Post by tgabreu on Mar 26, 2013 18:08:40 GMT -6
While looking at pictures in other forums and back issues of model magazines, one of my pet peeves kept popping up- spark plug wires that don't look right. Now, I'm by no means a fanatic about scale fidelity or detailing a model to the nth degree- far from it! I just believe that when some details are out of scale, it detracts from, rather than adds to the appearance of the engine. The 3 things I keep seeing are:
1. Wire that's too thick. Look at the pictures below (these are models I built so as not to offend anyone). The wires don't look too bad, right? The Buick engine's wire are nearly twice what they should be. The Ford's a bit better, but still too thick. As a rule of thumb, pre electronic ignition wires were about 6mm thick, while electronic ignition equipped cars used 7 and 8mm wires. In 1/25 scale, those wires would be about .010", .011", and .012" thick. The wires on these 2 engines measure out to about 12mm, or nearly half an inch thick!
2. Wires that loop over the engine. Real spark plug wires sag under their own weight. I feel that duplicating this sag makes a huge difference in the appearance of a model engine. While on the subject of wire routing, I see a lot of small block Chevies modeled with the wires going over the valve covers-stock engines had the wires routed down behind the heads, then coming up to the plugs under the exhaust manifolds.
3. "Spark plugs" in the wrong spot. I'm not talking about a scale 1/2" here, but I see many models where the holes are down where the head bolts would be. Pretty much all American V-8's that have a distributer have the spark plugs located between the exhaust ports, just below the valve cover rail.
Although I probably could have found better examples, I just happened to have these handy:
Tom
1. Wire that's too thick. Look at the pictures below (these are models I built so as not to offend anyone). The wires don't look too bad, right? The Buick engine's wire are nearly twice what they should be. The Ford's a bit better, but still too thick. As a rule of thumb, pre electronic ignition wires were about 6mm thick, while electronic ignition equipped cars used 7 and 8mm wires. In 1/25 scale, those wires would be about .010", .011", and .012" thick. The wires on these 2 engines measure out to about 12mm, or nearly half an inch thick!
2. Wires that loop over the engine. Real spark plug wires sag under their own weight. I feel that duplicating this sag makes a huge difference in the appearance of a model engine. While on the subject of wire routing, I see a lot of small block Chevies modeled with the wires going over the valve covers-stock engines had the wires routed down behind the heads, then coming up to the plugs under the exhaust manifolds.
3. "Spark plugs" in the wrong spot. I'm not talking about a scale 1/2" here, but I see many models where the holes are down where the head bolts would be. Pretty much all American V-8's that have a distributer have the spark plugs located between the exhaust ports, just below the valve cover rail.
Although I probably could have found better examples, I just happened to have these handy:
Tom
