Ace-Garageguy

I put some explanatory numbers up earlier. A "full race" flathead (non-blown, with a wild cam, high compression heads, and multiple carbs) will only make about 200HP. That's about a 12-second car in the quarter, with a 125 MPH trap speed, if it weighs 1500 pounds, with gearing optimized for acceleration in a quarter mile. To explain further...to pull 140...no matter how long your straight is (and no way a 1500-pound, 200 HP car will pull it in the quarter) you have to have the power to overcome inertial mass for early acceleration AND aero drag (drag increases with the SQUARE of vehicle speed, so there's 4 TIMES as much aero drag at 140 as there is at 70 !!!) and to reach redline (at least to reach the power peak) in top gear. Again, a NON-blown flathead is only going to make about 200HP, max, and you can't twist one tighter than about 5500RPM and expect it to stay together. That's not enough to push an old Ford coupe with the aerodynamics of a barn door up to 140MPH...which is why, in 1948, Barney Navarro (as I mentioned earlier) put a salvaged GMC 3-71 or 4-71 blower from a landing-craft engine on his flathead and ran 139.75 on the dry lakes...'"on the top-end floored". The blower allows you to run "taller" gears to get a higher top speed, because the blown engine makes significantly more torque at LOWER ENGINE RPM...but you still need a long run for the old wheezing flathead to get up to speed. The intake tracts on a flathead are really poor, and no amount of porting or polishing or even supercharging can possibly overcome the engine's inherent breathing limitations. Bottom line is, to perform as the song says, the little Deuce coupe would HAVE to be supercharged...and that wasn't as uncommon as you might think. This is similar to Navarro's 1948 rig, and could have easily been seen in 1963. This is how you get "140 on the top end floored" with a flathead.

Bismarck (Kevin Little) sent me a nice Fujimi Ghia kit in exchange for a Hemi Dart. He shipped first, threw in some extras, and didn't complain when I didn't get his kit in the mail as soon as I'd said I would. Good guy. Thanks Kevin (tracking says your Dart is at your PO)

Snagged this 1/8 built up, which I was pretty stoked about... Listed on Ebay as: "THE KIT HAS BEEN STARTED. It looks about 1/2 started, maybe less. Whoever started this kit, did a pretty good job, so far. I "THINK" that it is pretty much complete and can be finished." (copied directly from the auction page). Unfortunately, no mention was made of the windshield being broken and half missing, and the photos cleverly concealed the fact that most every part is so heavily slathered with glue as to be almost un-restorable. I bought the thing to go on a trailer behind my Big Ol' '32 (1/8 scale on the Big Boys forum, for the NNL thing here in November) and it's going to take about twice the work to restore this poor old mess than it will take to finish the '32. This one really WOULD go in the trash if not for some fool glutton-for-punishment like me. Add to the frustration of getting a fubarred gluebomb instead of a "half started...pretty good" kit the fact that the seller sent me an old crusty CB radio by mistake FIRST, and IT was so poorly packed that the box had split and the radio was falling out when it got here. Then the seller asks me to send it on to the intended recipient. Yeah, right. We're in negotiations. Some days... The happier news is that, from a different seller, I also snagged this 1/8 MPC Harley Sportster "Then Came Bronson" kit. It needs work, obviously, but it's in pretty good shape really.

Not really. Just build it with a blower (either a 4-71 GMC or a SCoT) the way I've outlined...light, 4-speed T-10, etc...and it will do everything it says in the song.

I like the way you think. (They did shut down at 7:00 PM on the dot. I just hope this isn't going to be a weekly thing.)

I understand that. I'm trying to shake some kind of upper respiratory + gut-rot thing that had me really knocked down for a couple of days. Still hacking and coughing way too much to work in dust mask / respirator, and as the current projects in the big-car shops require that, I'm home on the interwebs. Pretty understanding clients, but I really HATE to miss work.

But it IS possible. You don't want to spin a flathead past 5500 RPM, really, but with a 28" rear tire and a 3.23 gear, she'd theoretically be doing about 142...wound all the way out on the dry lakes, maybe...assuming she had enough umph to pull redline in top gear...which again makes me think she'd have to be supercharged. In '48, Barney Navarro went 139.75 on the lakes with a GMC-blown flathead in a roadster, so it IS possible a blown, chopped '32 coupe could do it in 1963.

I love the old AMT kits too, and have been doing a lot of different things with them over the years...mostly salvaged gluebombs (though I've picked up some unmolested kits when the price has been right) And a few more...

Interesting thread here. The more I think about it... According to one of the online ET calculators, a 200HP "full race" (NON-supercharged) flathead in a 1500 pound car (just barely possible to get it that light) could be in the high 11-second, low 12-second range, with around a 125 MPH trap speed. In '63, that could very well make it the "fastest car in town" (depending on the town) and it would easily "walk a Thunderbird like it's standing still". The '63 Bird was heavy, and probably only good for a mid 16-second 1/4 mile ET. The 1500-pound number is interesting, as in California in the '50s, a car that weighed 1500 pounds or less could legally run without fenders on the street...and there were plenty of roadsters that hit hit the mark, obviously. Getting a steel-topped coupe under 1500 would be more of a challenge. An aluminum-headed flathead weighs over 500 pounds all by itself.

Well, it's been a while. I've given her plenty of time to finish herself up, but it's just not happening. Guess I'll have to do all those fiddly bits I've been putting off myself. I made a decklid inner panel to give the impression of the real thing with the deck open. No, it's not particularly accurate. And I don't care. Installed, with the seam buttered with Squadron Green to form a radius. No problem if it shrinks here. I'll fill and radius the center hole. Also finally got going on drilling the distributor cap and valve covers for .015" wire. None of the commercial caps had exactly the look I wanted, and the ones I like were too big to snuggle in to the recess on the firewall.

No, but I'm working on a potential magazine article. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- With the edge of the decklid opening finished and fitted, she looks like this. Nice and tight, and more symmetrical than the kit-delivered scribed line. I finally decided to go with parallel semi-elliptical springs all around, so I made up some spring hangers on the chassis, and started scratching a straight front tube-axle. Also decided to go with a B&M Hydro-Stick, after making certain it would be period-correct. Tube-axle coming along. All the scratchbuilt springs (they will all get more leaves) and brackets / hangers in place on the chassis for fitup. Made up a pushbar. Gluing the body to the chassis with removable glue, to use it as a jig to get the centers of the axles in exactly the right place. Checking final stance one more time. I really like this angle.

Congratulations. Knowing when to quit is a good thing.

Or a serious-looking 3-window...

Or a pretty-close-to-perfect channeled car...

Hmmmmmm.....stick some lakes-pipes and bias-ply tires on this and call it done...

The song came out in late 1963, so add that to your period-correct interpretation. Obviously, nothing after that date could really make sense. Far as the "four on the floor" goes, a very likely gearbox would have been the post-1957 4-speed Borg-Warner T10. Introduced as the Corvette box, junkyard availability would have been decent, and it easily bolts to a flathead with the right adapter. To get the kind of performance the song brags about, the car would pretty well have to be built light (no fenders) and probably supercharged. An un-blown streetable flathead probably isn't going to make over 200HP...which can still be fast in a 1500-pound car. Wheels? I'd go Halibrand kidney-beans.

Something for just about every taste...

Geez...another one of those "looks" that screams "I know absolutely nothing about vehicle dynamics or engineering in general (and think I can completely disregard what the engineers who designed the dammed things recommend as safe and functional fitments) so I'll do this dorky setup just because other totally ignorant people do it". This is stupid. It has nothing to do with MY personal taste. It's just stupid. NOTE TO MATT: I'm NOT calling YOU stupid. If you want to build a model of this setup, that's fine. You won't be driving it. It's just anyone who does this in the real world is an idiot.

There's gazillions of bits of reference data available through Google on this subject. Here's one particularly good site. http://www.musclecardiy.com/drag-racing/drag-racing-warriors-grumpys-toy-1974-vega/

There are several problems with most of the repair procedures available to fix this, and I've tried them all and know what works from experience. Bondic, CA (superglue) and straight epoxy actually have very little structural strength. You can't just stick two ends of a small piece of plastic together and really expect it to stay fixed. The world just doesn't work that way. If you'll follow my directions here and really think the procedure through, you CAN achieve a permanent, stable repair. The first thing you need to do is to get the parts aligned correctly and hold them there. Do this by putting the "glass" in place and taping the broken parts securely in position, so that they actually FIT the window "glass". Next, you need to fixture the parts in place so you can do a good repair, and the parts will still be aligned correctly AFTERWARDS. This is where most people skip steps, and why so many tend to say "start with a fresh body because you can't fix it". You do this by very carefully gluing styrene "splints" to the outside of the broken areas with liquid cement. DO NOT let it get on the "glass". When it's completely hard, overnight, remove the taped-in window "glass. What you want to do now is "vee" out the broken ends on the backside, tapering the break gently from almost nothing to the unbroken thickness, and roughen up the surface with somewhere around 100-180 grit sandpaper. You're going to fill the "vee" with epoxy (30-minute epoxy at a minimum...5 minute just won't hold here), or CA, and some kind of fiber reinforcement. Read Snake's "fauxberglass" remarks, or use dryer sheets, very fine fiberglass (made for RC aircraft) etc. It's best if most of your fibers run in the long axis of the post, and you need to soak your reinforcement fibers thoroughly in whatever adhesive matrix you choose, and make it thicker than it looks like it needs to be. When your goo is completely hard or cured, you'll file it to correct shape, then remove your temporary "fixtures" and do the outside of the break the same way. If you do this CORRECTLY, it WILL work. Lots of effort? Yeah, but if you want good results, sometimes you just have to go the extra mile. Any other method is almost guaranteed to at least crack when you're handling the model after paint, during sanding and polishing. Non-fiber fillers like talc and baking soda that folks recommend also have NO structural strength. One good thing to use is "cotton flock". Mixed with a high-strength epoxy, we use it routinely in the sport aviation industry to assemble and repair plastic aircraft that can exceed 7 or 8 G.

It's a beautiful day here today, but I got chased out of my own house early this AM with blaring music coming from some kind of ethnic thing across the street in the parking lot of a mostly vacant little shopping center. The fact that there's an African DJ screaming in some language I'm not familiar with, playing mostly reggae, rap and Afro-pop doesn't bother me. My neighborhood is becoming more "culturally diverse" every day, and that's OK as long as folks treat each other with respect and common courtesy. What DOES bother me is the frigging music is loud enough to rattle the windows. I personally like jazz and classical and old rock, and if somebody was playing any of that across the street...THIS DAMMED LOUD...I'd be pretty PO'd too. If it's still going after dark, I'm calling the cops. Enough is enough. I don't blare the music I like so loud that the whole damm neighborhood is FORCED to listen to it, and I really don't understand why these clowns think THEY have a right to force ME to listen to THEIR carp.

Great color, I agree.

It's the same in every service industry, but every time I mention it, particularly on this board for some reason, I'm met with a flurry of comments about how I'm just an angry old man who's past it and simply likes to bash on young people. The truth is that this is nothing new. There are VERY FEW "technicians" in any field who are worth paying to do much of anything. I speak from over 40 years in several technical fields...every facet of the car business (except sales), aircraft repair and modification, and several related areas working as an engineering consultant. Even people with certifications that are generally thought to only be available to competent individuals (ASE, aviation A&P, etc.) are usually lacking in the skills they're supposed to be qualified for. One shop I work with these days has been looking for a reasonably qualified older-car mechanic for over a year. The last hire gets so many comebacks and misses so much obvious stuff, we've decided to send him on down the road...and this is a guy with 10 years "experience" working as a tech and the service manager in a local independent Porsche shop. He's flatly totally and completely incompetent, just won't listen when you try to nicely help him through something, constantly asks for help with stuff he should be intimately familiar with, and when you DO help him out, he just goes ahead and buggers the job anyway. Time after time after time. And he actually seems to THINK he's good; textbook Dunning-Kruger effect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect The last aviation shop I worked in had one tech who put brake pads in BACKWARDS, and seemed to be unable to read and comprehend written information...which is a LARGE part of the job of being an aviation mechanic That alone should have been sufficient to get him canned, and his supervisor reprimanded, but when I got disgusted and left the place, the idiots were still happily buggering airplanes. He was, by the way, a federally-licensed A&P mechanic, a graduate of a "license-mill" that guarantees ANYONE can pass, and charges many thousands of dollars to "train" mechanics, and get them their papers. Every day, day in and day out, without fail, I see fine old cars that have been bodged and buggered by "experts" who actually got paid to do horrible, unsightly, and often dangerous "work". It's their carp that keeps us in business, and WE should have fired the clown I mentioned above after the first couple of weeks...but anybody with even a decent looking resume is so rare, the management elected to keep him on in spite of his incompetence, hoping he'd shape up. One well-known and respected IT wizard estimates only about 10% of his colleagues are even "reasonably competent", and only about 2% are what he'd rate as "very competent". So when you get an idiot appliance repairman, or odd-job handyman, or "builder", or just about anything else that requires a functioning BRAIN as well as a willingness to do "dirty" work, don't be surprised.

Beautiful conversion work on one of my favorite aircraft of all time.

More sad news. i always enjoyed seeing his approach to building, and like you guys have said, his weathering was very believable.