chrome moly rings seat.

 

[turbo nasty]

Stacking staggered thin plates of steel in between several gaskets (steel gasket steel gasket etc) under the carb to act as a heat sink.

Piece of wood cut between the carb and intake to keep the heat away.

Running a qt of kerosene in addition to the regular oil level a gummed up engine to clean the insides of the engine.

Glass Coke bottle with water in it slowly poured in the carb via metered thumb over end :biggrin: with the engine revved to decarbonize the chambers and pistons, etc.

Painting the bottom of the intake manifold white

 

[Roc87]

My dad once told me about mothballs in a gas tank for octane boost?

You beat me to it! My Dad used to bracket race his '59 Olds convertible & tried everything with that car, including the mothballs, it didn't do a thing, neither did uncorking his exhausts, which was surprising since it only had 2" duals. Maybe it was because that thing was a tank, but he won the season with it...
I remember him also having the rear end welded to make a spool out of it in a '57 Nomad, it didn't last 10 miles, what a noise that made when the welds broke! He used to also have air shocks with separate fills, run more in the passenger side to load the suspension, but he never had slicks, LOL.

My Iroc sounded great with the aircleaner lid flipped, but it didn't do anything for it's performance, LOL, performance out of a carbed 305!?

 

[terik.m]

Slapper bars
Water filled glass pack mufflers

 

[SPOOLFOOL2]

Back in high school.

We used to wrap chain around our drivers side motor mounts. this was then hooked together with a nut and bolt. Once tightened down, this would make the car shift harder. You could even make some seventeen second cars able to do a second gear chirp.

How about converting your single point distributor, over to duel points.

Indexing your spark plugs to all point to the center of the chamber. Not sure if it helped, but I still do it on the race car.

I've iced intakes or sprayed water on intercoolers / radiators between runs many times.

Before modern sticky tires, you could roll traction compound on your tires to "try" to get them to hook better.

There was the Aqua-Mist water injection for the high compression cars and trucks trying to survive on the "new" unleaded gas of the 1970s.

I do miss seeing velocity stacks sticking out of hoods.

The old saying was, "If you can't make it go fast, CHROME IT". I still hate chrome on a performance car.

Aaaahhhh the good old days...


Great thread.

Mike Barnard

 

[Nasty Wendy]

What about the fools that injected alchohol into the air charge to make pump gas support racegas tunes........ugh oh shiiiiiii......nevermind......

 

[charlief1]

ever hear of pouring comet cleaning powder down a carburator to make the rings seat? i was ready to put a hardhat on when i saw some people do this.

This is actually from 60's diesel tach. If I remember right it was John Deere that had an issue with chrome rings seating and it was Bonami clenser that was used. You can still get it as "ring seating matereal" for about $20 and then you go to family dollar or general dollar and it's like $2. Yes I've used it for several cars that had some issues with blow by and it's worked.:biggrin:

 

[EVIL]

You DON"T say!

What about the fools that injected alchohol into the air charge to make pump gas support racegas tunes........ugh oh shiiiiiii......nevermind......

 

[Quik Six]

My favorite story is the guys who filled their tires with helium and put helium-filled kiddie pools in the trunk to lighten the car.

 

[charlief1]

You DON"T say!

Not kidding. As I said, if I remember right it was John deere but I may have been one of the other heavy equipment makers but you can still buy "ring seating matereal" to this day and it's nothing more than bonami.

 

[notacarlo]

My favorite story is the guys who filled their tires with helium and put helium-filled kiddie pools in the trunk to lighten the car.

AWESOME!

the pool weighs something and helium has a weight. (atomic weight 4.002)