Introduction

Hello,

My name is Chris and I just joined this forum this evening. I live in Western North Carolina about 12 miles NW of Asheville, NC with my wife, step-son, and two dogs. I am also one of the owners of Top End Miniatures which deals solely with the design and production of 1:25th scale aftermarket parts of contemporary drag racing bodies, chassis, engines, and equipment. We have plans to begin the production of 1:16th scale versions of our products later this year or early next year. At the moment we are in the pre-production stage (making master models and production molds) and should be releasing our first batch of products in late May or early June. The main focus of our first products is IHRA Pro/Modified. We currently have plans to release at least five bodies, one chassis/suspension kit, one complete engine (possibly two), two types of transmissions, several types of rear-ends (modular and fabricated), and many small detailing parts. We are working with several well know drivers in this class including Mitch Stott, Mike Ashley, Paul Athey, Tommy Gray Jr., Quain Stott, Carl Bullock, and the father of Pro/Mod - Charles Carpenter and his teammate Pat Doherty. If you have any suggestions or comments please feel free to email me and I will promptly reply.

Take care and never lift.

Chris. :smokin:

Hello and welcome to AF. Enjoy your stay here! :)

Welcome! cant wait to see what you have for sale!

Bienvenido Amigo. Yeah cnat wait for your products.

Welcome !! I have to say I am pretty excited to see the 1/16 scale stuff.........Gotta love big scale!!!

Welcome to AF

welcome to AF!

Welcome to the mad house !!
Hope to see some work/more posts from you.

You definitely will be kept up-to-date on the what we will be releasing and when. I will be going down to visit Mitch Stott in the next couple of weeks. His car has just had a new paint job done and it is due back in his shop today. I would go down Monday but they are getting ready for the Darlington event next weekend. I will also be going back to Charles' shop in Charlotte in the next couple of weeks to get more photos of his car and Pat Doherty's 57'. One product we are working on is a "how-to" manual for the Pro/Mod and Nitro/Coupe cars. The manual will be on a CD in .pdf (Adobe Acrobat) format and will contain photos of the cars and many detailed line drawings of all the systems on these cars. We are planning to release this manual in the Fall.

The first engine we plan to produce is a Gene Fulton NOS engine based on the Donovan BBC block with Olds heads. The other two engines are the KB Stage VII HEMI (blown) and the Rodeck 481X (blown). The first bodies will include two types of the 63' Vette, a 68' Camaro, 41' Willys, and a 53' Vette. My partner is also working on two types of the 57' Chevy, 55' Chevy (Charles' car), a 40' Ford Delivery, a 57' Nomad, and possibly a 04' Chevy SSR. This info is just to give you a taste of our plans and we have many (too many to list). The priority at this time is to get the 1:25th items into production. The 1:16th scale items will follow but no deadline has been set yet.

Take care all.

Chris.
:smokin: TEM

Welcome Chris. Your products sound very interesting, any pics?

Chris,

I have some photos of prototype masters of a Lenco CS2 three and four speed transmissions and a Strange Engineering style Ford 9" modular rear-end. I would rather wait until we have some production models before I post any.

Chris. :smokin:

Chris,

I have some photos of prototype masters of a Lenco CS2 three and four speed transmissions and a Strange Engineering style Ford 9" modular rear-end. I would rather wait until we have some production models before I post any.

Chris. :smokin:

Keep us posted;)

http://files.automotiveforums.com/gallery/watermark.php?file=/502/148712Lenco_Protos.jpg

Hope I did this right. If I did, I will give you a description of what is seen in the photo. If not, then someone tell me how to post photos.

Later.

Damn, what do you know. I did it right. So, this is what you see in the photo. On the slick is the Lenco CS2 4 speed and on the table is the 3 speed. The real cars shift these transmissions either manually or with CO2 (on some NOS cars the shifting mechanism is plumbed into the NOS system, saves weight). We are only going to offer the air-shifted versions because not many Pro/Mod cars use the old manually shifted version anymore. To the right of the three speed is the CO2 bottle with the air-regulator valve (gauges still need to be added). The round object in front of the three speed is the air-shifter solenoid which sits on top of each section of the cases (three for the four and two for the three). You can't see it too well in the photo but there is replica of the snap ring that holds the top plate onto the solenoid. In front of the solenoid is the air-shifter button assembly. To the left are the parts that make up the reverser lock-out mechanism.

Hope this gives you an idea of what we are doing. More to come.

Chris. :smokin:

http://files.automotiveforums.com/gallery/watermark.php?file=/502/148712TEM_Shop.jpg

And this is my shop, complete with Sherline lathe, mill, pressure casting system, and about $2000 in other tools and supplies.........life is good.

Later. :smokin:

Welcome to AF!

From the looks of it, you'll fit in just fine around here :iceslolan

Yay! No more swiping parts out of Revell Christine and Jukebox kits!

In all honesty, I never liked the Lenco they had in those kits.

Oh yeah, I know you're doing drag stuff (and if you do a good fuel altered chassis that I can hang Altered States's Topolino body off of I'll be your friend for life) but the easiest way you can make business for yourself around here is to master a 1:24th scale SR20DET Nissan 2.0L turbo four. Trust me, there's at least 30-40 guys here alone who'd buy one.

It's great to have another modelling dedicated member here at the AF modelling forums. Welcome, and keep us updated on your products, they definately look like high quality stuff.