Force

Very Nice!

Many thanks again, your comments are appreciated.

I haven't built it but I have it in my stash, but it should go together as nice and easy as the other "New Era" Funny Cars from Monogram and Revell. The McEwen 57 Chevy Bel Air is a spin off from the original Monogram Funny Car tooling from 1984 when these new era Funny Cars came out and it's pretty much the same except for the body and body related parts. Don "Snake" Prudhomme's Wendy's/Pepsi and Dale Pulde's Miller High Life Warrior Trans Am's and Billy Meyer's Chief Autoparts/7-Eleven Mustang was the first in the series and the last kits in the series was the McDonalds, Parts America, MAD, and a couple of special event kits from the same tooling from 1997.

The transmission in front of the Allison engine is to reduce the propeller shaft speed to half of the crank shaft (the gear ratio is 2.00:1 so it reduces the prop shafts speed from the engines maximum 3000 rpm to 1500), it also reverse the rotation of the engine. The lower hole in the Allison transmission case is for the crank shaft and the upper is for the propeller shaft and they are connected with two gears and no clutch, this reducer gearing is not needed for this use so you could have used the clutch can from the original engine instead of the reducer gear and adapt it to the Allison engine for a convincing setup with a clutch. Just a thought.

Ohh I forgot...A very nice build Steve.

Thanks guys!! Yes I know now it's the wrong color, after what I have read Jake King painted the engines he built for Sox & Martin Ford Engine Blue to recognize his work and as a homage to his own days racing Fords...but I didn't know that back then when I built this model almost 18-19 years ago...as I said, I didn't have much references when I built it.

Time to show another of my old builds. I have allways liked this old Jo-Han kit ever since I first saw one at my cousins back in the early 70's, so I have wanted one for myself ever since and I finally got my chance when Seville re-issued the kit in the 90's...I bought two. The model was built in 1995-6 and it's built out of box but detailed with fuel lines, brake lines, ignition wires, throttle linkage, a 4-point racing harness with photo etched hardware, photo etched hood pins, hose clamps and a few more things. I had to fix the grille some as all of these kits I have have the same cracks under the outer headlights (I think all have) after that the grille area is painted aluminum with silver headlight bezels and grille hole edges. Everything except the lettering and contingency decals is painted, even the stripes over the hood and trunk are painted as the kit decal was too light in color (Seville included the wrong decal as it was for the SS/E Superbird model), the paint I used was rattle can touch up paints, Volvo 189 White, Ford 4ZP Spannish Red and Ford 2PP Azur Blue Metallic and Clear over that and polished out, BMF was used on the outside trim and finally the decals, and it looks kind of right. I know this model isn't quite correct, I didn't have much references other than the box art and I looked some at the old 1970 Hot Rod article of the S & M 70 'Cuda in black and white so I had to "wing it" some, so the engine for one is the wrong color (should be Ford Engine Blue) and some other things I've found out later, but the model came out pretty much as I wanted it at the time. I couldn't fit the side glass as the roll bar interfered with them and it was too late to fix it, so if you want your model to have the side glass you have to shorten the top of the roll bar and angle in the uprights slightly...or make a new one. I have plans to build a better, more correct version of this car as I have found lot's of references since I got a computer and internet, and I have gathered up a few more of these kits since my first two as this old Jo-Han kit one of my absolute favourite kits ever. Enough talk, to the pics. Enjoy!

NHRA instated the Factory Experimental class (FX) in 1962, the letter before (A, B, C) is the weight break, in this case weight to cubic inches instead of the weight to factory rated horsepower as in the Stock/Super Stock classes. One thing tho', the radically altered wheelbase cars of 64-65 were never allowed in the NHRA FX class even tho' most of them had the A/FX classification on them (NHRA didn't allow wheelbases altered more than 2%) so they were mostly used for match racing.

Interesting...so then we can do a more correct looking Motown Missile and Sox & Martin 1972 Cuda...Nice!

That kit is originally made by MPC and is 1:16th scale. I've had it myself once.

It was unfortunate you didn't do your build in 1:24th scale because the Mooneyham blowers are available in that scale. Monogram had Mooneyham blowers in the Don "Snake" Prudhomme Pepsi/Wendy's, Dale Pulde Miller High Life Warrior Pontiac Firebird and the Billy Meyer Chief Auto Parts/Wendy's Ford Mustang Funny Cars from 1985 and they still used the same setup with the Kenny Bernstein Ford Tempo from 1986. The Funny Cars left Monogram and was sold under the Revell name from the late 80's and the John Force/Bruce Larson/Ed "Ace" McCulloch/Cruz Pedregon/Richard Hartman Oldsmobile Cutlass, the Kenji Okazaki/Chuck Etchells/Tom Hoover/Gary Densham/KC Spurlock/Dean Skuza Dodge Avenger and the Tom "Mongoo$e" McEwen 57 Chevrolet Bel Air Funny Car from Revell had the same blower...even the latest version of the tooling from 1997, the Cruz Pedregon/Randy Anderson/Jerry Toliver Pontiac Firebird Funny Cars still has the "M" on the front cover but the blower case in these Firebird kits wasn't plated and had a blower blanket.

Yea you're right, I just quoted the texts on the websites at the links, I haven't had time to research the subject much more than that except for collecting pictures for future use, So i'm open to all info as one of Petty's 64 Plymouth's are on my build list. Here you see the lighter blue color under the hood in a color photo I found on the web a while ago.

Keep up the good work. The "M" on the front cover of the blower stands for Mooneyham, I don't know if that exact type of blower were around back in the day when this car ran but the restored car seems to have one. The "M" is surrounded with Mooneyham above the "M" and Blowers under it.

Yes it's a restored car but it says it's a replica clone of the original 1964 Daytone 500 Winner...but as it's built recently it can for sure be differences between the original car and the clone. I agree that the engine probably was Race Hemi Orange as they were from the factory and not blue, and I have also seen a picture with the light blue under the hood...pretty much the same blue as the engine in the restored car is. They had several cars for different tracks each year even back then as they do today...not as many tho'...so of course there are differences between them, but the Daytona Winner was the first.

I understand your point of view, yes it might be a waste of time removing unwanted plating but if no parts were plated the choices are very limited if you would have liked them plated...especially when you don't have a vacuum plating service for modelers at hand wich we don't have over here. So therefore I prefer to have plated parts in model kits even though I might remove the plating...at least I have the choice to do as I please.

I have seen those single drive two axle tractors with dual 27-28 feet bottom dump trailers all around the L.A. area the six times I have been there so far and I have allways wondered what they were used for. One day a couple of years ago I saw a lot of them dumping asphalt on a road in Stanton and an asphalt paver came after gathering up and spreading the asphalt string out...but there may be other uses for this combinations too...I don't know.

The funny thing is that the 427 did not have 427 cubic inches displacement, it was closer to 425 cubic inches, but Ford thought 427 sounded better and 7 litre was the limit for road racing sanctioning bodies back in the day so they chose to call the engine 427. The 428 was 7 litres and was a lot cheaper to manufacture than the for racing only 427, the 428 has longer stroke and smaller cylinder bore than the 427 and was easier to cast so they went over to that and phased out the 427. The 427 had the same 3.78 inch stroke as the 390 and 4.23 inch bore wich adds up to 424.744 ci and the later 428 had 3.985 inch stroke and 4.135 inch bore wich adds up to 427.896 ci.

Here are some good pictures. http://www.43plymouth.com/ http://www.hotrod.com/feature_stories/1404_the_kings_first_elephant/photo_01.html

A cool can can be any color, it's just a container filled with ice with a coiled fuel line inside, I have seen red, blue, yellow, black and aluminum colored ones, Moroso's cool can was aluminum, red or blue. Some has the sides insulated with cork and some doesn't.

I have the Grumpy's Toys book wich is a good and interesting read and I can recommend it to anyone with an interest in drag racing history. Jenkins used the same car both in 1979 and 1980, and after what I can see from the pictures in the book braided lines and AN fittings were used in the 1979 "Toy XV" Camaro. The "Toy XV" was replaced with the "Toy XVI" Camaro for the 1981 year, and that was replaced with the "Toy XVII" Generation 3 Camaro in 1983 wich was the last Pro Stock car Jenkins had, it was sold to Bob Panella after the season.

I personally don't care who does the subjects I wish for, as long as we get them I'm happy. So if it's Moebius, Round 2, Revell or anyone else doesn't matter to me as long as the kits and parts they do are done correct. Regarding chrome plated parts. It's a lot easier and of course cheaper to remove unwanted chrome plating than to have parts you want plated done...all builders around the World doesn't have a vacuum plating service for modelers available to them as you do in the US...companies like Chrome Tech and others...we don't have anything like that over here so we have to rely on the kit manufacturers to plate the parts for us. Yes you can use Alclad Chrome or something similar, but the finish doesn't get as shiny as the plated kit parts does and I prefer plated parts over non plated parts as I can do as I please with them, dull them down, remove the plating and use paint instead or whatever, if the parts are unplated I do not have much choice do I.

Very nice work Tyrone.

The Hilborn Mechanical Fuel Injection setup is pretty much the same today. There are pictures of the components on Hilborn's website http://www.hilborninjection.com/category.asp?Id=4 and here are a couple of schematics on how you plumb them. Oh one more thing, the throttle arm on the metering valve and the arms on the butterflies in the injectors are coupled together and move simultaneously so you get the right ammount of fuel according to the butterfly opening when to stomp on the go pedal.

I woun't tell anyone....but that was good...George had two Mustangs. One was the Malco Gasser with the 67-68 body style (as in the recent kit) and the other was Mr Gasket Gasser with the 69-70 body style. The chassis for both Mustangs are pretty much the same but if you want to do the Mr Gasket car you'll need a resin 69 body...or use the one in the MPC based 69 Mustang Mach 1 re-issued under the AMT/Ertl name in the 90's. The 69-70 had two different engine combinations, first a 427 SOHC as the earlier Mustang and Willys, later a turbocharged Boss 429.

George even ran a Blown 59 Cadillac before that (390 based stroked to 414 cui). There are at least 3 good pictures of the SOHC engine here that I found just now when I did a quick google search...save them or open them in a new window and they gets a lot larger http://www.thehenryford.org/exhibits/drivingamerica/Explore.aspx?okey=333297