Ace-Garageguy

Not bad. Really not bad at all. Pretty decent, actually. Flows well, proportions are good. Yup, overall pretty nice.

AMT kits are manufactured in 1/25 scale. That means that the dimensions of the parts are 1/25 the REAL dimensions. The inverse is that if you multiply any measurement you take off a 1/25 scale part, you get the measurement the REAL part would be. 1.31" X 25 = 32.75", and so forth.

Thanks. It's all rattlecan. I've sanded and polished to a higher gloss since the photos were taken, and it still looks good 7(?) years later...though some sanding scratches have shrunk in the decklid, which opens, because I rushed the finishing to make the deadline, not allowing the primers to harden up completely. I just wish I'd scribed the door lines.

Testors Inca Gold is one of their "one coat" lacquers. I've used the system extensively over the years, and as far as being "one coat", it ain't. I shot this car with Flaming Orange over a white primer (which was in turn shot over a gray surfacing primer). It took 5 COATS to get full hiding. Yup...five full coats (and the darker orange covers better than gold). AND...after the car was done, I buggered the decklid. I had a contest deadline, no more white primer, so I shot it over gray primer, thinking enough coats would get me to a match. Nope. The decklid is noticeably darker than the rest of the car...which you can just barely see even in this shot (though the reflections make it harder to spot here). For Inca Gold, a white primer will get you the best "pop" with the brightest color. A red primer will shift it to orange. Dark gray primer will most likely just make it look kinda muddy. Light gray would be close to white, but still just not as bright. And you'll need at least two coats of clear to be able to colorsand and polish safely (assuming you have almost no orange-peel).

Maybe depends on your definition of "dog"?

Yes, and that '50 or so split-windshield Porsche 356 coupe is interesting too. I almost had one of those for its scrap value back in the wayback. The car had been run on short asphalt and dirt ovals at some good ol' boy events down here, and got punched hard in the side. It had been stripped of all its guts, but I had a rusty A donor. Anyway, it was WAY beyond my skills at the time, so I let it get away.

Thanks for the link. I need to build one of these too...have a gluebomb bought specifically to do so.

Blower housings are almost invariably made of cast aluminum or magnesium. So are vintage injector bodies, though recently you'll see some carbon fiber. The "chrome" parts are usually just polished castings, and as these alloys age with no protection, they lose their shine and often develop a powdery white blotchiness, like this... Here's a blower and "hat" that were polished at one point, but have been languishing in somebody's shop for years... Below, these aluminum Hilborn scoops were often polished, but the cast magnesium injector bodies were often treated with Dow 7 coating, or just painted black. You'd see 'em polished on showcars too.

^^^ Very true. And the 700R4 gearbox was the newest, trickest thing around, being a 4-speed with a lockup torque-converter overdrive feature, making it a 5-speed automatic trans in function.

I have to respectfully disagree. I have build threads that are often dormant for years, and then get fired up again. I've noticed that if I don't modify the header and include a date, there are relatively few readers, most apparently assuming it's just an old, dead thread somebody dug up for one reason or another. As the only object of posting one's work on a forum is to have it seen, there's little incentive to add new material (which in my own case takes more than average effort) if it's just going to be ignored.

Kinda inconvenient when trying to clarify something (after a post has been rattling around in your brain, and up pops the realization that there might be a better, less confusing way to say something), or add additional useful info.

The Z-11 valve covers are also slightly taller than the garden variety stamped steel 409 valve covers, to provide additional clearance for increased rocker travel with high-lift cams.

Very attractive model. I've got about a dozen of these, some waiting to become specific cars, some as donors. Great kit. Truly great.

700R4, built from 1982 forward and renamed 4L60 in 1993, or 4L60E (early style, with one-piece housing, pre-1996). The E denotes the gearbox uses electronic shift logic, rather than the earlier predominantly mechanical/hydraulic.

I use several tools. The hook you mention, the X-Acto tip or backside as well, and an assortment of PE and conventional razor saws. It depends on the shape and location of the line. Here are over 11 years worth of posts on the same subject. Presumably, you can find something that appeals to you.

As far as the real one goes, I don't have an enclosed workspace for it at the moment, here in Ga. I'll be moving the car to Az., along with everything else, after I finish up two client projects here. There's a decent sized shop with attached paint-booth and office, as well as a lift, at the property out there. I've been picking up bits and pieces for years, like a vintage Edelbrock 3X2 manifold, etc. I HAVE been using the convertible model to get a feel of what sort of wheels and rubber and stance I want to go for on the real car, and experimenting with things like body-colored bumpers, etc. All your work looks great, by the way.

I can endorse afx's suggestions, though I work a little differently. I prefer to wrap bends around something, tape in place, and dip in boiling water (5-10 seconds) to temper them. For weld fillets, I prefer to use Loctite gel CA. Careful measuring and cutting is essential to getting a good looking tubular structure, as is "fish-mouthing" the ends of round-section rod for maximum joint strength with minimum fillet reinforcement. George Bojaciuk's suggestion, looking at lots of images of race car structures, is also very good. Understanding load paths and why things are placed as they are helps to make a convincing model that's technically correct. Planning well ahead of cutting is also recommended. I have tried the plastic-coated wire mentioned by R.Thorne, and though it does hold its shape after bending, I was never really satisfied with other aspects of its performance. This isn't exactly a cage, but a more a stiffening structure built over factory frame rails in the pre-cage days, and also supports a one-piece fiberglass pre-funnycar body.

A little arithmetic shows us that a properly scaled 19" wheel in 1/24 scale will measure about .79166" across the tire mounting area. Now, because the OD of a wheel is usually somewhere around 1" larger than the nominal tire size (19" in this case), we assume the OD of this wheel, if it were full scale, would be 20". So, if we measure the diameter of this known dimension on the wheel/tire that's facing our computer screen (it's 3.53" on mine), we can divide that number into 20 to arrive at the scale the wheel appears to be on the screen. On my screen, the wheel appears to be 1:5.56 scale. Having THAT number in hand, we can measure the OD of the tire on the screen, and multiply it by 5.56 to give us the OD if it were full scale. That number is 22.518". Divide that number by 24, for 1/24 scale, and we arrive at the actual diameter of the model tire as .93825". This is consistent with other 19" 1/24 wheel-tire sets including rubber-band tires I have here. This wheel-tire combo is appropriate for all 4 corners of an import, or fronts on a larger vehicle like a muscle car.

ALSO NOTE: This is a Littlefield 14-71, still with the characteristic rib spacing as shown above. But the point is that it's not always easy to tell just by looking at a photo of a blower on a car what number it is, though I'd bet tomorrow's lunch that the one on the car in the profile shot is an 8-71.

I'd bet my lunch the blower on the car is a magnesium Bowers unit. One of the ways we identify a blower's manufacturer is by the position and spacing of the ribs. If you look closely at the photo of the blower on the car accelerating, you'll notice the rib spacing, from the rear, is two narrow bays between ribs, a slightly wider one, and a still wider one in the center. This spacing repeats in reverse as you go towards the front. Now, if you look at the polished 8-71 case I posted a photo of above, you'll notice identical spacing. This spacing is typical of housings manufactured by Bowers Blowers (purchased by the Blower Shop in 1984). This (below) is a polished vintage Bowers magnesium 6-71, with the same rib-spacing as the polished 8-71 above, as well as the large blower on the car-in-action photo. Littlefield housings, on the other hand, often exhibit close-together-in-the-center rib spacing, or the old OEM GMC design. Mooneyham 8-71 case, also with two center ribs, below... BDS blowers, below, frequently have 3-in-the-center ribs. ...or the OEM GMC style:

Looking good. I've got a couple gloobombs of this kit that have seen your build and are nagging me to do something similar now. I like your choice of mag, too. I just went almost blind drilling eight tiny holes in the right pattern on the back of the cap of one for wires. I need a cross-eyed emoji.

More than a decade ago, I started a company called Ace-Garage. I'm the guy. Ace-Garage guy, see? It's never been fully active, but the plan is to light it up again after I move West. Full hot-rod and one-off builds, design work, and consultation.

Thanks for your response, Tim. I'll be attending the Design 2 Part trade show here in March. It's usually also attended by several US-based injection molding companies (I was slated to do an article for the mag prior to Harry's passing), and I'm thinking of putting the idea out for bids, just to get an idea of the reality of the situation. Of course I'll do it in my own name, with no reference to R2, AMT, or anyone else, as I'm obviously not representing anyone but myself in the inquiry. What do you think a realistic minimum initial production run would be (5000 units, 10,000 units, etc.) Please PM me with another contact method if you want, as I may not be here much longer.

This is directly copied from Moon's site...no caps, poor punctuation, not written by any kind of competent English speaker, and the dimensions are 20 inches by 20 FEET by 4 inches. I guess hiring a copy-writer who graduated from high school is asking too much these days. I mean hell...a website is just the face your company presents to the world. Why bother to communicate like your people have functioning brains. we've come up with Moon disc to glue onto your hub cap for better aesthetic and aerodynamic design will increase your driving range.you'll need to send your hub caps.20"x20'x4"

or auditors' eyeballs