Dennis Lacy

You mean instead of a $50 dollar Hayden fan off the shelf from Pepboys with those awesome through-ties rammed through the radiator core to hold it on?

The stance and proportions look really good, Chris! Nice fab work and the engine looks awesome, too. It has already been done a bunch on the Ford 4.6 DOHC (which is what the models engine is) engines although typically there are 8 throttle bodies and at first glance they look like a 4 - Weber setup. The same is also available for the more current Coyote DOHC engines. That said, with the tuning capabilities available today there's no reason a 6 throttle body arrangement couldn't be made to work, especially sharing a common air plenum.

An electric fan would look like poop on this car.

Tim, I considered grafting the outer parts of the kit axle tubes to the tapered axle housings but found that the size discrepancy where the two would need to join would leave a noticeable step. This way was pretty easy, really. With the rear lowered 1/16th" the Revell '32 series coil overs are the perfect length, just have to drill a hole for the upper mount pins. I would have changed them anyway because the '29 kit coil overs look too fat. If I had not lowered the back of the car first I probably could have gotten away with doing nothing in the front, kinda painted myself into a corner. Now that it's all done I'm glad I did it because I'm really happy with the stance. I can't wait to see your A-framed '29 hiboy!

Inner structure and "metal" work look great!

Glad I could shed some positive light on the modern Ala Kart for you!

Thanks, Tim! I would love to attend one of the Legendary NNL's back there but I'm stuck out here on the lower left coast. Oh! Well, in that case I completely agree!

While the modern tooled Ala Kart has it's short comings (like the engine being, literally, too short) it does have good value as a parts donor for the hot rod kit basher. For instance, the excellent set of big & little whitewalls tires, chrome/reverse wheels and brakes. The beam axle has a healthy drop and if one doesn't like the air spring suspension a conventional spring can be glued on top of it (the stock axle spring from the original AMT '29 Roadster kit fits quite nice and is pretty flat for setting the front end LOW). And, while the engine (and therefor heads/valve covers/intakes) is too short the front cover/water pump, belt drive, generator and fan are scaled well and can be glued to the front of the Dodge Red Ram in the original AMT '29 Roadster kit which (except for the Ala Kart double kits) comes with a competition only blower setup. This lets you build a streetable version of the Dodge Red Ram! The picture below shows the modern Ala Kart engine front drive parts attached to the original '29 Roadster Dodge Red Ram engine. Also shown is the modern Ala Kart front axle fitted with the spring from the stock axle in the AMT original '29 and the modern Ala Kart front wheels, tires and brakes. Hosted on Fotki The finished model also uses the modern Ala Kart rear wheels & tires and the custom taillights. On this model the wheel chrome was stripped off and they were painted with hubcaps from the AMT '53 Ford Truck. Hosted on Fotki Hosted on Fotki The picture below shows a Lindberg '34 Ford Pickup frame modified with the full modern Ala Kart suspension. The only thing I changed was deleting the rear torque tube and radius rods for short trailing arms and a live drive shaft. Hosted on Fotki Same chassis as a roller also using the modern Ala Kart wheels, tires and brakes. Hosted on Fotki Hosted on Fotki Same model finished. Hosted on Fotki Hosted on Fotki So you see, the modern Ala Kart definitely has redeeming value!

Fantastic motor mount cross member. Split radius rods look good, too. Very interesting supercharger setup. Looks like it's cam driven? The air intake plenum on the front of the SC would look neat reshaped a bit with a (left to right) row of two-barrels across it.

Not only was the first '50 Pickup ARDUN head setup shaped and sized wrong, the engine also used a standard flathead intake manifold which is completely wrong as the ARDUN heads have their own intake ports and require a custom manifold. It also requires a separate flat valley plate to cover where the original intake manifold would go. It's still not enough under size to work on a V860 engine.

It's not an ideal situation but, yes, a torque tube would take care of the axle rotation issue. Typically, if using trailing arms with a torque tube they have to be the same length of the tube and the front pivot points of the trailing arms have to be exactly aligned (front/back) with the attachment/pivot point on the back of the transmission or serious binding will happen as all three move up and down and try to swing through different arcs. The better idea would be to fabricate some new diagonal rear rods that come off of the existing axle brackets and attach at the same point on the torque tube, like Ford's original design. In that design the rods purpose is brace the axle tubes. Luckily, we're only building models here and there's some leeway.

Both would be fine, too. It's just that every modern-tool hot rod or custom kit that Revell offers with multiple 2-barrel carburetion has the same old helmet or bell shaped air filters. The one exception being the ARDUN converted flathead engine in the '50 Ford truck which has three Holley "94" carbs with molded on straight, angle cut tubes. The curved air scoops are incredibly popular on full scale traditional hot rods.

The 2nd attempt at proportion looks really good to me including the often hard to get right overhead view. I also like the very subtle forward rake. Looks like about an inch difference if this were a 1:1 scale car. Not a fan, at ll, of the stink bug stance some hot rods have. One of the things I think a lot of people get wrong on low slung cars like this is a stupidly long wheel base. The radiator shell/grill should be no further forward than it needs to be for engine clearance and the axle should be a half foot or less in front of the grill (basically the room that is required for a cross member tube and spring perch. Some cars have the front axle a foot + ahead of the grill and it just looks dumb. Carry on!

That's a wicked looking frame! Very in keeping with the extreme styling put into some rat rods. Lots of swoop, lots of holes. One critique on the suspension design... The single attachment point of the trailing arms at the axle brackets would not work because as you have it now, there would be nothing to control axle rotation under acceleration or braking. As it is now the axle would flap up and down uncontrollably and break the U-joints / drive shaft in the first 100 feet it was driven. The arms either need double attachment points at the axle housing bracket (either vertically or horizontally) or a second pair of upper arms. That is, if you are concerned about it looking like a prototypical suspension design.

The other point is that while a lot of these kits have been reissued many times over the last 3 decades most of those reissues don't have all of the awesome vintage hot rod and custom parts that the original and recently restored to original issues do. That makes them a very valuable asset to the hobby and worth the cost. Sure, you can buy cheap 80's and 90's issues of the AMT Model A Roadster and '32 Ford kits at model shows or on Ebay and end up with awful looking 70's wheels and equally awful mile-wide hollow vinyl tires, boring engine parts and worthless decal sheets. In those old '32 kits (for example) the neat parts are the incentive, the horribly ill proportioned "sheet metal" sure isn't.

On another note, I just noticed that the channeled version is sporting a set of nice looking, small diameter, bullet-shaped headlights. I also truly wish they would have chosen something more interesting than the same old bell-shaped air filter. Some curved air scoops would have been killer. http://htsmall.macsautoparts.com/assets/macs/images/size/265x265/sku/64-50884.jpg

My opinion, the separation line you're seeing at the lower corner of the windshield post is part of the separate dashboards upper rail. Looking closer down the side of the body there is no doubt (in my mind) that the body is one piece. There is no separation line. The raised molding features look accurate, too. What it definitely looks like (to me) is that this body has raised wheel wells like the roadster which makes sense since it will share the identical chassis save for the small block Chevy.

I hardly think it's fair to condemn them all as rubbish. I don't have a personal interest in every single kit they have re-released but all of the Double T's, Double Dragster, '32 Vicky, '36 Coupe/Roadster, '37 Chevy Coupe and others like them restored back to their original configurations with vintage parts that hadn't been available for decades are treasure troves of hot rod parts for serious kit bashers and fanatics of pre-70's Traditional Hot Rods. The parts count, alone, justifies the price tag and is totally competitive among other US-brand car kits like Revell and Monogram. In some of those cases you get enough parts in the box to assemble two complete vehicles!

What I don't like more than any of that is the modern radial tires. They destroy the look of cars built to, otherwise, look vintage. Especially the weathered/patina look this one has. The Chevy engine wouldn't be so bad if it had more vintage equipment on it like a row of 2 barrel carbs, earlier finned valve covers and a generator.

One of the sleekest track nose A roadsters ever with a history as interesting as the car itself. Really looking forward to watching this come together and seeing how you go about replicating all of the custom bodywork. Of course, you could always forego all of the hard work and do the yellow Tom Branch version, hahaha

Thanks for your comments, Bill. "Makes a statement" is what I'm going for.

It took me a double take to realize the roadster in the illustration is not on a '32 frame. The header covers are trimmed up Model A splash aprons that mimic the shape of the cove in a '32 frame. There's some really neat details going on in that illustration. I dig how the pitman arm is curved to match the shape of the cowl line just behind it. It's also a shame that you can't get those Deluxe Champion Firestone style tires in skinny front 450-18 if one were to build the real car.

This kit is a huge win for us hot rod builders but even with it's many, many strong points the more traditionally minded among us can't help but wish that Revell had designed it with a Halibrand quick change rear axle. It's just one of those parts that screams HOT ROD! Since this car is going to have a dual purpose appearance with the Moon tank, Hilborn injection and Bell steering wheel it only seemed right that it has a Halibrand axle hanging out back. I spent more time going through all of my parts deciding what to use for donors and settling on an approach than it actually took to do all of the work. I started with the extremely well rendered Halibrand QC center section found in Revell's Kurtis Midget kits and the axle tubes from Revell's old 29/31 Model A kits. Hosted on Fotki I cut away the molded partial axle bells from the QC and opened up the inside diameter of the hole so that the alignment flanges on the axle tubes would register inside. At first I thought that just the plating was flawed on the tubes but after sanding the paint away I found the plastic was damaged too so I replaced them with another pair of tubes. Hosted on Fotki I cut away the shock mounts from the kit axle and attached them to the new QC axle tubes. I really don't like the rear coil-overs in this new kit because they're really fat & ugly so I replaced them with the slimmer (and better detailed IMO) coil overs from Revell's '32 kit series. I also had to enlarge the slots in the kit ladder bars to fit the new, thicker axle tubes. Some of you may wonder why I didn't replace the coil overs all together with a Model A spring. I considered that but ultimately decided that I didn't want to alter the floor pan to fit with the necessary Model A rear cross member. Hosted on Fotki Hosted on Fotki And a couple of "up skirt" photos showing off the new Halibrand quick change. Hosted on Fotki Hosted on Fotki I also thinned down the front spring a little to give the car a very subtle forward rake. Exactly the look I'm going for so at this time the stance is set. Hosted on Fotki