By Brian Lohnes

BangShift.com

Throw your nitrous away and leave your turbo at the door. Tom Spinella’s 1970 Buick, powered by a 489ci big-block Chevy, cruises at 65 mph and nearly runs 9s on 93 octane straight out of the pump. Every week, this car gets driven to the track on the freeway, hammered on, and driven home. Spinella racks up a few thousand miles per year driving it to shows and the strip.

Get over the lack of a Buick motor. Tom’s brother Jay is a racer as well, and long ago, Jay took the big-block Chevy out of his bracket car and gave it to Tom, while Tom took the Buick out of the Skylark and put it in Jay’s car. In terms of power per cubic dollars, it’s impossible to beat a well built Rat, and this one certainly is.

To take a 3,750-pound fatty (and we say that with a smile) and hurtle it down the track without any outside assistance from a bottle or a blower in just hundredths over the nine-second zone means that this little big block has some snot. Coming in at only 489ci, it’s on the small end of the big-block food chain, but it will sing to more than 6,500 rpm in the lights.

We certainly had some fun during the photo shoot and filming the awesome video on the car. It was the first time Tom had the car out and about after swapping the cam. He was dealing with valvespring breakage issues, and after consulting cam legend Harold Brookshire on what the problem was, Brookshire told him that the ramps on his previous cam were about as gradual as a cliff face. A custom stick went in and now all is right with the world.

Pay close attention at some of the “fly by” shots in the video. This brute is baking a pretty used up set of big 295/65-15 MT drag radials at about a 30-mph roll. Torque is your friend.

Go here to see the photo gallery and learn all the gory details about this broad shouldered street bruiser. The video below kicks some serious ass as well (even though there is a little typo in there).

By Speedhunters

Car Culture At Large

Want to know how the Pagani Zonda R sounds when it is going full throttle on the streets outside the Pagani headquarters? Then I suggest you press play and turn up the volume. I must add that this is illegal because the Zonda R isn’t street legal but I guess that Horacia has a special understanding with the local authorities.

By Jeroen Willemsen

By Katherine Helmetag

Atomicalex

The 24 Hours of LeMons crew are very serious about safety, to the point that they have a safety sponsor for the series. Pyrotect stepped up and offered a full set of rated gear to entrants for the ridiculously cheap price of $425. So, of course, I have to try to beat that. Well, that and I already have a good helmet and don’t want another one. Subtracting out the $125 I could probably eBay the helmet for leaves me with $300 to try to outfit myself with. Allowing $100 for shoes and $75 for gloves, I will have $125 to get a suitable suit and collar. You know where this is going – the same place LeMons cars come from: Craigslist! I’ll post up as I acquire my budget gear. I’ve already got the suit, and it’s a deusy…

By Rob Einaudi

Editor-in-Chief

Jalopnik has a nice little writeup on the first Shelby Cobra, currently owned by Bruce Meyer in California. I still think that these old slab sides look better than the big 427 cars.

By Austin Knight

Gotadime

This weekend, from June 19-21, I’ll be at the EMCO Gears Challenge at Mid-Ohio. I’ve attended this event for the past three years and every time, it’s been an absolute blast. You can find full coverage on Speed Channel, starting at 5:00PM Eastern Time, and I’ll be giving real-time updates on my twitter account during the event. Also, when I get back from the event, expect many pictures and a full write-up! Read more about the event after the jump.

Continue reading "The Rolex Series' EMCO Gears Challenge" »

By John Coyle

Deputy Editor

Personally, I didn’t think there was anything terribly complicated about running a car through a Hot Wheels-style loop. Shows what I know. Apparently, getting the speed right is absolutely crucial, because not only could the car fall off, but coming in too hot could produce g-forces which could kill the driver. Making this even more difficult? This is the biggest loop ever attempted. So the guys from Fifth Gear—with the help of a physicist from Cambridge—planned the operation down to the last detail. Does stuntman Steve Truglia pull it off? Watch and see!

By Speedhunters

Car Culture At Large

With this being Exotics and Luxury Month at Speedhunters, I think this is one of the best cars that we could possibly have featured from Japan. If you thought the NSX-R was the ultimate car from Honda, just check out what Mugen have done! Some of you may recall having seen the NSX “double-R” Concept in the Tokyo Auto Salon coverage but this is one of those cars that deserves a more detailed feature. So a couple of weeks after the show I met up with Kim-san over at Mugen in Saitama-ken, ready to drool over. Continue reading at Speedhunters.

By Dino Dalle Carbonare

By John Coyle

Deputy Editor

Yup, it’s real and it runs. Head over to Jalopnik and check out Ben’s post for all the details.

By Ben Schaffer

The Real JDM

Have a look at the image below. Yes, it’s one of the GT-Rs I produced for SEMA last year and yes it sticks with some of the tried and true JDM brands that I trust and love. One of them is Endless brakes. It also so happens that the midnight purple GT-R I made for Mobil 1 ran Endless brakes, and yes it also so happens that my gold S2000 runs Endless brakes (although re-badged as J’s Racing).

So why do these cars run Endless brakes? Why do so many top cars at the shows and in the magazines run Endless brakes? Why do so many Japanese tuning shops make brakes that are re-branded Endless brakes to promote their brand? Is it because Endless is trendy and cool? Because it is JDM Tite YO!?

Continue reading "Dispelling a Popular Misconception: Endless Brakes" »

By John Coyle

Deputy Editor

Like Ewan McGregor explained in Faster, during a MotoGP race, your teammate isn’t your friend. He’s the guy you want to beat more than anyone, because he’s got the same equipment as you do, and only one rider can demonstrate how to best use it. But while there are some great battles in that flick, none of them illustrate the competition between teammates better than this clip. During last weekend’s race at the Circuit de Catalunya, Fiat Yamaha riders Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo were locked in combat from the green flag, and the last lap saw some absolutely spectacular racing. Why the hell does Rossi drag his foot?