Rod & Custom Tips & Tricks Articles

1950 Oldsmobile 88 - SSBC Kingpin Kits

One advantage to building a rod or custom from a late-'40s or early '50s vehicle is that most American automakers had developed and fitted their cars with independent front suspensions by this time. The downside is that many of those early IFS arrangements wer more

Nerf Bars - Tips & Tricks

Nerf It! more

1950s Race Cars - Tips & Tricks

Elsewhere in this issue, we explore some interesting alternatives for building a cool custom '50s ride. Whether your preferences run tastefully traditional or sleek and contemporary, mid-'50s passenger cars are an incredibly... more

Ford Model T Roadster - Tips & Tricks

When guys like Norm Gabrowski and Andy Brizio kicked off the "Fad T" craze back in the '60s and '70s, the little fiberglass buckets with giant rear meats and oversized... more

Build A High-Tech Driver

Frankly we’re tired of hearing it. Rodders with prize-winning high-tech cars explaining why they can’t drive them, and guys with low-budget street weaponry belly-aching that the high-end cars are unstreetable. Both arguments are equally bogus, and we more

Hemi Help

Chrysler’s first hemispherical-headed V-8 engines seemed light-years ahead of the competition when introduced for the ’51 models, and stayed on the leading edge of performance into the ’60s. But by the mid-’60s, the new 426 Hemi made the ea more

Y-Block Revisited

Quick, make a mental list of famous Ford V-8s. The flathead’s a no-brainer, and so are the side-oiler 427 and Cammer. Then there’s the Cleveland, FE big-blocks, Boss 302…. The list goes on. But we’ll guess only the most die-hard Blue Oval f more

Pinstriping Ideas

Pinstriping has been around longer than most of us realize. It’s a decorative art form that dates back beyond the horse-drawn buggy days. Ornamental hand-striping was last factory-applied on an American car in the late ’30s. By the mid-’40s it w more

Tips and Tricks

Rough Riders Bottoming out is not only aggravating and jarring, it’s a not-too-subtle sign of an improperly set up coilover suspension. According to Gary Heidt at Heidt’s Hot Rod Shop, who knows a few things about independent front suspension, botto more

Tips and Tricks

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