Incredible LEGO Land Rover Defender 110

Check out this LEGO Land Rover Defender 110. Not only does it look the part, everything works. The suspension moves, each wheel has disc brakes, there’s steering, a 5 speed sequential transmission with reverse, high and low ranges and switchable 4WD. There’s even a fake 4 cylinder engine with working pistons. Head over to Sheepo’s Garage to see more pictures of it. He’s also got this video of it in action:

Build Your Own LS7 or LS9

When you buy a new Corvette Z06 or ZR-1 or crate engines of the LS7 or LS9, you have the option of paying $5800 to build your own engine at the GM Performance Build Center in Wixom, Michigan. You go to the plant and use the GM parts, tools and processes under the guidance of a GM technician. Stacey David recently did this to build the LS7 going into the latest project car that’s building for his show Gearz on SPEED. Lucky for us, they brought cameras along.

 


Source: Gearz on YouTube

Project Sea Lion

I will admit that I thought this was going to be stupid when I first clicked on it. Most home built amphibious vehicles are pretty awkward, but this one is actually cool enough to make a post about. This is the Sea Lion. It’s a transformable single seat car that was built to take on the Amphibious Vehicle World Speed Record. The chassis is a TIG welded 5052 aluminum monocoque and it’s powered by a turbocharged Mazda 13b rotary engine that draws air in through a side-draft carburetor. The engine makes 174 horsepower which allows the Sea Lion to go 125 mph on land and 45 mph on water. The front end transforms  when the Sea Lion hits the water and the side pods are for storage and flotation. Here’s some video of it in action:


The Sea Lion is currently for sale for $259,500. The owner states that its ready for an engine upgrade to the Renesis engine from an RX-8 to take the speed record. Head over to Fantasy Junction to see the ad and lots of high resolution pictures.

Source: Fantasy Junction via Autoblog

Update on Russel Sutton’s Radial Engine

Russel Sutton is a man from Australia who decided to build his own 9 cylinder radial engine to put on his airboat. It uses a custom machined block and rod system with Holden Commodore V6 pistons and cylinders from Honda XR600 motorcycles. Check out Part 1 on his project for all of the build details. Sutton got the engine to the point where it was ready to start up and he captured it on video for the rest of us to enjoy. Unfortunately, having the engine run exposed some of its weaknesses that will have to be addressed before it will be blowing Russel’s hair back on his airboat. Watch the videos and read the article over on The Kneeslider for all of the details.

Part 1: Finishing Touches
 

Part 2: The Engine Runs
 

Part 3: Future Plans