Building American Muscle - Stacey David's Gearz S15 E6

[Music] now you're watching gears brought to you by holley performance products fuel your passion and cornwell tools the choice of professionals in the long history of the automobile every once in a while something will come along a new invention a new design a new innovation that completely changes the course of the industry because of that what started out as a simple horseless carriage quickly multiplied into the pickup truck and the sports car and the suv and the sedan all kinds of other models that were designed to fulfill a specific purpose [Music] and that's great very practical very usable very sensible but if you hadn't noticed the american spirit is not just practical and usable it's also adventurous and competitive and a little bit rebellious and that created an automotive genre that was completely new something whose sole purpose was to completely obliterate all the other cars on the road through sheer power and sound and presence yeah i'm talking about the muscle car at least that's what we call it now but that's not what it started out as started out as something completely different take a look back in the day if you wanted to go fast you built a hot rod in your garage out of whatever surplus parts you could find now most people frowned on these homemade hack jobs and they found the faults all right [Music] because they were dangerous and loud and undignified but they were a heck of a lot of fun and they were fast and americans like to go fast so by the mid-1950s the hot rod movement was in full swing [Music] of course the auto manufacturers they weren't too keen on young people spending their hard earned money souping up old jalopies so they thought hey why don't we offer hotter engines in our newer cars and they did just that with the 55 chevy and that opened the door just a bit for the oems to put more power under the foot of the american public but these weren't considered muscle cars not yet that name was created when a young executive at pontiac named john delorean broke the rules and stuffed a massive engine in a small sedan dared to call it the gto and dared to sell it to the public did i mention rebellious here automotive hysteria ensued and the muscle car was born about the same time that the beetles were hitting the airwaves now a lot of people think that these early muscle cars are nothing compared to what's out there today and that's not really a fair comparison because you have to remember drag racing was the preferred form of racing back then so muscle cars were set up to do that go in a straight line so the steering wasn't very good and the brakes were minimal at best and suspension was soft and bouncy and all that power was being funneled through skinny bias ply tires so anytime you mash the pedal you were in for a ride and seat belts what the heck were those nobody had seat belts and if you had them you didn't wear them [Applause] by the late 60s things were really getting out of control with a full-fledged horsepower race going on for the youth of america each model had to be louder and more flamboyant with more cubic inches and more horsepower [Music] names like mach 1 and cuda and road runner cougar camaro javelin judge and boss [Music] were meant to intimidate the masses and loud mufflers and bright colors announced the arrival of a muscle car on the scene like a roaring strutting lion or a peacock depending on what was under the hood but that doesn't mean that the 60s cars were just for show oh these suckers would haul any time you dropped 500 horsepower into a fairly light car you got the potential for some serious street car action [Music] by the early 70s most muscle cars had pretty much become street legal race cars almost all of them had wings some bigger than others but they all had one thing in common they were all based off of a basic sedan and ironically the manufacturers take the same approach with the modern muscle cars just like the original daytona was based off a 69 charger the current daytona is based off of the current charger the question is which one would you rather drive an original muscle car has all the classic bravado of the era and when you uncork one the resulting fury and tire smoke is the stuff of legends [Applause] [Music] [Music] however the handling and braking feel almost prehistoric compared to a modern car truck [Music] and the interiors well they were basically a seat a steering wheel and a gas pedal [Music] not to mention that some of these cars are approaching crazy levels of value in the collector market so people have started to get a little hesitant about driving their original muscle cars properly this gave rise to the restomod movement which is basically a hot rod muscle car the proper bandit launch is about 3 000 4000 on the rpm see there see where we're sitting got your clutch down here and you got your shifter and you it's kind of amazing how things come full circle isn't it but the story doesn't stop there wind that thing up man [Music] with thousands of hot rodders and gearheads stuffing modern ls coyote and hemi engines into classic muscle cars [Music] the aftermarket wasn't far behind with supplying plenty of state-of-the-art suspensions and brakes [Music] and even complete frames to make classic cars go faster and handle better of course that made the oems start to think hey why don't we offer hotter engines in our newer cars and try to grab some of that market and just like before a whole new muscle car era was launched with performance and handling that the originals only dream about [Music] the interiors are plush and comfortable and crammed with the latest tech and a whole generation has grown up watching them on the screen so their legend is secure but even so there seems to be an edge in the original cars that just can't be captured i'm after you you're talking to me you talking to me talk to the heavy [Music] and it is as different and refreshing today as it was 50 years ago [Music] so there it is the best of two muscle car eras the same car 50 years apart one has become a legendary collector's item the other you can drive every day if you want to so which one is best well it's hard to say but when you look at the past and add in what they're doing now man i can't wait to see what they do in the next 50 years [Music] and now brake tech brought to you by bear brakes brakes without limits when you're laying out the brake system on your project there's a lot of little details that you can mess up and nobody seems to want to talk about them now those little details won't necessarily leave you with no brakes but they can definitely make your brakes not work to their full potential no matter how big your rotors and calipers are now we've already talked about the importance of picking the right master cylinder today we're going to talk about the brake pedal and the brake pedal ratio now i know a lot of you are probably thinking man it's a pedal you push it so just grab something from a junkyard and put it on unfortunately that's the approach that a lot of people take and that's why a lot of their brakes don't work right this is what's going on just like you use a longer handle to give you more or less leverage on a bolt or a pry bar power and manual brakes require a different pedal ratio to give you the right leverage to help you stop the car here's the basic formula a power brake vehicle needs a pedal ratio of about four to one which means you need four times the distance from the pad to the pivot point than you have from the pivot point to the push rod mounting hole now on a manual brake vehicle you need six to one it needs more leverage so you're talking six times the distance from the pad to the pivot point then you have from the pivot point to the push rod mounting hole here's a diagram on how to measure it now based on this formula don't be surprised if you have to drill another hole in the arm of the pedal to get the ratio right now fortunately a lot of vehicles came from the factory with the option of power or manual brakes and those will have two holes in the arm so you just need to match them up to whatever brakes you're using now i know a lot of you guys are probably thinking oh come on does this really matter i mean the vehicle's still gonna stop no matter where you mount the push rod on the pedal right well it'll stop but not very well because if you use a six to one ratio with power brakes your brakes are going to be extremely sensitive making smooth even stops a real challenge if you use a four to one ratio with manual brakes you're gonna have to push the pedal a lot harder than you should have to to get the vehicle to stop creating a potentially dangerous situation now go find yourself a new friend so as you can see getting your brake pedal ratio right is an important part to putting together a quality brake system here's the formula and the diagram again just in case you missed it tool tech brought to you by cornwell tools the choice of professionals with today's modern vehicles and projects it seems like there is a specialty tool for everything and that's great for those of us that spend our lives in the shop working on stuff but it seems like there is one area that has been overlooked and that is how to remove high tension bolts in tight areas like on pulleys and crankshafts power steering pumps that kind of thing now the typical approach is to try to come in with an impact wrench or a breaker bar but as you know there's not a lot of room to get in here especially on newer vehicles so you end up having to disassemble half the engine bay just to get to the bolt [Music] especially on imports with small four and six cylinder engines [Music] well fortunately i've got a tool here that's going to change all that this is called the power bar we got it from cornwell and it's designed to reach into those tight areas and knock those nuts and bolts loose and reinstall them now take a look at this you see you got a long handle here and it goes all the way through to the end that you can hit with a hammer of course you've got a place here for your hand and you have a protector in case your aim is not very good then down here on this end you have this unique spinning apparatus and a place for a socket now this is how it works you take your socket snap it into place then place the socket on the bolt with the handle located to the side of the direction you want the bolt to rotate in this case we're going to loosen the bolt so the handle is on the left side then just strike the handle with the sledge hammer the handle transfers the impact directly to the bolt and breaks it loose it's that simple to reinstall the bolt just reverse the process [Music] this is such a simple solution to a common problem and it can save you hours of unnecessary disassembly now granted you may not use this very much but when you need it it will rapidly become the most popular tool in your box because it does the job and that's what makes a good tool [Music] and now parts bin you know one of the biggest threats to your vehicle is not rust or damage or even sitting for a long time no it's those little furry rodents that like to chew up your wiring and your upholstery while you're in the house sleeping and it doesn't matter if your car is brand new or if it's a classic the mice would be glad to chew it up so what do you do traps poison a big fat cat those might help but those come with their own sets of problems no what you need is mouse blocker check it out this ingenious device emits a sound that will drive mice and rats and squirrels rabbits crazy and away from your car you have several choices here the classic runs off the vehicle battery and puts out 85 decibels of sound to the animal and is great for tractors mowers utvs as well the pro steps it up with a wall plug and three settings that will run up to 115 decibels and it adds strobe lights too so you have shadows and movement that makes animals run the other way there's nothing more frustrating than having mice chew up your car truck and if you never want to have to deal with this again you need to check out the mouse blocker are very few things cooler than a vintage corvette except for one with a four speed in it and even cooler than that would be one with a five speed in it but that would require cutting up the car right not anymore because american powertrain has come out with a pro fit tkx five-speed transmission kit for the classic c1 c2 and c3 corvettes now check this out obviously the heart of the system is this new tremec tkx five-speed transmission that hits that magic sweet spot between the old classic muncie four-speed and the massive magnum six-speed but it doesn't stop there no american powertrain modifies the shifter location so it comes up in the stock location in the stock console so you don't have to modify the console you don't have to modify the tunnel everything bolts right in you even get a corvette style shifter and gear indicator so nobody's going to know you have five gears unless they look really closely then of course you get a performance clutch pressure plate and flywheel you have all of the hardware well laid out so you can put it in you get a new bell housing you even get a new drive shaft so if your corvette currently has a stick this is a direct bolt in if you're converting from an automatic american powertrain even has the pedals to do that so if you're tired of the lack of gear options in your 55 through 82 corvette five forward speeds is now possible with the pro fit tkx five speed system from american powertrain [Music] what are you working on brought to you by woodward fabrication selling quality metalworking equipment since 1966. today's what are you working on is a little bit of a departure from what we usually show you but it definitely shows you what people are working on out there now it comes from bill pinch and he's right down the road in cleveland tennessee and they have an eight-lane oval racing track well they had some water damage and it destroyed their trap so they had to find another one so this is what he came up with it was down the road he managed to get it for a good price but it needed to be restored so he said the work began he tore it apart just like a vehicle he had to redo the wiring he had to redo the surface had to redo all the contacts and everything you can see the work that went into it he says now that the track is done it gets plenty of use as the racers turn thousands of laps each week in their novice stock car and dirt late model program so yeah these guys are serious about this he said they actually want to put in a drag strip and hopefully a road course as well which is the beginning of where most gear heads get started so this is cool stuff it just goes to show you that you can be working on anything so bill to recognize such a cool project we hooked up with our buddies at woodward fab we're going to give you one of these tubing notchers because i know you got a project out there that you could use a tubing notcher on we're also going to give you one of our v8 interceptor t-shirts and a project planning book this will keep you on track on whatever project that you're working on we're going to give you a holley gift card to help offset the cost of whatever project you're working on and we're going to top it off with a sergeant rock diecast now for the rest of you guys if you want to get in on this get your project featured on the show man you gotta send it to us go to our website go to gears nation and submit it into what are you working on the website's also the place to find out more information on any products you may have seen on the show any gears merchandise and how to join gears nation so you can stream any of our episodes commercial free also don't forget to check us out on amazon prime where you can watch past and current seasons of gears and check out our new show stacey davis restoration series finally don't forget to like us on facebook and instagram so you can get some behind the scenes footage of our weekly web series shifting gears and if you're a radio person make sure you check out our new podcast tails of a gear head all right that wraps it up for us today which means it is time for you to get out there and start working on something it can be a car it can be a truck it can be a motorcycle it can be a race track just get out there start working on some we'll see you next time [Music] okay [Music] you

Channel: Official Stacey David

Views: 18,296

Keywords: staceydavid, GearZ, Hot Rods, Trucks, mavtv, revntv, motortrend, stacey david

Id: rek4W5DCDnU

Length: 22min 30sec (1350 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 01 2022