Ace-Garageguy

Haven't located a real nailhead to measure yet, so i went to the parts-store the try to get a set of exhaust gaskets. ALL the nailheads have the same exhaust-port spacing, but the '53-'56 ports are round, and the '57-'66 ports are square...including the 401. Anyway, the Felpro gaskets I could find are two-part affairs, split in the middle, so there's no way to get a dimension from them. The quest continues...

Looking really good in the pix. Just remember NOT to use the one-part stuff for heavy fills and custom bodywork.

Good looking model. Stance is just right.

Looks great in red. Really makes the spaceship lines pop.

I got the 404 error a couple times shortly after the switch, but it seems to be working now. There still seem to be a few bugs getting worked out, but all in all, Gregg and the techs have done a nice job with this.

What model are you working on? I'll find some pix for you and post them here. Though heater hose locations are kinda similar from car to car, there are specific differences depending on which car, which engine, etc. In general, one hose runs from the vicinity of the thermostat to the firewall or HVAC unit, and another one runs from the firewall back to the engine / water pump. Some smallblock Chebbys below. Some Fords below.

Jag XJ-6 S-III, Jag XJ 6/12 C, Jag CX-75, Geo Metro convertible, Porsche 500 Spyder (in styrene), '55 Oldsmobile, '55 Mercury...

To me, this car is the be-all, end-all finest looking hot-rod ever built on Earth...the Eddie Dye roadster. Though only bits and pieces of the car are thought to still exist, and though its exact history is a little cloudy, my current understanding is that it was built originally and lakes-raced in '48 or '49, was apparently in the Ayala brothers' shop for completion and paint in about 1950, and was featured in Hot Rod, Hop Up, and other publications in the early '50s. It's a '29 Ford on '32 rails, rails kicked-up at the rear to get all that low-down-goodness, with the front dropped axle suspended under a suicide perch, and the wheelbase is lengthened as a result. Both the Eddie Dye car, and the low green '32 roadster posted above by Draggon are featured in this great book, an absolute must for anyone who wants to know what the "traditional" thing is really all about.

It WAS there. Now it's gone. Probably an issue with the source. I have dozens and dozens of re-posted photos from outside sources posted on my build threads and tech answers.. Let's try again. Same technique, different source. Can you see it now??

Supremely cool little paper engine. But now of course, we're going to see a rash of "expert" internet opinions saying that if it's possible to make a PAPER engine run on AIR, that it should be possible to do it with a real engine, and that the fuel companies have been cheating us even worse than we already know. And too, whoever wrote this pathetic paragraph would have failed 6-th grade science class when I was a kid. "There are two types of engines, diesel and gas turbine. Each has their advantages and disadvantages. In addition to the power intake type, engines are categorized by how they produce power. The V6 engine is an example of an internal combustion engine, which allows the fuel combustion to operate with the help of compressed, high-temperature and high-pressure air." Oh wait...science is now considered unnecessary in today's educational environment, and apparently, so is understanding what you're writing about and being able to explain it correctly.

I recognized it as "Holden" right off, but the Japanese-market wing mirrors are the giveaway.

In Windows 7 (and XP), it still works the way it always did. (a few images won't directly copy because of the way the files are named; to get those, you'll have to save them in your own 'documents' file, load them into P-bucket, and recopy here) Right-click the picture you want to post here. When you right-click it, a menu appears on the screen. Left click "Copy image". Come back to the MCM page where you want to post the image. Place your cursor where you want the image. Hit ctrl-v. The image appears. Pretty simple.

You don't need to spend a lot of money. All my pix on this thread were shot with an old 4.1 megapixel Nikon Coolpix L4. http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/topic/65965-mickey-thompsons-challenger-one-still-alive-feb-8/ You can buy the Nikon Coolpix L4 for less than $20 used now. A $10 thrift-store tripod and simple lighting will get you the rest of the way there.

I really should say that a lot of the parts in the kit look gorgeous. The two frames, wheels, brake parts, tires, and suspension are worth the cost of the kit even if it didn't have a body or engine, in my opinion. Think of what you'd have to pay to get all of that stuff in resin. There's a lot here to recommend the kit for anyone who likes old rods, and I hope my comments...still to be proven (or disproven) by measuring...won't keep anyone from buying Revell's latest offering. Remember guys...I'll be buying several myself. I'm just going to be very disappointed if measurement shows that something so easy to get right, wasn't. And if the rest of the engine measures out close to right (closer than 1 or 2 inches, anyway), a rework of the spacing of the center ports on the headers will probably correct the visual "first impression" enough for me to be able to live with. But it's still annoying to have to do a correction on a newly-tooled ANYTHING. I don't mean perfection. I mean "good enough" that's closer than 1 or 2 inches off. If there was a scale 2-inch gap between the center ports on a Revell smallblock Chebby engine, I imagine you'd hear some REAL howling.

I really feel for you guys who can't drive. Seriously. There were a few weeks a while back when I had nothing running, and being dependent on friends, co-workers, taxis and the ol' feet and bike gets real old, real quick. And Pete, I hope all goes well and you're back behind the wheel ASAP.

I'd say she's definitely a keeper.

I'm looking for one to measure. We have a bunch of flatheads, first-gen Olds OHV V8s, a '50s Studebaker V8, and several smallblock Chebbys...and an LS or two. No nailhead in stock at the moment, but I'll find one and photograph and measure it, with the measuring tape laid out in the photos. It's entirely possible, of course, that the NEW engine is right and the older engines are wrong...but having looked at so many nailheads, and having collected every OLD Revell nailhead that I could snag off of Ebay since 2005 (some from as far away as Sweden) because they're so good, I kinda doubt it. But I COULD be wrong.

Looks to me like the new Revell head is a couple of scale inches off, port-spacing wise (it's "only" a couple of mm in 1/25 scale of course). I've always found the old Revell parts pack engines to look spot on. And exactly as I said, the outer ports on the new engine appear too close together, and the center ports appear too far apart compared to BOTH other engines. This ruins the first impression of the engine for me entirely. I'll be putting all the engines from this kit up for trade... for those of you who don't see it or don't care... I guess if a couple of scale inches is considered "very close to being correct", well...that explains a lot. But hey, what do I possibly know about anything anyway. In MY world, accurate measuring counts. So do first impressions. We just took over two weeks designing and mocking-up a Carson top for a '32 Ford, making incremental changes sometimes as small as 1/4 inch in profile and curvature...1/4 inch on a REAL car...to get just the right look from every angle. That's a lot trickier to do than measuring exhaust ports on something that already exists and dividing by 25. And that kind of meticulous attention to line, flow and first-impression trains you to spot things that are just flat wrong, quite easily.

More like comical.

Doesn't your operating system have an easily accessible "notepad" function? I save ideas in Word as well, easily accessible by using a document title that is simple to remember...something like MCM IDEAS, for example. You can save links and pix as well, and you're not tying up this website's storage.

She was a doll. Kinda makes me wish this species of alien would land nearby... but I always liked her better as a slightly sophisticated girl-next-door type...

Brandon, Tom is exactly right. A lot of advice is groundless opinion based on hearsay, or a muddled understanding of the facts. My own work visible on this forum, and my real-life experience back up the advice I offer. On the suspension thing, back in my real race-car days, before you could buy tuner parts ready made, we dropped strut-type cars a couple of ways. Simply using shorter springs is one option. If the strut in question has a bolt-on spindle, another way is to cut off the mounting ears for the spindle from the strut, and re-weld them higher up. This lowers the car the exact corresponding amount you raised the ears. This would work on the struts on the left, shown below. This type of strut, or struts that have integral spindles, can be lowered by cutting the strut body below the spring mounting plate and shortening it. This method requires a shorter strut insert cartrigge. The spring mount can also be cut free from the strut and re-welded LOWER. This lets the car drop, but can keep the same spring rate. Another option is to convert the struts to an adjustable configuration like these BMW units, and use a shorter spring and cartridge. You can buy stuff like this for 1:1 cars too. In some cases, you can also get some drop by using a trick upper strut-mount / camber plate that allows the top of the strut to protrude farther up in the tower, and again, lowers the car a corresponding amount. There are many variations of these methods, and which one a tuner chooses depends on the exact design of the suspension under the vehicle, the amount of lowering desired, and they all require careful measuring and understanding of the principles involved to work well. Raising the stub-axles on a model relative to the strut body, as long as you put a nice backing plate or brake rotor in the correct location too, will usually accomplish a believable lowering job...and unless your audience has built a lot of real cars, if you do it clean, no one will say it's wrong for a particular vehicle. Major, road-scraping lowering and silly way-too-much, tire-and-handling-destroying negative-camber take more work.

The client on my 1:1 '47 Caddy convertible / LS build came by yesterday and was grinning like a kid when he left. Today, he brought his (very attractive) adult daughter by to see the car. She loved it. He's happy. He even SAID he's happy. It's nice to have one's efforts appreciated.

Thank you for the review and great photos. It looks pretty good, and it's definitely a great starting point for building a period hot-rod. But at the risk of starting another flame war, I see multiple relatively minor issues that those of us who look at the real ones day-in, day-out, and want a really accurate-appearing body shell will have to correct. But I may be wrong. I see a couple of things on the nailhead that make me cringe too. The exhaust port spacing is noticeably wrong (the paired end ports are slightly too close together, and the center ports are slightly too far apart). Since this is a major signature of the nailhead look, it would be nice to have it right...and it'll be the devil to fix. It's also unfortunate the block has big holes molded into it for the mounts. Makes it a little harder to swap it into something else. It's certainly good enough for me to buy several just for parts...and as soon as I have one, I'll post a detailed correction of the body...and exhaust port measurements...if my impression that some corrections are necessary is correct...as I have access to real cars (and engines) to measure.

Couple points. 1) CA glue (Zap-a-Gap) is much harder than styrene and can be tough to sand and get flat. 2) Sand the areas that have divots BEFORE filling. When you get a primer color or a bare plastic area around the divot, STOP SANDING. At that point, you'll want to make sure the center of the divot is well and thoroughly scuffed, so your filler of choice will stick with proper tenacity. 3) WHATEVER YOU DO, use a stick or a block to hold your sandpaper FLAT. Unsupported sandpaper will just ride down into the divot, and you'll be chasing the wave forever. 4) Though many fillers may work kinda OK, the ONE-PART fillers take forever to dry hard enough to sand, they SHRINK over time, and the adhesion isn't always great. I use Squadron green for tiny minuscule fills, and it works well for that...but never for large or deep fills. 5) I respectfully suggest you try the Bondo TWO-PART PROFESSIONAL #801 filler, available at auto-parts stores, in small 3oz.containers. There's a slight learning curve to using it, but it's an EXCELLENT ALL-AROUND FILLER, and it adheres well to painted, primered or bare (properly scuffed) styrene.