Ace-Garageguy

Avenger smallblock Ford and Chevy hemi heads...

Aries smallblock Ford hemi heads...

Hammerhead hemi heads for a smallblock Ford...

Babbitt & Lyons smallblock Chebby hemi heads...

Mickey Thompson Pontiac hemi heads...

I'll start. Mickey Thompson hemi heads for the Ford FE engine...

Indeed.

Or just ask here. We'll be happy to help, we appreciate guys who want to get the details right, and after a while, you'll KNOW. PS. I added some info to my first post, if you missed it.

The drag-racing and production engines you see with the plug wires running into the valve covers are primarily either old Chrysler Corp. "hemi" engines, or racing engines based on that architecture. Different engine designs place the plugs in different locations for a variety of reasons, so it's always best to research the appearance of the SPECIFIC engine your model represents. The old "hemi" engines (Chrysler FirePower, DeSoto Firedome, and Dodge Red Ram, plus the later Chrysler 426 Hemi, every racing engine derived from it, and the rare Ardun-Ford flathead conversions) run the spark plugs between the rocker shafts. This requires tubes that the plugs live in, and the wires go to these. This shot of a 392 cubic inch Chrysler FirePower engine shows the tubes clearly... ...and even though all pushrod hemi engines will be configured like this, some production engines hide the wires in a "loom", like this... Most non-hemi V8 engines place the plugs below the valve covers, like this smallblock Chevy...

A general understanding of the operation and limitations of search functions can go a long way towards eliminating frustration. Understanding how to use strings of search terms is essential to finding things online, and if the first search fails, try different terms. Computers are really pretty stupid, most of them have no linguistic or semantic understanding, and you have to ask them SIMPLE questions...for now. (NOTE: That is why IBM's "Watson", the Jeopardy winner, was such a big deal a few years back. For it to do what it did, however, some of the best programmers in the world had it running on a roomful of Crays. That level of semantic understanding just isn't going to be present on a little dorky "search" function running on a web server.) Unless a product or part is specifically tagged (for instance) with the words "1/12, scale, car, model and part", a non-intelligent search function HAS NO WAY TO KNOW IF SOMETHING FALLS WITHIN YOUR SEARCH OR NOT. All you accomplish is to confuse the poor machine with too much information that it's not smart enough to organize. The algorithms employed by most search engines (including Google) are NOT YET INTELLIGENT ENOUGH to know that a transmission, for instance, is a car part, and should therefore be included in your search results...unless it's specifically identified as a "CAR PART" where the search program can see it. Rather than use Shapeways' search function, which is actually pretty stupid indeed, try a Google search for the term "Shapeways 1/12" and you may get more valid results. Between the stupid search function, and the often stupid TAGGING of products by the folks who put them up, you often need to do a lot of thinking on your own. Save the addresses of the sellers of parts you find that fit your criteria, and search within them in the future, as you've already mentioned. OR...IF YOU SEARCH VEHICLES 1/12 in the Shapeways search box, you get very relevant results displayed FIRST. https://www.shapeways.com/marketplace?type=product&q=vehicles+1%2F12&s=0#more-products REMEMBER> Keep your search terms to the minimum required to convey your meaning.

Beautiful job. What technique did you use to enhance the panel lines? They're just right, and really help make the model look real

Tried to write you a nice simple set of instructions, but got the dreaded 404 message when I tried to post. I guess all the gremlins haven't been fixed yet. Basically, just go to your profile page, click the little square in the little circle, and follow the steps as they're presented.

I'm sure I'll have a real "DOH !!!" head-slapping moment when the answer is revealed, but I don't know this one and can't force it to be what I think it should be. Guess I'll just wait for the end. Found heem. Took my own advice and kept changing search terms 'til I got a hit.

Good to hear the real deal from someone with first-hand experience. Sure beats "I heard it from my cousin's dog's groomer's mother's boyfriend's son-in-law, who thinks he remembers hearing a rumor about an article in a magazine". There's a company Stateside that handled a bunch of them too... http://www.sfflatheads.com/about-us-truth-about-us-and-the-stuff/

I haven't done a full buildup, but being a curious sorta fella (as to what '32 Ford parts will swap around), I HAVE done enough of a mockup to know it's possible without a lot of grief. The lower front fender aprons on the fender unit need to be trimmed, and a little material needs to be shaved from the inner faces of the fender unit sides towards the rear. The frame rail kickups and crossmembers are in the correct places. It's not a drop-in, but it's not particularly difficult either. The frame is a natural under any fenderless car based on either the AMT or Revell kits too.

I seem to have lost all my marbles...

The reason the real car world switched over to HVLP (high volume low pressure) spray equipment was primarily to reduce wasted paint sprayed out into the environment with high spraying pressures, and not great atomization at low pressures. Spray guns were entirely redesigned internally, and spraying techniques modified. It was a pollution-control measure primarily, but material savings came about as a result. It only stands to reason that more precision in applying material where you WANT it, and less wasted overspray going everywhere else, will cut back significantly on what it takes to get adequate coverage on a model.

I think you'll find that a large part of what kills water heaters is "hard" water, minerals (like calcium) dissolved in the water. A "filter" will do nothing to remove them. Water "softening" technologies have been around for ages. Culligan, for instance, has been around for 80 years. I had a Culligan system in my last house, lived there for 17 years, and the 20-year-old gas water heater was still working just fine when I left (though I had converted to tankless electric on-demand units for the kitchen and laundry room). https://www.culligan.com/home/water-softening/water-softeners Here's the scoop on "hard" water... https://purifieradvisors.com/the-3-best-methods-of-water-softening/

He's not selling the rims through Shapeways yet, to the best of my knowledge, but I saw a set of his printed (with holes) rims back in November at the meet here. This (below) was the first set of his wires I ever saw (several years ago) and I don't recall the technique he used here. The body was his first 3D print, if I remember correctly. He's a member of this forum if you want to contact him... http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/profile/20136-pico/ ...and I believe he did the digital master for this Frenzel supercharger...

Fascinating. I'll be extremely interested to hear about your progress as it unfolds. Just to give you a little idea of what kinds of tooling resins are available though (in case you don't already know...which you very well may) the stuff we used to make the matched dies for aircraft sheetmetal landing gear doors had been used successfully to stamp wheel centers from 1/8" steel sheet, (lotsa pressure) and there are resins that will withstand 450deg F sustained, with short excursions to 500.

Will holler if and when, for sure. That's the reason I figured on designing the centers to work with the old Revell dragster wire rims. Get some product moving, see what kind of response there is, and then move into getting rims done if the effort seems warranted. MCG already has somebody making turned aluminum engine pulley sets, so presumably, the same source can do rims.

I'll be contacting MCG within the week to see if they're interested in collaborating with an outsider (me) to make the PE centers (at least) happen.

I've begun looking into using some high-temp and high-pressure capable tooling epoxies to make molds for this process. About 20 years ago, we made matched press-dies for sheetmetal parts from a powdered-steel-filled epoxy tooling material. The company that supplied that is in the metro area where I live.

Here's another article on the entire process, start to finish, combining techniques from the digital age and the pre-computer-modeling age. It's more-or-less accurate as far as it goes, but there ARE mistakes and misleading assertions...which once again points out why it's good to have somebody with first-hand experience, or at least an in-depth understanding of an industrial process (things apparently not considered necessary for technical writers today) write stuff like this. http://www.madehow.com/Volume-6/Toy-Model-Kit.html