Ace-Garageguy

Or cut new ones...

But here's the thing...you can not assume that ANY of those drawings are accurate. "the-blueprints.com" regularly posts drawings that are kinda like the car they're supposed to represent, but not really accurate. It's common. Of the drawings posted, I'd tend to trust the top one that looks like it might be an actual sheet from Porsche. The others I'd take with much bigger grains of salt. If the windshield width (as referenced in an early post in this thread) is taken as a definitive place to measure (as it's doubtful it changed during the closed-cars evolution), I'd suggest the method I described above to get a ballpark figure.

Me too. I really like the old SK stuff. Most of what I have in SK came from pawnshops after I got cleaned out (uninsured) back in '77. They're all still working just fine. Yeah...I started seeing that way back when I was working at a Datsun-Triumph-Fiat dealership (don't see those anymore). I'd have head bolts on new 240Z-cars snap before getting to 65 lb/ft during retorque. A lot of the Japanese fasteners were junk then. The English stuff was by far the best of the three. Now the stuff is all over the board. Scary thing, some years back, we started getting lots of sub-standard "genuine" paper-trailed "aircraft" fasteners. They had all the right documentation and looked real pretty, but they were offshore fake crapp.

Agreed. Helpful. And as your posted drawings attest (with very obvious differences in lines and shapes), the published sources often disagree, or show different versions of the cars with no supporting data to permit making really meaningful assessments of the accuracy of the drawings. Scaling from a known dimension, like a 15" wheel or the wheelbase, both easily verified on all the drawings above, and deriving the width of the base of the windshields in each drawing would be a start to have something meaningful to compare the same dimensions on the kits to.

Probably after the pent-up feeding frenzy for the roadsters dies back.

One point overlooked by a number of folks singing the praises of "the same warranty" on cheap tools is the way the tool fits the fastener it's intended for. The SnapOn "flank drive" line (that every decent manufacturer copies now that the patents have run out) contacted the bolt head or nut on the side faces, instead of the at-the-time common contact at the tips. The result was that a SnapOn wrench wouldn't round off stuck fasteners, and it would usually remove fasteners that had already been buggered by chimps. Those of us who always worked commission appreciated the fact we'd waste less time getting things apart that had already been "worked on" somewhere else. All the combination wrenches (only the box-end was "flank-drive", obviously) and sockets benefited from the same design, and while the patents were in force, SnapOn was really the only choice for better mechanics. As I mentioned, every quality manufacturer uses a version of "flank-drive" today, but there are still a multitude of cheap wrenches out there that don't. The accuracy and method of broaching the hole in a box-end wrench is also critical, as is the accuracy of the opening and steel hardness in an open-end wrench. These important aspects of tool design are often lacking in the cheaper stuff. I've seen cheap wrenches spread and round off fasteners when a decent wrench would have turned them. And to quote Don " Old saying, not the boxes that make you the $$$, it's the tools inside and the guys skill that swings them that pays the rent." Yup. There have been times I've been roundly ridiculed...and I mean seriously made fun of...when I've gone into shops with my crappiest boxes, looking like something I pulled from a dumpster. Funny how it always stops as soon as the time sheets go in.

I pulled the kit out and looked...kinda hard to tell. Sorta blobular, and I didn't spend much any time trying to figure out if they were supposed to represent anything real.

Pretty cool, but give me internal combustion, or give me death.

I always kinda liked Rooney. Good actor. But I wonder what he had that made him so attractive to the babes?

Cool. Definitely something you don't see every day.

Though there may very well be a ridiculous twin-carb adapter that bolts to the stock intake manifold, to get any meaningful performance increase, it would be necessary to provide more "holes" for carbs, rather than trying to flow them both through the flange intended for one on the OEM manifold. Welding on additional flanges was one way it was done in the early days before catalog-everything. A typical twin-carb cast manifold replaced the OEM, like this... EDIT: For lotsa alternatives in reality, Google image-search "twin carb adaptor stovebolt 6" or similar.

Agreed. Tool "feel" is important to anyone who lives with them day-in-day-out. That's what I loved about SnapOn back in the '70s, but after I got robbed and cleaned out, I started replacing much of the really good stuff with adequate. Far as hammers go, one thing I forgot to mention is that, in my experience, the off-brand dead-blow hammers get brittle and crack after a few seasons, but my old top-line stuff is still going strong. Different resin. And occasionally, top-line tool-truck stuff goes bad too. I'm still waiting for a new set of hoses for the ones that turned to goo in a fuel-injection pressure test rig.

I've bought some secondary rollarounds, engine stands, jack-stands, hammers, and other entirely adequate stuff from Harbor Freight. Making a tool-box from steel sheet doesn't require any special or exotic technology, only the ability to fold sheet cleanly on a brake, and spot-weld it together. The drawer slides in my secondary boxes are just fine if they're not overloaded, the paint is as good as tool-truck boxes (in appearance, anyway; how well it lasts I probably won't live long enough to find out), and the casters and fasteners are appropriate for the application. I'd expect the tool boxes shown here to be pretty much as good as anything off the tool truck, just lacking the SnapOn or Mac snob appeal...and the easy weekly payment plan that makes the tool truck operators a nice income while you pay about double for everything. As far as other tools from HF, I've seen less-than-stellar quality on combination wrenches, air tools, screwdrivers, anything electronic, wire ties that disintegrate in a few months, etc. Though I haven't bought any recently (already having three of pretty much everything I'll ever need), some of the best "no-name" tools I've found are the Husky brand. The combination wrenches I have, for example, are just about identical to SnapOn "flank-drive" wrenches that were top-line until their patents ran out.

Probably a good thing the blades are removed, eh?

This is another statement that makes the whole premise suspect. If one has a feel for spacial relationships and carefully analyzes the front screen on these cars, it's obvious it's not a compound curve, but rather a curve in a single direction. This was most certainly intentional on the part of the 917 designers, as forming compound curves in perspex almost invariably induces distortion...not a desirable characteristic in a race-car screen. It also needlessly complicates the fabrication and fitting processes, which are typically made as straightforward as possible by competent designers. Therefore, narrowing the body by taking a section out of the middle does NOT cause a "very difficult to solve" issue with the windscreen, as a replacement can be relatively easily formed from flat stock. EDIT: One of the reasons compound-curved sport aircraft canopies, like those made for German sailplanes, are so expensive is that it often takes several tries to get one that has acceptable optics, without significant distortion. This is another one of those areas where I have considerable experience (and about which I am often called, by a certain cadre here, a liar who does nothing but falsely build himself up; once again, I sure thank you...and you know who you are...for having added so much enjoyment to my experience on the board). BELOW: obviously non-compound curve of the windscreen, as evidenced by the straight line from top to bottom.

Hmmmm...interesting idea. I've been experimenting with the stuff lately, using it as a barrier under itself and over primer...a much repeated no-no...and it works well if allowed sufficient dry time. Usually, buffing metalizer won't buff if shot over primer. But if it's shot over a coat of itself (over primer), thoroughly dried, the top coat will polish up as though it's over bare plastic...almost. Thanks. Dennis is one of my favorite builders here as well. Thanks for the like. The yellow tin is filled with a block of open-cell polyethylene foam. It was a promotional giveaway for something called "The Directory" (printed on the bottom) and I've forgotten entirely what kind of directory it was. It came with a red polyethylene snap-on top. Maybe somebody recalls what it was.

I would tend to take any "expert" posting about the width of the 917 with a grain of salt. I'm not implying what you've seen is wrong, but there's always the chance. Accurate dimensions of the real cars take some serious effort to unearth, and in-person access to real ones to measure is, in a word, limited. We've gone through something similar with the 904, where much of the published (online) data is just flat wrong, or has been misinterpreted. Some drawings of the 904 online billing themselves as "blueprints" are poorly-scaled, warped, misshapen renditions, and any "scaling" taken from them will be equally flawed. There were multiple versions of the 917, quite distinctive from each other visually, and there were running changes in the most familiar LeMans-style cars, as in all race cars, repairs, and obvious differences from car to car in photos. Un-crashed early cars appear to be widest...in front...at the top of the wheel openings, whereas other cars appear to be widest in front lower down, just behind the lower portion of the headlight openings. Add that to the apparent difficulty MANY kit designers seem to have measuring accurately and dividing by the scale denominator...you have plenty of points for inaccuracies to creep in.

I agree entirely. When the cars began to go all cookie-cutter, that's pretty much when I lost interest. Naturally, as the sport developed, some things were found to actually work, and some things didn't. In true survival-of-the-fittest style, technical development and understanding tended to make competitive cars more closely resemble each other. The result was the "impossible" speeds we see today...pretty dammed impressive...but at the cost of the fascinating individuality the cars used to have. But there's still some fun stuff out there...

Born to Speed, 1947. Fictional story, nice little plot, lotsa old midget racing footage w/ some V8-60 shots

Me too. Ain't that the truth.

There was, but they were concerned with things like Cords and Duesenbergs. The Jag was just a ropey old car that didn't have much value. I bought my first covered-headlight S1 roadster for $400, complete and more-or-less running. Something with a blown engine wasn't worth more than its scrap value. Ever notice how many got rolled down hills and burned in some of Hollyweird's finest?

It also works well for custom or race-car windscreens. Mockup, below. The retainer at the bottom (under the tonneau, not visible) was copied from an early Monogram Indy car that used a similar material supplied in the kit. Actual part made from green plastic from a ginger-ale bottle.

Not surprisingly, the moth-eaten-look for removing weight from bodies was subsequently outlawed.

Most windshields are not compound curves, so flat clear stock is much easier to use than you might think. I make a template from masking tape laid over the opening, marked a little oversize. Transfer that to a piece of card-stock. Install strips of plastic on the backside of the pillars. Trim your card-stock template until it just snaps into place between the retainer strips. The tension on the curve should be just enough to hold it tight against the curve of the opening. When you have the fit perfect on the card mockup, transfer it exactly to a piece of clear stock. Snap it into place and secure it with white (PVA) glue. OR... The clear material drink bottles are made of is often very good for forming replacement "glass" as well. Here's how you do it...

Great collection of examples of why drag racing used to be so much fun to be around. Innovation, experimentation, individuality.