Force

Very realistic.

Another gem from your workbench.

I can agree with that, I was hooked the first time I heard an American V8 and it's one of the reasons I'm in this hobby and classic American cars, and the first time I heard or may I say experienced a Top Fuel /Funny Car nitro engine I was hooked for life. And of course when I hear a WW2 Fighter V12 under full load I get shivers down my spine...so I do like the sound of internal combustion engines. Lots of performance car makers have a bypass in the exhaust system so the cars gets louder when you use the fun pedal in sport mode...so every car enthusiast must like engine noice. Electric...well we will for sure most likely go there eventually in some form, not necessarily the form we have today wich I think is a transition to something much better and more user friendly...but if going electric is the future in auto racing I'm out because if the only sound you hear from the cars are from the transmissions a lot of the total experience of racing is lost and I get the same "thrill" as watching a slot car race.

I have tried many different types of styrene glue but since I started with Revell Contacta Professional many many years ago I have never looked back...it's imho the best avlailable to us over here. If the needle gets clogged I just put a piece of the same 0.5 mm stainless steel wire I use for detailing through it to unclogg it, fast and easy.

Factory stock 55-57 Chevys have four engine mounts, two at the front beside the crank pulley and two at the rear at the bell housing and the transmission hangs free with no support at all, if changed to side mounts most also take off the mounts at the bellhousing and replace them with a cross member and transmission mount at the rear of the transmission as it is on later cars. Your brother might have put in a cross member and rear transmission mount...but if he had changed to a big block he must have changed out the stock engine mounts as they have side mounts only and nothing at the bellhousing. Engine: as all Chevy big block engines basically looks the same you can use any 396-427-454 big block and the suggested sources are good, and as said earlier, put the radiator in front of the core support otheriwse the engine woun't fit as a big block is longer than a small block. Carburetor: if the carburetor is visible and you want the best there is only one option...Fireball Modelworks...they have the best carburetors around and in several styles, you said he used a Holley 780 and it's a 4150 series carb most likely a double pumper with mechanical secondary. But if you have it under an air cleaner it doesn't matter much as the carb in that case isn't that visible and a kit part would most likely work fine. Lakewood Scatter Shield: you allready have suggestions for that, otherwise the old Monogram 66 Chevelles has one. Headders: use a set that fits or make your own from solder, it doesn't matter wich one as most of the brands looks similar. Rear axle: 1957-64 Oldsmobile and Pontiac used the same rear axle and it was a popular upgrade on Tri-Five Chevys as it's a lot stronger than the stock Chevy unit, the 57 Pontiac rear end fits without modifications as the 57 Pontiac uses leaf springs like the Chevys, later Pontiacs and most of the Oldsmobiles had coil springs so you had to change to leaf spring brackets on the axle for it to work. You already have suggestions for this.

The original box art of the then new tool Auto Transporter kit #7424 from 1983. The first year 1983 Revell also issued this car trailer as a combo kit with a Peterbilt 359 and it was called Prestige Car Transport, kit #7432. The kit was reissued 1985 as Prestige Auto Movers, also a combo kit with the Peterbilt, a Pontiac Firebird and a Chevrolet Camaro, kit #7434. . The 2004 reissue called Car Transporter, kit # 07540. And the latest reissue from 2015 called Auto transport Trailer kit #85-1509. This trailer was appearently also planned to be issued with the Kenworth K100 Aerodyne and the picture is from a Revell Catalog (don't know the year), but I have never seen one so that never materialized. Note the same kit # as the 1983 Prestige Car Transport kit above.

I'm not sure this kit is the precursor to the Revell kit, I think it's a rebox of the Revell kit as I don't think Imex makes any kits of their own. The Revell Germany Auto Transporter first came out on the market 36 years ago in 1983 as a new tool and was reissued 2004 and 2015, I can't make out what year the Imex kit is from your picture of the instructions as it's quite out of focus, but if the copyright date is before 1983 I stand corrected. But your build is nice anyway.

It's about time, they have finally done a complete update with new Volvo FH4 and not just a new cab on the same old hopelessly outdated chassis and drive train as they have done before.

Very nice, you really do the old trucks well.

In Europe the maximum hight is between 4.00 to 4.50 meters (13' 1.5" to 14'9") depending on country, Ireland allows 4.65 meters (15' 3") and some countries like Sweden, Norway and some others have no hight limit, it's the hight of hanging cables, bridges and tunnels after the route you plan to drive that decides how high you can be, in Sweden things with a hight over 4.5 meters is not marked out, but everything under 4.5 meters is. In the US is the hight limit after what I understand 13' 6" wich is 4.115 meters. Here in Europe the allowed width is between 2.55 (slightly over 100") to 2.60 (slightly over 102"), and the US has 102" (2.59 meters) so it's close. If we scale down the 13' 6" hight to 1:24th scale we get 171.5 millimeters (6.75") and to 1:25th scale we get 164.6 millimeters (slightly under 6.5"), difference about 0.25" between the scales. The 102 inch width is 107.9 millimeters (4.25") in 1:24th scale and 103.6 millimeters (4.08") in 1:25th scale, 0.17" difference. Not much but there is a difference.

The Revell Germany Kenworth W900 and their other truck kits are in the same 1:25th scale as the AMT and Moebius trucks and trailers, the Italeri and Heller trucks are in 1:24th scale so they are slightly larger. But the difference is quite small so it will most likely work, one thing to remember tho', the AMT trailers are from the early 70's so most of them are 40 foot, the trailers today are longer, up to 53 foot.

The engine in the AMT 58 Edsel Pacer is the E400 wich is a 361 cui version of the FE wich was new for that year in Ford and Edsel, it's yellow with white valve covers and air cleaner and it was in the smaller Ford based Pacer, Ranger, Bermuda, Villager and Roundup. The E475 is a 410 cui version of the larger MEL engine wich has no relations to the FE, the MEL was available in Mercury-Edsel-Lincoln and was in the larger Mercury based Edsel Citation and Corsair, the E475 is green with white valve covers and air cleaner.

Nice build and your diorama makes it even better. I know you took libertys with this build and you are of course indeed entitled to as it's your model and you can do whatever you want. But one thing still bothers me some and it's the carburetors, as far as I know Holley 4500 series Dominators are not allowed in any Super Stock class regardless of sanctioning body, a pair of Holley 4160 series carburetors would have looked more right and the awsome Fireball Modelworks resin carburetors would be perfect.

Yes they did, all of them except for the Peterbilts and the Volvo VN. You can find the same type suspension on the AMT Peterbilt 352 and the small window 359 kits as Peterbilt used the Stabilaire suspension in the 60's, later Freightliner took over the Stabilaire and Peterbilt did the Air Leaf suspension instead.

It's supposed to be a 1969 Hurst/SC Rambler...the decals and hood scoop are right for the Hurst/SC but the body is still 1966 as the rear panel and tail lights are wrong for 1969...so it's not exactly correct.

Yes it's an old topic but I think it's about time someone did new tooling kits of both the 1963½ and 1964 Galaxie Fastbacks (in my eyes the nicest looking Galaxies made), the old AMT kits from the 60's of these cars has lots to desire both detailwise and accuracy...and how many Chevrolet kits can you do. I had hopes with AMT when they did the very good 1960 Galaxie Starliner kit that they would continue with more Galaxies based on that tooling...but no, nothing...and now woth Round 2 it will most likely not happen any day soon.

The boxed part is a regular oil pan with two sumps found on many of the more modern Fords like the Fox body Mustangs, the rear sump holds the oil and the front sump is to make room for the oil pump as it's directly under and driven by the distributor. But most NASCAR cars has a dry sump system wich is a shallow pan with several hoses that goes out of it, and a separate belt driven several segment oil pump to scavenge the oil out of the pan and into a separate tank and pump the oil back into the engine. The racers in NASCAR started to experiment with dry sump systems in 1968-69 as you can mount the engine lower in the chassis and you don't have any problems with oil pressure as the engine allways gets oil...as long as the drive belt is on. Here is a system used on many race cars.

No whatever it's supposed to be it's not good at all, if it's a bad 385 family engine it's an even worse representation of a FE as I see it, it's really not correct for any of them. The 385 family did not have the exhaust manifolds pictured, they look more like FE, likewise for the valve covers as they look to have five bolts, two on the bottom and three on top, the 385 has six or seven, four on the bottom and two or three on top. But the thermostat housing on the intake manifold looks like it's on top of the manifold pointing straight up as on the 385, the FE has the thermostate housing pointed straight forward, sometimes with an expansion tank and sometimes with an elbow that goes out in front for the hose, the water pump and timing chain cover also looks more like the 385, the 385 water pump mounts to the timing chain cover as the cover also is the rear part of the pump housing and the water goes through it into the block, on the FE the pump is separate and goes over the timing chain cover and mounts directly to the water jackets on the engine block and don't touch the timing chain cover at all. The fuel pump is on the same side on both engines so you can't go by that to decide what engine it is, and as I said the oil filter is mounted directly on the block pointing slightly downwards on the 385 and vertical to a separate aluminum adapter on the FE as the FE blocks has no casting for an oil filter. So most of the clues points to a 385 family 429-460 because if it's supposed to be a 332-428 FE it's a very bad rendering.

Mark S Gustavson wrote an article in I think it was Car Modeler on how to wrap a built model for shipping, he even kicked the box around afterwards, unpacked the model and it was intact...I have the magazine but I don't remember the wich issue it was in.

It's not hard, I saw a tip very similar to this one in a car modeling book several years ago and I have done it on several models after that. Here is a model built in 2001-2002 for our now closed local hobby shop where I used that technique, I delivered the finished model to the shop exactly one week after I got the kit...so it was built in seven days.

Nice model indeed.

Well you can call it a separate valley cover, the tall intake manifold on the 409 based Z-11 was casted in two pieces...and the Z-11 was stroked up to 427 cui. For transmission the old iron Powerglide was not that strong so the old Cadillac/Oldsmobile 4 speed Hydramatic was popular in drag racing modified by B&M and often called "Hydro Stick", a heavy beast but a much stronger alternative, when the aluminum PG arrived it's another thing and a prepaired PG withstands a lot of power and torque and is a lot lighter.

Yes, most of the ones I have seen has been painted silver, some W engine high performance engines could also have chromed valve covers. As you may know the Z-11 was a stroked 409 to 427 cui, the Z-11 package was only available for a short time, the engine parts came late 1962 and the RPO code Z-11 Impalas was 1963 and 1963 was also the year for the Z-33 Mk II 427 "Mystery Motor"

First, the oil pan is the wrong way around, the deep part of the sump goes at the front as it does on most Ford engines. If you go by the oil filter placement this engine does not look like a FE, the FE has the oil filter further forward and hanging straight down from a separate oil filter adapter as the FE doesn't have an oil filter mount casting on the block, on the 385 family 429-460 the oil filter is mounted directy to the engine block, but not as far back as on this one and it should be angled more downwards. Next clue is the transmission wich is a C6, the bellhousing is more round on the FE than on the 385 family and this seems to have more of the 385 family shape. On a FE the intake manifold is part of the heads and go in under the valve covers so you have to remove the valve covers and the pushrods before you can remove the intake manifold, that's not the case on a 385 family where you can remove the intake manifold without removing the valve covers. I'm very familiar with both engine familys as we race with a 385 family engine in our Super Comp dragster and I'm currently building a FE stroker for my 1963½ Ford Galaxie, so based on that this engine is most likely a 385 family 429-460 but a crude one.

Here are the instructions for the V903 in the ERTL International Transtar F-4270