Classic Nation

The engine is coming together nicely for the 1950′ Chevy Fleetline. Here are some recent pictures of the work that was done to the block of the Chevy 261 Straight 6 engine. It has been bored out, with some trick components.

Yeah, yeah. That’s the mustang in the background.

By: Evan

While I’m still working on the video editing from the Car d’Lane show a few weeks ago, I did add the rest of the pictures to the 2008 Car d’Lane car show picture gallery. Here are some of the cool new ones that David and Tom took.

By: Evan

Like I mentioned earlier, we took a bunch of pictures at the annual Car d’Lane show on Fathers Day weekend. I even shot some sweet videos that I will be adding to the site just as soon as I get them edited.

If you haven’t checked out the complete picture collection, you might want to. We have added many more pictures to the gallery. There might be something in there that you haven’t seen!

Here are some new ones:

By: Evan

After reading many entries on this website, I figured for my first blog entry that I would mix things up. This website is all about classic cars, but what about the “Retro Remakes”? So before I take the trip as a writer on this website and post my coverage from various classic shows, etc. I figured I would spice things up and dedicate this one post to the “Retro remakes and the rebirth of affordable sports cars.”

If you remember a couple years back, Ford had come out with the all new retro styled Thunderbird…. do you not remember? If you don’t, that would be due to the fact that they only lasted a short while as they were not as big of a hit as Ford had hoped. But Ford did not stop there, they wanted to push this retro style idea to the next level. So what car could Ford possibly choose that was iconic and had a cult following? If you guessed the Pinto, I am sorry as you are wrong. The correct answer would be the Mustang.

When Ford made the retro style Mustang, it sold like hotcakes and it is still selling well. But when other American companies noticed the type of money that could be obtained by this retro style market. They all decided to hop on board. Now, years later you have Dodge with the new Challenger hitting showroom floors and the Chevrolet Camaro soon to be on it’s way. What should be very interesting to see is that the competition between companies will be very reminiscent of the past when muscle cars used to be all the rave.

But back in the 60’s, muscle car sales were not at any real risk from automakers overseas. Upon the release of these new retro throwbacks, they will see competition not only from here in America but from all over the world. For example: Hyundai will soon have it’s Genesis Coupe hitting showroom floors. A korean car that is RWD and offered with a V8. Then there is Toyota who owns a big stake in Subaru (Fuji Industries) and so the two of them are working together on designing an affordable sports car to list with both brands.

So as you can see, both American and foreign companies are raising their interest in the affordable sports cars. Could this be due to the calling for smaller more fuel efficient cars, or just a repeat of the past with the muscle car wars. But my question for you the reader is that I want to hear your opinion. Do you think that these American auto makers had waited to long to hop on the “retro style” train, or are they entering at the right moment? Do you think the current gas price will drastically hinder the sales of these newly released vehicles? Will all the hype just be one big flop or will they sell sell sell?

By: Greg

For a little change of pace, today we are going to take a look at a question from Bryce Duchcherer of Alberta wrote us;

I am planning on rebuilding the engine in my 1982 Chrysler Cordoba this summer. I was thinking that i would like to put a different intake manifold and camshaft in it, as well as lifters, pushrods, valve springs… everything that goes along with doing a cam. It is a 318HP engine that has the 360 4 barrel intake manifold as well as the 360hp heads with 1.88″ intake valves and 1.60″ exhaust valves. I have an Edelbrock 1403 500CFM carburetor that I installed on it in January. The ignition system that is on it is the Mopar Performance “Orange Box” with a Mopar distributor and MSD Blaser 2 Coil as well as MSD Streetfire wires and NGK V-power spark plugs. I was planning on running Hooker 1 3/4″ full length headers as well as a new exhaust system with Dynomax Bullet race mufflers. The exhaust would be 2.5″ true dual exiting out the sides in front of the tires.

This car is my daily driver so it will need to be able to run well on the street, but I want something that performs well and sounds nasty. I will probably not drive it in the winter, but it would be nice to have something able to run in cold weather since I live in Alberta and you never know what the weather is going to be like. It will hopefully be a nice sleeper. I am hoping for about 320+hp at the flexplate. The transmission that is in the car is a newly re-built A904 Torqueflight. I am not sure what the differential gear ratio is, if anyone knows what the stock gear ratio in 82 Cordoba with the V8, please let me know.

I wasn’t able to find much information on this car other than on a few websites, so I wanted to post this question to the community. Does anyone have any experience with this engine setup or parts involved? Share your knowledge with us.

By: Evan