Fat Brian

The NASCAR engine might be interesting. You can pick up an older Monogram Tbird stock car for really cheap on ebay, you might could even trade for the engine here and it would be the same scale as the car so it won't look too small. The 80s and early 90s Ford stock car engines were also based on the 351 Cleveland which was an optional engine for this car.

I have a Nikon Coolpix too and I hate it, mine doesn't handle red very well either. Dark red is too light and oranges are too dark, I don't know what is wrong with it but if I had paid for it myself I would have taken it back.

This is great advice, please do this or the silver will run in the clear and it's off to the purple pond.

Your turbine monster truck reminded me of this, one of three trucks powered by a Lycoming T-53.

According to Smoky he never violated the rule book, he found omissions in the book and exploited them.

If a 78/79 body has a flip hood it was done by the builder, no kit with that body style had a flip hood from the factory.

Another Smoky story is that when NASCAR mandated running a certain size of fuel cell they also mandated it have a 2" filler neck. In a stroke of genius of playing in the gray areas of the rule book Smoky ran the 2" filler neck up into the passenger floor board before returning it to the tank. The total length of the hose was ten or fifteen feet and it held about another five gallons of gas. The rule book now states that the filler neck must go directly to the fuel cell.

Some people are box collectors, they just like the boxes I guess.

They must have a problem with the 359 chrome, you are the second or third person to mention this and mine is bad also.

It depends on what you are building. Roots type superchargers, the top mounted, belt driven, chrome ones, are sized by what their original application was, pumping air into Detroit Diesel two stroke engines. The common sizes are 4-71, 6-71, 8-71, and 12-71, taken from the size of engine they came off off. The first number indicates the number on cylinders the engine has and the second is the cubic inches of one cylinder. The 4-71 is too small except for very mild small block street applications. The 6-71 is the right size for most small blocks, it's about the size of most AMT superchargers that aren't the really old ones that are rounded on the top and bottom. The 8-71 is what I would use for your 440, the Revell 68 Firebird has a good one. If you are buiding 1/24 most of the Monogram superchargers are very nice, the 64 GTO and 70 Chevelle come to mind. The 12-71 used mostly for racing applications, it's the long style seen in more modern funny car kits.

The 78/79 Original Bigfoot kit doesn't have a flip hood even though the real truck does. This kit shared a lot of part with the red Destroyer truck. The next Bigfoot is an 87-91 body style truck with a flip hood. This kit most closely replicates a later rebody of Bigfoot III which started with an 80-86 body. The most incorrect area is the engine, Bigfoot III ran a 429/460 based engine with Boss 429 heads. The kit uses the FE 390 that was always in the AMT 73-79 trucks with incorrect for the engine 460 valve covers with BIGFOOT on them. The valve covers are correct for a different Bigfoot but would never work on the kit engine. This kit was released with just the Bigfoot lettering and with the new red and yellow stripes. This kit was also modified slightly and reissued as the Destroyer II. The tube chassis Bigfoot and Snakebite kits are closest to Bigfoot 10 even though the early Snakebite boxes show a front engined truck that was a much modified Bigfoot IV. If you want a flip hood you can always make one, it's not too bad.

Hey Lane, is there a reason you do all your building outside? I understand you have to spray outside but could you build inside if you had a place to do it? Maybe you could talk your parents into buying you a small desk or a large folding tv tray to do most of your work inside, you can always tell them it's cheaper than taking you to the hospital with a heat stroke.

Competition vehicles are one of those areas where the deeper you dig the more you discover that there isn't just one correct way to build the subject. These things changed on a event to event basis so exact replicas are very difficult, but it looks like you have a good start.

Here is a post from The H.AM.B. about the Chevelle. Over the years the legend of this car has grown, some stories are true and some have just gotten better with the retelling. In the day it was believed that this car and the ’67 car were 15/16 scale versions of the production Chevelle. This is not true, they both used factory sheet metal, the length and wheel-base are correct but the proportions have been “improved”. Smokey even created the first template to show NASCAR that his car matched a street Chevelle in the parking lot. It did, but then again the street car in the parking lot also belonged to Smokey. The front bumper was sliced and extended 2 inches to create a front air dam. The roof was modified with a subtle “vortex” generating lip. All the rough edges were smoothed, the glass was fit flush to the body, and the rear bumper feathered into the rear fender, all to improve the aerodynamics of the car. It was common practice in NASCAR at that time to use the much stiffer Ford frame in a Chevy, Pontiac, or Dodge. Smokey believed that to mean that you could use “any manufacturers” frame in any car. So he “manufactured” his own frame. Since you had to keep the engine centered between the frame rails, he moved the entire frame to the left, as well as the fuel cell, driver and many other components to improve the balance of the car on Daytona’s banking. The engine was also used as a stressed member in the frame. The underside was an engineering marvel. The floor boards were lowered to create a belly pan, custom-made adjustable front control arms replaced stock units, and a revised front steer system was used to optimize the Ackerman angle and make room for the engines belly pan style oil pan. The car weighed 3,900 lbs. and was powered by a de-stroked version of the Chevrolet Rat motor that displaced 416cid. Smokey’s theory was that less reciprocating mass meant higher backstretch RPM and decreased fatigue. The engine made 450HP at 7600RPM. After nearing killing himself building the car Smokey showed up at Tech for the ’68 Daytona 500 on the last day. It was required that the car be inspected without any fuel in the tank. After six hours in the tech shed the car passed. The team pushed it over to the gas pumps to fill up and get ready for practice. They were refused fuel and told that they would not get any until the head of tech Joe Gazaway signed off on the car. Joe looked the car over and found ten items that had to be changed. First on the list was Smokey’s custom frame. It had to be a stock “Ford” frame. According to legend, with no fuel in the car and Joe telling a steaming mad Smokey he needed to change ten things on the car to race. Smokey jumped in, fired up the engine and said “make that eleven things” drove the car out of the racetrack onto the street and back to his shop. Smokey says that really isn’t true, he had put some fuel in the tank... but where did he get the fuel?

Does it look like the car in this link? http://www.ebay.com/itm/AMT-53-Studebaker-Starliner-Coupe-Plastic-Model-Car-Kit-Scale-1-25-31759-/190683137905?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2c6599c771 If so this is the optional version. http://www.ebay.com/itm/AMT-Ertl-DOUBLE-WHAMMY-1953-HEMI-STUDEBAKER-3-IN-1-Model-Car-Mountain-KIT-1-24-/380447613457?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item589471e211

I can't image it would have two tanks with only one filler neck and if it did it would need two more fuel lines and another evap line.

I believe that kit has a twin blower setup with a clear hood and a chopped top.

Alright, I just wanted to make sure before I bought anything.

Are the rear fenders in that kit seperate from the bed sides? If they are all you have to do is add some plastic strip to the inside egde of the fender where it meets the bed side and sand it to match the curve of the fender.

I know what the different levels mean, I want to know if there are two different Lumina kits with different parts counts.

Something I noticed in more ebay searching was that the early Lumina kits like the Earnhardt 90 and 91 kits and all of the Days of Thunder kits were marked as 2s. There was an update to the Lumina kit in 92 or 93 and after that all of the kits were marked as 3s.

I thought about that thread too.

This Beretta was disallowed from Cup competition after being cleared for ARCA. http://www.stockcarracing.com/thehistoryof/32356_chevy_beretta/index.html

I would skip trying to use the Grand National as a donor, it's 1/24 and most likely too big to fit inside this body. I would use the new Revell 72 Cutlass kit. It it what was actually in the car for real and is the same scale, you can pick one up at Micheals or Hobby Lobby for around $12-$15 with a 40% off coupon.

I had one of the Night Rider kits, it wasn't bad for a snap kit. The hood opened and it has some basic engine detail. I wish I hadn't messed it up but I was young and dumb. I have never seen the other two, I've been looking for a fleetside for a long time. Here is an 80-86 long bed I made from a Quadzilla kit, two Monogram Broncos, and the inside of the bed from the 91 F-250.