We were lucky enough to have a cloudy morning for this month’s Cars and Coffee. The diffused light that the clouds provide makes my job really easy! Enjoy the photos.
One of my worse fears is to over heat a car, I’m talking almost phobia status for me. I’ve had it happen all too often, with my first car ’66 Impala and various cars I’ve owned. This includes a 1988 Toyota (new at the time). It makes a horrible mess and depending the composition of your it can warp heads and effects electrical work, under hood plastics and even paint.
Avoiding this in one of my number one goals. When I designed my ’70 Mustang’s engine (w/dealer installed A/C – which means that the condenser is in front of the radiator) I picked a triple core aluminum radiator for the cooling plant. I want my cars running cool. I have ever had an over heating with the Mustang and that includes trips to the drag strip. When I owned my 84 C4 I avoid the problem as well. One of the major concerns with Corvettes is….well…let me have Steve, one of my two constant readers show you.
Tim,
My vette was running pretty warm about 3 weeks after I bought it. Nice and cool
at highway speeds.
The picture shows what I'm sure is a full 22 years of crap on the radiator.
Runs at normal temps now. Lots and lots of bolts on that fan shroud. Ha Ha.
Steve
Thanks Steve. This is the number one place to first look if your Corvette begins running warm.
Thanks for reading.
Tim
Back when today’s classic muscle cars were the baddest new arrivals at the local Dairy Whip, chassis upgrades consisted of dropped spindles, lowering blocks and, maybe, traction bars. Since then, we’ve seen the performance aftermarket move from heavy-duty springs, shocks and sway bars through bolt-on front and rear subframes to complete replacement chassis—all with increasing sophistication and with the end nowhere in sight.
Like so much else in the hot rod market, the demand for a more-sophisticated chassis is driven by the high levels of performance and refinement that folks can now buy right off the showroom floor.
“People love nostalgia but we’ve been spoiled by modern daily drivers that are really good cars,” said Jeff Schwartz, president of Schwartz Performance Inc. in Woodstock, Illinois. Even compared to what was available just a few years ago “a new Chevy Malibu or Ford Taurus handles amazingly well, so people who have a bought a collectible car, after they’ve had it for a while, they say, ‘Man, this isn’t what I thought it would be.’”
That’s your cue, of course, to offer your customers something better, so I surveyed the market not only to find out what’s available, but also who’s buying what parts for which cars.
Money for Muscle
The first thing I found out is that the real action in aftermarket chassis is happening mostly in the muscle car arena.
“The muscle car segment remains the most robust and promising,” said Bret Voelkel, president of RideTech in Jasper, Indiana. “We see the level of modification and investment in these cars taking the same path that street rods took in the early ’90s: extreme quality, lots of horsepower and lots of time invested for creature comforts.”
Mike Hawley, sales manager for Heidts Hot Rod Shop Inc. in Wauconda, Illinois, also reported “significant growth in the muscle car market, and in ’50s and ’60s pickups,” he said. “The Tri-Five market has always been strong but now this segment also wants better handling.”
Dave Kass, customer service lead for QA1 Precision Products in Lakeville, Minnesota, has “seen a growing interest in Pro-Touring ’60s and ’70s muscle cars,” he said. “It seems this trend has shifted the emphasis from straight-line performance to corner-carving and all-around superior handling. These new goals require a more-advanced overall suspension package than these cars once needed—including more-sophisticated shock absorbers. Adjustable shocks and tubular control arms help shave weight and allow these cars to corner smoother and more predictably.”
The G-Body Generation
Schwartz even sees “the street rod market declining, and muscle cars gaining momentum,” he said. “It’s the demographics, the age of the people who are buying and building cars.” And these young rodders are looking for an even higher level of performance. “We’re in a good time, when you can have a 1,000-horsepower twin-turbo street engine that you can drive every day,” Schwartz said.
On the other hand, these same younger buyers don’t want to spend as much buying a car to rebuild. “So instead of a rusted-out ’69 Camaro for $10,000–15,000,” they’ll spend $1,500–2,000 on a 1978–1988 Buick Regal or Chevrolet Monte Carlo. “They were 18 in ’84 when the Buick Grand National was new, or in ’83 when the Monte Carlo SS came out, and those are the cars they idolized,” Schwartz said.
Voelkel agreed.
“A growing number of hot rodders recognize the ’78–’88 GM G-bodies as tomorrow’s mainstream muscle cars,” he said. “They are stylish, available and affordable.”
Mild or Wild?
Of course, every customer has different expectations and a different budget. You’re not going to make many friends if you disappoint the former or seriously exceed the latter. The best way to avoid either is always to ask the right questions before you close the deal.
“The first question to ask the customer is, ‘What are you going to do with the car?’” Voelkel advised. “Components such as 14-inch brakes, triple-adjustable shocks, independent rearends and zoomy subframes all serve their purpose, but with simpler components and thoughtful modifications, the customer can likely go 95 percent as fast for 50 percent of the money. Our triple-adjustable shocks perform at the highest lever—and we think they are the coolest thing in the world—but they’re overkill for 95 percent of hot rodders who might run two autocrosses a year. A customer can buy single-adjustable shocks instead and invest the remaining $650 in tires, brakes or track-day fees.”
“The most-critical step is to determine the end goal of the project,” Kass agreed. “Is the car going to be a cruiser built for comfort, a weekend warrior to be driven hard or a full-out purpose-built race car?”
“Customers have to be brutally honest about their goals—and their pocketbooks,” added Brent VanDervort, president and founder of Fatman Fabrications in Charlotte, North Carolina. “With a limited budget, limited fabricating skills and a desire for reasonable performance, bolt-on upgrades make a lot of sense. You see this regularly with the typical resto-mod muscle car that has been modified with dropped spindles, bigger sway bars and disc brakes. For a very reasonable outlay of cash and time, one can get a very capable car. We proved that in the first Super Chevy Challenge with a ’70 Chevelle powered by an iron big block. With $3,260 worth of bolt-on parts, we ran in the middle of the pack, on street tires, against LS1-powered ’69 Camaros with custom IFS [and high-performance rubber] and we proved how viable the low-dollar approach can be. But that Chevelle would never be a contender for Muscle Car of the Year.
“Building a high-end competitive muscle car that can run and show with the best requires a different mindset, abilities and budget,” VanDervort continued. “In fact, the word ‘budget’ is best forgotten. The very latest drivetrain, suspension and body mod tricks will be required, but usability and affordability go away. There is a continuum from practical to radical that cannot be denied. At the extreme, these cars become as unattainable as a quarter-million-dollar ’32 Ford.”
Kass pointed out a common error.
“We see people ordering shocks, springs, rod ends and other suspension components well before the rest of the chassis is put together,” he said. “They select parts based on educated guesses and some rough measurements. It’s better to wait until the brackets are fabricated and the vehicle is assembled. This allows for accurate measurements of dimensions and weights, and saves the headache of a vehicle that does not sit or ride the way the customer intended.”
“Another key issue is to avoid mixing suspension components from different manufacturers,” Hawley added. “That’s just asking for fitment, performance and reliability problems. The last thing you want is to have to return parts because of incompatibility. Our products are designed to work as a system, so you are assured that everything fits and that you have access to service support from a single source throughout the build.”
This last can be particularly important because of production tolerances.
“It’s important to recognize that, even as they left the factory, no two cars were ever built exactly the same,” Hawley said. If a car has been crashed and rebuilt, critical dimensions may vary even further from the factory’s specification. Such variations can cause fitment problems for even the most carefully engineered aftermarket kits. “That’s where it really helps to have access to expert technicians with years of experience,” Hawley added. The result is “optimized customer satisfaction.”
“It is so, so important to make sure the suspension components you choose are compatible with each other,” Voelkel said. “This means more than just making sure they will bolt up together, it means making sure that the final combination achieves the suspension geometry goals that you intended. A good dealer who handles several different brands should know if the components a customer wants to use are truly compatible with each other. But, truly, the best way to do this is to buy a complete system from one manufacturer.”
Handling Hardware
Kass remarked that QA1 “has put a huge emphasis on new product development over the past year,” he said. “We’ve built a new fabrication shop next to our current facility in Lakeville, giving us a total of 60,000 square feet of manufacturing space. That’s allowed us to launch a full line of fabricated suspension components, including anti-hop bars, strut-tower braces, front and rear control arms, anti-roll bars, and more. These components are all designed to improve handling while saving weight. We’ve also developed a full line of direct bolt-in rear coil-over kits for many different makes and models. They allow ride-height adjustability with no major modification to the vehicle.”
Heidts’ Pro-G independent rear suspension won the Innovation Award at the 2011 Hotrod & Restoration Trade Show. The bolt-in kit, which includes upper and lower A-arms, a 9-inch center section with positraction, half-shafts with heavy-duty CV joints, inboard Wilwood brakes with 10.5-inch rotors, and fully adjustable coil overs, is available for 1967–1969 and 1970–1973 Camaros and Firebirds, 1962–1967 Novas, and 1964–1970 Mustangs. With subframe connectors, the assembly bolts up solidly to Heidts’ Pro-G front suspension system, which includes heavy-duty dual crossmembers, tubular control arms, Wilwood brakes, a power rack-and-pinion and, again, fully adjustable coil overs. The front-end kit bolts in to any early Camaro or Nova, according to Hawley, whereas early Mustangs require cutting and welding. The Pro-G system is engineered for up to 600 horsepower.
RideTech recently introduced a Tru Turn suspension system for 1977–1988 G-bodies, “to make them perform as well as they look,” said Voelkel. The package covers all of the G-body vehicles and includes springs, shocks, control arms and anti-roll bars for both ends of the chassis. “Our StrongArms control arms are jig-welded, powdercoated and engineered to improve suspension geometry,” Voelkel said. “Our impact-forged mono-tube shocks are available in fixed-valve, rebound-adjustable and triple-adjustable models. Tru Turn is completely bolt-on and compatible with coil overs or our Shockwave components. The kit even includes brackets to convert the rear suspension to coil overs or Shockwaves.”
Also new from RideTech is a Tru Turn system for 1964–1966 Mustangs.
Schwartz Performance builds engines and even complete cars, but lately has been promoting its line of full-length replacement chassis for both body-on-frame and unit-body cars from the classic muscle era, plus the GM G-bodies mentioned before. Sales, Jeff Schwartz reported, “have seen a good amount of growth.” The company offers 20 different chassis, mostly for GM vehicles, covering the 1962–1967 and 1968–1974 Nova (including related X-body variants), 1967–1969 and 1970–1981 Camaro and Firebird, 1964–1967 and 1968–1972 A-body, 1978–1988 G-body, Tri-Five Chevy, and 1947–1953 Chevy truck. Ford Mustangs from 1964–1973 are also covered, as are Mopar B-bodies (1968–1970) and E-bodies (1970–1974).
Schwartz also pointed out that there’s more variation among the various GM brands and models than you might think, and that his company’s chassis are engineered to accommodate these small but significant differences. “A Tempest is different from a Chevelle,” he offered as an example. “The frames are different in length, and the body mounts and bumper mounts are different.”
Such attention to detail makes installation as simple as possible. “For cars that came with a full frame, our chassis literally bolts in where the old frame used to be,” Schwartz said. “The frame rails are narrowed at the rear to clear 345mm tires and if you want that extra-wide rubber, you’ll have to mini-tub the rear wheel wells, but if the customer can live with smaller tires, no cutting is absolutely required. Even for GM unit-body cars that were built with bolt-on subframes (Nova, Camaro, Firebird), the Schwartz chassis is a direct bolt in, requiring at most the cutting of some brackets. With Mustangs and Mopars, of course, the front frame rails must be cut off, but no Schwartz chassis requires any cutting of the body floor.”
Another major feature, according to Schwartz, is serviceability.
“Our A-arms have needle bearings with grease fittings, and our wheel bearings are tapered rollers with a nut on them,” he said. “A lot of other shops use Corvette hubs and bearings, but if they have play in them, you can’t adjust them, you just throw them away.”
The Schwartz rear suspension is based on a GM triangulated four-link, but with a significant upgrade: Teflon-lined spherical rod ends at all attachment points, instead of urethane bushings, eliminate the binding that was built in to the factory original.
Schwartz’s “basic roller” includes the frame spindles, A-arms, four-link bars, a power rack-and-pinion and a rearend housing. Most customers will order the chassis with single-adjustable RideTech shocks and 13-inch, six-piston Wilwood brakes, according to Schwartz. “That setup gives you a smooth ride, with handling very much like a European luxury car,” he said.
Customers who race or autocross can step up to stiffer springs and triple-adjustable RideTech shocks with remote reservoirs.
Service With More Than a Smile
VanDervort expressed “surprise that many hot rodders wishing to upgrade their cars lack the basic mechanical skills to do even normal maintenance,” he said. “They often have more enthusiasm than experience. That makes the need for better instructions, more photos and real[ly] good tech support critical. Simply having people who can take orders by part number will not suffice, and the fact that installers are asking more questions of the manufacturers—rather than self-proclaimed experts on various web forums—reveals who can really support their products.”
If you’re selling to a DIY customer, make sure they have the installation instructions and that they read them “all the way through, a couple of times before beginning the job,” VanDervort said. “Most problems come from not reading the instructions.”
“Look at the manufacturer’s instructions prior to the actual installation,” Kass echoed. “This will give you an idea of how involved the installation will be and, most importantly, an idea of what tools you will need to complete the job. There is nothing worse than tearing something apart and then realizing you don’t have the appropriate tools to put it back together.”
Beyond the Bow Tie
Brent VanDervort of Fatman Fabrications presented a somewhat contrary view regarding the future direction of the hot rod market.
“The boom in muscle car resto-mods may be fading,” he said. “That always happens when a segment gets hot. Cars get better and demand rises, boosting prices along with costs.”
The growth area he believes “is going to be in other 1955–70 cars”—not muscle cars, and not Chevrolets—”for several reasons,” he said. “Compare the prices of a ’61 Chevy bubbletop and the same body style on a ’61 Olds or Buick. The other GM cars are still out there and still available for more reasonable prices.” At a show or cruise, “an unusual brand can get as much attention as an expensive build of a more desirable, but also more common, car,” he said. “Then there are all the Ford vehicles from ’55–’70 to consider.”
Any car from that era doesn’t have as many plastic parts as later cars, so “restoration techniques will be familiar to most hot rodders—many of whom grew up with cars of that era,” VanDervort said. “Since most of these cars came with more advanced ball-joint independent front suspension (rather than the two-part spindle/kingpin of earlier IFS cars) they can be more easily upgraded with bolt-on parts.”
Fatman Fabrications offers dropped, disc-brake-style spindles for many cars of that era.
“We’ve redesigned our dropped spindles for ’55–’68 Fords, so they can be used with more easily sourced calipers, rather than the Granada parts required by our earlier design,” VanDervort said. “We also cover Mercury and Thunderbird for the same range of years. For ’58–’60 Buicks, ’57–’60 Cadillacs, ’58–’62 Oldsmobiles and ’59–’62 Pontiacs we have a 2-inch dropped spindle that can accept rotors with either a 4-3⁄4-inch Chevy pattern (if the customer is changing the rear axle), or a 5-inch pattern (if the stock rear end is retained), and we are continuing to fill in that 1955–’70 range as sample cars become available.”
I decided the time had come to get the front clip taken off the Wagon. I wanted to get the front frame cleaned up, and do the front end by the end of summer. I am shocked at how few bolts actually hold the whole front clip onto the ’58. 11 bolts, disconnect some wiring, and you can lift the whole front Clip (Dog house) off in one piece. It’s taken me longer to change the oil on a car than to remove the front clip on this car!
First I had to remove the front bumper with brackets attached. That was fine, except for the one chrome bumper bolt on each end of the bumper. They fought back pretty good. I had to sawzall them off.
I was without any help to lift the front clip off, so I had to tilt the front forward onto some large Foam cushions I had saved out of an old travel trailer I had gotten rid of years ago. They are a perfect for laying under vehicles to work on, and for cushioning large loads like this.
Next I will be removing the wiring from the front clip and saving it for future use. This front clip needs work. The front fender bottoms are rusty, and the hood is so badly rusted it is of no use. So either I will sell this old clip to someone who has nothing, or dismantle it, save parts and scrap it.
Meet Jon, one of our engineers here at Prestolite Performance. He is the focus of our first installment of What We Drive, our series of stories about the cars of Prestolite Performance employees. Jon got into cars when he was about 13 years old. His first car was a 1986 Ford Tempo that he worked on, but never got it to the road. His college car was a 1989 Chevy S10, which he beefed up by replacing the original 4 cylinder with a V8.
How Jon’s Camaro Went From 230 hp to Over 700 hp
Jon had been looking for a ’91 Camaro for some time, finding it difficult to locate one that wasn’t a rust bucket. In 2000, his search paid off and he purchased a nearly bone stock ’91 Camaro with only about 57,000 miles. The only performance upgrade on the car was a Flowmaster exhaust. Originally, the car made about 230 hp and 300 ft. lbs of torque.
The LB9 305 small block Chevy engine that was stock in Jon’s Camaro was removed to make way for a 355 small block. He hand ported aluminum Corvette heads and installed a Holley Stealth Ram intake with Mr. Gasket Ultra-Seal intake gaskets. Jon also made sure his engine was sealed for higher horsepower with Multi-Layered Steel head gaskets from Mr. Gasket. He made the engine even tougher with a forged ZZ4 crank, SRP forged pistons and a Comp camshaft.
Beefing up the drivetrain was also a priority so Jon installed a 4L80E transmission (built to handle 1000hp), Transgo shift kit, Lakewood transmission mount, SPOHN driveshaft, Detroit locker and Lakewood U-joints.
With twin 60mm Garret Turbos and his ACCEL 1000cfm throttle body and ACCEL Gen7 engine management system, Jon needed a hefty fuel delivery. His 5160FI fuel pump (now under Mallory) along with Mallory filters and high performance regulator provides the elite system needed for such a setup. For ignition, Jon used an ACCEL 300+ box with an ACCEL ultra coil and Extreme 9000 ceramic boot wires.
Now that Jon’s Camaro had been beefed up, he needed to harness the power with Lakewood 90/10 drag struts, panhard bar and control arms. He also needed better braking, so he installed 2002 SS Camaro brakes on all 4 corners.
All said and done, Jon’s beefed up ’91 Camaro now makes 700 hp and 800 ft. lbs of torque. That’s quite the improvement from stock.
Technology has come a long way in the car world. Early on getting 100 hp from an eight cylinder was tough, much less from a six cylinder. Now days you can get a V6 Mustang with a base horse power for up to 305. Add a super charger and you can squeeze out 427 hp from the same engine. Yes technology as come a long way. Really?That’s what I would have thought. Super charging has been around in the hot rod, drag racing world, for some time, but in a production, oh that’s fairly new (last 10 years or so). But reading an article from Hemmings Motor New dispelled this notion I had.
So you’re thinking how far back was super charging something for sale to the general public, 60’s maybe…70’s maybe? How about 1937?
Yes. A car company by the name of Graham produced a 6 cylinder coupe.
1937 Graham Coupe
Supercharger badging
That’s a nice looking coupe. Here is a shot of the super charged straight 6 and one of the charger it’s self.
Straight 6 cylinder.
The supercharger. This was Graham own design of a centrifugal super charger which they manufactured themselves.
They used this first on their straight eight engines then on the straight six. They preformed so well that they nearly equaled the power of the eight-cylinder. The car was lighter with the smaller engine and that helped it hit 60 mph in just 14.5 seconds by producing 112 hp. The car came into chassis lengths 116 inches which had 106hp, 199.1 cid straight six and 120 inches which had 116hp 217.8 cid straight six. What about gas mileage? How’s 23.95 MPG grab ya.
Meanwhile, manual-shift enthusiasts are upgrading to modern units packing more heavy-duty horsepower capacity—and more gear ratios.
“The generation that is now in their 60s can afford to build the cars that they wanted to build when they were in high school,” said Dick Hill, sales manager for Centerforce Clutches in Prescott, Arizona. And while those folks are not usually looking to build a race car, “they do want a four- or five-speed manual transmission,” he said.
More surprisingly, the trend extends beyond muscle cars and into traditional hot rods as well.
“I have friends who are building Deuce roadsters and they are putting LS motors in them, with a five- or six-speed manual transmission,” Hill said. “There are people who put Cadillac V-8s in 1949–1951 Mercs, and they want a stick. They want a three-pedal car. So that, too, is contributing to the growth of the high-performance clutch market.”
Hot rodders who already own or have owned multiple cars are now looking for something different.
“It’s like the people who buy their first Harley, they want it with every doo-dad they can get, where older bikers are turning back to the Knucklehead or even Flathead motors,” Hill said. “It’s the same with the hot rodder who already has two or three or four toys in the garage. The newest toy is going to be a stick car. And it’s for the same reason that someone will buy a brand-new Camaro, put 1,000 horsepower in it, and drive it on the street while blowing cold air and playing tunes. They want a manual not because they’re going to race it, but because they can have it. That’s what we hear all the time: ‘Because I can.’”
Rating the Ratios
American Powertrain of Cookeville, Tennessee, sells a broad range of high-performance drivetrain components, from complete crate engines to driveshafts and pedals. The company also distributes Tremec transmissions.
“The hot market right now is for the Magnum six-speed in a classic muscle car,” said Gray Frederick. “The Magnum is Tremec’s replacement for the T-56 is the aftermarket version of what you would get in a new Shelby GT500 or Camaro SS.” Frederick added that people are putting them into classic Mustangs Cougars, Camaros Firebirds, Barracudas and Challengers.
“The cars that people spend the most money on are the cars that [are] getting Magnum six-speeds,” Frederick added.
The Magnum is available with two sets of ratios, with the closer-ratio unit being the more popular of the two.
“The wide-ratio box has a 0.5 overdrive, which is very tall; a lot of engines can’t pull that much overdrive,” Frederick said.
But when it comes to overdrive, isn’t more better?
“That’s a myth,” Frederick said. “You can say, ‘Alright, I’m at the ragged edge of my cam, where if I’m on flat ground I can hold 70 mph all day.’ In a perfect world, that would be great. [I]n the real world, at some point you’re going to have to slow down for construction, and then speed up again; or you’re going to hit a rise, or something else that causes your engine to run out of breath. [T]hen you’re going to have to shift and that’s what you’re trying to avoid.
“You want to put it in sixth gear and leave it sixth gear,” he continued. “You don’t want to run down the highway at your cam’s peak performance, which would be 3,000–4,000 rpm. But you do want an rpm where your engine can pull your car up hills, and pass without dropping a gear. If every time you put your foot in the gas the engine lugs and you have to shift, that becomes very inefficient. We’re helping the customer understand that, even on the highway, you want to stay in your powerband. Otherwise the overdrive doesn’t do you any good.”
Frederick recommends the wide-ratio unit mostly for torquey big blocks.
“A Pontiac 455 will pull a stump out of the ground at 800 rpm; it doesn’t have trouble pulling a car at whatever rpm you’re running,” he said. “A Mopar 440 and some other big blocks with a lot of low-end grunt can usually handle the taller overdrive, too. And of course we’re dealing with a lot of electronically fuel-injected (EFI) engines now, and most of them have computers that can cope with low rpm very well.
They can retard the spark, they can meter the fuel differently, they can do all kinds of things.
“We help the customer choose a rearend ratio and a gear set that’s going to give them the best performance, from top to bottom,” Frederick said.
Pedal Pressure Another concern, according to Hill of Centerforce Clutches, is the physical effort once associated with a high-performance clutch.
“Our customers all ask, ‘How stiff is the pedal?’” he said. “That’s why we’ve been very successful, whether it’s a single-disc clutch for mild upgrade vehicle, or dual-disc unit that can hold 1,300 lbs./ft. of torque, we’ve been very successful in making them streetable.”
The average consumer, Hill said, could climb into a car with a Centerforce dual-disc clutch, push the pedal to the floor, and not realize that the car was modified.
“[T]he person who has a $75,000 Camaro or Corvette wants race-car performance without the race-car effort, so this is pretty significant,” he said.
Still, selecting the optimal clutch for any particular application is a complex task best left to experts.
“There are different linings and different friction materials on the pressure plate,” Hill said. “Heat is a factor. The first thing you have to know is how the vehicle is going to be used. Drag racers realize they are going to drive their car until they break it, where hot rodders don’t beat their cars up as bad. They are very proud of their cars and they want to drive them, not break them. And unless the car has been tubbed, a street machine generally runs smaller tires, so you want to tune the clutch for that.”
McLeod Racing of Placentia, California, offers its RST and RXT Street Twin clutches, both double-disc units that hold up to 1,000 horsepower, with the pedal pressure of a stock clutch, said President Paul Lee. Contributing to this low effort—and to easier installation—are McLeod’s hydraulic release bearings, “which fit most applications, replacing worn and/or outdated mechanical linkages,” he said.
“We’re selling more clutches for vehicles from the 1960s and 1970s, and installing a new hydraulic clutch in one of these cars can significantly reduce pedal effort,” said Rich Barsamian, national sales manager for Advanced Clutch Technology (ACT) in Lancaster, California. The company also offers a wide range of clutches for GM, Ford and Mopar applications, each rated for torque at the crankshaft.
When installing an aftermarket clutch, Barsamian suggested, “be sure to use the right amount of lube on the input shaft—it is possible to use too much. Be sure parts are free from dirt and oil, and washed in a non-petroleum-based cleaner such as acetone, alcohol or brake cleaner. Be sure to follow the correct torque and tightening sequence when installing the clutch cover—and do not use impact tools.”
Often over looked is the first year AMC products. AMC invested approximately 300 million dollars in advanced engine designs, bodies and plant facilities as it prepared for the move from Nash Rambler hold over to AMC proper.
Of course the company was formed from Nash Rambler (AMC Rambler) in 1958 and eventually just American Motors Corp. So 1966 found a fair amount of “redesign” going on. The available models for that year were:
Rambler American Rouge Series 01 (4dr w/V8)
Rambler Classic 770 Series 10 (2dr conv w/V8) (4dr station wagon w/6cyl)
Rambler Rebel Series (2dr w/V8)
Marlin Series 50 (2dr w/6 or V8) (My favorite besides the Javelin)
I love these cars. The two-tone paint is great. I love the yellow and black, blue and black and the silver and black combo.
Ambassador 990 Series 80 (4dr w/V8)
Rambler Ambassador 990 Series 80 (2d conv w/V8)
1966 Rambler Ambassador 990 Convertible
Rambler Ambassador DPL Series 80 (2dr w/V8)
Gone from the engine line up is the 196.5 6 cylinder overhead valve engine. It was replaced with the 198.8 In Line Six. It was a cast iron block with overhead valves and a bore and stroke of 3.57 x 4.00 inches. It displaced 198.8 cubic inches with a compression ratio of 85:1 and mustered up 128 hp. It was topped with a 1bbl Holley carb. This was the base engine and all of the models could have been optioned with it. But that wasn’t the only 6 banger the American 232 cid with produced 155 hp which sported a 2bbl Holley carb.
On the V8 side of things there was the 287 cid. It was a cast iron block with overhead valves with a bore and stroke of 3.75 x 3.25 which produced a compression ratio of 8.7:1. Topped with a 2bbl Holley (model 2209-2699) it made 198 hp. The other option was the 327 cid that put out 270 hp and carried a 4bbl Holley on top.
New for that year was the 290 V8 (4.8L) it had a bore and stroke of 3.75 x 3.28 and with an iron block and overhead valves which produced 200 hp with a 2bbl plopped on top for 225 with a 4bbl carb. Snap up the car with an original 290, only 623 of these engine were place in the 1966 models (all may the “American” models vs the “Classic” (those should have 287 instead).
The 290 used sparingly in the 1966 models.
The 327 was available in 1966. It was 5.4 liters with cast iron block. The bore was increased over the 287 (they were similar set up) and it had hydraulic lifters.
The AMC 327 was similar to the 287, but displaced 327 cu in (5.4 L) due to the bore increase to 4.0 inches (102 mm). Unlike the 250, the 327 was available with hydraulic valve lifters. The bore and stroke was 4.0 x 3.25 and topped with 2bbl carb it produced 250 hp. Put the 4bbl option and you push it up to 270 hp.
Meet Jon, one of our engineers here at Prestolite Performance. He is the focus of our first installment of What We Drive, our series of stories about the cars of Prestolite Performance employees. Jon got into cars when he was about 13 years old. His first car was a 1986 Ford Tempo that he worked on, but never got it to the road. His college car was a 1989 Chevy S10, which he beefed up by replacing the original 4 cylinder with a V8.
