Since the earliest performance parts began to emerge from the dust on dry-lakes proving grounds in Southern California following World War II, hot rods have been a mainstay of the automotive specialty-equipment industry. They spark the imaginations of builders in every car and truck niche, and they...

Framed by those tall velocity stacks is Bruce Crower, photographed late in 1966 for a Car Craft magazine article about his then-new fuel-injection systems for big-block Chevy engines. The air/horsepower equation in our title was the story’s title as well, referring to Crower’s “deep breathing”...