Ace-Garageguy

Nice clean '32. Looks very good.

Just got caught up on this one. Beautiful work, still. Your adapter for the tube-bending mandrel is sheer genius.

The maroon one is the 2013 AMBR-winning, V8-60 /Ardun-powered, Brizio-built John Mumford car. There's no track-nose in the current kit, but I'll be doing a one-off nose/hood for the Eddie Dye car. Assuming that works out well, I'll do a nose and hood for the Mumford car too. Revell makes a V8-60, so everything to build it exists other than V8-60 Ardun heads.

OK JB, tell you what. I should have kept my mouth shut about everything EXCEPT the dimensional discrepancy until AFTER I actually had the kit in hand. My bad. I admit it like a grown-up...might. Calling it "worthless" is a stretch, as, since I've seen it in the flesh, I realize it has much to recommend it, like a stock front-cover / water pump setup, and the multiple-carb intake manifold option that the 50+ year-old Revell version simply lacks in any form This makes it useful, at the very least, for swapping said parts on to the OLD Revell basic engines which lack the stock front-end, and only have an FI manifold. Or, I may swap the Ivo heads, of which I have many, on to the new engine...and correct the new exhaust headers accordingly. I'll be doing a lot of work with this engine to see just how well everything fits and swaps back and forth with other nailheads (similar to what I did with the 303 in the Revell '50 Olds kit). I SHOULD have mentioned these things earlier. Thank you for reminding me that I had a little crow to eat.

Mus hav sumpin ta doo wit da firs wun lookin lik id wa took pichur uf inna showroom n p-shopped in.

I've always liked the old flip-nose AMT Willys. Makes a clean little model, lots of opportunity to detail-up. I'm thinking it won't be that long before these are on the clearance table for cheap...I can see buying a few to hack up. chop, etc.

Looking forward to seeing your take on this old favorite.

Sweet looking 5-window, Jon. One of the best I've seen. Clean. Looks fast. No BS.

It's always been popular psychology to say that guys in Porsches and Corvettes were compensating for "shortcomings" in (ahem) other areas. I wonder what the deal is with these.

Yeah, the song doesn't say anything about a blower. I think about 220 HP normally-aspirated is about as much as you're going to get from a flathead and still be (just barely) streetable, but with modern internals it's entirely possible. Things like billet cranks, rods and bottom-end girdles COULD have been machined "back in the day", so it's not too much of a stretch. And 220 HP in a less-than-2000 pound car is still pretty stout. Your definition of long "lakes pipes" running down the rockers is probably in keeping with the theme here too. According to the Sept. '62 Motor Trend, a 4800 pound 1963 390 T-bird with 300 HP and an automatic would do a 19.2 second, 78 MPH quarter mile. A 200 HP "little deuce coupe" could easily eat its lunch.

Love the color and effect. I'm not usually a suede-paint fan, but this color is so good...I just bought one of the new issues to get a set of those chrome-reverse rims too. They really set off your color here. A clean, custom look, not too gaudy.

The classic S.C.o.T. blower will fit under the stock hood. A GMC blower is taller, but could be made to fit by shaving the intake manifold, using lower carb air-horns, or dropping the engine mounts slightly.

The exact configuration of the pipes used on the dry lakes is going to depend to a degree on the exact time period, venue, sanctioning body and vehicle class. Earlier cars (pre-war) tended to have longer pipes running up high, like G's photos. They got shorter. (Vic Edelbrock Special, post-war)

Youse guys call 'em what you remember 'em being called, I'll call 'em what I remember 'em bein' called, and everybody will know what everybody else is talking about anyway. I don't think there's an Oxford Standard English Dictionary entry for "lakes pipes".

Some folks probably call this a rabbit too. Don't necessarily make it so.

You can have an even better time arguing about the origin of the term "hot rod". People have fallible memories. You see the printed references in the period mags, it all makes sense. Lakes "plugs" are the caps on the end of the lakes "pipes". Kinda logical, ain't it?

"Lakes pipes" or "lake pipes" are OPEN pipes you run to make more power, short headers or long side pipes...which evolved into a fashion statement on customs. Lake-plugs are the caps on the ends. Don't take my word for it; get you a big stack of old Hot Rod mags, starting in '49, and an equal stack of Rod & Custom. You'll see. Love both of those cars, by the way.

Ain't buyin what, exactly? The shorty headers are "lakes pipes" because they ran 'em on the lakes. The longer side pipes got tagged with the same name.

You'll find that early on, these were "lakes pipes". Often, like the design in the new Revell '29, there was a muffled, non-race street exhaust teed off of the megaphone. The megs were uncapped for racing work on the "lakes", capped for the street. Perforated metal 'muffler' cores or glass-packed equivalents could also be inserted into the megs, taken out for lakes racing. The long side-pipes that later became known as "lake pipes" also usually had removable caps on the ends, if you look closely. They at least emulated the look of the real-racer ability to remove the caps to run open exhausts.

Wasn't the Borg Warner T-10 4-speed intro'd in the '57 Corvette? Easy to make an adapter and drill the flywheel for the Chevy clutch.

I always got the impression the car in the song was supposed to be something of a sleeper, being just a lowly 'old' flathead-powered car that would "walk a Thunderbird (new car?) like it's standing still". And I figured the "you don't know what I got" line referred to the obvious speed potential of a late-model OHV-powered production car, but the speed of the ol' deuce wasn't apparent 'til the light turned green. I thought the "there's one more thing...I got the pink slip, daddy" line is a jab at the financed newer cars, where bank had the pinks. Just one old fart's interpretation, that's all.

Ummmm...I'm not getting what's wrong with it. By '63, flatheads were getting a little long in the tooth, but a 140mph flathead-powered deuce (light car...could be built right around 2000 pounds...couple hundred HP) was STILL a potent machine. 10 pounds per HP...pretty quick indeed. Anyway, this one does it for me.

I'm kinda leaning that way myself. Lift the front of the side-pipe just a bit, and go to through-the-cowl steering, and it's just about perfect for that style. It could be built with pretty much all Revell parts, too ('cept for the body, of course). Some vintage, some recent. And not a lot of custom, time-consuming bodywork. I like that idea.