[poncho-mike]

My dad and uncle told me about making a flame thrower exhaust for one of their cars in their youth. My uncle helped me build one for an old truck dad had. It's been almost 50 years, but you build it out of junk parks. It works really well on something that has a manual choke. You first drill holes into the exhaust pipe at the back of the car. You then install a couple of spark plugs into the holes. You will need a small electric motor to drive a distributor to ignite the plugs. I built a small box to house a points distributor, coil and I think we used a windshield wiper motor. This contraption is powered by a 12V source form the battery, which is turned on and off by a switch accessible to the driver.

When the system is installed, you rev up the truck engine, pull the choke out, and turn on the electric motor. The spark plugs ignite the raw gas coming out the exhaust and it will shoot flames out the rear.

[Simple Man]

First car was a 66 Mustang coupe. Pulled the back seat out, replaced it with a piece of plywood, with 4 speakers in it, coming from the underdash 8 track. Same car, installed a console from a 68 Impala SS. Almost fit.

[64speed]

Originally Posted by carbking

I don't think I want to confess to these in print

But a couple of them involved the addition of a model T Ford spark coil.

Jon.

Please tell me this was for flame throwers

[Half-Inch Stud]

In 1974 Dad was convinced he should hacksaw the Connecting rod to the Olds V8 with a Bad CYL. So i helped drop the Oil Pan and Held the light while he hacksawed the rod from the big end. He pushed the piston to TDC, probably undid the pushrods, and I remember he shimmed the Rod big end do it was tight and would clear the block on rotation.

Well. we got it buttoned up and started it, then drove it. Boy did it vibrate. Was like the quietest vibrating V7 you could imagine. Pretty sure that dar was gone after 2 months later.

[67drake]

Originally Posted by Half-Inch Stud

In 1974 Dad was convinced he should hacksaw the Connecting rod to the Olds V8 with a Bad CYL. So i helped drop the Oil Pan and Held the light while he hacksawed the rod from the big end. He pushed the piston to TDC, probably undid the pushrods, and I remember he shimmed the Rod big end do it was tight and would clear the block on rotation.

Well. we got it buttoned up and started it, then drove it. Boy did it vibrate. Was like the quietest vibrating V7 you could imagine. Pretty sure that dar was gone after 2 months later.

That’s a new one to me!

[Half-Inch Stud]

I was 8 years old then and my thoughts then were wondering why do this, why this way. And when we drove the car my thought was this thing is done. We called it "the bomb".

He was a good and schmardt Dad, but Dad didn't work on any of our Pontiacs.

[carbking]

Originally Posted by 64speed

Please tell me this was for flame throwers

They could certainly have been used in that manner.

It is rumored that an excellent theft control can also be made from one.

Jon.

[sdbob]

Neighbor had a 68 black high po Mustang fastback. He removed one piston and rod for some reason. I remember him driving the car to work. Cant imagine fuel in oil.

[1969GiPper]

Originally Posted by indymanjoe

Did the same as above ^^ however it was filled with Jack Daniels and it came out of a hose in the glovebox.

A friend of mine did the same thing in his 66 GTO....only it was for vodka.

[Tom Vaught]

Originally Posted by carbking

I don't think I want to confess to these in print

But a couple of them involved the addition of a model T Ford spark coil.

Jon.

That device, if I remember correctly was the "Remove your Fat AZE" (from the front fender of my car you are leaning on." A very good "removal" device.

I had a GTO with 3.90 gears so I rolled along at a slower speed than some other vehicles. I was running factory manifolds and head pipes at the time.

A windshield washer pump and bottle allowed some light weight machine oil to enter the exhaust pipes, BURN, and emit some very good "Mosquito Killer" smoke vapors out the rear of the exhaust splitters if some one was tailgating you.

Tom V.

[455Grandville]

After I got my 69 Camaro in high school back in the late 80s I wanted to put cooler wheels on it to replace the then uncool factory dog dish hubcap/wheel setup.
Bought some cheap imitation Cragar look alike that my HS shop teacher warned me about buying. Found out the tire shop couldn’t even balance them very well. They told me they were complete junk and refused to put them on the car.
Put them on my self and drove the car anyway and it shook a lot and found out one was actually built crooked as I measured the depth in the rim. Luckily, Wise speed shop refunded my money.
Found some nice Chevy Rally sports for less and they’re still on the car.

[SRR]

I took a 66 Caprice I had and swapped in a 4 speed behind the 283 with 2 series gears. What an awful combo that was, taking off from a dead stop was painful but it would do 70 in 1st gear.

[Region Warrior]

Kinda car related...

Had(still have stored away somewhere???lol) HO slot cars with a 4 lane slalom track and a 25' drag strip.

Upgrades with performance armature/magnet/brush sets.
Graphited the axles and gears ect.
Largest tallest silicone slicks could get. Better for top half of track on real fast cars.
Shortened all "slot pins" so wouldn't drag in groove.
Experimented mixing/matching parts from different kits resulted in even faster cars.

Be 3-4 of us at a time betting on each others cars on 1/4 mile races same as our older brothers did with their street/strip cars lol.
My fastest car only had to come out the case 1 time ever when my 2nd and 3rd fastest cars needed cleanup real bad after dozens of run each. It would beat my 2nd fastest by 2'.
No one had ever seen it except my older brother was home one night and I showed him testing with lights out. It would throw sparks nearly 2" wide
No one would ever let me use that one again...

Anyhow, long story short, most unusual mod was one I day decided to use extra burned up chassis and parts to make an all wheel drive car.
Took some experimenting, trial and error, but turned out good. Don't go any faster though...

[FirebirdHank]

Back in high school I helped a friend put a Ford "y" block into a '60 Impala convertible. Not sure why since sbcs were plentiful.

[ta-dude]

I took a couple of empty Maxwell house coffee cans, spray painted them silver and drilled a small hole in the center of the bottom of the cans. Then I took a piece of 1 x 6 pine about a foot long and screwed the two cans to the board leaving about 6 inches between the cans. Then I took off the "top" part of my shaker scoop on my 79 TA and used a piece of rope to tie the pine board with the cans to the "bottom" part of the shaker (the air cleaner housing). Up close it was an obvious fake, but driving by it looked pretty good. I fooled all my car buddies that were at the local car hangout when I drove by. They all thought I had dual quads with velocity stacks!

I wish I had taken some pictures, but didn't. Oh well.

[bird72]

1984. 28 Years old. Car Craft and Hot Rod had whazzu TA's and Camaro's on the covers. Crazy mods.

So I had a mint 78 TA. One of the now desirable TA 6.6, 4 speed, WS6 ones, optioned out. So I pulled the back flares off to be different. Molded an L88 scoop to the hood. Painted it the most neon red I could (from tasteful brown). I was Car Craft Cool! I really hope someone has put that car back to stock. It is a truly pitiful chapter in my Poncho history.

[fiedlerh]

When I was in Jr High I made my own glass pack muffler. Vacuum cleaner pipe with a bunch of holes drilled in it. Two coffee cans with a big hole cut in the bottoms. Pack the cans with fiberglass house insulation, slip them over the pipe, solder the seam. Couldn't convince dad to put it on his Plymouth Valiant.

When I had a learner's permit me and my buddies would jack up the back of the folks 68 Catalina and stuff pieces of 2x4 in the back springs. All it accomplished was scattering chunks of lumber on the street when I hit a bump.

I had a 68 Firebird that had so much blowby I put a 'catch can' on the PCV system and mounted it on the fender well. It was a glass pickle jar and I could see when it was getting full so I could empty it.

[Greg Reid]

Originally Posted by fiedlerh

.

I had a 68 Firebird that had so much blowby I put a 'catch can' on the PCV system and mounted it on the fender well. It was a glass pickle jar and I could see when it was getting full so I could empty it.

I hope you were frugal enough to pour it back in!

[Doug]

Back in the mid-60's day I put red stick-on vinyl racing stripes on my blue charcoal 65 GTO. It was a center stripe about a foot wide with parallel 2" stripes . Got tired of them quick. Sounds crazy now but I also put factory exhaust splitters on it but got tired of them too after a while.

I also made a tripower ram air pan out of the metal side of a washing machine and some foam rubber from a mattress shop. Worked fine!

[ta6point6]

I put the dual wiper blades on my Nova because a girl I dated said they were cool. I think they shaved at least a second off my time in the 1/4 mile. I also bought the shorty header (I didn't have headers) Accel u-groove spark plugs because a friend of mine said it would make my car faster. He was also the same guy who said that we should drill holes in his mufflers to release the back-pressure in the engine. All it did was make his truck back fire something crazy.