horsepower

Nice '39, I really like the interior, but just one of my pet peeves about these kits is people think they're like Fords of the same era, they don't have any chrome on the side's of the body, just the sides of the hood along the louvers. Thanks for letting us see your build

I may be off, but is Brayton the builder that based their motor on the Mercury Marine 470 block that used the Ford 460 head on a custom made block that used GM distributor mounts and drives, and the small 2.8. V6 bellhousing bolt pattern, but the stock block was special made for Mercruiser out drives, we built one of these for a class of pro four late models that the rules said any four cylinder production engine, after the first practice day the rules changed to any production automotive engine, this thing was a torque monster and it wasn't uncommon for one to smoke a big block Chevy.Ford, or even a 455 Olds powered jet boat.I was a certified mercury marine mechanic and what the general public didn't know was the 470 designation stood for four cylinders of 70 cubic inches each, imagine a 280 cubic inch four cylinder breathing through the 460 Ford cylinder head, with a switch to an aluminum head and ports you could throw a cat down these things were giant killers. One of the other trick thing these engines employ is an alternator that mounts behind the water pump pulley and requires nothing but a crank to water pump drive belt for a reliable low drag alternator, they're getting popular for street rods and some late models now.

Nope, the camera is kinda like the IRS, you can't get away with hiding anything, lol.

Would really look cool if you used the head rest from the old Kurtis kit too. (At least to me)

Have you tried Krylon "Gold Plate" in the spray paint, if you"puddle" the paint into place, it actually looks pretty shiny, justify don't touch it, but should work for touching up sprue attaching points, and there is gold bare metal foil too, but it's kinda on the "brassy" side.

Just asking but is your friends car an actual '62 'Vette, or is it one of the custom coachworks cars that is built on a '94 and up chassis, the biggest give away is the windshield frame is the newer style. I'm thinking about building a model of a red one we saw at "Hot August Nites", but the biggest hangup is to actually build it to the right width it will take two bodies since the real car is close to a foot wider than a stock '62. And to do it you need to cut one in half lengthwize, and cut the extra width from the center of the other body.

Love the purple idea, Ford had a great purple in the mid '90s called "true violet" I did a couple of R/C race cars in it.

A tip for you on your axles that I first discovered when my "assistant", tossed out the small bag containing the axles to one of my new Mustang kits, I went to the hardware store and found some small nails that were the same size in diameter as the original metal axles and bought a small box, the length didn't matter because you can cut them to length with a Dremel cutoff wheel, or wire cutters and clean the end up with a file, or leave it, the slightly larger spots left by the wire cutters makes it easier for the wheel retainers to stay on the axle even without a small drop of super glue.

Actually the outline of these windows would be black rubber, they don't have chrome, just the rubber moulding that holds them in place, both front and rear. I've restored and painted a couple of these in 1:1 and am pretty familiar with them. The only chrome around the windows would be around the vent windows, and even that one has a thin line of black weather stripping between the door and the front of the wind wing, and there would be a chrome moulding in between the two front windshields, unless you are representing it as a "butted" joint, or as a one piece molded windshield that the aftermarket is now offering for custom builds.

If you can find one, the Revell Beatnik Bandit II has a really nice Mustang II/Pinto type front subframe and suspension that would work wonders in this for making a street type car, and give you a lot of under hood room since you'd remove the stock spring towers completely and use flat inner panels then, you could go with the 427 Ford parts pack engine from Revell, they're still pretty easy to find and fairly cheap too.

Really looking good, I didn't notice if you have an upright in the chassis for a panhard bar on the front axle yet, also have you tried using small alligator clips for heat sinks to keep from unsoldering previous work? Perfect used to make some small aluminum heat sinks that worked like alligator clips just for this but I'm not sure if they still produce them, you can check with a hobby shop that does a lot of aircraft work, also Radio Shack sells some, along with Micro-Mark. The engine in the diecast is supposed to be an Ed Pink engine that used a 460 Ford based cylinder head, you might find someone with the Monogram F-350 truck kit that might have a stock Ford valve cover, that kit is 1/24 scale and has a 460 in it. Keep going you're doing a great job, keeping us all drooling waiting for your updates.

And if you count the Model King police car, we had three versions of the '57 Ford in one year, that should mean they already have the AAR, and are just sitting on it until they sell a few more of the two releases already out.

Just curious, but why do you think R2 would release a Lindberg kit in a "retro" AMT box?

That's a good idea, do you think it should be race cars, or "circle track" since a road course is a circle track, it just has a few kinks, but still starts and ends at the same point.

True blue pearl with white or silver Shelby stripes, or deep black, with matte black Mach I striping, it would appear as ghost stripes not really showing until the light hit it right, and to make sure, do the whole car gloss black and do the stripes with a semi gloss, or flat clear, that way the shades and tints of the black would match. Really want a black that appears really deep, make the last coats with clear, two parts transparent blue, and one part transparent smoke tint then top coat with straight clear, there is nothing as deep appearing as a true blue-black for depth and reflections.

I think he's installed the firewall all ready as it's not a part of the body molding but makes the underhood compartment complete, and yes the front core support is missing, and I doubt that the kit piece will work with the BIG 427 in place, I'd use a radiator out of one of the mid '90s NASCAR kits and just fabricate filler panels for each side. I know you've already got the glass, but in the one I drug out of storage, the stock Windows from both the '74, & '77 kit and the windows from the"Fireman" Pro Stock kit ALL fit in my body. I like the big block but if I ever get around to mine I'm going to use the 3.8 supercharged V-6 from the '90 Thunderbird Super Coupe, I think it would have made a great phantom version that Shelby, or the factory should have made.

I know that they're not the exact tints of paint that the real car has, but that is three colors with the split between top and bottom being along the upper trim molding, I'd go with creamsicle for the light top color, and tangelo pearl for the lower color, these are HOK colors, the insert I'd use Testors one coat metallic bronze, or HOK kandy Root Beer over a copper base.

Want a very pretty, different, color? Use the bright blue one step lacquer for a base, and Tamiya clear red for the color, and top coat with wet coat clear, you'll have a truly different shade of candy purple, try it on a spoon first if you want to see it before you commit. I did basically the same thing with blue metal flecks spray can base and metal cast red anodizing paint for the color, but you might not want that coarse of metallic for your base since it looks like a metalflake base with a candy purple color, and their blue is pretty dark makes for a dark purple that comes to life in the light.

Even the PE pieces that he has are for the standard steering wheel, notice that they only have three holes and are to be placed on the flat pre painted steering wheel spokes.

Just about any of Monogram's Pro Stock kits, or even their Pro Mod kits, my favorite is the ones out of the '87-'88 Thunderbird kits, the ones with the housing bracing.

What color/paint did you use on the bottom half of the '57?

Your pictures weren't really close enough to see how bad the misalignment in the rear clip is but it looks like making a single saw cut from back to front on each side of the lock assembly might take just enough material out to realign the rear lines.

For those that are going to point out that the 1/25 scale '55 Chevy kits from Revell have an oil filter, the remote filter they have that's right in front of the air cleaner on the intake manifold is an option, kind of a Mickey Mouse looking affair with little 1/8 npt fittings in the front of the block feeding it with oil directly from the oil passage along the cam valley, it was a full flow filter without a bypass if it plugged up, and ,or from having such small lines caused some real restrictions if you tried running it with much oil pressure or at a very high RPM, most serious racers drilled and retapped the block for bigger line's and a less restrictive plumbing set-up, a lot of racers just didn't run a filter at all and took their chances, it was the big bucks NASCAR guys that redid the oiling system for more reliability, the filter actually being one of the minor changes.

The belt ran inside of the idler pulley will engage more teeth and will be less likely to start shearing teeth off the drive belt because it takes the same force to spin the blower, but spreads it out over more teeth, but it also takes more power to spin the blower, it's a tradeoff between horsepower and reliability.

Is that Comet, one of the Williams Bros. kit? Looks nice, I've got at least one of every racing plane from their lineup.