A Hemi B-E-A-S-T! Meet, Rat Finkelstein....

[Hemi]

Everyone,

Let me first say, this is a "FIRST" for me..... BUT, to start, at the time I started this my air brush
work I can't do, it was broke down!

BUT to educate those who don't know (Most Mopar guys may know this already) BUT this build is to keep my "Mopar Only" status, and keep up with those guys using the Allison engines in auto's!!!

SO, I thought, I'd clean up the bench a bit, organize a few things and see what I had for "stock" to
begin a build that I can do, all with spray cans TILL my air brush is back in road-worthy condition!
So with that, lets begin. You all know by now, I'm a Mopar kinda guy, BUT then you also know I'm semi-
attached to high horsepower things as well..... Having said that, the Allison engine use in cars and
trucks, ITS NOT "Mopar" by any means.... SO with me being me, How do I keep my "Mopar status" and keep up
in the builds? Thats when I found this:









Granted, I know your looking in some sort of "What-the-hell" is that!? right about now..... Let me do a

little educating on it.....

This my friends is THEE FIRST Chrysler "HEMI" EVER made! It was a inverted (up-side-down) engine, a V-16,
2,022 cubic inch MONSTER.... It was built in '41 for the USA Air Force, P-47 "Thunderbolt" air plane,
there were 6 of these manufactured in Dearborn, Michigan!

In the pictures I've posted here, you can see the output shaft, and the set up, sort of as it is after
all upside down..... The engine was powered with a blower (supercharger) and had the ability and option
to have that fed by one turbo supercharger (what they called it in '41).

Now as you know and have read, I said, I took some inspiration off Beast's '57 50's build, AND this....
BUT you ask, how am I going to use a upside down engine thats not even made as a model? WELL, it goes
something like this......
I went and had a look at what I had for materials (while I was cleaning up) I got to thinkin' how I could
make this..... WELL, then it dawned on me, take 2 of my "610 Hemi" engines and but them back to front. BUT
even if that did work, how was I to mount this in a frame of a auto, upside down? WELL that where my
"inspiration" comes in, I "righted" the engine. I turned it right side up.....

So, here is how this started out:







As you can see, the blocks are of my castings! I took "stock" on what I had to make the heads (they're
L-O-N-G) as well as scraps to make the oil pan, also a L-O-N-G part, all machined off my Unimat, and made
to fit the engine! BUT seen here and the pictures of the REAL one, it only had one blower, and I'm just
not happy with that, applying some "modelers licenses" here. Mine will have a custom made "intake", to
have 2 blowers on the same level. The trick to this V-16 Hemi is the real one, had a center driven gear
box. 8 cylinders on either side of it. My model will have the same sort of thing, BUT, my model will have
a "gear tower" BUT not with all the gears it will have a cog belt set up in it. As if this would have
been up-side-down, this would have been "covered" with the what we know an oil pan. Which really is more
like a windage try that keeps direct oil from splashing up into the cylinders, this takes some HP away if
that happens.

BUT, because I "righted" the engine block. This detail change, makes the "opening" possible in the top in
the "V", center between the heads side-to-side, and then center again front to back! SO because of this,
I did not want to have a "gear box" as that would have to be "covered due to oil splash,. SO, I did cog
belt driven blowers, I'll have a blower on either side of this "opening" machined into the custom
machined intake to handle this. The blowers are of my castings, and are off-centered, meaning the intake
will have a cross-ram sort of look to it, BUT not as pronounced looking as a true "Cross-Ram" intake
would have. BUT the off set of the blowers is due to the front plate where the blower "drive" comes out
and would be connected to the the blower belt! Its off-centered to the right hand side, looking from the
outside of the car. SO....This is a whole "different" idea of modeling for me..... BUT its a fun one and
its merely a fun modeling building adventure, as I'm building this as I go, by the seat of my pants!

Following these short messages, I'll be showing the "auto" I have planned for it to go in!

Follow along, you'll like what your about to see!!!!!

[Hemi]

OK, back at it, I've decided to use one of my regular model car (or shall I say truck) to fit this motor into..... A staple, if you will...... The Dodge A100 (Little Red Wagon) type!
FIRSTLY, as you know this particular engine WILL NOT "fit" in the stock location of a Dodge A100, ANY model year of them, the engine is damn near as big as the cab!
SO, with that, taken some more inspiration from Sir Beast, I set out to make my OWN "frame" to carry this beastly motor, and the A100, as well as all the suspension.....



Granted, this is just the "start" of the frame to this build. I plan to have a few neat little things in it..... The whole frame as seen here is made from 100% Evergreen Styrene tube. I'll be "plating" ALL the frame "joints" as a real one would have been kinda like a welded bridge frame, with gussets.
Then, to continue. I took that and got a front end fitted to the whole thing:

Looks GREAT all done up, BUT I just wasn't happy with the way the truck frame "sat" so I test fitted things a bit. And got it a bit better........ looking (thats a good word for it)

LOWERED, I actually haven't at this point of the build "tried" to get it as low as I could, BUT this wasn't a bad start I have to say as from this point, it needed to go a tad lower but looked good even so (I could have lived with it at this height, BUT, I really didn't "try" to get it any lower so. (I at least had to try!)

BUT because of the way I cut the frame to lower it, it left some "beef" to be desired of on the frame rails so, I went back and filled in the angles with left overs I had of the frame rail cuts to give it a bit of consistency on the frame thickness and width, BEFORE I went in to add the side plates to the frame to cover the cuts in the rails, "gussets" that will be made to look "welded" in place.
Not to shabby to this point, I'm pleased! BUT it to me needs to go a bit lower, the frame sits excatly 1/4 inch off the surface it sets on!

[Hemi]

Well back to posting a bit more on this..... "Atrocity" of mine..... Definitely something different coming from me as Dale said, he had a good point. As everyone knows, I am a Mopar guy, BUT the high horsepower usages on the Allison engines had bitten me just a bit to go OK how do I do this.... And it lead into some searching and thats when I found that air plane engine from Chrysler.
'nuff rambling for now, I got to doing some test fitting with the engine and how I was going to add the rear axle for the power to this frame. It all has to fit in some regards, right?

This was one of the "set-ups" I was doing, BUT I liked the way the engine sat in the frame, I didn't like the rear end set up..... It was from a glue bomb I bought and traded everything that came with the kit some time ago, and upon a closer look things were glued in crooked and just wasn't right, SO, I'm gonna salvage parts from it for this build BUT its not whats going in this build.
I then went on another look for rear end parts for this and found some from one of my old '70 Dodge Super Bee "Pro-Street" models I built some time ago, thats been sitting around donating parts for some of my current various builds.
With that, I had to make the frame of the truck to accommodate this. As the rear to the '70 Super Bee "Pro-Street", so the frame now reflects this!!!!



Notice, its "bolted"..... evil6 Theres a GOOD reason for that!
Then while I was "diggin' for parts to the current parts donor, I also got to lookin' at the tires that came with the '70 Super Bee "Pro-Street". kinda like those too so they're going on this build as well! Poor Super Bee, its not gonna have much left when all said and done as I've robbed a seat, all the tires and rims, engine and transmission, and rear end to date, BUT that Super Bee might wind up "hacked" up for making a '70 Coronet wagon........ NOT sure yet! But it sure does look that way right now!
So, the stance of the frame..... Was in question for a bit, and this is how it looked starting out:


That metal bar you see the pop sickle stick laying on is 1/4 inch thick, PLUS, the thickness of the pop sickle stick! SO, the frame sits "high", EVEN tho, I want the whole works lowered. This had me questioning the build till I really got into setting it in place and looking at everything.....
More to come in just a few......

[Hemi]

So, back for a few more..... As you all well know I was on the "look" for parts donated to the cause here, as I was diggin' out those old broken up glue bombs of my own from when I was kid, I ran across a few things that struck an interest too.... I found some old die-cast cars from my Step-son, that he boxed up and brought to me to see if I wanted, and me, being me, I took them. These die-cast models, came with some models he had done that I've saved for parts (EVERYTHING beat up missing parts, scratched, pretty much took a hamerin' so to speak), BUT ALL were with keeping for parts, or so I thought (I got to say here, I took this box of what then seemed "junk" a few YEARS ago....AS back then, I was merely doing the trains models and nothing into cars so.... The box sat with my old glue bombs, BUT in a place I knew where they were in my shops storage area, so now that I'm back into the model cars, well all these "saves" are coming into handy use and supply! SO, I took the parts from the '70 Super Bee "Pro-Street" as you've seen, BUT getting those parts out I seen that die cast model, and noticed something! This particular car had a "stereo system" in it! Speakers, AMP, resistors, you name it.... WHAT was before my very eyes? A SYSTEM thats goin' into THIS build thats what I seen!
This is the parts, I removed from that die cast car:

You can see the rear seat area "back" with the 5 speakers in it. BOTH door panels each with a single speaker in it. Then 2 speakers that I had to "cut" out, and saved as well as the AMP!!!!!
Then I have this:

I'm not sure what those 2 purple and silver things are thats molded into the rear seat bottom, BUT they're painted as tho they go with the stereo system, They come off as some sort of "resistor packs" but I'm not sure (Anyone know what these might be?) I ask as I have never seen a "resistor setup" quite like that! I want to know for sure what those are BEFORE I go adding them to the interior of this to make sure they are for the stereo system!
NOW that I am armed with interior parts, for detailing, WHY not start the interior?
I took the stock floor of the A100 truck to get this going. And did some serious modification to it to make it go like it was gonna look GREAT "lowered"


So I took out the "Dog House" built a continuous "hump" in the floor, to meet the bottom of the seats. This was done in order to lower the cab even further, to "sink" the tires into the wheel wells, deeper. And it eliminated the need for the seat mounting brackets all together. (Makes that part a bit cleaner of a build) BUT because I added the "hump" in the floor, this also created an issue with the "Dog House", as I still wanted to use it in side the interior! GO FIGURE! But, WHY? The engine doesn't sit under it no motor, and really it only take up "space" in the cab.... WELL, it could "house" a bit for me in details for the build! AKA, the Stereo System for instance! Which as you can see, I drilled 2 holes in the face of the floor hump to put 2 of my speaker details! Then, I took the Dog House and did something like this:

First thing I did was cut 1/4 inch out of the bottom of it to "lower" it in the cab, remember these were pretty "tall" see the red one next to the white one (The white one is going in this truck) I then cut the "lowest" portion of the top out as well, this will have glass put back into it. THEN I took 3/16th inch off the front-to-back width, as to have it "set-back" off the edge of the floor hump I built.
THEN I drilled a hole in the front, for placement of a speaker for that neat little supply of parts!
Under the glass of the dog house will be the AMP's location!!!! This will allow it to be seen as well as have a speaker in it, and added a bit of extra details to the interior!
More to follow! ENJOY!

[Hemi]

SO, now I speak of this A100 and what I've done to it and what it all has become and why, BUT what ya haven't seen is the actual "cab" and what that turned out to be! So lets go with that on this posting, shall we?
I took a Little Red Wagon body, and did this to it:

I took the body, and cut the "bed" off, and then took the bed left overs and cut the tail light area out of it and simply moved it up.....


I left this little "trunk" area for the stereo system inside, and a place to allow the sound to escape out through louvers. It looks GREAT, BUT there was a serious issue that happened when I was doing body work!
I sprayed Rustoleum "2n1 High build" primer over this to fill in scratches and it made the damn cab melt like a ice cream cone in the hot summer heat! Come to find this can of paint I got has so many solvents in it, its not even funny and its actually meant for METAL ONLY! DUHHHHH John, that was a dumb-ass moment for me!
SO, I took out my NEW kit, pulled the body and did the same thing..... I'm back in business! This time, tho, NO Rustoleum primer will see this shell!!!! Wal-Mart primer only (I haven't had any issues with that harming the plastic!)
BUT so that everyone knows, I got a few pictures using the red cab. The replacement cab is white.....
So while building the interior, I test fitted things a bit, (A LOT actually) and got pictures of it!
So to test fit the cab to the frame, to see just how low I got it without trying......NOT to bad.... See:

It was OK here, but I just wasn't satisfied with the front where you can see the white cross member being "below" the red filler panel on the cab from the grill and bumper. I want that red filler panel that goes under the grill and behind/above the bumper BELOW the lowest edge of the white cross member!

Doesn't look bad, but just isn't low enough for what I was tryin' to do, BUT, this wasn't bad either as this was as low as I got it, from just the few simple things I did..... This is where I got it without truly trying to get it "lowered"......
THEN. how abouts ole John "try" a bit? See how and where I can get it to go low on the frame..... SO I went to try to lower it even further..... I could see where it was sitting on the frame and needed some "relief" cuts made on joining areas that stuck out, or up, that prevented the cab from sitting "flat" on the frame itself. Little plastic "ears" here and there was more the issue then anything! SO, I cut them either off, or ground them flush with they're surroundings.... Doing this, dropped the cab onto the frame more then enough!

Notice the cross member is BURIED under the cab just behind that filler panel I mentioned! GREAT! floor is level, so I left it be as-is, I'm HAPPY with this stance!
NOTICE, the rear is the old one..... This has changed! The white rear end is the donor for parts to the silver one I'm actually using.

Notice that the frame has been dropped the thickness of the pop sickle stick too?
More to come......

[Hemi]

So a little more to add to this, while the parts I glued and or painted were drying I took a closer look at the tires and rims a bit to see if anything could be done to enhance the look of them.....
Dennis I believe mentioned the use of Gel pens for white lettering on the tires, SO, with a little pocket change I bought a Gel Pen from Micheals, to see how it work!

This turned out GREAT! I have yet to "seal" it but..... It dried, and does need sealing but, I think it turned out well.....

Shows the Gel Pen I used called a "Gelly Roll" As its a Gel Pen, with a ball point on it, and works pretty damn good I have to say! Takes a little practice, needless to say but not long afterwards, it doesn't take much "getting used to" to do a nice job! As I said tho, I have yet to "seal" it onto the tire! I got one front and one rear tire done and part of the other rear left as well as one whole front tire yet to do as it really is an intense detail painting (if ya wanna call it that!)
NOT to shabby! MORE to come!

[Hemi]

SO as this was drying as well as the interior, I looked a bit closer to the engine and what I needed to do to continue on with it. It needed valve covers and I had them machined out on the Unimat milling center, and without thinking, got them painted and on the engine!
BUT anyway, I make my own blowers (super chargers) and this motor in real life having a single blower and an option to have a single turbo, I thought, I'll up the anti on it, and added 2 blowers! BOTH, are center of block driven! (Remember this engine has a "center" gear drive, or well the real one anyway.) I changed that a bit, as I didn't want to "hide" any details so, what I did was run a cog belt to drive the blowers!
With that in mind, and chosen block color (yep Hemi Orange) BUT NO "Black" and NO Chrome this time around, I made those colors the same color I plan to also use on the cab! Metallic Graphite from Duplicolor! The Hemi Orange is a Testors spray can as well as the Duplicolor is spray can due to my air brush being broke down right now......





Notice the valve covers? They are all that Graphite color, and that has changed slightly..... The top of them, where the plug wires will go in has been made "Hemi Orange" to give it a little different look! ALSO, notice, NO spark plug wire holes have been drilled, or well, WAS, and I filled them in to change their location ever-so-slightly......
Also the blowers BOTH were painted the same graphite color, and have the "ribs" made silver. The center drive gear in these pics have not been painted yet either, that also has changed and the belt currently is in place as well! I'm now trying to figure out what way I plan to run the exhaust, and how thats going to unfold on this build!
NO oil filter either, THAT is gonna be separate from the engine block, mounted to the frame rails and piped in...... I also have yet to design the distributor for this BEAST, and that may wind up being dual distributors, one on each end of the block, as per "modelers licenses" to make it happen as the real engine had an odd way of doing it!!!!!!
I will have a slightly different radiator set up, and fan as there will NOT be a engine power fan on this one, it will be electric! As well as the fuel pump!
Just a little on the engine for now. TILL more progress is done and pics are taken thats it for now......
ENJOY!

[Hemi]

WELL now, a few more pics to add to the build.....
I got to doing a bit on the engine, and got pics late. SO what I spoke about a few postings ago.... Can now be SEEN!

This shows the valve cover "tops" painted to match the engine, Hemi Orange! Also seen here is the cog belt drive as well as the blowers mounted in place!

Slightly different view!

Front of engine!


Back of engine!
Thats all for now, BUT a short an sweet update, would be better then none and to show what I was speaking about!
ENJOY! More to come....

[Hemi]

So, a bit more has been done to the BEASTLY "engine" to this atrocity.....
I had to think a bit on how I wanted the exhaust to be, a bit "out-of-the-box", not only for me, but MAYBE for everyone as its a bit different, BUT you'll see why I did it this way further on into the build..... Thinkin' ahead here....

ODD way of mounting the exhaust manifolds to the heads, front-to-back high-and-low, on BOTH sides! mirrored images of it like this and because I thought about how I wanted this to come out, this is what changed the location of the spark plug wire holes in the valve covers! As they would have been centered over each of the exhaust ports!

Slightly different view, to show how the ends of the manifolds the front one is low, and the rear one is high. Reason for this? Well it goes like this, on normal cars, Mopar had this thing with the exhaust manifolds and even headers. Because of tight quarters and being next to the starter which if not "shielded", it burn the starter wires and even over heat it.....SO, with that issue in real life and knowing of it, I made the front manifold low as I can bend the piping however I need it to be, to get away from the starter as it gives a little distance from the length of the engine itself! NOW the rear manifold, being "high" comes out no where NEAR as close as it would have if it were mounted "low"!!!!! (Which would have been the "normal" positioning of the manifold!)

Again, slightly different view!

Other side..... Same thing! Remember, they were mounted as a mirrored view!

Again, slightly different view of this!
More to come as I'm able! ENJOY!

[snakeplissken81]

That is so very kool!

[Hemi]

Thanks Snake. itsa a wild one from me......... I'll probably NEVER do anything else like it too. so a one-of-a-kind so to speak from me! Tho, I thought it be a wild build withthe mere fact its a Dodge A100 to be the "cab".....

[bigredwolf]

Lovin' it!!

But now you have thoughts running through my head! (what to build that could utilize the big upside down Hemi!)
Hmm, where did I put that old snap-tight Dodge One-Ton Dually.....

[Hemi]

Thanks Wolf! Yeah this one is a bit different but your gonna have a BLAST "stuffing" that engine into a Dodge one-Ton Dually......... UNLESS you use the bed for the engine bay!

[kabdriver]

What a great build! I love seeing all the scratchbuilding! Too cool! Please keep us posted!

[Hemi]

Will do James!!!! I haven't worked on this one in a bit but I'll get back to it!!!! LOL Its got a TON of scrat-work done ot it, and needs a whole LOT more but you knew that! I'm designing the engine in my head, so I would probably re-visit this build in detailing the engine a bit more....

[kabdriver]

Can't wait John! It's gonna be cool!

[Bert]

Big engine, a little red wagon, and Mopar, I don't see where you can go wrong John. I love it, keep going.

[spencermoparfan]

So.... another nutty Mopar fan huh ? LOL
Any progress ? I love the ideas & craftsmanship so far .

Me : I've shortened a 1:64 Dodge A100 by Matchbox - by cutting out the cab back- to rear arch area ...That'll be called " THE MIDDLE " !
( just like the VW shorty on Gas Monkey but much better.... !)
So its the lil' lil' red wagon !
aaaand .. I've also mounted two 1: 24 motors together !
Ahem , two SBF's ( Sorry to swear !) from some of the '32 ford models I've ruined ...pfffft . But mines a V14 ! Yeah , I'm that kinda weird ! :-)