Force

Oh forgot about her...well she isn't really a regular so that's maybe why I didn't think of her. I'm looking at live streaming of the Epping race right now as it's my only chance to follow NHRA drag racing nowadays. To go back to the old Enderle dual fuel pump plumbing here is a link to a build of Gary Ormsby's Dragster I did back in 1994. http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=91764&hl=

Isn't it the same Cummins NTA 370 engine as in the W-925 and T-600A kits, I believe the engine is the same in the W-925 kits with KW Torsion Bar and Hedricks Walking Beam so it could be the same for the K-123.

The Canopy developed by DSR a couple of years ago are used by the 3 DSR TF teams Tony Schumacher, Antron Brown and Spencer Massey, and the JFR team for Brittany Force...I don't think anyone else uses them right now...at least not in NHRA competition. To make a current TF dragster from the latest developments of the Revell kits you need to change to a larger set back 14-71 blower, if your kit doesn't have the "big and ugly" carbon fibre injector hat (the Army and Bud King kits do) you'll have to change to one, then change or modify the valve covers to resemble the Titanium pieces with spark plug covers they use now, add a blower bag and hold down straps, change the fuel pumps to dual spur gear pumps, change the magnetos to MSD Pro Mag 44's, add a titanium shield to the roll cage behind the drivers head, update the oil catch can system, add a belly pan, change the rear wing to a 3 element, change the front wings to a full width in front of the nose cone, change the windshield to a larger one (or canopy), and change the wheels to a more current style.

Back in the day when the new style TF kits were originally made most nitro racers used dual Enderle gerotor fuel pumps and that's what Revell duplicated on their TF kits back in 1989-90 so back then they were correct. Back then most teams used 2 barrel valves to get enough fuel into the engines, one on each side of the injector hat as the fuel flow wasn't enough in the old Enderle barrel valves to just use 1, one barrel valve was for feeding fuel to the lines under the injector hat and under the blower, and the other for the lines feeding fuel to the nozzles located in the intake port just behind the intake valves in the heads where most of the fuel are injected in a nitro engine so there were more lines distributing fuel back then than it is now. Today they use only one larger metering valve (Pete Jackson) and the fuel systems has changed some since then and looks a bit different, still the same number of nozzles but less valves and fuel lines, and the newer fuel management setup can't easily be adapted to these older pump setups. These Enderle fuel pumps was still there when Revell did the last updated TF dragster kits from 2002 with the Army and Bud King kits but all racers had changed to Sid Waterman "Bertha" series style dual spur gear pumps in the mid 90's as they gave more fuel flow per minute and higher fuel pressure than the Enderle pumps did, and that style pumps are still in use today on nitro engines. If you look at the schematic picture above there are fuel valves on the return lines, that's correct and it's not a fuel log as they used several valves to regulate how much fuel is returned to the tank as they enrich the engine as the clutch engages and the engine RPM goes down, all this is actuated by timers and pneumatics. Today most have replaced the multiple jet/timer system with a slide valve regulating the fuel curve. Here is some good information explaining the fuel system on a Nitro engine. http://www.darkside.ca/node/95 Revell never did enough updates to keep their Top Fuel Dragster kits up to current state over the years they were made. It's not only the fuel pumps that has changed since these TF kits were developed, back in 1990 mostly all who raced Nitro engines used dual Mallory Super Mags and that's what's in the Revell TF kits, but in the mid to late 90's when most of the development of the Nitro cars took place all nitro teams changed to the larger better MSD Pro Mag 44's as they came available but they did never appear on the kits. The blowers are larger 14-71's and set back, larger carbon fibre injector hats (often called big and ugly), 3 element rear wings, full width front wing and a some other things that Revell never did to their kits when they updated them (last was in 2002)....if they had they would still be pretty much up to date 13 years later as the cars looks nearly the same today as they did then.

Got my two sets in the mail the other day and they look nice and fits well.

The sadest part is that when they did the last issues they weren't exactly current either, these kits originally came out in the mid to late 80's and early 90's and was pretty much current when they were first released, the later issues were updated to a more current state but never enough to be "state of the art" at the time they were issued. If Revell had done the necessary updates to the Top Fuel kits back in 2002 they would still be pretty much up to date today13 years later as the outside apperance hasn't changed much over these years, same for the Funny Car and Pro Stock kits except for the bodies of course.

No current drag racing cars has been done lately, they have only done kits of older race cars and nostalgia race cars. The last current Top Fuel Dragster kits were the Tony Schumacher Army Dragster and the Kenny Bernstein Budweiser King Dragster from 2002. The latest current Funny Car kits were the Pontiac Firebird bodied kits from 1997-98. And the latest current Pro Stock Car kits were the Warren Johnson Goodwrench and Mark Pawuk Summit Pontiac Firebirds from 1999 reissued in generic form by Model King in 2005-6...nothing current since then. Revell has recently reissued a couple of the old Pro Stock cars from 1985-7 with the Reher-Morrison Camaro and Bob Glidden Motorcraft Thunderbird.

I remember and loved many of the Tom Daniels designed models from my yuth and I gladly built them as I thought they were cool, and I don't care much if the model is 1:24th or 1:25th scale, the difference is small and the subject is more important. 1:25th scale is mostly done by the US manufacturers, most others go for 1:24th scale like Tamiya, Aoshima, Fujimi, Italeri and several others.

It depends on wich version you're thinking about, here are a couple of pics I have saved, they are from 1974 and 1975.

I finally managed to order a couple of sets May 28th and they're on the way, hopefully I'll get them next week.

Looks great Chris!!

Looking good Sean.

The biggest problem is to find a '68 Barracuda kit to build from, the AMT (ex MPC) Barracuda kit reissued several times in the last decades is a 69 and the old MPC 68 Barracuda annual kits are hard to find for reasonable money. The 1968 is the only model year for this style Barracuda (together with the 68 Hemi Dart) classified for NHRA (and most others) Super Stock competition with the Hemi so the 69 will not work if you want to be correct as a 69 Hemi Barracuda never was built. But there are some resin casters who does the 68 Barracuda or has a transkit with the front, the hood and rear panel to do a 68 from a 69 so all hope is not lost, but it would be great if Revell did a 68 Barracuda based on the 68 Hemi Dart kit as we need a better one than what's available to us at this point.

I have that kit and I don't see an oil tank anywhere in my kit, it just has an air tank on the frame, a fuel tank and a water tank on the truck bed, as there are no radiator they circulate water from the water tank to the engine and back. After what I can see on the engine itself it's a wet sump so all the oil is inside the engine....so there are no need fro any outside oil lines, if it would have been a dry sump engine you would have had a flat shallow oil pan, a pump at one side of the engine and a not so large oil tank as you only need 5-10 quarts of oil in a dry sump system.

That Toyota is not the current one. The 2015 car looks like this.

The W925 kit has the wrong designation after the change to the Hendrickson Walking Beam but the K123 kit is correct, the K123 designation would have been wrong with the torsion bar suspension tho'. I don't know when AMT changed the suspension on the W925 kit, some say they changed when they did the Challenge Transit Mixer kit, but after what I have found out the Challenge Transit Mixer kit still had the torsion bar, so it must have been after that.

Nice work JT. I haven't forgotten about what we were takling about back in December, I'll get back to you on that soon.

They don't use the Impala anymore, the Chevy is a SS and the SS has a distinct cove on the sides behind the front wheel wich the Fusion doesn't have.

You don't need to worry about oil lines as it's all internal on this particular engine, fuel and ignition are the things you need, this 454 use the same 18436572 firing order as a regular Chevy V8, you can use a 7-4 swap where cylinder 7 and 4 change places in the order, a common thing on Chevy race engines. For the fuel system, I agree with Ace, if you understand the function it's a lot easier to get it right, his post explains how the fuel system works good so if one follow that it's quite easy to plumb. I have a couple of schematic pictures explaining the same thing, these are for Top Fuel and Funny Car Nitro burning engines, the basic layout are the same for other fuels such as Methanol or Gasoline but a Nitro engine needs a lot more fuel so they have more distribution points and larger fuel pumps. So for a Gas or Methanol engine you can disregard the dual fuel pumps and the lines going in to the back of the cylinder heads as that's only used in nitro burning engines, some Methanol engines have fuel distribution both at the injector and at the intake manifold under the blower and some put in all the fuel at the injector only so that's up to you what system you want to use. To further explain how a mechanical fuel system works, the fuel pump allways delivers the same ammount of fuel and you regulate how much fuel the engine gets with how much you return back to the tank, less return the engine runs rich and much return the engine runs lean, and you want to run the engine as lean as possible without burning valves or pistons as a too lean engine does just that. Nitro works quite different as Nitromethane (CH3NO2) allready has 2 oxygene atoms bound within it wich Gasoline and Methanol doesn't have, so they try to get as much fuel as possible in to the combustion chamber to make more power, and that's why they have a lot larger fuel pumps and more fuel distribution points.

I got one of these the other day to complete the 359 "small window" collection, I allready have the original T500-500, the T500 and the T522 Wrecker.

Nice work Jarda, I really like to follow your builds. I agree with the others, it looks better if the top of the sleeper are the same hight as the top of the cab.

Of course I use the instructions. I go through them quite thoroughly when I open the box often immediately after I bought the kit (that's why allmost all of my kit boxes are opened), partly to see what the kit contains and to see if something is missing when the kit is new and it's possible to do something about it, and partly to see how things goes together. Then when I build the kit I only glance at them now and then when I'm not certain where a part will go or/and how they are assembled but most of the basic assemblies on most model kits are quite easy to understand and after 40 years of building and looking at model kits and real cars I mostly go by experience. Another thing...I rarely build a kit "out of box" and when you modify a kit, kitbash and change things around the instructions are kind of useless.

How about the engine in the stock version of the AMT 34 Ford 5 Window Coupe, it's a bone stock 21 stud flattie and has some optional hop up parts. The axles and suspension could also work.

Yes one engine runs in reverse, no problem to achieve, it just needs a cam shaft grinded in reverse and reverse the oil pump If they are coupled together you only need one starter.

Wheels with tires, the 10 hole disc wheels from the AMT Kenworth K100 Aerodyne, the 5 hole front wheels from the Autocar A64B, Dayton wheels from the GMC Astro95/Chevrolet Titan 90 and others, the larger 11.00 X 22 wheels from the White Freightliner. Maybe a kit to do a Single Drive and Day Cab from the Dual Drive Sleeper Cab White Freightliner, AMT has done both versions. Thermo King Reefer unit with tank from the Ertl Great Dane Trailer. Smoke Stacks, Horns, Roof Lights are some other things. Fuller Transmissions, are in several kits. Rear Suspensions, the KW Air Glide 100 from the K100 kits, KW Torsion Bar from the old W925, Mack Camel Back. There are certainly more, but these comes to mind right now.