Well, I finally got a chance to start working on a few parts for my VS57 build. Here are a few photos. I picked up the the Paxton VS57 air cleaner from Frank Lydell in Michigan. He happened to have a chrome air cleaner with an NOS Paxton supplied air filter. It still had Nov. 1956 stamped on it. It is in good shape. As you can see, so is the air cleaner. It cleaned up very well after some polishing. I had a devil of a time getting the lid on correctly and buttoning it down. The holes lined up perfectly, but the top of the cylinder itself was a little out of round. I had to make use of the workmate and "squeeze" the cylinder at the right spot to make it an almost perfect circle, and the lid went down snug along with the keepers I had picked up at the ACE hardware (they now have a chrome hardware bin with a good selection - wonder if its chinese made). One of the things I am wondering about is just exactly how these things attached to the engine or to the engine compartment. There are two holes, lengthwise, that have weld nuts to attach a bracket of some type I suppose?
This other pictures is of the two-piece bonnet (which I don't remember seeing on Jim Moody's website, but I am sure that he has a photo of it somewhere) that fits on the teapot very well. I guess that it's in two pieces so that you can leave your boost lines alone (there are holes for the boost lines on the bottom piece) when you take off the bonnet when you need to work on the carb. I do need to close up some extra holes that somebody just had to add years ago I guess. But it has been freshly blasted and looks pretty good. It does have some battle scars but it is very functional. I will have to get some good neoprene to refit the pressure release gasket that fits where those four holes are located on top. I have the original washer and hardware, but the rubber looks pretty rough.
And here is the coup de gras - the venerable teapot! Unfortunately 
Charlie Burns had a few very good cores so I had to bite at the chance to get this build up on the test stand looking and appearing close to what an original VS57 build would look like if someone were to install a paxton mcculloch on their 55 or 56 Ford passenger car. One of the cores had a very nice base and the throttle shaft and bushings were almost new. That will save me some time....and dough!! A few friends recommended to me that I have a carb shop do all of the work and just bolt it on. Well, seems my oldest daughter just came back from the orthodontist for her first "braces" visit. Not whining, but $8300 total over 2 and a half years is quite a bit for braces and teeth straightening! 
My daughter's worth it though, and a whole lot more I'd say. Suffice to say, I don't have all the extras in the budget to get the carb done by a professional (may be changing my tune when it comes time to fire it up) so I'll just have to do it myself. What's more fun than a barrel of monkeys? You guessed it, Holley's teapot! It's straight out of Alice in Wonderland!
The fuel bowl portion will be heavily modified with drilling out a few passageways for more flow, and drilling out the jets too. I plan to follow the VS57 passenger car manual on this one, trying to replicate "Harry Homeowners" attempt to install one of these beauties if he had the chance way back when. It was difficult to find the right drill bit sizes. No place in town had any. Eventually ordered them online....and they arrived yesterday. Another difficulty was in removing those pesky nozzles in the fuel bowl. ARGHHHHHHH...but they finally came out with little to no damage. 
For all those that believe I am insane or just plain crazy 
== guilty as charged. Yeh, yeh, yeh, I know. I attempted this 4 barrel teapot thing this past summer and on a scale of 1 to 10 I would have given myself a negative 2! 
But this is a new day and I have taken apart EVERYTHING I could get my hands on and have CLEANED out everything I could. Now, I don't like spending a small fortune on gasket kits, parts, elbow grease, etc to mess around with these "hot to trot" teapots, but I learn new things each time I give it a go. Can't wait to get this show on the road. I would like to have it ready for the Ford show at Carlisle in June this year.
New info and pictures to come as time with the teapot and the VS57 marches on...
Daniel JessupLancaster, California
aka "The Hot Rod Reverend"
check out the 1955 Ford Fairlane build at www.hotrodreverend.com