My modelcar racer on the track. It is based on the 1:24 scale Tamiya kit mounted on a MoMo inline chassi. Here you can follow how it was built.
My modelcar racer on the track. It is based on the 1:24 scale Tamiya kit mounted
on a MoMo inline chassi. Here you can follow how it was built.
The original car at Le Mans.
Side view of the original car.
After the Le Mans 24 hours race the car was really dirty and also had some damage
(see behind the rear wheel). I decided to build it like it looked when it was
new, it will get the race wear by itself in the races that will come :-)
First thing I had to do was to glue the two body halfs together and reinforce
the seam.
Also at the front there where loose parts that I glued in and reinforced with
plastic pieces. On the right picture the body is test fitted on the chassi.
The original car has lot's of air tunnels and one has to cut them out from the
plastic interior and then cut them in pieces and reinforce since they will hold
the body on one side and the chassi body holders on the other.
The chassi is a MoMo inliner. The Toyota body is so low in the back so it is
impossible to mount a sidewinder motor. Normally in slotracing sidewinder is
better for the performance but I decided to take my chance with this setup.
Getting a sidewinder chassi under the Toyota can be done but will force changes
in the body to make space (basically build a bulb on the body for the motor)
and that destroys the nice lines this car has.
Not much room but it seams it will be enough.
I decided to mount the rear wing assembly in one piece and then glue it with
a rubber like glue, hopefully that will help in crashes so it doesn't break
so easily. It is also re-enforced with plastic rods.
The side tunnel assembly is finished and so is the rear wing piece. I wanted
to glue the side tunnels in before painting so the seam is as strong as possible.
And by that the body is ready for painting!
And it is time to build the interior. Some pieces are from the original interior,
some are scratch built and the bottom is lifted up to get room for the steel
chassis movable parts. The driver figure is from an old kit I got in a swap
deal. He wasn't especially nicelly painted but we'll fix that!
Now he starts to look better!
Interior pieces painted on the left and mounted on the right.
Not much will be visable through the glass but it is nice to make it look good
anyway.
The driver is hollowed out to reduce weight and the dash board is thinned from
the underside.
Test fit in the body on the right.
The body is painted by Peter Bjurman who is a professional car painter and uses
real car paint. The decaling and detail painting is made by me.
The body is decaled and the interior is ready. Still some detail painting to
do before clear coat. This time the clear coat went really bad with lots of
small holes in it where there simply wasn't any clear coat. Peter put down a
really neat work in fixing that problem by spraying more clear coat on it and
then fill in the holes. We still haven't figured out why this problem occured
but in the end, it came out extremly good! Thanks Peter!
Next problem to occur was with the gas lids. I had decided to mount them afterwards.
Bad move. Really tricky to mount without making a mess on the painted body and
not much room for big fingers in a small strangely curved area and they have
to be rotated exactly in the right position since they aren't really round.
Even correctly rotated they didn't fit very good any more since there was clear
coat on them and the body making the delicate angled shape not correct any more.
Apart from that I noted that the interior rear wall was further back in my version
than what Tamiya had planned. This probably happened when I chopped it and rebuilt
it. The rear wall actually covered some of the hole for the gas lid and made
it impossible to get them in. I decided for another solution and put decals
on a thin plastic card piece and glued in. Not the best looking solution but
good enough.
For the antennas I took clear fishing line and painted it black and clear coated.
I burned one end so it became a small ball as a stop and glued it from the inside.
The wheels are made from the original plastic kit wheel stuck inside an aluminium
wheel especially made by Matthias Parke (www.werkshomepage.de)
with extremly thin walls so the plastic wheel is actually a part of the load
bearing construction. The tyres got decals and it seams that we finally are
ready for the track!
The car from the underside.
A closeup, note how little space there is for the pinion and crown gear.
You can see the gear in the middle on this picture.
The driver is in the car, let's go for a spinn!
Coming out on the long straight!
And into the corner.
Uphill.
Downhill and no rain in sight but we are prepared if it should happen.
Downhill again.
Leading clearly in front of the pack, they are nowhere in sight :-)
It looks like the car has lights here but it hasn't. I might mount a lighting
curcuit in it, it is prepared as much as possible and I have such a curcuit
laying on the shelf here from the Hamburg race (see the race reports section).
And in the final corner before the long straight, one lap done!
In the early morning light, the body does shine, see the reflections in the
wheel wells.
Even if I'm more of a Nascar guy than sports cars fan, these lines are cool!
The real maiden voyage will be in the first race we will have in the club during
the autumn. Cross your fingers that it performs in the competition. I do!