What I presume these rags offer me
Hot Rod- Vintage articles I love, dream cars I would never own but can respect. What is the latest newest thing going on out there
Car Craft- Real world how to junk yard articles, how to Mcgiver and Frankenstein my car but it works and is safe to do, love the cross breeding. Knowing I have a cheap way of doing something and the pros and cons, and a pricey way of doing it.
CHP- What's up with F. I. newer GM stuff, keeping up to date on newer cars, cam basic's, cylinder head comparing. Wish they would show a way of running an S10 E.F.I. T.B. on an early car, and how to run two of them on a tunnle ram or dual carb mainfold set up. Also how to run/hook up a 4LE80 (Jeff Smith was perfect for this stuff)
SC- Restoration tips on tri 5's, nova and Camaro stuff, how to build an over kill bottom end for the street, how to put a bolt on rack and pinion on an early car, how to mustang II a front end. But what it lack was how is everyone else doing it. This rag was more for a guy who puts in a crate motor in his car and basic bolt ons.
PHR- Nostagial racing coverage, love it. But I would like to see more of what is in their combo. What worked in the past works today.
High Performance Pontiac-What other guys are doing to their cars, lots of real world cars racing at a dragstrip using different combo's and achieving the same results. No secrets BS, just facts and figures on spec's and not leaving out the Cam spec's or the rear end gear.
Mopar Muscle- Seeing what's new with hemi's and wedges, love the restored Super Stock car write ups
Sport Truck-What's up with air ride stuff.
Sports compact car- seeing how the other half lives
Engine masters- Combo's, combo's and more engine combo's
I like consistency-when a question arises and I'm try to inform myself on which part to run and get, I like to see what others have tried. My Idea would be to make the rags more consistent. If I want ideas on how to put body panels and paint on a a chevy, keep those articles mostly in one rag like SC, and it I want to know more about cam swaps and performance keep that in CHP. Make one more towards handling and one more to straight line stuff. What most rags lack for me is in Bracket racing stuff, Nitrous articles, tuning a blower or turbo, Super Stock stuff, like what makes these thing so fast. How were they built, what combo did they use? These things could use a home in a rag of it's own or in one of these. PHR pull out is getting bigger hope it continues.
We ran a Super Comp Dragster, and decided to run the next class up, we thought of the cheapest way to do this, we went with nitrous. We activated right off the line with a 200 HP unit and achieved it, we went old school, but while testing we ran the nitrous fuel rich due to the cold weather and washed out the rings. Where would I find info on what rings to use on nitrous, the ill effects of being to rich on the gas side, and how to solve the problem short of taking it apart, how to wire up such a system, how to use it with a trans brake, difference between using a bottle blanket and a bottle warmer? All these things we had to answer ourselves. We tune our nitrous just like a carburetor, when we were fuel rich, we reversed the nitrous jet with the fuel jet to get our jetting closer and it worked, we then went to a bottle warmer to richin the nitrous side and put the jets back to their original order. Since we had success with our digger, others at the track are doing the same to get more out of there combo's but want to go with a small shot like 100hp, to take advantage of the cooling effects and to be more consistent. So they ask us for help, what we are finding is; what a difference between kits, some run fuel rich, while others run fuel lean. No consistency in jets either between kits. I would like to see if one brand of jets flows the same as another brand. We stick to the NOS charts and compare in order to try to get apples back to apples in comparison.
Now when we bought everything for the nitrous including timers, ignition delays and relays, bottle heater, kit, we are in it @ $1000, to go 1 full second faster, but if we were to spend double to triple, we could have gone blown and been @ 1 and 1/2 - 1 and 3/4 sec faster. Something that has had us thinking that maybe we should try it.
If one rag stuck to all their artilcles being on power adders, and the other on N/A motors.
When a rag gets to tech without a lot of detailed pic's, it feels like homework, not a hobby. I like seeing when a+b=c, but when c=a/bx(d%e) I get bored. I also get bored when you get to c and there is no a or b and you have to fill in the blanks. Sometimes I like the recipes on going fast over the theories of it.
I like seeing what others have done like in Engine Masters
If anyone can do it, you can, but all in all use the K.i.S.S method over and over (Keep It Simple Stupid) and use articles that get straight to the point.