Ace-Garageguy

Oh boy. I want to see those...

Found this Model Factory Hiro Abarth 1300OT, had to spring for it. No telling when or if I'll ever find another one for reasonable money. I was crew chief on a team that raced one back eons ago. We bought the car for around 10 grand from the eccentric but near-legendary Fiat/Abarth wizard Al Cosentino, when he was headquartered in Florida. He'd had a number of DNFs with it, including an ill-fated start at the Daytona 24. Out after 3 laps, down on power and overheating IIRC. The car was based on a Simca 1000 platform, heavily modified, with lots of Fiat 850 bits, slick all fiberglass baby-Ferrari bodywork, built to a 1300cc prototype specification in 1965. For the most part, it was obsolete by the time we got it, but it made a pretty flashy C Sports Racer in SCCA...and 1300 OTs had an impressive competition history in Europe, including (I believe) a class win at LeMans in '66 or '67. Naturally, my mission when we got it home was to find out what was wrong. All the specs and tech notes we had were in Italian, so one of my first jobs was to go down the road to Ga. Tech and find someone who could translate them. Turns out the cams were retarded quite a few degrees. The cams in this particular engine rotate opposite to crankshaft rotation, and apparently whoever set the thing up didn't realize it...though you couldn't help but notice as you turned the engine through. Cam timing is dialed in via a Vernier sprocket / cam interface that will be familiar to any old Alfa or Jag mechanics out there, and this engine was my first exposure to a cast steel block, as opposed to cast iron. Anyway, after getting the cam timing where it was supposed to be, I took her for a long test run through the late-night back streets of downtown Atlanta, and she went like a scalded ape. Running at close to redline on the way back to the shop, one of the sprocket retainer bolts backed out (having apparently been previously partially stripped by some ham-hander along the line). The little Vernier bolt wasn't enough to keep everything in time, and she bent every valve...bad. There were only two valves per cylinder, but they were huge for such a small engine, running in hemispherical chambers. It ran Weber 45 DCO-series carbs, with something like 150 HP at 8800 RPM. At about 1500 pounds, it had a similar power-to-weight ratio as a big-block Corvette, and by any reckoning was a real little screamer. After lots of phone calls and Telexes to Italy, we located the required parts, including a replacement camshaft, as its internal threads were also stripped. We had everything air-freighted in, and after a few long days she was ready to load on the trailer at 03:00 for an initial outing at Savannah the next day. I drove the transporter, and with no sleep, spent the test session jetting the carbs for the hot, muggy conditions. We still had no proper cover for the fuel cell, but tech allowed us to run with a plate duct-taped in place, as the chief tech in the Atlanta SCCA region was a friend of the car's owner. EDIT: though a fuel cell cover plate is an easy part for me to make now, I was not a fabricator at this point...other than being able to make simple gas-welded sheet steel things like throttle return-spring brackets, etc. He took her out...the first time he'd been in the thing...and finished a very respectable third on the intermediate tires that came on it, so hard as to be almost unusable. Little car finished every race she ran with me wrenching, never lower than 3rd. I'm pretty sure she survived, but I lost track of her when the owner and I parted company after he got in a little legal trouble. Old geezers livin' in the past, ya know?

COOL !! Ever hear of Emerson Fittipaldi's twin-engined Beetle? https://jalopnik.com/emerson-fittipaldis-double-engined-volkswagen-beetle-5799726 it traveled in pretty fast company...

Looking great. Your choice for new knockoffs looks good too. Thanks for posting this, as I wasn't actually even aware a kit of this car with a non-blobular chassis had ever been done.

All the "inline" FWD gearboxes I can think of right off hand place the engine ahead of the 'box, in the same relative orientation as would be common in a mid-engine configuration. So something like a reversed VW or 911 gearbox...used in reality...or something sourced from a mid-engine kit, would get the job done. You might consider a sidewinder (transverse) mounting, as there are more FWD gearboxes in that configuration, and it uses space more efficiently.

I just looked up and read through that form. It, of course, shows the entire amount of every transaction. So if you buy something at a garage sale for $10 and sell it for $10 on eBay, the entire $10 is listed as "income" on 1099K. I'm curious at this point as to what form "costs" are reported on for a non-business filer?...as only profit should be considered "income". I'm sure it's there somewhere, but I haven't looked for it yet.

For those who may not know, this is the car:

Real ignition-wire support looms are generally made from 1/16" (.0625") to 1/8" (.125") material. So an average representative thickness would be .09375" For your scale, divide by 16. You get approximately .006". That would be pretty flimsy. But if you make your looms from easily obtainable .010" thick styrene or brass sheet stock, they will look "scale" and still be strong enough to do what they need to do.

Received mine last week, and they look great. Much appreciated is the comprehensive set of instructions too.

COOL! And welcome. I had a rough Avenger with a Corvair engine for a short while, back at the dawn of time. Yours was beautiful...way better than mine ever looked.

Yup. Exactly. I've never had a weak joint using this method, and have been quite able to drill directly on a seam, or enlarge a hole that was on a seam, or file details at the seam, etc. Occasionally, I'll just hold the pieces in contact with each other while I flow the solvent between them, then clamp them before the liquid can evaporate. You will see a slight "squeeze" of melted plastic, your assurance the seam is "welded". I had to do rather a lot of this kind of thing on this build:

These 1.8 mm 16-18V LEDS are available on eBay (in several colors) for cheap, and include pre-wired resistors. 1.8 mm is less than a scale 2" in 1/25, so they're small enough to work in some side-markers, parking lights, dome lights, instrument cluster lighting, etc. There are others even smaller. I've had good luck with them so far, with only about 5% being inop. A bonus is that the extra-long pigtails on some of them are perfect for correctly-scaled ignition wires in 1/24-1/25 (with the heavier pigtails being good for scale battery cables).

How's this for annoying? Some drive-by-wire equipped VWs refuse to apply significant throttle if there's any steering input. So if you're trying to nail the gas and steer out of the way of an approaching semi, you're toast. A competent tech can go into the computer and disable the idiot function, but try to find one who's competent, VW-trained...and has the nads to defeat a "safety feature".

Exactly...or at the very least if the vehicle is in gear. It's easy. This add-on tech has been available since 2012, and why it's not mandatory...when so much useless idiot stuff is...is anybody's guess. https://newatlas.com/scosche-cellcontrol-disables-mobile-phones/21192/ EDIT: Last time I looked at the stats, texting or other phone-use-while-driving was responsible for as many unnecessary "accidents" as DUI used to be.

Must be the excuse du jour for Taco Bell and McD's and others here only allowing drive-through, no counter ordering or indoor dining.

Yup. Another winner. Beer to me is kinda like wine. What I drink depends on the meal. Others I'm particularly fond of (that come readily to mind): Modelo Negra, Yuengling Traditional Lager, Red Stripe, Guinness Extra Stout, Kingfisher, Taj Mahal...and 100 years ago, nothing could beat an iced down Miller or 3 in pony bottles at the end of a long hot day.

I'm not "cheap" by any means, and I'll always buy a good tool instead of inexpensive and questionable. That said, I won't spend money unnecessarily either. If I were you, I'd put your existing compressor in a closet or somewhere else you won't hear it, and use it for your painting needs. I have a 5-horse, 30 gallon unit in my back shop at home...a loud one...and run a hose up to the modeling area. Works great, and I never run out of air or have pressure fluctuations, even when running small air tools for modeling. Nice thing about running a long hose is that the air is cool by the time it gets to me, so a water trap does a much better job than if it's trying to dry hot, humid air right out of the compressor.

Yeah, but I haven't been able to get with management yet to see how far back their recordings go. Another thing is that the tools in question could have walked off at any time during the weeks I was on the road and in Az. It wasn't until this week when I started back on a massive wiring project that I noticed stuff missing, and the bozo has been gone for two weeks already. Guess I should be glad my $700 electric impact wrench is still there.

To muddy the waters even further, a "roadster" in some circles is defined as an open car with a removable windscreen frame and side-curtains, whereas a "convertible" is often equated with a "drophead coupe" or a "cabriolet", which is an open car with a welded-on, fixed windscreen frame, having more civilized roll-up windows. The Porsche 356 Speedster is a true "roadster" from that perspective, having an easily removed windscreen assembly to facilitate racing, and side curtains. Same for the Jag XK 120 roadster...and the '32 Ford roadster. But the Jag 120 DHC, the Porsche 356 cabriolet...and the '32 Ford cabriolet...have welded-on, integral windscreen frames and roll-up side windows. Somewhere between is the '32 Ford "sport coupe" that has a soft top, a welded on w/s frame, and doors with steel window frames. The Porsche 356 "convertible D" is another tweeny, having a bolted-on windscreen assembly, and roll-up side windows. Confused yet?

What irked me today? After having been a subcontractor with one vintage car shop here since 2016, and NEVER having a single tool go missing, a couple hundred bucks worth of electrical tools and test equipment disappeared the same time they fired the last useless bozo. Though the shop locks have all been changed now, there had been a nice atmosphere of trust and comaraderie...so I wasn't scrupulous about always putting all my tools up and locking my boxes on days I wouldn't be there. Mea culpa I guess...but that's baloney. A thief is a thief.

Things happen. But how 'bout post the list of those of us who got it, so we can gloat in our encyclopedic knowledge?

Holy moley. I might (just) be moved and be able to make this one...

Still a treat to watch this one evolve...

EDIT: Don't feel bad. Scalemates refers to the Gee Bee as a "Reno Racer", which is WAY wrong. The Gee Bee was built in the early 1930s to compete in the Bendix Air Races, among others. The Reno Air Races didn't begin until 1964...decades after the last Gee Bee was scrap and termite droppings. Though Delmar Benjamin and Steve Wolf did build a full scale flying replica of the Gee Bee R2 in 1991, and flew at Reno on several occasions (as well as numerous other air show events), it did NOT race there.

Nope. The Williams Bros. kit is actually 1/32 (I have it, as well as their Gee Bee Z kit, and have checked). The ancient Pyro / Lindberg Gee Bee labeled 1/32 is the one that's actually about 1/26 if you go by the wingspan (though the pilot figure is indeed about 1/32). And, ummm, I was the guy who first discovered the mistaken scaling on the box and spread the word many years ago. EDIT: The misinfo probably arises from the several boxings of both the Williams Bros. and the Pyro / Lindberg kits. The 1/26 Lindberg / Pyro Gee Bee kit makes a brief appearance on page one in the thread below: