April Foolish Model Car Contest

Interior progress. Nothing fancy. It is German after all!

Working on suspension right now. Then I gotta figure out how to make a turbo manifold in 1/24 scale!

In reply to vwcorvette (Forum Supporter) :

Use pieces of sprue.

Don't forget to add a 1/24 scale laptop.

You guys seem to be a pretty talented and ambitious group, so... I have always liked the looks of the 71 Z28, except for the headlights and their eyebrow fender tops. I always thought that you could take a bottom valance and chop it up, flip it over, to attach it to replace the headlights and put either retractable headlights or small projector lights in. Then with some fancy cutting and dicing, lower the fenders so that the hood sides wraps over and down without the raised eyebrow. Also, replace the wheel arches with Trans Am round ones. I was trying to find someone great at Photoshop to draw it, but haven't found anyone so far and the guys over at the Custom car forum who could do that wouldn't even talk to me unless the car was built before the 60's. That would make a great model project.

Next, remove the headlights and eyebrows off of a 58 Thunderbird.

Starting to look like an engine bay. Lots of work left to do on turbo piping etc.

Now with more tire!

In reply to vwcorvette (Forum Supporter) :

Dude, BBS Pro Street wheels?!?! So freaking cool!

In reply to slowbird :

Man that's looking good.

Javelin said:

In reply to vwcorvette (Forum Supporter) :

Dude, BBS Pro Street wheels?!?! So freaking cool!

I really wanted to stay true to the BMW. The rear rims are from a wide body Vette I think. The fronts from the Bimmer kit. If you look closely they're not exactly the same, but I don't care. Next up engine and finish the body.

Javelin said:

In reply to slowbird :

Man that's looking good.

Agreed! 

I think the two month window works best for builds. No rush, but it's not languishing either.

Let's get wild!

After a couple of weeks of procrastination, I figured if I didn't cut the roof off my truck today, I never would. So we're ready for NASCAR's next big idea, the Craftsman Convertible Truck Series.

The first time I lined up the SUV roof with the truck body, I see that nothing is going to line up. This means that the roof is going to be held on and/or together with a shocking amount of glue and shored up with at least two full tubes of filler. And even then, if I dare touch it, it's going to snap off as if it weren't attached at all in the first place. Now that I'm mentally prepared for that disappointment, I might as well try to figure out how it's all going to work. Initial impressions: not well.

From some angles, it's going to look pretty good. From others, it looks more like a NASCAR hearse than anything else. That could be yet another series for the folks in Daytona to explore, and I'll be happy to tell them an address they can send the royalty checks to once it takes off.

So yeah this thing is going to be a real hack job, and as of now I don't even know if it's going to have windows in back. Fortunately, the Hooters paint job means the top half is going to be white, which will hide almost all of my amateur bodywork sins that I haven't even committed yet, but I will. One thing I do know is that the next model build is going to be a nice simple out-of-the-box build of something easy like a '57 Chevy just to remind me that I can build something without destroying it.

How's that for optimism that this is going to come out looking halfway decent?

In reply to Claff :

Come on man! You got this.

Manifold being built. I love paperclips.

Can't seem to get photos to upload from mobile, but SWMBO is walking around and going to work again so I've got a little bit of time to work on the heavy chevy.

Not a ton of progress tho. Engine is coming together, suspension is getting painted. the body-is pretty much done. Suspension is mostly box-stock except for the trailing arms which might just get forgotten about...

The big issue now is mounting the engine in such a way that it fits in the body. That'll mean new cross members and motor mounts. I'll need to make custom driveshafts out of sprue, since the wheelbase is shortened.

I might be able to still pull this off.

Suspension mock-up.

I chopped up some thick plastic for the chassis. 

Then glued the front and rear 930 tubs on. 

Added the 911 rear seats and Pacer dashboard. 

And test fit in the body:

The flat 6 on full display in the fishbowl is going to be awesome. 

Apparently Javelin and I had similar ideas. Pacer, Pinto, that's the same, I think. 
 

Anyway, in full procrastination mode out here, but the deadline is close so it's time to start properly. 
So, after weighing a few different engine options, I settled on the stock one, only moved a bit. A lot. Now, this is my first time doing anything like this so my process may be anything from unusual to downright erroneous. So. Pinto. Basically everything sucks. So we're getting a full suspension swap. 

I don't really have proper tools here. Anyway, onward. How do you jam longitudinal 4 into the middle of a compact car? With a transaxle. I don't have one. So I shaved the trans down a bit and glued on a couple 9" style 3rd members. I'm using a product called q-bond. It's basically superglue but with different filler powders that harden and shape nicely. so now I have a transaxle. 

it's a bit ugly but once it cures I'll be able to smooth it out and hide my sins with paint. 
 

The pinto kit includes an optional turbo, which is of course free to budget. So that'll be adding speed. Hopefully I can make the time to finish and paint everything. At least "Challenge" finish. 

Starting a 2 month build contest with less than 10 days to go?

I'm going to try and use the "factory" motor mounts from the chevelle. Not too sure how well it's going to work. The plan is to mount the engine into the chevelle frame like so.

Then, once it's in there good and solid, cut the front clip out and trim it to width, then slide the whole thing between the silverado's frame. Or they'll break off during filing and I'll throw them out the window in a fit of rage, as is my custom.

Either way it'll be a lot of fun.

Oh and in case anyone's is curious, on the first evening I actually worked on my project I glued my fingers together. Twice. 

barefootcyborg5000 said:

Oh and in case anyone's is curious, on the first evening I actually worked on my project I glued my fingers together. Twice. 

Sounds like you need this.

Progress mostly comes in the way of scope management. I gave up on trying to fit the hood because it was going to require a ton of custom hood scoops and bulges grafted onto a tiny section of remaining stock hood. I also lost and then found the dashboard, thereby saving myself from having to create a custom dashboard. Intercooler piping is hard. I can't get the tubes to bend enough with a plastic sprue inside (to prevent folding) so I'm going to have to look for some 1/8" solder to put inside the plastic tubes to try and make them hold shape.

But at least it looks cool so far.

I spent way too much time researching Miata powerplant frame info. I didn't know that most swaps delete this and support the diff and trans with alternate methods. I decided since I'm keeping the stock diff (plastic diffs hold as much theoretical plastic horsepower as I want them to so no reason to swap) that I will just make a crossmember to go under the transmission and kind of tie into the PPF. This will also protect the trans in the event of bottoming out. Because realism.

Slow going. Got 1:1 cars to work on. Manifold is wrapped. Gotta keep the heat at bay. Not sure how I'm going to clock the compressor. No idea where the exhaust downpipe is going yet. Have I mentioned I haven't made it yet? Of course I don't have a single kit with an intercooler in it. Anybody scratch build one they could show off?

I still need to finish the paint on the body. Interior is done save for installing the steering column and wheel.