Wrenching Into Summer: Lakewood Students Take On C3 Corvette Rebuild
While Sunday mornings are usually quiet when school is out for summer, there’s plenty of ruckus at Lakewood High School. With the shop doors open, music playing and tools winding, the students of the West Shore Career Technical Education District auto technology program are hard at work.
Engine Update: Pro Touring
Pro Touring is the niche of niches in today’s performance world — and why not, since it’s pretty much anything goes with these unique machines. The fundamental theory behind Pro Touring is to take a car that is not historically significant and update the handling and performance with today’s modernized parts and assemblies. It’s the
Ride Of The Week: 2006 Undercover Motorsports Swing-Arm Dragster
This “turn-key” mid-engined dragster was built by Undercover Motorsports. It is powered by a 555-cubic-inch 900-hp Chevrolet V8 from Dart Machinery, Ltd.
Rebuilding An American ‘Iron’ Icon: The Ford ‘FE’
Adapted from Robert McDonald’s article in Engine Builder. It seems as though the car restoration market is in full swing. Anybody who has an appreciation for an automobile can tell you that it’s all about American Iron. The phrase American Iron came about because we as Americans loved big automobiles with big engines. There is
Valves & Seats: There’s More Than Meets The Eye
The valves and seats in an internal combustion engine play a central role in engine breathing, compression, performance and longevity. It doesn’t matter if an engine has two, three, four or even five valves per cylinder or if the engine is gas or diesel because the valves all do the same thing: they open and close to allow air into the cylinders and exhaust to exit the cylinders.
Ride Of The Week: 1970 Chevy KAM Nova
This sleek black 1970 Chevy KAM Nova hails from Robert Zahabi and the Rides by KAM shop in Queensland, Australia. The car was part of an exclusive group of customs entered into the third annual Barrett-Jackson Cup competition in August 2015.
Understanding The Science Of Connecting Rods
They say an engine is only as reliable as its weakest link. The connecting rods that join the pistons with the crank can be a strong link or a weak link depending on the rods that are used. Most late model stock engines use powder metal rods. They are inexpensive to manufacture, require minimal machining to finish and are adequate for stock power levels and normal driving.
Real World: Weighing In on Balancing Work
Whether you’re building a stock engine, a high-revving performance engine or a slow-turning diesel engine, you can’t overlook the importance of balance. Every time the pistons in a reciprocating internal combustion engine change direction, they generate a force. That force is created by the reciprocating and rotating mass of the piston and rod assembly. If
Diagnosing And Replacing Active Motor Mounts
A “tunable” motor mount that can change its dampening characteristics has a significant NVH advantage over a passive hydromount or a solid mount.
Building Top Super Comp Engines
What does it take to build a winning engine for Super Comp drag racing? The Super Comp drag racing class runs on a 8.90 time limit, with essentially no rules regarding engine displacement, carburetion or type of vehicle. Engines can burn either gasoline or alcoho, but no nitro or nitrous. Engines can be naturally aspirated
