A Pair of Radical Rats

Hey, welcome to the horsepower shop. We got some cool stuff in store for our rat ride project today. But first I want you to meet its out of control cousin. The rat trap. It belongs to Ron Hope and it's a throwback to those crazy days of fuel altered racing.

The power of this 33 Bantam road ST he started with a Donovan block some well massaged 57 Chrysler heads and a 671 blower result

about 3000 horsepower on Nitro and at the track

an incredible off the hook experience.

Ron Holt brings a cool chapter of hot rod history to life,

taking this fable fuel alters and tracks all around the country for match races.

Here fans get a wonderful whip of Nitro as the rat trap gets ready to run.

Usually against Rick Hogue's

nook car. A 23 Roadster that's been competing on the quarter mile for several decades.

This is actually an exact replica of my father's 19

71. A, a fuel alter.

They ran in competition throughout the seventies

when Ron and Rick line up their muster time machines. The crowd gets a taste of some of the wildest racing in history.

That is when the drivers can keep these six cars on the track.

Fuel alters were the only cars banned by the N Hr A.

So they're indeed gone,

but not forgotten.

Thanks to these thrill seekers who keep this history alive.

One quarter mile at a time.

That's one wild ride. Ron. I got to ask you how true to the original built in the sixties is this thing.

This car is actually an exact remake of the sixties car, Joe.

It was originally built by Dennis Watson and Dennis Watson did the chassis layout for this car.

The only differences are the mandated safety items that the N hr A requires.

One of which is shown right here the blower restraints

years ago

without these straps, this blower could launch. If there was ignition in the manifold, it would go up into the stands or

back into the driver's compartment, which wasn't very good.

Also the roll cage,

originally, a three point cage was allowed. Now the N hr A mandates a six point cage which you see here

and these head restraints by ISP.

Uh they just kind of keep you from rattling around in there. I'm sure you appreciate that.

Now, I got to ask you what everybody else ask you once you stage this thing in the track, let go. What's it like going down the strip? Well, it's the best seat in the house, but

a lot of people ask what does it feel like to drive it? And I can only say that there are no drivers of fuel.

It's only passengers.

So we joke about that. But uh

no, it really is. It's a great ride. It is drivable

and it's a lot of fun. I'm sure it is. Well, I'll tell you what, let's change angles and you take us on a tour of this cockpit. Ok.

Beyond the butterfly steering wheel, here is the one gauge that's in the car and that is the oil pressure gauge

on the right here.

You will find

the parachute release and a fuel shut off.

Just forward to. That

is the handbrake.

There are only rear brakes on this car with one motion. I can hit the fuel shut off and the parachute release and grab the handbrake

down below that. You'll see the most important pedal in the car that is the throttle

over just a bit to the left. You'll see the two pedals here.

The one in the center is actually a dead pedal.

The one on the far left is the clutch pedal

on the eight ball. Here, this activates the fire bottles

case of a fire. Simply push this in that would activate the fire system that's on board the car.

Man. Talk about no frills. Ron. You've driven the rat crab at match races all over the country, Canada England.

Why do you continue this mission?

We just want to keep the sport alive and the history of it

and this fan base continues to grow for nostalgia racing.

As long as they'll come and see,

we'll keep racing. It

actually, we'd keep racing it even if they didn't come see us because we just love it. I bet you do. Well, thanks for keeping the history alive. Come back anytime. And

when are you gonna let me ride in this thing?

Well, we'll talk about that, Joe.

Ok.

Well, I don't think we'll be making any six second runs in our rat, but it will be a blast to drive. Once we get it finished today, we're going to bear down and try to get the raunchy rat road ready. So make sure you stick with us.

Some people call them retro rides. Some people call them rat rides. Well, whatever you call our 29 Ford Ranchi

Rat,

we call it cool and we can't wait to get it finished so we can take it out cruising.

Well, here's what we did last time in the shop to get us closer to that.

We installed a new hydraulic clutch and brake assembly

laid down a floorboard that consisted of sheet metal

H mat and last but not least street signs,

we modified the clutch and brake pedals to fit in the car,

installed the throttle pedal

and modified a new shifter which got a shifter knob that was right on target.

Then we bolted up the starter

cut holes for the gauges that we installed in our homemade console and mounted a beer keg for a fuel tank.

Then we finished the fuel delivery system with a pump and filter.

We mounted a radiator to cool our flat head

and bolted up the ignition in what used to be the gas tank.

Our last business was installing a basic street rod wiring kit.

Here's something we can hook that harness too. It's a pair of deep style head

lights we found slightly used on ebay. Now, don't worry about the yellow paint. We'll take care of that later on, but basically they're gonna amount right here on the shock towers for taillights. Joe's got a little something special up his sleeve that won't cost us a thing as long as he doesn't get caught. Well, all kinds of cars, trucks and four wheelers waiting for attention here on the power block shows. But look what got my attention. A

61 Impala that lou dragged in here for some strange reason.

Pretty much junk. Right.

But I found a couple of jewels that belong on a Ford.

Mhm.

Using the whole saw, we drill holes in the rear of the raft.

Poke the tail light bulb brackets through from the back

and use a couple of self tapping screws to hold everything in place.

Check out what we did for headers and exhaust. Now it starts out with a pair of these center dump headers we got from Anke and branch garage. Now, we did have to do some modifications for some extra clearance down low

and I'll show you what I mean when we fab up the other side

first, I cut the two

impales off,

then bolt the header to the block

next clock and attach the phalanges to the block.

Now we can tack well dem to the header.

And after removing them from the block, finish up the welding

from the Flans. We run some 2.5 inch pipe down to a cherry bomb muffler that not only has a retro look but a cool hot ride sound.

You could forget finding an original deck lid for one of these roadsters. But we did score this reproduction steel piece on the internet ought to do the trick.

In fact, after a good coat of rust, this thing will look good as old. Well, now a little rat rod ingenuity to hold this thing down

to keep it in place. We're welding on some studs at all four corners

then cutting holes in the lid.

Hey, before dropping on this deck lid, I'm gonna show you what's providing juice to the rat ride.

This is an excess power master 12 volt hgm Power Cell. That's great in case you wanna put some weight back in the rear of your car because

it weighs 70 pounds.

But now with the lid in place over the studs, we secure everything with good old wing nuts. Well, now check out what the, uh, master rat rod fabricators came up with inside here. We have to have access to the brake, master cylinder. Right.

Little trap door does the trick. How about that?

Well, right now Mike is out on a search for some more parts we need for the car and of all places, a junkyard for farm equipment.

Well, the search today is for a radiator shell and possibly a hood. We've got a couple ideas and they went ahead and pulled all the shells and hoods off of the tractors and stacked them against this wall. So we've definitely got to do some searching

this place. I found in middle Tennessee has acres of old tractor parts and I got a feeling a couple are gonna be perfect for our project.

It just takes lots and lots of looking.

Well, after about an hour of walking and digging through all these pieces and parts, I think we finally found the one we want. It's a pre FF Ferguson tractor hood and the front grill to match. Now, the louvers and everything are straight has rust on the bottom. Looks like a perfect candidate for a rat rod.

I hope it fits in the truck.

Obviously, they fit in the truck. Now, how they're gonna fit on the rat rod, I guess. Only he knows for sure. Meanwhile, I found something in the parts bin we could use for an air cleaner. We tried to use this trick Barry Grant piece on our firebird last year and had hood clearance problems.

No problem here.

Well, stick with us. A cool bang for the buck test is coming right up.

Looks like a space rat now.

Hey, we're back this time with another power test. We call horsepower's bang for the buck from time to time. We like to check out various engine part combinations using our DTs

dyno.

That way, we give you an idea of how much horsepower gains to expect for your money before you spend it. The Mule Motor this time is our 350 we picked up from GM performance parts. Now it's got an 8.5 to 1 compression ratio with

iron crank, hydraulic flat tap at camshaft and cast iron cylinder heads.

It was dyno with a cast iron manifold and Haley quadrajet. The result was 290 horsepower and 326 ft pounds of torque.

So that'll be the baseline we'll use.

Well, the parts we're going to try on that boat are came from Summit as a kit and they include things like this aluminum dual plane intake manifold,

hydraulic flat tab at CAM 570 CFM carburetor, new set of lifters, even an air cleaner gaskets hardware and so forth. Well, since Mike's already got the original CAM out, we can install this new one after some of this A RP assembly loop.

It's a hydraulic flat tap at Lunati

Voodoo cam. With the duration of 207, intake 213 exhaust with a 50,000 lift.

Of course, anytime you swap out a flat tap at CAM, you have to swap out the lifters to prevent damage. These two came from lunati,

the replacement intake manifold,

a dual plane piece from Wan.

Now it's all aluminum which makes for a cooler denser charge. Hence, more horsepower. It's CNC machine and has a power band from idle to 6000 RPM.

First, we lay down a couple of fell pro gaskets from the kit.

Then the intake manifold

and torque down the supplied a RP bolts.

Now we can reinstall our factory push rods and rockers.

The carburetor in this combo is a Holly Street Avenger that flows 570 CFM. It's got electric choke tunable metering system and vacuum secondaries. Now it's designed to give good performance without much tuning. However, they also include a DVD that covers everything. Now, the kid also includes this air cleaner that is designed to give good filtering and flow on the street. Of course, we don't use this in the dyno

to install the carburetor first screw in the A RP studs,

then lay down a gasket,

then the supplied car plate,

another gasket

and finally the car itself goes on.

After buttoning up the engine and floating on the exhaust, we can fire it up.

And after several runs, we get 295 horsepower, 366 ft pounds of torque

to recap. This bank for the buck test. We installed a street performance kit from summit racing with a street Avenger Holly Carb

Y and intake manifold, Lunati voodoo cam plus a bunch of extras.

While the horsepower gain was only about five horsepower over the baseline torque gains were 40 ft pounds.

Yeah, and all that extra torque could really help if you've got a boat or a trailer to haul around.

Now, I should point out that not everything in the kit was about making horsepower. Well, like the lifters you had to have

and the air cleaner that brings in cool fresh air on the street.

All important things to consider when you look for a bang for your buck.

If you want to become a better weekend racer, chances are you can learn more by hanging out in the pits than watching what goes on at the strip.

We discovered that recently at an Osco

event in South Carolina.

Now the finals were eventually postponed because of weather, but we picked up some fascinating facts by

hanging out with a team of proven winners.

Lynch holds the world's ET record in

Oska's top outlaw. 10 5.

His teammate, Eric Dillard earned the mile per hour record in limited streaks.

Molden Mustangs both turbo charge but with differences in class rules and personal preferences.

Now, first let's talk tires that label 10 5 outlaw is actually a misnomer. These tires actually measure about 11 and a quarter when they're new,

um, they'll grow to 11 and three quarter after a few burnouts,

the 10 5 deal was originally designed on the smaller tires of 29 and 28 which actually measured 10 5, these tires here a little bigger than that.

You see, it's Eric's slash limited street that runs the true 10 5.

It's definitely trickier getting down the track on these tires. And the other disadvantage we have is they put 200 pounds on this. One thing we've learned with these tires is having a lot stiffer side wall. It keeps more of the tire actually on the track

while both racers rely on precision turbos to make power in their engines. Fuel makes a big difference in how the turbos are set up.

We're still running gasoline on this thing

close to the intercooler which is ice down and

back into the motor again,

Eric, on the other hand, burns alcohol without the need of an inner

cooler,

we had to change the motor over to 12 to 1. We had to double the injectors in the rail. We had to go from 8 to 16

because alcohol uses about 2.5 times the amount of fuel.

One thing they do the same though is basically line them up, burn them out and let them go with the light.

We start at low gear

and then, uh, get the engine RPM s up and I'll bump second

and then I'll bump higher gear in the burnout box.

I like to do a shorter burnout than some guys do.

We'll turn the data lager and the intercooler on after the burnout, get it all going. Roll up this prestage bulb after the other car is ready. And I'll, I'll set brake pressure about 1112 100 P si

and, uh, basically you're to the floor on the gas

so you feel the, the boost, you can hear the boost come up on this thing and you know, when you're ready and this car, it almost pull you into the beams. You're on the trans brake then,

and then you're ready to go.

The light comes down

and

off the trans break

when you don't get the tire shake and the car is smooth. It's usually faster.

So let's say you do get some tire shake like these guys did.

What can the crew do to prevent it during the next qualifying round?

There's a whole handful of things we do. We play with the power. How quick the boost comes in? I

will mess a little bit with the shocks on the rear of the car. Tire pressure plays a big key

and all that plays and, and how good the track is too.

So if you've got a stout motor with a turbo, you like and a good chassis setup, what else does it take to win?

You gotta have luck and plenty of power and a

good crew working with you.

Yeah. A good crew that works just for the love of bracing.

It's a crew in Lynch's case. That also includes a cute

gearhead wife.

If

he didn't do this, he'd be miserable and

I would be miserable too.

I mean, it's

so much fun. It consumes our whole life but either you love it or you hate it. There's no in between

last year, the Lynch Mob car ran an amazing 436 et here as he and Eric both won the horsepower finals.

People say, can you go twenties?

It's going to take cool conditions at night to do it.

I

think so. I really do.

If you want an ignition box that delivers digital performance at an analog price check out Mallory's new high fire six easy. It's a multi spar ignition that has the latest microprocessor controlled circuitry

has a built in rev limiter that's adjustable from 4500 to 12,000 RPM and requires no chips or modules. Now, it also comes with their pro master coil and wiring harness and the best part, it will only cost you 100 and 95 bucks

with gas prices as high as they are. Now. Anything

that improves mileage while improving performance and a daily driver gets our attention.

This performance booster kit from leading edge can extend the life of your engine. Now, here's what you get,

fuel system treatment,

engine treatment and oil booster octane booster and this cool running radiator treatment, the price for the whole kit right at 30 bucks. Well, keep your cool. We got to go running out of here, but we'll be back next week with more horsepower.