slantasaurus

Years ago I made up a bunch of Pentastar string art in various colors and sold some of them at the Mopar Nationals. I had a few left over and I've given them to a few Mopar racers in the years since, its helped me make friends with some of them. Larry Morgan gave me a tour of his team hauler after giving him one at the US Nationals, Don Garlits has one of them hanging on the wall in his office. I still have the pattern and some supplies to build more, I'll try to post a pic of the one I still have left.

Oh, the irony...

I've been meaning to post an update, I just wasn't sure what to post. Yes, in the last week I have made some progress on the Torino. Once I figured out the oil filter problem I drilled the oil filter adapter for lines to plumb the oil cooler. I also drilled and added heater hoses. The engine is ready to be mounted to the chassis which I should do later today or maybe tomorrow. Once that is done other things should go a little faster. There are a couple other details I want to add but I'll save those ideas for later. Now for the rest of the story. Just a few days after my last post on 7/17 I had a little accident at work, spent a few days in the hospital and was unable to work on much of anything for a couple weeks. As I've already said, I am working on the Torino again I'll be off work for a few more weeks so I have the time to do it now. The downside is I can't work very much at a time since the injury was to my hand, right hand at that as I'm right handed. I won't go into all the details of what and how things happened, let's just say I can only count to 9 now. I'm doing fine and my hand is healing up well. I do have to go back next week for one more surgery to patch up the back side of my hand. That will slow things down for a while again so I'm going to try to get as much done in the next 8 days before that happens. Don't worry, I will get this finished up I want to finish this up and right now I kind of need to finish this up. Modeling is one of those things that can help keep you going after a personal set back.

Not their only hit, don't forget Martian Boogie !!!

Putting the frames together on the PL Funny Cars is a little tricky but nothing an experienced modeler can't handle. The 64 Dodge and Plymouth kits are good and have no real issues.

Actually Bob Frye retired a couple years ago too. It was great listening to him talk about his Slant 6 Dodge Aspen wagon !!!

I remember those days too, when Alderman/Geoffrion would get in staging duels with WJ and Buster would just pull up a chair and let them go at it

It will be the teams with the most money behind them, as usual. Hopefully it will level the playing field a little bit.

There is no way in heck Foose is gonna foot the bill for these new kits, Revell is going to be paying HIM to use his name and designs. IF it is a new tool I'd probably get one cause it is a cool truck but I'm willing to bet it will be based on the tooling that is older than dirt and fit like @‌#%*. I The reason that kit is one of them that has been chosen is probably because they have 56 F100 tooling that's been paid for since the LBJ era.

I could see a first gen Barracuda doing well, and maybe a spin-off D-Dart would be really cool. What I see as the big hole is the second gen Barracuda. There are 3 years with small changes between them, 3 body styles (fastback, coupe, and convertible), and most important the 68 S/S cars. Revell didn't do the greatest job on their Hemi Dart, but it has sold well enough and for those who want a more accurate S/S, the raw material is there. A new tool 68 Barracuda would be worlds ahead of the old MPC kit and I know there is a market for a good S/S AH car. There should be enough variations and sales to recoup tooling costs in there.

Strange difference between Greg and Larry. Greg is basically a hired driver, Larry owns his own team, hmmmm. You can see who will benefit most from the changes. I agree that Fox doesn't let their network view creep into their sports coverage, but I still don't like to give them the ratings. I have and sometimes still do watch their Nascar coverage but I'd prefer if it was somewhere else. Besides, with NBC taking over now I get to see/hear Kyle Petty who has always been my favorite on and off the track. If everything goes well I should be in Indy again this year (I go on Friday to see the Hemi Shootout and pro qualifying). I befriended Larry a few years back when he was driving a Dodge, I'm going to see if I can talk to him or Allen Johnson about the changes. One more thing, GO Allen today in Denver !!! Wish I had been back home in Chicago to see him win there a couple weeks ago.

Hobby Lobby only resets their stock once or twice a year so they can't keep up with the latest releases like a regular hobby shop. They also can't/ won't stock every release. Same thing for Michael's and the Wal Marts that do carry model kits. I have seen all 3 of them have kits on clearance right now, though none of them have anything I have felt the need to pick up. On Facebook I did see someone post that they bought a 57 Del Rio at HL so I'll wait for my local store to get one @‌40% off.

I think overall its going to be better in the long for the NHRA moving over the Fox Sports twins, ESPN cares less about anything on four wheels, the only issue could be that Fox Sports 1 is in10 million less homes than ESPN is. Or I could be wrong and moving to Fox Sports could be bad. On a related side note, it was reported that Disney is forcing ESPN to cut 250million dollars from its budget by 2017, and here we have the NHRA leaving The biggest problem I have with the change is I hate to watch or support Fox networks in any way, shape, or form. I'm not saying the actual coverage will be better or worse, ESPN has some issues with their coverage but I don't have the same issues with their network or ownership.

Hot off the presses.....(do they still use presses???) http://www.nhra.com/story/2015/7/25/pro-stock-changes/

I think part of the reason so many old convertible kit survived and hardtops didn't has to do with explosives. How many times have you heard about kids back then blowing up models with firecrackers ? Convertibles don't have a roof to contain the explosion so they didn't (to quote John Candy on SCTV) "blow up real good". It was more fun to blow the roof off the car. "Yep, she blowed up real good"

I've never been a fan of the bikes, really motorcycles in general. But I don't see it as a problem. I really don't care for Pro Mod either. I am a big fan of Pro Stock though. There has been talk of changing that class and it does need some changes. It would be great to see Challengers, Mustangs, and Camaros running Hemis, LSs, and Mod motors shooting it out (but they call that Super Stock....). Problem is the NHRA won't make big changes to the way things are because too many people have too much money invested in the way things are now. When I saw the thread title I thought it was going to be about NHRA going to Fox Sports 1 next season, I'm not happy about that.....even though ESPN2 has its own problems with its coverage. I guess it doesn't matter because I don't have cable or satellite to watch it on TV anymore.

Yeah, I have the headers, oil filter, and sway bar to all play nice together. I have been working on it the last couple nights (very little at a time), I also added another detail. I'll try to get the engine mounted and take some pics tomorrow.

Maybe they listed it as discontinued because some joker slipped a Confederate flag onto the decal sheet.

There are at least 2 kits of the Porsche 928 with full engines. Revell did one in the late 70s when the car was new, haven't had one of those kits so I don't know what the detail is like. Italeri did a later series 928 S4 that was just reissued and easy to find. The engine builds up a little different than most Revell/ AMT engines and detail is a little soft compared to them but it would be a cool engine to use in a 32 or 29/30 Ford.

Fred, I attached the pin on the bottom of the transmission to the crossmember first and that is when I noticed the engine block wasn't sitting down against the mounts. When I flipped it over is when I noticed the oil filter against the sway bar, then I added the header to see if it would fit in the space that was leftover. I think I can get everything in place where its supposed to be by angling the oil filter in a little toward the oil pan. First I have to reattach the swaybar which came out of its mount, also the lower control arm on that side came unglued (and if you look close at my pic you can see that the spindle came off because of the LCA being unglued). One last thing I have to put back in place are the tie rods but it was much easier to test fit everything else with them removed. Going back to the stock manifolds is not an option now, I've already cut the exhaust to fit the headers. Also note even though only the driver side header is shown, I added collector flanges to the headers, I just didn't like the way they looked without them.

This weekend I tried to mount the engine to the chassis and ran into a little problem. It seems the oil filter, swaybar, and headers all want to occupy the same space. This pushes the swaybar out of the way to make things fit. I'm not sure who is to blame for this problem, Revell or Ford. At least now I know why Ford added external oil coolers on these cars. I'm trying to figure out a way to make everything play nice but I might just have to let it be.

This is the first week in the last month I'm not working overtime. I'll try to post some pics in the next day or two.

Better put a stake through his heart just to be sure.

Its been a while since the last update. The BMF went by quickly then things stalled on my workbench. I've been trying to think of details that would make a great build really stand out. I worked on the wheels/ tires this weekend. More to come.

With the passing of BB King I thought I'd post this song. Recorded by BB and Eric Clapton you would think it was written for BB but the original is actually about Elvis and written and recorded by John Hiatt. Here is the version you probably know. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJK78Y3zoQk Here is the John Hiatt version. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njdPbIZvONg