Ace-Garageguy

I figured he was the FTB who lit the fuses on the warheads just as they launched the missiles. Or maybe he's just copping a smoke out of the wind behind the conning tower. Gets kinda stuffy down below.

I'll be very interested to see what the Revell guts look like. The Bora also uses the ZF gearbox that came in the deTomaso Pantera and some iterations of the Ford GT40...and to the best of my current recollection, there is no source for a reasonably accurate-looking one.

You're already on the right track. It's quite easy with that particular kit to get just about any amount of lowering you could want. The question is "how low do you want to go?". Both ends of your truck have similar suspension designs...parallel semi-elliptic leaf springs with a beam front-axle and Hotchkiss-style rear axle (sometimes called "live rear axle"). For just a little lowering, you can file away material from the springs where the axles attach. This would be analagous to removing a couple of spring leaves on the real thing. For a little more lowering, if you want to do it kinda right, you'll have to either cut the spring-perches loose where they attach to the frame, and move them up (which will lower the chassis a corresponding amount) OR modify the spring shackles to let the springs fit closer to the frame rails (also lowering the chassis a like amount). For LOTS of lowering...notice that when this model is sitting upright , the axles are BELOW the springs. If you rework the suspension so that you put the axles ABOVE the springs, you'll get a lot more drop...so much that you may have to notch the frame a little to clear the axle (called 'C-notching' on real vehicles), or modify the brackets or shackles to raise the model up somewhat. You'll have to decide on how you want your model to sit when completed, and experiment with these techniques to get the look you're after. NOTE: Whenever you lower the suspension on a real car or a model, you very often run into other things that have to be modified slightly for fit and clearance. Work carefully, pay attention to how things go together, and what else may need to be changed. Also try to think of what a real vehicle would require to keep from looking impossible / goofy. Real vehicles need room for the tires to move up in the fenders as the vehicle goes over bumps, and room for the front tires to steer inside the fenders too. To get everything to work out like you want it to, it's necessary to block the model up at the finished height you want, and do some careful measuring. I strongly suggest you mock-up your model on the stock suspension and carefully measure the ground clearance as it comes, on both ends. Then remove the suspension and block the truck up at the height you want it to sit at. See if the wheels / tires you're using will actually still fit inside the fenders at that height, and if NOT, see where the problem lies, and fix it. Pay attention to the relationships between the parts and think through what each change will do. Remember, if you subtract the measurement of the ride height that you want it it be LOWERED, from the ride height it is STOCK, that will tell you exactly how much you need to relocate your axles on the spindles, and how much to cut the rear springs. It's all just like real cars, only smaller.

The first big question is how low do you want to go? The subframes can be moved up relative to the chassis somewhat (which will lower the car) by removing material from where they mount to the chassis...both on the subframes and the chassis plate itself. Measure and work carefully. There will, of course, be other minor clearance issues created by doing this that you will have to look for and address, but it's probably good for 1/16 inch or so, which is 1.5" in 1/24 scale. Getting lower than that takes moving the axle centerlines up relative to the suspension uprights.

It looks good in a hot-rod too.

I was a machine-head almost right out of the egg. My parents used to joke that my first word was Ford, and that's probably not far from the truth. I was fascinated by trains early on too, and had Lionel stuff, but even as a little kid discrepancies in scale bothered me...though I didn't know what it was called, I just knew some toy things were the wrong relative sizes. My father built static and flying model airplanes and kites, and as soon as I was old enough to spill paint all over his workbench and lose his tools, I started "helping" him. He probably gave me my own first model so I'd leave him alone. My early glooey fingerprinted gap-paneled messes were mostly planes and ships, but I got the old Revell '57 Ford wagon kit (which I ruined beyond belief and probably painted 5 times trying to make it "better") and was headed for car models mostly from then on, though I did get into HO and scratch-building structures, scenery and hand-laid track pretty seriously for several years. I think I built my last hobby model for a long long time when I was 17 or 18...an altered-wheelbase '55 Nomad straight-axle match-racer painted fluorescent orange with a light silver flake, a flip nose and a 409.

Exactly.

Slipped the leash early and went for a 3 mile hike. Not too bad, a little hip and lower back pain, but overall a VAST improvement over the past incapacitated month.

THANKS! I need to do a little figgerin' but those are listed as being about 22mm OD...so they just might work in 17" or 18" rims. We also have an NNL-style meet here the first part of November. I don't know if MAS is scheduled for table space, but if so, I'll see about getting there early this year.

Yeah, I just found the number of the kit and R&M's email, so I'll be asking about that directly shortly. Thanks for the reminder though.

The topic has been covered here extensively, and more than one member has already been making high-quality parts...one guy even built his own printers (my66s55 is the member's screen name here). Try this thread first to get an overview of the technology and how it's been progressing. http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/topic/79877-3d-printing-growing-as-we-speak/ Pico Elgin, a member of my club here (ACME) developed the STL files and had this body printed about 5 years back. He was pretty much on the leading edge of the 3D-printing-for-models curve at the time.

Today, nice Mr. Mailman brought me a Fujimi Mugen Honda CR-Z all the way from the land of the rising sun. First time I saw one of these little buggers on the street, i did a double take. I still think it's one of the trickest looking econoboxes ever built...but it needs to shed 1000 pounds and become rear-wheel-drive with a built B16 / 18 where the back seat is. That would give us a 1600 pound mid-engined car with an easy 220 HP. Plenty good power-to-weight ratio to be vastly entertaining, and decent fuel economy too. Sadly for me, I'm not in the position to build a real one right now...and besides, it would be illegal (). So, for the time being, a model it will have to be.

A real master at work. Great fun to watch. Thanks for putting that up.

Very nice modernization of a kit that has a reputation for being quite a POS. Nice stance and just enough detail, clean and well-thought-out modifications.

Avoid the problem. Just drink out of the bottle.

Exactly. I've seen guys who were reputed to be "experts" do the same thing with 3X2 setups on flatheads, and get so frustrated they just blanked off the end carbs rather than realizing the poor little engine could only idle on the center one, and that the opening of the secondary carbs needed to be carefully matched to the cam characteristics too. The real tuning wizards are the ones who simply have a good understanding of how engines work. There's a little "science" involved that some folks never bother to learn, but once you get the science down, and understand the 'why', that's when experience and 'feel' for the things can really come into play and make your car faster than the guy in the next lane...even if he has a lot more money in equipment. One setup that IS a real bugger to get to run right on the street and still make full power is the old Man A Fre 4X2. Even though there is a large balance chamber in the manifold that tries to smooth out the vacuum signal the carbs read, each port still has its own carb throat, and the adjacent cylinder firing timing isn't equal on all the port pairs. Compounding the tuning difficulty is that all 4 carb throttle plates have to open simultaneously and hit WOT simultaneously, and getting every cylinder an equal mixture when the carbs are seeing different amounts of vacuum and differently timed "suck" pulses can take a lot of work with emulsion tubes, accelerator-pump squirt and jetting. Conventional wisdom is also that the old Hilborn mechanical injection can't be made to run on the street either. It can...it just takes an understanding of exactly how it works and what it needs to do differently to be streetable.

Thanks. I noticed, but I don't have the GTO here to look at. Appreciate the heads up on the 3 manifolds in the hardtop kits too. I should have realized probably all the '57 Chevy open-door kits have the 6X1 manifold, as they all seem to have the six one-barrel carbs on the chrome tree.

The old Maser V8 is a roughly 5-liter 90-degree alloy block engine with iron cylinder liners and DOHC heads. It's physically roughly the same size as something like a smallblock Ford or Chevy...but the heads are obviously much wider and have cam-boxes. One way to approximate the look would be to use one of those bottom ends, but substitute a pair of DOHC heads from some fairly large (2.5 L or so) displacement 4-cylinder engine. Or you could maybe cut two cylinders off the end of a big old Jag 6 head, and then file the top of it flat to get a similar installed angle on the cam covers. Make 2. Or start with a couple of old Offy heads and modify to suit. Another possible starting point would be the Chevy DOHC LT-5 V8 from the AMT '39 Wagon Rod kit. The problem is that the old Maser uses classic hemi combustion chambers with a large included angle between valves, which puts the cams quite far apart...and the cam covers. The LT-5 uses a more emissions-friendly combustion chamber, and the cams and cam covers end up much closer together, a very different look from the Maser engine. Other than using a readily available V8 bottom end and making or modifying heads and valve covers, I can't think of a way to get a reasonably decent looking Bora engine in scale. The engine is the same basic unit that was in the old Quattroporte, Mexico, Ghibli and Kamsin too, but that's not much help. The Revell 1/24 Bora has an opening rear deck, but I don't know if it has any kind of decent engine detail. Far as I know, that's the only Bora kit in 1/24 that even had an opening rear clamshell.

I think I was wrong. The more I look, the more it looks like all the open-door nomads DId come with the FI manifold, as you originally stated. Apparently the FI and the 6X1 setups were both in the same kit, with no single-carb version...like I wrongly thought I saw. Oops.

Izzat a brake?

Click here: http://www.b-n-lresins.com/shoppingopencart/Aftermarket-resin-cast-1-24-1-25-scale-model-Brake-Booster-with-Master-Cylinder

Had a look in the '59 kit and they're very nice, but as you say, definitely missing the base plates. Is OK, as I have real ones here to measure. Other nice thing about them is that they're the manual-choke-no-choke versions. On a real car, getting 4 auto-chokes synchronized would be damm near impossible, and it looks like the Milner car ran manual chokes. On a 3X2 setup, only the center carb usually runs a choke, which is fine, because the engine only idles on the center carb. The 4X2 setup gives each cylinder its own carb throat, so every carb has to have a choke if you want any kind of street-drivability in colder weather. Only downside is that there are slight sink-marks in the tops of mine, and it's going to take stripping and filling a really small area to make them right before casting. I'm glad this thread came up. Even though I have no interest in building the movie car, having 4X2 and 6X1 carb setups for smallblock Chebbys will tend to make those engines a lot more interesting than the done-to-death 2X4 or tunnel ram rigs on hot-rods. Getting a good 3X2 Rochester setup will be nice, too.

Pretty cool. You rarely see these built as customs, and they have very nice lines for it...kinda like slightly scaled-down Zephyrs. Good clean work on that pancaked hood too.

Nice Mr. Postman dropped one of these off today....sealed...but no more. It has a very nicely detailed engine-gearbox that surprised me. I really wanted a '67, but since it's going to be a custom anyway, 's okay.

Interesting this topic came up. As earlier stated, it's the only game in town for building a stock '30-'31 without a lot of effort. It also still makes great rod-fodder. This busted-up gluebomb is getting a little re-imagining on my bench.