Ace-Garageguy

I found some, but the boxes all say 1/22 scale. Is yours actually 1/24?

I'm curious. That illustration appears to show THREE turbos, as opposed to the 'standard' Koenig twin-turbo rig. I've done some image-searches to try to link the picture with some factual information, but all I come up with is typical internet dweebage. I've also done some direct research on the Koenig cars, and have found no reference to a three-turbo installation. The model kit instructions posted show a conventional twin-turbo, one-per-bank setup. Can you shed any additional light on this triple-turbo thing?

Just pre or post WW II, it would have been a viable performance swap. The stock Ford flatheads made a little more power (90 for the '41 engine, 100 for the '46) than the stock stovebolt '37 Chebby (85), and there was a lot more speed equipment available for the flathead. The flathead generally lent itself better to speed mods, as it had insert rod bearings, where the Chebby still used poured babbitt. The Ford also had full pressure lubrication, where the Chebby still relied on dippers for the rod big-ends. The 216 Chebby also had heavy cast-iron pistons and a long, whippy 3-main-bearing crank. (The flathead Ford also only had 3 mains, but it was a lot shorter, and the loads were more evenly distributed). Hmmmmm....think I need to build one.

Beautiful paint !! Man, that is so cool. I've got to find one of those.

More on sequential turbo systems...again, you could blow the output from these into a mechanical supercharger if you just love complexity.

Depending on how it's plumbed, it could work just like that. What I seem to remember, on the other hand, is a twin-turbo setup with a little guy that would spool up quick to provide low-end boost, and a big brother that would keep on pumping well into the high revs. Probably a real bidge to tune, but I like the essential idea. Some of these wild things were built long before electronic engine management, and a bunch of purely mechanical systems in feedback loops can be a real nightmare. There are also all kinds of potential flow-reversion problems when you have two compressors blowing into the same box. You can get into needing elaborate check valves and servos, and the more complex any system is, the more opportunities there are for a component failure. Here's one possible plumbing scheme for a two-stage turbo setup. (Images from open internet source under "fair use" copyright definition) NOTE: You COULD take the compressed air at "LLK" and feed it into a mechanical supercharger for very low end boost. WAY too much complication to my way of thinking, but entirely possible.

I agree entirely. I enjoy the actual using of quality tools, and can't stand dicking around with something that is marginal at best. Since part of the pleasure of modeling to me is the actual using of good tools and materials, I usually don't try to cut corners on price. On the other hand, if something will do a comparable job for less money...which doesn't happen often, though it does sometimes...I'm certainly not above using the knockoff if funds are tight. The last several real cars I've painted, which were top line, I did with early Chinese knockoffs of SATA guns, which I was used to using. The knockoffs performed so well, for a fraction of the price, that I kept them as backups for more than 25 years. They've been well maintained and still work fine...all except the touchup gun. The seals in it failed after the first use. Not bad for a knockoff gun...

I like Dobbertin's J2000 just fine. Nothing fake, and parts fabricated where necessary to do what they need to do. Everything looks exactly like what it is. On the other hand, the blue Nova leaves me cold. Just personally...if the injector hat had been functional, and had fed to the two turbos, which had then blown into a sealed plenum under the hat and into the blower (which could have been done)...real injectors controlled by the throttle-butterfly linkage and a barrel valve could have squirted into the plenum, using a real Hilborn or Kinsler pump...now THAT would have taken some engineering, and I'd be a cheerleader for the thing. But the fake butterflies and non-functional hat ruin it for me, and impress me about as much as the old fake Cal-Custom injectors dweeb wannabes useta bolt to the tops of their carbs. It's a carbureted car pretending to be injected. But that's just me. I'm just a form-follows-function kind of jackass, and can't abide fake anything.

There's something very lonely about that photo, like the model has gone away to points unknown. Is that a part of the display that came with the kit (my built-ups had none) or did you lay some track and ballast it? Looks great. Very realistic.

People who do good work should be appreciated. NICE WORK. THANK YOU.

Wow. I hadn't seen that one. That man's good.

There's a lot to it. I make REAL 1:1 parts and bodies from scratch, and model parts in just about every scale...from 1/87 (HO) to 1/8. I also design and fabricate real aviation parts, and develop repair procedures for products made of composite materials ("fiberglass"), including aircraft. If you REALLY want to know, I'll be more than happy to explain the processes and materials. In general, the fine plain-weave cloth available for RC model planes is what you want for large-scale car model bodies with FLAT or single-curve surfaces. Very fine, loosely-woven plain weave will follow tight compound surfaces well too. For some applications, you may need a twill-weave, or a satin weave at some point. Mat is NOT woven. It's random shortish fibers stuck together with a "sizing" that dissolves in resin. It's generally too heavy for small model work, but can be useful in the larger scales. It's the choice of lower-to-medium quality parts and body manufacturers. Laminations made of it are lower strength than those made with oriented woven fabrics, and tend to be thicker and heavier for a given nominal strength. It IS useful for large-model mold-making. Cloth is available commonly in weights from about .5 oz (1/2 ounce), which is extremely light. "Boat cloth" is commonly used on ...wait for it...boats. It's usually a fairly open plain weave in the 3-7 oz. range. Also commonly used on medium quality automotive aftermarket parts. If you want to understand what you're doing, I STRONGLY RECOMMEND YOU READ AND STUDY THE MATERIAL PRESENTED AT THE LINK BELOW. Then, ask specific questions. http://www.fibreglast.com/product/the-fundamentals-of-fiberglass/Learning_Center

Correct. The kit you have is this one, which is actually a nicely-proportioned representation of the real car.

I just pulled a couple of built-ups down from the shelf, and it looks like those cutouts at the back of the cockpit are the OTHER Revell kit...but I wasn't aware IT was ever molded in red. Still checking...

I wouldn't swear to it, but from that angle, she appears to have the slightly misshapen nose of the Aurora kit, later repackaged as both Revell and Monogram. I know some of the Aurorevellogram Jag coupes were molded in red, but I'm not certain if the convertibles were. Anyway, here's a thread you may find helpful.

Excellent questions, and I haven't ever really looked at it very carefully from that perspective. I'll be back in that shop next week, and should have measuring access to an S I, the black S II shown above, and a recent S III barn find. The shape of the cutouts for the headlights is also significantly different, and I'll post side-by-side pix on molds I made of the S I chrome rings next to shots of molds of my new S III black rings, with dimensions on everything I can think of. In the meantime, here's a shot of the S I nose from roughly the same angle as the black S II above.

Looking at the OTHER side of the scoop, it's immediately apparent IT IS CLOSED TO ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE, and only functions as an air-box that the turbos blow into...again upstream of the positive-displacement supercharger. People often think I'm being argumentative, when in fact I'm trying to explain HOW THINGS WORK, so that modelers who want to make a passable representation of REALITY may do so. And very often, just one picture or view is NOT sufficient to see what's actually going on. Also very often, a verbal description of function and component layout is necessary to make systems understandable.

If you bothered to read ALL I wrote, you would have seen the link to a Hot Rod writeup on that engine I already posted. The article states that the throttle butterflies on the injector hat were FAKE. They were sealed from the back, so the injector hat functioned as nothing more than an elbow pipe that directed mixture from the turbos into the positive displacement blower. As I further explained with the illustrated diagram, if you can apply the diagram to what you see in the above photo, this is consistent with correct design I'm fully familiar with any and all turbo application design theory, and there's no way in hell that thing could work if those top butterflies were functional...which, one more time, they weren't. The throttle butterflies probably DID open and close to look "cool", but again, they were sealed on the backside and did NOT feed the engine. There ain't no magic, and things work according to logical implementation of well understood principles. And sorry if my response sounds unfriendly, but I actually DO know what I'm talking about.

Good luck. I know these things are sometimes as much art as they are science, so here's hoping that everything goes smoothly, and to plan. I will certainly NOT criticize if any glitches remain, as I also understand the frustratingly unpredictable things that can go awry. Fingers crossed, positive vibes being sent out into the ether.

Or camel weddings.

Thanks. I was also very careful to respect the car's originality. All the mods are designed to be relatively easily reversible, should the owner decide to sell it off if prices continue to rise...though I believe he'll keep it no matter how high they go. Nice thing about the guy...he drives his cars aggressively. The engine in this is uprated from two SU carbs to the earlier 3-carb configuration, with hotter cams and headers. The provenance of this Jag includes time as a European hillclimb / rally car, and it's definitely had a hard life at some point, though the chassis structure has been rebuilt recently, and the interior has been redone in a beautiful dark red leather. The park / turn lamps on this car, also hyper-bright LEDs, are now located in the outboard segment of the new custom lower light housings, behind custom Lexan lenses. I felt that, to be fully visible when the rest of the lamps were illuminated, this location would be best. The headlights themselves are very bright Euro H4 bulbs, shown illuminated here, as are the LED H1 projectors (visible inboard of the signal lamps). As you can see, it's still possible to see the turn signal quite distinctly. That's not always the case when the signals are incorporated into the headlights. And I've been an admirer of Bo Zolland's work for a long time.

There is a lot of confusion regarding E-type bonnets. There are in fact THREE different designs just for the SI alone...not including the "lightweight" and "aero" versions. The SII positions the headlights higher relative to the sugar-scoop, with a larger opening in the bonnet skin, and an elaborate chrome surround. The opening for the radiator is also larger. If I remember correctly, the nominal distance from the rear edge of the bonnet to the center of the wheel arch is identical on all SI-SII-SIII cars. I say "nominal" because each bonnet is individually fitted to each car, so if you buy a replacement; either new or used, chances are very good you'll have a lot of critical fitting to do. The suggested fit time is around 40 hours (!). Variations in the shape of the center panel of the different series (the bonnet is made up of three major exterior panels and a lot of secondary ones) accounts for relatively minor dofferences in the length of the bonnets overall. I recently completed the design and fabrication of custom lighting for this car, an SII (now with low-mounted LED projectors in the lower lamp enclosures), custom headlight surrounds, and wire mesh covers. Even the sugarscoops are custom fiberglass fabrications, as are the parking lamp / projector enclosures, trim rings, and the retainer rings for the wire mesh. This is the only E-type like this on the planet.

For quite a while, I've been wanting to build something along these lines... ...but I kinda hate to cut up a nice kit. So, this little mess is the perfect starting point, as all I need is something roughly Jag-ish...

Not so hard to do in 1/24, actually. The SIII is longer through the doors (and tub, of course). The rear wheel-arches have added flared lips. The nose is the same as the SII, more or less, but with the addition of mild wheel-arch flared lips as well. The 1/24 Hasegawa XJS-V12 has a decent starting point for the engine.