Force

Very nice: I have also liked the Force 440 kit since my youth but I never had one, I got me an unbuilt model recently tho'.

Most of the car shows loose "the thing" in the long run and the focus in most the shows leans more to be about the arguments, fuss and other things non car related than about cars and car building wich is what I'm interested in. But my favourites are: Chasing Classic Cars Graveyard Cars, the show got a lot better since Darren left Wheeler Dealers, before they moved the show to the US, now it's more like any other US made car show and it has lost some of it's soul. Counting Cars, well it's not that much about building cars but the program is decent except for the "music video style" camera work. Jay Leno's Garage

You do stunning work as usual Chris, can't wait to see the finished product.

As my friend has a SS/AH car I have picked up a thing or two from him, his car is one of only four SS/AH cars in Europe, there are two here in Sweden and two in Finland. You should check out the Fireball carbs, I have bought several of his carbs and they are really great. You get a steadier timing as it's driven directly from the timing drive instead of from the camshaft as original, the camshaft can torsionally flex under heavy load and high valve spring pressures and that can cause a variable timing.

Well it's only a model so it really doesn't matter, but if you want to do it correct by the book it does. Have you looked at Fireball Modelworks carburetors, they are great, the FMR-091 RESIN HOLLEY 3116 CARBS (TWO PAIRS), 1/25 are perfect for this, he calls them 3116 and they are correct 4160 style carburetors for the 64-65 Race Hemi and 68 Superstock Hemi application and lots of others too. For the intake manifold, yes you can have hand made sheet metal intake manifolds built but the manifolds have to follow the OEM configuration, if the car originally has inline carbs they still have to be inline, and if it has cross ram it still has to be cross ram according to my NHRA rule book, so for a cross ram only 2 ports ports in each carburetor can be in line, the other ports can't be, and the 68 Hemi Barracuda and 68 Hemi Dart was not available with anything else than cross ram. Here is a relatively modern 68 Barracuda owned by a friend of mine, the engine is built by Joe Allread and was raced by Rick Houser and owned by Jim DeFrank, after Joe died Jim DeFrank quit racing Hemi's and sold all Hemi stuff except the car itself to my friend, he owns Hemi One and Hemi Three and this is Hemi Three.

Very nice model. I hate to be picky but Holley 4500 Dominators are not allowed in Superstock, the 68 Hemi Barracuda and Dart had 2 Holley 4160 style 770 cfm carburetors and I think you have to use the OEM style carbs and intake manifold configuration in SS/AH.

The costs to do silicone molds and copy things others have done or from their own masters, and do a steel tool from scratch for an injection molding machine is not on the same planet cost wise as you said, and I don't think our friend Bob has realized that if he compares the model manufacturers and resin casters as he do. They don't work in the same way and the only way a parts pack is doable for model manufacturers is if the tooling for the things are allready done, are in good condition, and if it's practical and economical to do a run from the tooling without too much labour and material used. And if we look at this from the MFG side these parts packs must have a chance to be profitable, otherwise it's no use doing them...and parts packs hasn't made much profit nor have they been huge sellers in the past...otherwise we would have lots of these parts packs on the market allready. Revell planned to do 4 motor cycle parts packs at the same time they did the engine packs but as the engine packs didn't sell that well they canceled the MC's and most likely all other potential parts packs they had thought of doing.

The Griffon was developed from the Schnider Trophy air racing "R" engine wich in turn was developed from the Buzzard and it has 10 litres larger displacement than the Merlin at 36,7 litres. I talked with a pilot some years ago who flew Merlin powered P51 D Mustang registration SE-BIL and Spitfire Mk XVI registration SE-BIN for the Swedish company Biltema, they also had a Griffon Spitfire Mk XVIII registration SE-BIR at the time, he flew all of them and I asked wich one he prefered to fly, he said the Spitfire Mk XVI was most fun, the Mustang P51 D was comfortable and easy to fly, and the Griffon Spitfire Mk XVIII was a beast as it was nose heavy and the Griffon rotates the opposite way from the Merlin so it was harder to fly. Unfortunately about a month later that same pilot crashed with the Griffon Spit in Tynset Norway and lost his life, the Mk XVIII is repaired and sold and is now in England with registration G-BUOS. The other two are still in Biltema ownership and flies at airshows around Europe.

I have never see any. I found another manufacturer with 1:24 scale aircraft kits with engine detail. Kinetic Models: Republic P 47D Thunderbolt 2 versions (Pratt & Whitney R 2800 18 cylinder radial)

I still think your suggestions regarding this are more suitable with the Round2/AMT crew. We can wish for all we want here on the forum but if the manufacturers never see or hear about it it will never be even considered. I'm sorry but that's the fact.

Here is a couple of resin 1:24 aircraft engines on ebay right now. Junkers Jumo https://www.ebay.com/itm/1-24-Junkers-Jumo-213a-V12-Resin-Engine/152318990306?hash=item2376eb57e2:g:E7AAAOSwB09YKxQU Rolls Royce Merlin https://www.ebay.com/itm/1-24-Rolls-Royce-Merlin-Hurricane-V12-Resin-Engine/152750963873?hash=item2390aabca1:g:q1QAAOSwiONYKw1I These are most likely casted from the Airfix kits, unfortunately he didn't do the engine from the Mustang P51D as it's a lot better detailed and a newer version than the one from the Hurricane. Airfix has quite a lot of 1:24th scale aircraft kits and all have engines. Supermarine Spitfire Mk I (RR Merlin V12) Hawker Hurricane Mk I (RR Merlin V12) Hawker Typhoon 1B (Napier Sabre 24 cylinder H) Focke Wulf 190A/F (BMW 801 14 cylinder Radial) De Haviland Mosquito FB VI (RR Merlin 2 X V12) North American Mustang P 51B/K (Packard Merlin V12) Junkers JU87B Stuka (Jumo 211 Inverted V12) Messerschmitt BF109E (Daimler Benz DB 601 Inverted V12) Trumpeter also has aircraft kits in 1:24th scale with detailed engines. Junkers JU87A Stuka (Jumo 211 Inverted V12) North American Mustang P51D (Packard Merlin V12) Messerschmitt BF 109 4 G and 1 K version (Daimler Benz DB 605 Inverted V12) Supermarine Spitfire 4 versions (RR Merlin V12) Hawker Hurricane 4 versions (RR Merlin V12) Focke Wulf 190 D9 (Jumo 213A Inverted V12) Mitsubishi Zero 2 versions (Nakajima NK 1C 14 cylinder Radial)

One thing comes to mind about several of your later posts Mr Grainger. Why don't you go directly to AMT/Round2 with your suggestions? Because we can't do anything about it so it's quite useless to bring them up here...We are just consumers/builders like you and not many from the industy takes the time to visit the different forums and message boards regarding this hobby frequently.

Now you can really root for Jonnie at Gainesville Niko. They have fitted a Ford Mustang body (most likely one of Force's former bodys) on the repaired chassis and he is also sponsored by Landmeco, a Danish company run by Karsten Andersen, a former Top Fuel car co-owner and one of the best European tuners together with the other co-owner Per Andersen (no relation) and they have at least 4 or 5 European Championships with different drivers, Karsten also helps with the tuning on Jonnies car.

None of the kits has aftermarket style tube headers, only two styles of factory cast iron headers, the early 352 High Performance, 390 High Performance and 406 medium length headers are in the Stock and 2 'n 1 DeLuxe kits and the late 406 and 427 long headers are in the Custom and 2 'n 1 DeLuxe kits. There are no standard 352-390 short flat manifolds in these kits as the 352 engine for the stock version is supposed to be a High Performance Interceptor Special wich is recognized by the small round decals that goes on the valve covers, the open element air cleaner and the medium length cast iron headers, the non HP engines did not have these things. The Custom and 2 'n 1 DeLuxe kits are pretty much the same except the 2 'n 1 DeLuxe kit has two engines wich you can do several factory versions from and all the stock parts from the first Stock only issue. The Factory High Performance engine versions you can do from the engine parts in these kits are 352 4V HP, 390 4V HP, 390 6V, 406 4V, 406 6V, 427 4V, 427 8V from 1960-64, and of course several other versions with some kitbashing.

There is Chinese quality control for you! It seems to happen more frequently nowadays.

Pegasus have a good selection in the store with both new and old model kits...at least when I was there last...but their website is one of the worst I have seen for a company that wants to sell on line.

I wonder where they got that statement from!??!! Ford Motor Company had engines with over 400 hp before 1964, the 406 Tri-Power introduced in 1962 was rated at 405 hp and the 427 introduced in 1963 was rated at 410 hp for the single 4bbl and 425 hp for the dual 4 bbl, those were available in both Ford and Mercury.

Nice work KJ.

I puzzles me too. The Y-block came in 1954 and the kit you are doing is a 56 so going for a flathead when everybody wanted the newer OHV designs is for me a bit weird. I would rather have put in an early Cadillac or maybe an Oldsmobile OHV V8 wich was a common doing in many pre Y-block Fords, the Cadillac and Oldmobile OHV V8 engines came in 1949 and was instantly poplular with hot rodders so many Shoebox 49--51 Fords and Mercurys ended up with Cadillac engines and I even know of a 56 Ford Victoria wich was at C.W. Moss in Orange, CA. when I was there some years ago, that car was appearently oredered without an engine and tranny, and a Cadillac engine and tranny was put in after the car was delivered, all according to the story I was told by the owner of the shop. But of course a Ford in a Ford is allways better.

I've also been to the Pegasus store at Moreno St up in Montclair CA, I try to go there every time I'm in the L.A. area and get me some kits and it's a neat place...but their website has a lot to desire. I hope this deal will be good for the hobby, but I'm a bit concerned as some things they have bought has more or less disappeared from the market, one example is the nice So-Real Concepts developed drag racing wheels, after Pegasus bought them out they were available for a while but now they are hard to find and I don't like that to happen with Moebius.

Nice to see you work on some models again Rickard.

The coil springs and shocks are mounted above the upper control arms in these cars so to get the SOHC to fit in the Mustang's small engine bay they had to shave off the complete spring tower and did the leaf springs to the lower control arms instead, maybe not optimal but it worked for straight line racing. The Fairlane has similar engine bay and they had to cut off some of the spring towers and move the upper control arms outwards a bit to fit the 427 wedge engine in the engine bay on the Thunderbolt, and with the SOHC heads you have to remove the towers all together to make room for that engine...so this suspension setup is one option, another might be coil over shocks.

I agree, the Fireball carbs are the best and most accurate on the market, I think the masters are 3D printed.

Just awsome!!

I couldn't agree more!!