Latest Posts Under: Restoration
Ashley Gracile has inspected enough classic cars to know that the ones that photograph best are not always the ones worth buying. In this walkthrough, she shows the exact spots sellers hope buyers skip over — from hidden rust pockets to mismatched engine stampings to paperwork that does not match the seller’s story. It is the kind of five-minute check that can save a buyer thousands of dollars, or cost them just as much if they skip it. Watch before you sign anything.
Real 1970 Plymouth Superbirds now sell for well into six figures, putting Chrysler’s most famous wing car out of reach for almost anyone who wants to actually experience one. This hand-built tribute, constructed from an ordinary Plymouth Satellite rather than a real Road Runner or Superbird, aims to close that gap — matching the look and the performance without the seven-figure price tag. V8TV’s Muscle Car of the Week takes a close look at what it took to build. See how close a tribute can actually get.
A junkyard Chevy 350 small block gets torn down step by step in this video, the opening chapter of a five-part rebuild series that follows the engine from core to fully running. Chris Duke walks through exactly what to check, what to save, and what a genuine teardown requires before any machining begins. He even corrects an early misidentification of the donor truck along the way. Follow along before moving on to the machine shop stage.
Compression ratio sounds simple until you actually try to calculate it for your own engine build — and getting it wrong can mean the difference between reliable power and an engine that pings itself apart. David Freiburger breaks down the theory and the practical math in this Roadkill Extra segment. Watch before you order your next set of pistons.
Hagerty’s Davin Reckow put his own 396 big-block 1966 Chevelle through a full test battery — butt dyno, eighth-mile strip, chassis dyno, and gas mileage — after swapping its carburetor for a Holley Terminator EFI system. The results settle an argument that’s split classic Chevelle owners for years: does fuel injection actually make a big-block Chevelle better, or does it just make it different? Watch the full breakdown to see which side wins.
Flowmaster makes more than a dozen distinct series of street mufflers, and picking the wrong one can mean an exhaust note that’s either too quiet or unbearably loud on the highway. Summit Racing sat down with Flowmaster’s VP of Sales, Alex Ortega, to break down exactly what separates each series and how to match one to your vehicle and sound preference. It’s the explainer most buyers wish they’d watched before they bought.
Long before fuel injection took over, every muscle car engine breathed through a carburetor — a device that runs almost entirely on basic physics rather than electronics. This breakdown explains the venturi effect, the float bowl, and the jets that together meter fuel with no computer involved at all. It’s the same technology still keeping lawnmowers and chainsaws running today, decades after cars moved on. Understanding it is the key to actually diagnosing what’s happening under a classic muscle car’s hood.
Holley breaks down exactly how to choose the right carburetor for your build, covering CFM calculations, street versus race carburetors, and the difference between vacuum and mechanical secondaries. It’s a practical, timestamped guide built to save builders from the expensive trial-and-error of guessing carburetor size. Whether you’re building a daily driver or a dedicated race engine, the sizing mistakes covered here are worth knowing before you buy. Watch to make sure your next carburetor purchase is the right one.
Engine Masters settled a decades-old garage argument by bolting a 600-plus-horsepower 454 Chevy to the dyno and running it through both 2.5-inch and 3-inch exhaust systems back to back. The results reveal exactly where bigger pipe stops helping and starts costing low-end power — numbers that matter more than the peak horsepower headline. Presented by AMSOIL, it’s the kind of controlled test that most exhaust marketing never bothers to run. Watch to see where the crossover point actually falls.
The Chevy LS V8 has become such a fixture of car culture that ‘LS swap it’ is practically a meme — but this video, featuring twenty minutes with master engine builder Tom Nelson of Nelson Racing Engines, actually explains why the reputation is earned. The Drive sat down with someone who has pushed LS-based engines well past 1,000 horsepower and asked him to break down the real engineering behind the platform. It gets deep into the design decisions most owners never think about. Watch for an explanation that goes further than the usual internet shorthand.
How much does it really cost to paint a car? Refinish Network says it is the question they hear most, and the honest answer disappoints almost everyone. The surprise is where the money actually goes, and it is not the paint. For anyone restoring a muscle car, this changes how you budget the whole project. Watch to find out why quality costs what it does.