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Stuart Hilborn's Prototype Fuel Injection And Racer


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I am researching the Stuart Hilborn streamliner and his prototype fuel injection unit he broke 150 mph with. I have found a few pix, but need shots of the chassis, suspension, drive train, etc., etc., also detail shots of the fuel injection unit, especially the fuel pump, filter, and mounting arrangements.

This will be a 1/25th scale model of a subject I have never seen modeled, and I think one of the most significant hot rods ever built deserves the best effort I can muster.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

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  • 3 weeks later...

It sounds like you’ve done a fair amount of research so some of this might seem redundant.

First off, apparently the car has been cloned and was shown at the Petersen Museum. I would consider this the number one lead in tracking down details.. An excellent thread about the project can be found at http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthr...ghlight=Hilborn . Apparently the car was extensively researched. The thread includes many fine pictures of the car and even a great cutaway drawing of the pre-FI version that shows such obscure details as the location of the hand pressure pump.

th_StuHilborncutaway.jpg

A brief anecdote about the recreation and referencing the ’23 Chevrolet rails that form the chassis of the streamliner can be found at: http://www.landracing.com/index.php?option...view&id=116 about mid way down the page.

The American Hot Rod Foundation has several excellent picture including a tack sharp picture of the injectors (unfortunately without the pump):

th_StuHilbornfirstinjectors.jpg

and a murky color picture under the hood which shows the pump location, some of the plumbing and intimates that the heads were either blue or, due to color distortion, black. All these pics can be readily downloaded. See http://ahraf.com/pioneer.php?pioneer=stuart_hilborn .

As far as I know Hilborn is still alive and active and you might contact http://www.hilborninjection.com/ and inquire about the Lattin project and any contacts they could provide.

Good clear pictures can be found in Dean Batchelor’s “The American Hot Rodâ€, still in print from Motorbooks International. This includes pics of the car, the often reproduced picture of the FI and its pump sitting on top of the hood of the streamliner, and Stu and Eddie Miller (who was Stu’s mentor and who Stu refers too, unnamed, in the American Hot Rod Foundation on-line video clip) crouching in front of the streamliner’s chassis, giving a sense of scale and how the front axle is welded to the frame.

Two good clear shots, including this one in color:

th_StuHilbornsqueeze.jpg

can be found in “The Birth of Hot Rodding†by Robert Genat and Don Cox from Motorbooks International.

For a wonderful sequence of the evolution of the original Bill Warth modified into the Hilborn streamliner see Albert Drake’s “Flat Out†(available from the author at http://www.rdrop.com/~moss/flatout/ ) , pg. 20.

Some pages from the legendary “Veda Orr’s Hot Rod Pictorial†showing the Hilborn Streamliner are reproduced at http://positiveapeindex.blogspot.com/2006/...ctorial_21.html .

A remarkably inaccurate article from the April 1948 issue of Hot Rod Magazine, where the Streamliner is the cover car and Hot Rod of The Month features the only interior shot of the streamliner I’ve ever seen, including a clear representation of the pedals, butterfly steering wheel, transmission and less clear depiction of the dashboard. The first year of HRM is available as a paperback book from Motorbooks Internation under the title “Hot Rod Magazine – The First 12 issuesâ€.

I hope some of this helps, anyway. It really is a beautiful car and deserves to be accurately modeled.

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Second oh yeah ... as you probably know by the time Hilborn ran the car it had no suspension. Ironically, the April 1948 HRM article has an elaborate description of the springs, etc. of the front and rear suspension. despite the fact that Bill Warth had welded the axles to the frame ten years earlier in 1938!

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Guys, thanks so much for the abundant information on this famous car. Some of the info I already had, much is new as far as sources and links. I also was given Jim Lattin's address from Don Montgomery and will get in touch with him regarding build pix and basic dimensions. This project is still a ways away, but I am gathering a few parts together and stowing them in a box for "later"! My thoughts include a junker Monogram T35B Bugatti for some of the basic body shapes, a Monogram Green Hornet grille and front crossmember for a start on the front end shapes, and now you understand my interest in the "making louvers" thread! I'm thinking I will lay out the outline of the louver areas with tape, mark each slot, cut the slot with a razor saw, then cover each slot with Evergreen 0.040" quarter round with the inside removed and the outside ends sanded to shape- this is going to be tedious! And yes, Lyle, I will need a lot of those- as well as the rest of my 3 sizes of hex nut heads from Norm!

Edited by Paul Payne
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Bernard, I tried your photobucket link but could only get to the photobucket home page. Can you check the link? Thanks.......

Paul:

Try this - http://s16.photobucket.com/albums/b18/gbk1/Hilborn/

BTW, didn't your mother tell you you will go blind making louvers that way - but they will look spectacular if you survive the ordeal!

B.

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