The Exterminator by Rob Riley

I received such positive feedback the last time I posted some of my friends "builds" that I asked him to send me some more! The following contains pictures and commentary of a very cool custom model build by Rob Riley. Thanks Rob for sending me this story to share on Suede and Chrome

I built this one in October of 2010. This is a 1/8 scale, twin engine slingshot dragster called "The Exterminator".

 

It's about 26-27 inches long. The engines are based on Ford Y blocks. I built this pretty much right out of the box with the exception of the rear wheels, and the aluminum butterfly steering wheel. I drilled out the ends of all the headers to make them look more real, and I also sanded down the slicks.

The back rims came from an 1/8 scale T-bucket kit, and I widend them to fit the slicks better. It  has fuel lines, plug wires, brake lines, parachute lines, and seat belts. The steering is functional and you can turn the front wheels by turning the steering wheel. The rear end is a functional quick change with gears inside. The rear engine has an electric motor inside that turns the crankshafts of both engines, which makes the blower belts and pulleys spin. It even has a working clutch with a clutch pedal so when you turn the switch on, the engines turn, but the clutch keeps the back wheels from turning. When you engage the clutch, it send the power from the engine crank shafts through the clutch  to a very short drive shaft which spins the gears in the quick change rear end. The axles then turn which causes the car to move.

It's actually a pretty cool set up, but most of the time the electric motor is not powerful enough to make the car move. I have gotten it to move one time and I think one of the gears in the rear end is slipping on it's shaft or something. The chassis is painted metallic black lacquer and clear coated. The engines are painted metallic blue lacquer, and the body is metallic orange lacquer with clear lacquer over it.

This kit comes with parts to build it as a single engine dragster with either a top mounted blower, a crank mounted blower or 6 Stromberg carbs. It comes with full body work to cover the front of the chassis, but it only fits if you build it as a single engine car.

If it's built as a twin engine car, your only induction options are the top mounted blowers, but you can swap out the injection for 3 strombergs per blower. It also comes with 2 different front wheel and tire options, either spokes and skinny tires (like I used) or some 8 spoke rims with slightly wider front tires. I hope you like this one.

Rob...we do LOVE it! Thanks for sharing. Readers, if you thought this build was cool, you'll want to come back in the next few days as Rob has sent me some more really cool stuff.