This issue of Performance Technician features a major article on restoration. Fabrication is often a major part of that pursuit, so our man Greg visited the best “make-anything” shop he knows of to create this story. In the early days of automobiles, the U.S. was a “fabrication nation,” but now the necessary skills and talent are rare.
Some people consider the vacuum gauge a lowly instrument that might have been part of a DYI tune-up kit decades ago. Think about it for a minute, though, and you’ll realize how basic and important the info it gives you really is.
There’s no such thing as a “minor fire” at an auto service shop. Beyond the obvious loss of property, equipment and business income, the threat to the safety of humans is paramount. We’ve all heard the stories or know someone who has had it happen to them. Perhaps it...
I don’t know about you, but I’m fed up with political correctness, partial truths, and our lack of courage to face absolutes. There are absolutes in life -- in the character and nature of man, in our capacity to hear, learn and understand -- and they are revealed in...
In spite of the wholesale O.E. switch to roller lifters that started a couple of decades ago, if you’ve got a vintage rod chances are it has flat tappets, and maybe you don’t want to go to the trouble and expense to retrofit to rollers. Plus, some racing venues only allow flat tappets. These operate at higher temperature and pressure levels at the lobe/lifter interface than rollers do, so require greater wear protection. The primary anti-wear additive for flat tappet camshafts and lifters is ZDDP (zinc dialkyl dithiophosphate), but that’s been phased out of ordinary motor oils mostly because of fears that it’ll foul the cat. Racing oil and additives provide zinc in adequate quantity to provide the protection you need to prevent catastrophic lobe and lifter wear.
In the past two installments we discussed how the dimensions of a car and its overall weight distribution can affect cornering and handling. Let’s see how we can utilize this information and begin to upgrade the suspension.
