BTK

Well, I think the salt could be brushed on in certain spots to act as paint chips or rock chips in the fender flares or air dam. But the red primer underneath wouldn't really look right. I don't know if you could paint the fenders and dam a different color and then apply salt to look like rock chips? That or paint them black like you said too look like later add-on parts.

I know some aren't fans of slot cars and I respect that, but I personally enjoy a slot car more than a normal model car. The hobby has made a real resurgence in my neck of the woods and a few of us including myself are really into "no-bar" slot cars. Basically, the car has no wheelie bar(s) and just gives a little more realism to it all. Anyways, I bought this car from Bandit Resins probably 3-4 years ago and it was quite expensive. I won't put Bandit down as I know a lot of you have bought plenty of quality products and have seen some cars that look perfect. Mine just wasn't in the shape I thought it should be for the price, lesson learned. It's been painted/stripped about 6 times now and has always been a slot car. I've been lurking on this forum for a while now and thanks to reading the Tips/Tricks and many different project threads, I thought I'd give it a shot at making this car really slick. No one makes an 80' and that's what my 1:1 is, so I recently bought an 80' El Camino promo to cut up. The downside to the promo is that I'll have to figure out how to match the rear bumper in the malibu kit to the chrome El Camino kit. I had looked into cutting the core support forward off and swap, but it would be hard to match as I don't have much experience with splicing two together. So I plan on cutting them at the doorline and work on the roof since the flat panel and door line would be easier to hide the seam. Enough blabbering, I've stripped them down. Hopefully get the measurements and start cutting tomorrow. Thanks for looking! -Skylar.

I was bored looking through eBay and found a collection of old resin castings from SC Miller. I don't recall ever hearing of the guy, but I haven't been in the hobby that long. Maybe you guys would find it useful, maybe not. Some really weird cars to cast, you can tell its "antique", maybe some of the more "seasoned" gentlemen on here know this stuff. http://www.ebay.com/sch/Toys-Hobbies-/220/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ssn=curiosityconsignmentstore&_pgn=2&_skc=50&rt=nc

Nice work on the vinyl metal flake look, does a great job resembling the real thing. Project is taking shape, keep at it!

Yes, they're stock tail lights that have been candied over.

I like to use Petersen photo archive on Facebook, they post a tremendous amount of old photographs. I can get lost in that page for a few hours. https://www.facebook.com/Petersen.Photo.Archive?fref=ts

I would disagree, it can still be a street car but they're definitely pro-mods. Although they do drive over 1000 miles to compete in drag week. Micro Nitro would be the best place for wheels, he makes a great product. As for tires, I think it would take some looking around in the resin section and find something close to what you're looking for. Both the 57, sick 1.0 and larson's chevy II should all be fairly easy to re-create. I know the S10 would be quite a challenge as its proportions are extremely cut up as well as sick 2.0 which could be done using a promod camaro body (a few different resin casters sell them). Most of the cars in Unlimited have dedicated websites and will have endless amounts of photos for you to get a reference from. As for D.O.T. like X275, ODR, etc. there should be plenty of cars similar online. Check classifieds such as racingjunk, turbobullet and the like to find good inside/out pictures of normal 25.2/25.3 cars. Good luck, and try to document your builds on here as we love watching projects come together!

Great work, reflections look awesome.

I apologize for posting in both threads, I didn't see this question until later on after I posted. Correct, all 180SX cars were built on the S13 chassis. Although similar, they're not the same. On the chassis you're looking for (S14) they only came in two models. The 240sx in the US and the Silvia in EU, Jap, etc. I did some searching and found that there was an S13 model kit made by Aoshima that came with a fully detailed engine bay and an SR20 swap. The S13 chassis is similar enough that should be able to kit bash the front half of the chassis' together and make a fully detailed S14. All the photos attached are of the S13 model kit with the engine bay. Hopefully you can find some pictures of the S14 chassis.

There are a few videos on youtube of the unboxing/review of these models. Unfortunately a quick search for me only brought up curbside models. The KA motors in these cars like zoom zoom said weren't very fast. The SR20 which came in the japanese silvia versions were a bit quicker and could be found in a few other nissans in case you're considering opening the hood and building an engine bay. Also, on your search make sure you pay close attention to which version you buy, the one you have pictured is the "kouki" front end which I believe was 97+, they made another earlier version referred to as the zenki front end. Good luck with your search!

Neat, always loved mini trucks. Project is starting to look good, I'd be interested in seeing the datsun 720 too.

If you look around on Facebook groups you can usually find one within a reasonable distance. There are two within 35-50 miles from my house and I live in a very rural area. I know a lot of guys do normal road racing slot car tracks, but it does require fewer people too race. With drag racing, its easy to make 10-15 passes every hour because every pass is less than 2 seconds even with slow cars.

I appreciate the input, I will look ath escalade kits, hopefully they're still super cheap. I agree, keeping the black nice is a nightmare. Dad ordered his 07' classic brand new factory black. He washes it at least once a week and it gets polished and waxed frequently. Nice work on the model, pretty little ext. cab. On lowering the full size, my truck rides better than factory but it was a factory Z85 (heavy duty coils and leafs/shock combo). It definitely rides as good as dad's truck. Relatively cheap too as much of a drop it is. The 4/6" drop from mcgaughy is only $800 compared to the $1400-1500 for a top of line belltech kit. Here's dad's 07. Aluminum headed 5.3, 2wd. He totaled it at 75k miles, sat in copart for two years and we found it fixed a year ago and went about bought it back.

Yep, they sure did. You're looking at around $20 or so for one on eBay. Just search "grand national 1:24" in eBay.

Yep, the headlights are shorter in height, the parking lights are taller and the grill bar is too big. But in this scale, I think it's about as close as you can get. The only other option I think would be to take the escalade headlights and cut them up but it seems like that would be more work.