Force

Italeri is an Italian manufacturer. Over here Maxibrake chambers are on the first drive axle and steer axle on trucks.

The 289 and 302 looks exactly the same on the outside, the differences between them are all internal, the cylinder bore are the same at 4,00 inches but the stroke is slightly longer on the 302 at 3.00 inches compared to the 289's 2.87 inches. The missing fuel pump would go on the drivers side on the timing chain cover about half way between the water pump and the crank shaft, but as Bill says, on many "suped up" engines the mechanical fuel pump is omitted and the mounting hole is blocked off and an electrical fuel pump is used instead to ensure a steady fuel flow to the carburator.

Thanks guys. I know the last evolution of this tooling the Mark Pawuk Summit Firebird and Warren Johnson GM Goodwrench Service Plus/Superman Firebird kits from 1999, and the issues after them, sits too high at the front and has to be modified to look right, but I didn't do any modifications to get the "right" stance for this one.

Here is a picture showing the older Mallory Super Mag setup in the Bruce Larson Sentry Funny Car from 1989-90-91. And here are a couple of more recent MSD Pro Mag 44 setups from the 2000's, the last pic is from one of the Worcham family's CSK Funny Car from 2008-9 and it's pretty much how it still looks today

The Aerodyne sleepers came 1976 and the first 1:25th scale kit of a Kenworth W900 Aerodyne was as Paul mentioned, and as far as I know, the Monogram snap kit from 1982 (kit No 1501), Monogram also did a glue kit W900 Aerodyne in 1:16th scale in 1982 (Kit No 2502) and in 1:32nd scale in 1980 (kit No 1205). The 1:25th scale kit is the same one as the latest Revell issue except for color of plastic and decals. AMT/Ertl also did a Kenworth W900 Aerodyne in 1:32nd scale (kit No 6776 AMT/Ertl and kit No 5026 AMT), this was also a snap kit.

I have looked into this but I have only found a picture of the underside of the restored car. The 1970 Barracuda specifications here under from the Popular Hot Rodding April 1970 article says "Shatter Shield - Lakewood Industries", and it for sure looks to be a Lakewood steel bellhousing on the restored car...if it's correct or not I don't know but I have seen pictures of Grumpy Jenkins Toy VIII 70½ Camaro with a Lakewood bellhousing.

Time for another of my old builds, this time the choice of subject fell on the Revell Orndorff/Eckman Pennzoil Pontiac Firebird Pro Stock issued in 1992, the same kit was issued under the Monogram lable the year before. The model was built around 1995-96 and as with the Castrol Dragster I showed last time the detailing is all home made, otherwise the model is built out of box, the paint is Humbrol Yellow from a spray can. To the pics: Enjoy.

I have a 1964 Ford Fairlane 500 Sports Coupe wich was delivered from the factory Dynasty Green with Wimbledon White roof and White Crushed Vinyl and Black interior, the color of the cavity of the side spear on my car is white. I believe the colors of the side spears from the factory was White, Red or Black, other colors are most likely "custom"...but I don't know who and what decided wich color the side spear would be other than it was meant to be an accent to the body color. The main part of the Thunderbolts were White with Beige/Tan interior and they had black spears, the few that was Burgundy also had Beige/Tan interior as it was the only color available, and most of them had white spears but I have also seen some black, Thunderbolts with other body color than White or Burgundy were painted by the racers themselves as those two colors were the only ones available on the factory Thunderbolts. By the way...it would be great if someone did a decal for the back seat fabric pattern so we could do our Thunderbolt's with a correct look interior...I have several kits but I haven't built any yet because I don't know how to replicate this interior pattern...and a decal similar to the Scale Motorsports Uphostery Pattern decals is probably the easiest most good looking way to do that.

Here is the correct address. http://www.hartspartsresin.com/

The Pro Stock race cars were built by several chassis builders so there may be differences in the construction from car to car and year to year, the car in your first picture is the Wayne County Speed Shop Camaro driven by Darrell Alderman but the second is "Grumpy" Jenkins car with Joe Lepone Jr as driver. I know for sure the Reher-Morrison car was built by Don Ness Racecraft and he kit was as far as I know patterned after the 1982-83 Reher-Morrison car. The kit was originally issued by Monogram in 1984 together with the Frank Iaconio car and was the first in the series of "modern era" Pro Stock kits, so the first issue should be quite accurate. Some alterations of the tooling has been made for the later Firebird kits from 1991 and 1999, so the newly reissued kit isn't the exactly the same as the first issue, but I looked at the instructions on the Revell site and other than the drivers side of the cage with the "red bar" and some altered padding the cage is the same as in the first issue. The padding on the first issue drivers side part of the cage is on the upper side cross bar from where the cross bars meet and up to the vertical bar behind the seat, and the lower cross bar has padding from the cross down to where it meets the seat...that's it, nothing on the main hoop or anywhere else. Another thing missing from the first issue is the Moroso valve covers.

I have seen trucks with the lager brakes, also called maxi brake, on one or two of the drive axles. The larger chamber holds a strong coil spring that apply the brakes when the air is released from the chamber.

No it doesn't as that bar is part of the funny car style cage setup wich the 1982 car didn't have...that rule came a couple of years later (84-85)...the original kit was patterned after the Reher & Morrison 1982-83 car if I'm not missinformed so it should be quite correct.

It depends...if I do a race car I never clear before decals as they are vinyl stickers anyway...on modern race cars the whole car is foiled with vinyl. But if the decals are flames or stripes that would be painted on the real car I would consider clearing after. I have never cleared over BMF.

No the red bar was not in the original issue, I checked my kit stash and this bar came in the Tony Foti L.A.P.D. Camaro issue from 1991 together with the funny car style cage around the driver, the issues before that didn't have this bar...it should be bars behind the seats going from half way on the main hoop down to the floor towards the middle of the car tho' and I think they are in the kit. The Reher-Morrison and Frank Iaconio Camaro's together with the Bob Glidden and Rickie SmithThundebird's were the first kits in the "modern era" Pro Stock kit series from Revell/Monogram, there are three more evolutions with this tooling as base and some things are added or changed with the later issues. The second evolution was the Tony Foti L.A.P.D Camaro, next in line was the Jerry Eckman Pennzoil and Rickie Smith STP Firebird's and the latest was the Warren Johnson GM Goodwrench Service Plus/Superman and Mark Pawuk Summit Firebirds...and this reissue as I have understood it is sort of a mish mash of all issues, the Moroso valve covers from the first issue are gone and some things are not accurate to the time period the car represents.

No thanks, it's not for me...it's still a Fiat.

Well Italeri has been known to take shortcuts here and there over the years and have never bothered to do correct replicas of the subjects they were doing other than a very few. They did updates to the truck kits doing new cabs to keep up with the style changes but still kept the old outdated chassis and drive line, and their wheels have never been correct as the rear ones almost allways are hub reduction gears. I sold off most of my Italeri truck kits due to that...and the fact that it costs a fortune buying parts to correct them and build what you want from them...and I only have two Italeri trucks left in my stash right now, a Volvo 780 and a Peterbilt 378 Long Hauler, those are fairly correct but unfortunately the Volvo doesn't have an engine.

The wheels in my Revell 67 GTX Sox & Martin kits and some issues after that are Keystone Classics. I haven't seen Sox & Martin run Cragar SS wheels on any of their cars...not that I know of anyway, I have mostly seen Keystone Classics on their race cars up until 72-73...they had American Racing Bear Paw rear wheels on the 71 Cuda for a while tho', I really don't know why...maybe they were stronger.

Yes we can buy kits over here...but they are more expensive than in the States tho' so I do much of my business in USA nowadays. I don't know what stationwagon you mean, a picture would help. When Ormsby lost his battle with cancer it was a great loss to the drag racing community.

Thanks!! It isn't that hard...just tedious and you need lots of patience, There are good references on the internet so if you look around you'll probably find some...I used detail photos taken by myself at a race just before the build as I didn't have a computer back then. The fuel blocks are made of Evegreen styrene stock and the barrel valves are filed out of the same material, all the 16 injection lines under the bird catcher and blower are made of 0.4 mm stainless wire cut and bent to fit, the fuel and oil hoses are a type of insulated wire painted silver to look like braided lines, the insulating is stripped at the ends with red and blue for the AN fittings, all the hoses were cut and bent to fit before painting, the ignition wires are made from a thin 0.3-0.4 mm copper wire painted red with black ends and the magnetos are modified some to look more like the Mallory Super Mag's (III, IV or V) they were supposed to be...no MSD Pro Mag 44's as they use today, they came later. The throttle cable is the same stainless wire I used for the injection lines but most of it is painted red, and I added a return spring made out of a very thin wire coiled around a larger wire, the fuel shut off cable for the dual Enderle pumps are made the same way, (same here, the Sid Waterman "Bertha" series fuel pumps they use today came later). The only important thing missing is the blower bag as it was required at the time...but I didn't know how to make one that looked convincing so I left it off, the hold down straps are bits of masking tape. The thing is to not overdo it, so you need a bit of basic knowledge of what goes where and what they do, but you can't do everything as all things doesn't come out good in scale and will look clumsy and overdone so you have to have the feel of when it's just enough for the engine to look convinsing and busy.

Very nice...Where did you get the wheels??

Have a looke here: http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=70954

I rather have too much chrome in a kit than noting at all, it's a lot easier to remove unwanted chrome plating than put on chrome you want....everyone doesn't have a plating service near by you know. Yes, there are Alclad and other stuff wich works okay for small parts but nothing comes near real factory vacuum plating.

Here is another of my old builds, this time the Revell Castrol GTX Top Fuel Dragster tuned by Lee Beard and driven by the late Gary Ormsby in 1990-91. The model was built around 1993-94 and the model itself is built out of box except for some serious detailing...I simply had to...the engine looked so empty without it ...so the engine alone took about a week to do. All details are home made as I hadn't began buying aftermarket stuff at the time and the only thing that's not out of the box except for the detailing are the rear wheels, I used the Centerline Convo Pro wheels from the Revell Soff Seal 57 Chevy Pro Sportsman kit as Ormsby's car had those back in the day. I also built a hauler for it using the AMT Kenworth T600A Canepa and Trailmobile Moving Van/Race Car Trailer...everything was ready in the summer of 1995. To the pics: And the Hauler. Enjoy.

Vac-u-pan. A way to reduce internal pressure in the crank case using the exhaust to pull it out...today they use vacuum pumps for that.

Oh yes we do. Yes I have seen several teams/guys running both dual distributors/dual plug heads and singles on their Hemi's during the early to mid 70's in Pro Stock. I don't have the Cars article itself, just these pictures so I don't know if they are taken at the same time, the Cars magazine was from December and the Hot Rod article is from February and shows single plug heads...so I assumed the Cars pictures were late...but Sox & Martin had several cars active at the same time as they did both the NHRA, AHRA cirquit and lots of match racing during the year, and they could have changed some things around a bit now and then...but I don't know for sure.