neat motor (engine...) in Hemmings Muscle Machines (Dec 04)

[Tom Jennings <tomj@xxxxxxx>]

'51 Stude Starliner with 650hp from the little Steadybreaker V8!

Boy would this have made a nice construction project for one of
the tired, boring, repetitive "hot rod" mags, but it'll never
happen... it won't sell parts!

Apparently the Stude V8's are spectactularly strong, and with
stock parts, plus a couple of turbos, gets 650 hp at 6000 rpm
out of 299 ci. As the article says: head doesn't breathe so
great? try 20PSI! It took some work to get the 23PSI he races
with (alcohol squirt into the intercooler), but it sounds like
18 (I think it was) wasn't as hard. A mere 10PSI would make a
lot of streetable HP!

This is precisely the stuff that Dick Datson goes on about;
Dick is smart as hell but his umm user interface is a bit rough.
Too bad, as technically I think he's spot-on. I would still
like to turbo a 232/258 some day.

AMC content: Orphan car with limited aftermarket goodies,
exploiting the inherent strong points, kicking some serious butt.



To be honest, I'm not renewing my sub to this mag. It's of good
quality, but I'm just not into muscle cars that way. Their
Classic Cars mag (forgot the precise title) is much more my
speed, more generically american period cars, but still too
obsessed with stock.

I used to read CIRCLE TRACK back when Smokey Yunick ran a
column. I have almost no interest it driving in circles, but they
had a great approach to design-for-build and appropriate tech.

I've never found a magazine that covered hacking and
modifying of cars that didn't rigidly restrain itself to
some arbitrary category: grandpa hotrodders (A's and T's,
etc) nostalgia-for-every-demographic, fanatical restoration
("original air in tire") etc. I like ALL of those things but
not as a religion.

I'd love to see import scene, street rods, muscle cars, old
iron restoration, SOLO II suspensions, history, turbo tech,
electronics, upholstery, paint, metal work, ...  but since the

point of these mags is 99% targeting sales it'll never happen.