| harmon Kardon drive Play Front View
Out there in the real world, where you all live, it's nearly March and you're probably gearing up for springtime and the upcoming show or race season. By now, the snow is subsiding and you're hard at work, installing that new roll pan or set of wheels that Santa dropped off for Christmas. Here, at Sport Truck though, it's only December, and we are still awaiting the jolly ol' fat guy to drop off our presents. Yeah, we really do work that far ahead to bring you the baddest trucks and hottest parts each month. Our work is never done, and our world doesn't really slow down much, even during winter. But, the upshot of working for the best truck magazine on earth is that we do get to play with some pretty cool trucks and the toys that make them so great. This issue is dedicated to the pursuit of fun and making your truck more fun to drive using some high-tech gadgets.
Our new staff feature editor, Kevin Aguilar, is a certified music junky and is actually pretty savvy when it comes to MP3s and music file sharing. He tested Harmon/Kardon's bitchen new Drive + Play system for the Apple iPod. This device makes it easy to connect your iPod to any car audio system and work the unit safely while you're cruisin' down the highway. It's an innovative system that's easy enough for even a computer-challenged guy like me to work and not crash my truck while doing it.
One of our freelancers, Kevin Whipps, offered up his Silverado as the guinea pig for a completely new replacement door handle system from LaFrance Autoworks. These aren't flashy billet handles or the Escalade replacement handles we are used to seeing on show trucks. The Magic Touch handle is a flat panel that replaces your stock handles and almost gives the appearance of a shaved panel, except without all of that messy paint and bodywork. Instead, these new handles bolt in place, covering the hole in the door panel. While these handles do have a clean fit, what we really dug about them was not needing a key or anything else to open up the door. All we had to do to open the door was pass our hand over the panel and the electrical current present in our hand triggered the AutoLoc solenoid mounted inside the door. Voila! The door opens without us fumbling for a key fob or remote.
This month, we are also treating Ford F-150 owners to an install of Wilwood's gigantic 16-inch disc brake system. If you have big wheels and don't like the puny looks of the factory disc brakes, then this article is for you. The system bolts on and doesn't require a new master cylinder either. Good looks aside, these brakes work well, especially if you drive your truck hard. Once behind the wheel of our test truck, we found it no longer suffered from brake fade even after going deep into the corners of long stretches of twisting road.
This issue is chock-full of high-tech parts to make your truck run even better. Gary tested MagnFlow's replacement catalytic converters, which are a cheap solution to buying new ones from Chevy after yours fail. Gary also tested Vizualogic's new drop-in headrest monitors and reports that not only do they directly replace the stock headrests in his truck, but the picture quality is outstanding as well. You can check out the monitors and an easy to install audio system from MTX.
This month, we also tackled the gremlins that plague our '96 Chevy Silverado and found some quick fixes to a bunch of problems your own '88-'00 model truck likely has. CK Resto provided the parts and advice to fix our leaky roof, leaky heater core, sagging doors, and hot floorboards. As these trucks become cheaper to buy on the used market, they become an even better buy when you have the right parts to fix one up yourself.
The fun doesn't stop with high-tech parts either. We dove into the reality of high-tech fuels and found some very interesting information. What if we told you that you could stop putting gas in your truck and have it run better to boot? It sounds too good to be true, but it's not. Alternative fuels are becoming a hot topic these days in the wake of increasing gas prices. Our man John Gilbert went deep undercover to find out why there aren't ethanol fuel pumps on every corner of the block in California. According to him, most new trucks from the Big 3 are flex fuel-ready, and testing showed that his 5.3L Vortec-powered Silverado gained as much as 2 mpg while running ethanol, which, by the way, costs almost 20-cents less per gallon than 87-octane unleaded gas. Think about paying less for a tank of fuel and actually bettering your own truck's fuel economy, and then you'll be as disappointed as we were to find that ethanol is only available to the public in two California gas stations. You folks in the Midwest are a little better off because ethanol is more readily available. We're going to keep exploring the issue of running alternative fuels, so keep your eyes peeled for more testing on that front.
What fun would the magazine be without trucks, right? Well, we love 'em as much as you do, so we've thrown in show coverage from across the nation. We toured the desert and made our way to the Truckin' Nationals in Lake HavasuCity, Arizona. We also journeyed to Virginia for the East Coast Nat's and to South Carolina for the Southeast Showdown. Each of these shows blew up and showed off distinctly different build styles coming from shops all across the nation. The shows cap off one of the hottest issues of the year, so sit back, pop open a cold one, or just lock the bathroom door and enjoy! I'll see you next month.
