For this week’s Top 11, we decided to go straight to where we live, naming the most violent stuff in the world of gearheads. These are the parts we wish we could use to full effect every day of the year. They are the items that say you mean bidness and have the stones to back it up. It’s the stuff that separates the braggers from the doers, or that identifies a real poser if they have any of these items but don’t use them as God intended. See if you agree.
The Top 11 Most Violent Automotive Products
11) Detroit Locker: This great product falls near the bottom of the list because it’s hidden in the car so that bystanders cannot fear it by presence alone, and also because, in theory, a spool is more violent. But, truth be told, most people think that a Detroit Locker is just an absurd idea for a passenger car, and we enjoy their squirmyness.
10) Dominator: Here’s another one we love, but it places low on the list because the lovable 4500-series Holley carb has been used too many times by fairground-cruising wankers. It’s because they grock the concept but lack the hardware to actually need a Dominator. And when you need a Domi, you’ve arrived at a new level of gearheadom. Better yet, need two.
9) V-Gate Shifter: Ah, the inline shifter. Be it Hurst, Long, or Mr. Gasket, the vertigate four-speed shifter means pure bangshifting greatness and is sure to confound any neophyte who happens to stumble into your car.
8.) Fogger: There’s nitrous, and then there’s nitrous. As much as we approve of guys hosing 400 or 500 extra ponies through a stack of plate systems, there’s something extra special about port injection of the laughing gas. When you see a polished Fogger at a car show, you think the guy’s a wiener. But when you see it at the street races, you’ve witnessed violence at its purest.
7) Boggers: You car guys may not know about 4×4 stuff, so let us introduce you to the Super Swamper Bogger, the most aggressively treaded tire you can buy with or without a DOT rating. Better yet, you can get ‘em in sizes up to 54 inches tall, and there are no pansy radials available. This junk moves some earth.
6) Rockwell Axles: Here’s another pick from the 4×4 world. When Dana 60s stopped being enough meat for today’s huge tires, military/industrial axles became needed. The Rockwells are 2.5-ton rated and use multiple gear reduction for a ratio of 6.72:1. The aftermarket sells 47-spline, 2.00-inch axles for them. Casual observers do not run Rockwells.
5) Lenco: Whether a Lenco or a Jeffco, the full-manual, planetary-gear trans with the Lightning Rod shifters pretty much makes you a man as long as you have the power to demand it and the chassis to handle it. It’s almost a letdown that Lencos have proven far more streetable than anyone thought in the ‘80s.
4) Sonny Leonard 932ci Crate Engine: The world’s baddest crate engine! Sonny sells a 2,200hp, 932ci, 5.300-inch-bore-spacing, naturally aspirated monster for just $89,300. This is one mill you’ll never see in a delicately refined Pro Touring car.
3) PSI Blower: Our list had to include at least one implement of boost. We thought about listing the most wicked turbos and blowers individually, but when it came down to it, we decided that none of them are as severe as a true PSI lung.
2) Nitro: You know you’ve got good violence when your racing fuel makes guys cry and has the potential to make ears bleed from a city block away. Add nitro to anything and it gets more violent. It should have topped the list…but…
1) Hydrazine: You know what makes nitro badder asser? Hydrazine. It’s rocket fuel, totally unstable, illegal on most planets, and has the ability to grow you an eleventh finger if you snorf it too hard while pouring it into your Hemi just before you blow out the side of the block.
No Turbonique?
When an F-16 engine craps out in air, and they hafta get back to base… Hydrazine is what kicks in and keeps them going. And once it lands, you can’t go near it unless you are SUITED IN FULL-ON CHEM GEAR.
NASTY $&@#T!!!
You’re absolutely correct about “Zine”. We ran Nitro for years, but using “Zine” separated the men from the boys.
I agree about the detroit locker – it will do something to you that a spool won’t. It can lock up (meaning, stop the tires spinning) at speed on wet. A detroit will destroy the rear end before it will let one shaft spin slower than the other, but the way the locker engages, if that happens on a soft surface, it will jam the locker – which will stop everything spinning. The only fix is to reverse out of it – which is kind of hard at 60 mph. I know, I still have parts of a seat I clinched embedded 20 years ago….
And Boggers, like is on my FJ40, they do move the earth – they also are bias ply so they give you follow the “I’ll take your lane suggestion, for now” attitude. But the music they make? Beethoven stopped making symphonies after he heard boggers at speed.
Ah boggers with a locker in the wet besides the fact my buddy’s dog would go nuts about 5 minutes before I arrived he could hear them comming .
Nothing will make a wife yell “Sell this dangerous POS Jeep!” like a set of 37″ Boggers on the street. BFG TAs make it a grocery getter.