6bblbird

Force? Engine size?.......Extra large. Sorry, couldn't resist. All NHRA Top Fuel and Fuel Funny Car engines have been restricted to 500 cid for quite a while now. WF

Just about done! I couldn't wait for the sun to come up so I shot these with a flash. The flash really brings out the flake in this paint. She's all decaled and striped. I love the way the headers look with the collector extensions. ( no tethers required.....yet) I made side glass so that I could add a class designation and more decals.I still have to add a competition number and possibly a sponsor on the 1/4 panel and a name on the doors. I was worried about the fit of the rear valence and it was a p.i.t.a. You can see where it popped down. Next time, i'll trim more from the spring hanger and remove some material from the inside of the valence. All in all it was a fun build although it did challenge me at times. Things to watch out for when building one of these: 1. The rear valence fit. The rear spring shackles must be filed way down in order to get the valence in place. 2. If you use a wired distributor make certain that the dist. cap is as close to the block as possible so that you cn close the hood! 3. Installing the window glass. It just barely fits the window opening. Be careful when gluing it in place and don't leave any foil in the recesses. There is no margin for error. 4. Remember not to glue the chassis to the tub untill the tub is installed in the body. 5. You may want to remove some material from the sides of the chassis pan behind the rear wheel tubs to help with installation and you might also want to remove the material on the radiator support that fits into the fenders ( no one will notice if you do). It will make it much easier to join the chassis to the body. WF

Oil pan looks good. I never thought of stacking styrene sheet to make the sump. Seems much easier than trying to make a box from sheet. WF

This is great. I'l be watching this one! WF

Paint is polished and it's time to foil. Silver is so shiny that it's hard to see the foil! If you build an E body, remember to foil the area below the windshield. These cars always came with a polished, stainless steel cover in this area. it would show up better if the car was a contrasting color. I'm going to re-do the flat black weather strip. I thought that I had masked it well. The camera shows everything! WF

I have always wanted to build a '71 'cuda but I just can't seem to get over all of the innacuracies of the Revell/Monogram kit. In addition, it's 1/24 scale which doesn't work for me. I have some Johan '71 bodies that are ( in my opinion ) pretty good. Unfortunately, they never came with anything but race car interiors, and running gear. I am going to try and mate one of these bodies with the new Revell '70 'cuda interior and chassis. I'll keep you posted. WF

Wasn't so frigid last night so I shot some paint on the 'cuda: My original intention was to paint the car with Tamiya's Silver Leaf. I shot the car and was not at all happy with the way it turned out. Rather than strip the paint, I used it as a base coat for Testors' AMC Sterling Silver. It was a major improvement. Very smooth with lots of metallic flakes. Now that the car was "flaky" I felt that the shaker scoop should contrast with the main color so I painted it red. I also painted the taillight panel with semi-gloss black. Now, on to foil! WF

Got 'er painted. Oh, you want pictures? Not until I do some repair work. Silver shows every flaw and even some stuff that I did not know was there! Pics later WF

AHRA got a head start on the NHRA when it came to heads-up "stocker" racing. They called their version " Super Stock Eliminator" hence the SSE designation. The half thickness side glass in the original Hemi cars was called Chemcore. Lexan is allowed as a replacement for the original glass. WF

There were (are) some Stock and Super Stock 'cuda racers that replaced the rear valance panel with one from a 6 cyl. car or Grand Coupe. I like the clean look so I filled the holes in mine. Another common practice was to remove the door mounted mirrors for better aerodynamics and less weight so out comes the putty. I actually lost one of the mirrors so this idea works out for me. I did find the transmission pan though! I really do like the way that Revell put those recesses in the doors for the mirrors and the door handles. WF

If you want to go the super stock route be prepared to do a lot of surgery to frame and move the springs in quite a bit. I will definitely be doing one or two of these. As a s/s car the lowest class that you would be able to run would be SS/C or SS/CA but most common class would be SS / D or SS/ DA. WF

Paint and detailing look great. I like the low stance. WF

Some may not mind the wheel opening lips at all. To me? They just did not seem right. The 1:1 fenders have a very narrow lip. If the car has stainless mouldings the lip is a little bit wider, but still not as wide as the kit. I think that this car, especially a race car, looks better with a smooth look. I may add some strip styrene to more closely represent the 1:1 wheel openings. WF

Got the body on the chassis. That was a bit of a wrestling match. It was very difficult getting the chassis pan to clear the quarter panels. Gonna be scary once the body is painted getting it back on again. Next time I might trim the chassis behind the wheel openings. The wheel opening mouldings on this car are ridiculously wide. After looking at them for a while I decided to sand them off. Rear wheel tubs have very little room for big tires. I used some skinny slicks on this oneand they barely fit. If you plan on building a Super Stocker or Pro Stocker you are going to have to move the springs inboard and modify the wheel tubs. Just like the real thing!

Thanks guys. With holidays and snow days I am getting quite a bit done. Chassis is almost complete. I need to install a battery and fire it up! Testor's Diamond Dust lacquer makes for a pretty convincing paint for the shaker scoop, grille, and "fish gill" rocker panel mouldings. WF

A somewhat blurry pic of the master cylinder with brake lines, the tach cable, and the wiper motor with blob of red oxide primer on it. Wiper motors were required to be in place on Stock Eliminator cars. The power brake booster was not required, so I converted to manual brakes for weight savings. WF

I also lost the differential cover! I'm sure that the trans pan and cover will show up some day. I had a couple of chromed Dana 60 covers in stock so no problem. Notice that I used red oxide primer on the floor pan. Some builders use grey primer but my 1:1 '69 road runner has red oxide primer that is very noticeable in the trans tunnel so I went with that. I removed the fuel tank with the back of a x-acto blade simply because it makes it easier to paint. Champagne Gold make a reasonable bare steel color. Five point harness that nearly cost my my eyesight and patience is in place along with the Hurst Quarter Stick. Good look at the cable drive tach. WF

Yep! One thing that most everyone neglects when building a drag car is the driveshaft loop! Gotta have one if you are running slicks (most cars). Real easy to make. Just slice off a piece of 5/16" tubing and add some flat stock. Paint red and add a couple of photo etch bolt heads ( I didn't add the bolts yet ), in the above photo you can see the deep transmission pan. I lost the kit part and scrounged this one from a Polar Lights Funny Car. We always ran deep pans on our Torqueflites. No worries about not having a pan for the F/C as the trans will be wrapped in a blanket. The headers came from a Revell '69 Charger. They fit perfectly! I added aluminum tubing for the collectors. I have to touch-up the paint on the headers. I painted them with Alclad but when I applied a wash, it washed the Alclad away. Might hit the bare spots with some rust. WF

Here's another look at the tach. The cable is made from guitar string. WF

Instument panel decals are pretty nice. Roll bar fit is pretty good. You can see the Moroso style, cable drive tach that I built along with the gauge panel in front of the radio. The roll bar padding is shrink tube. The slits face upwards where they won't be seen. WF

This is my first build of the new Revell '70 Hemi 'cuda kit. I wanted to build it stock but not showroom stock so I decided to build it as a class legal NHRA Stocker circa 1980s. I start with the interior. First thing is to build a roll bar as required by the rules. I used Revell '69 Charger parts for the main hoop. I added the side bars and rear bars along with a bar behind the driver. WF

I suppose a lot of people might think that Bob Ford was a person, but Bob Ford was the name of the dealership that sponsored this and many other Ford drag cars. The driver of this one was Len Richter. They were in Dearborn MI although the model looks to be from Dearorn (?). WF

Thanks! That is called scratch building and kit bashing! The body started out as 2 Hemi Under Glass bodies. One had the wheelbase altered and the other supplied the nose so that it could be stretched. WF

Your GTO came out very well. I recently built that same kit. I thought that it was absolute junk! I finished it (for a club contest) but it went back in the box, never to be seen again! WF