TheEnd

I am still planning to finish the Rabbit. This Summer has been crazy, I even got married. I dragged the Rabbit back out and got to work. I had four, yes four, failed paint jobs. I tried tan, brown, gun metal, and silver leaf. All were either horribly orange peeled, or would drink the clear coat. I discovered putting clear over Tamiya flat paint won't add any gloss. I put the Rabbit in primer for the fifth time. I then shot a light coat of Tamiya Pure White. There are of course some flaws, but I'm tempted to just leave them. I'm not sure how many more times I want to try and paint this thing.

Been working around a very busy schedule, but I have managed to make a lot of progress. I had the body painted in Tamiya "Wooden deck tan", but it came out very close to the interior which is Tamiya "Desert Yellow". It has the bland combo I was going for, but after seeing it in person it was actually pretty ugly. Unfortunately when I cleared it with Alclad Clear Coat it all went wrong. The Alclad looked like it needed thinning, I added only a small amount of lacquer thinner, and after spraying it ran like water. Ruined the paint job and ended up in the oven cleaner booth. The interior is now finished. Completely box stock except for the addition of a boost and AFR gauge in the center console. Looks fairly stock as the 1:1 has a clock there. I replaced the shift lever with some metal wire, and replaced the pedal linkage with wire as well. I didn't get any good shots of the assembled dash with the center console and dash pad, will snap them before final assembly. Test fit in the now stripped body. The hood is the color the body was before stripping. The chassis assembly is complete. I lowered the suspension about 1" and sanded off the molded coils and made some new ones from metal wire. I added some raised front mounts to the rear axle to help keep it flat after the drop. Keep in mind there will be a 3" downpipe with a solenoid actuated dump valve behind the engine. The stock exhaust would be used during normal driving to keep it quiet. Still need to touch up some paint and add some washes. Lastly the engine went into paint. I used a mix of buffing metalizers for the various shades. The valve cover will be getting a flat red wrinkle finish. Nothing is actually glued in place yet. Had to cut the starter off to help smooth some seams in the 3 piece transmission. Will be scratching a new one. I'm really happy with it so far. Many more details to come. Thanks for looking.

Made a bit of progress on the Rabbit. Scratched up the external wastegate and plumbed it to the manifold. Scratched up the down pipe and plumbed the external wastegate to it as well. I didn't have enough room for the turbo to have a straight outlet so I added a 90 degree outlet which is fairly common. I will be adding more detail to the turbo soon, mostly getting everything roughed in. I also added the cam hump to the valve cover as well as the oil fill port. I added an alternator and scratched up a bracket for it. I wanted to check clearance, and then realized my intake manifold went directly into the brake master. I didn't expect the master to be so far inward and so low. I cut out a section of the frame for the charge pipe coming out of the turbo. The charge pipe will be larger than the turbo diameter so it will fill out the hole. Naturally this meant I had to redo the manifold. No big deal. I fabbed up a boxed intake. These are pretty common on turbo cars. Each intake runner looks like a velocity stack inside the boxed section. I roughed up the throttle body as well. It looks close due to the angle but there is actually a bit of space between the throttle body and the master. While I was at it I scratched up an Optima battery. It was sitting on the alignment tabs for the kit battery. Once I cut the tabs off the battery clears the hood no problem. Will make a tie down later on. I also got started on the interior. I'm planning for it to be completely stock besides a boost and air fuel gauge mounted discreetly in the lower console. No racing seats or roll bars in this Rabbit. Started by putting down some Desert Yellow paint and sprinkling on some embossing powder. I let the paint dry and spread on a second layer of paint and embossing powder. I then airbrushed the interior with the same Desert Yellow paint. I only got one coat on it so far. I need to touch up some areas with more embossing powder and then respray it. Close up shot of the carpet. I'm happy with the results. I'll need to sand out the powder in a couple spots on the deck lid. No matter how much I wipe it down I always miss at least one or two specks where it matters. And that's all I have for now. The exterior color will be a lighter tan than the interior which seemed to be a popular color scheme. Should hopefully look like a boring old Rabbit.

My brother, Grid_88, talked me into joining this CBP. I had dropped out of the hobby for a few years since I tend to not finish projects. I figured this one would be a good way to get back in the swing of things since sleepers tend to be pretty simple. Maybe, just maybe, with the interest of a small community I can finish one. I have enjoyed watching everyone else's progress. For my entry I wanted to keep it simple. I chose the Revell California Wheels release of the Volkswagen Rabbit. Seems like a really nice kit so far. Here it is shown fresh out of the box. It even has MI plates for me. My first task was to get rid of the little-engine-that-wishes-it-could. My entrant has decided to go all out and have a billet engine block made. Would have a robust forged set of aftermarket internals for a Mitsubishi 4G63 with a block and head made from billet for more strength and easier adaptation into a first gen Rabbit. I set about scratch building the custom billet 2.0L DOHC engine. The basic block shown next to the kit 1.6 engine. I removed the kit block from the trans, and test fitted my custom block to check for size. I scratch built my first manifold which I attempted to make look like a cast square tube manifold. I scratched up the basic components of the turbo for mock up. It quickly became apparent that the square manifold was much too large and looked out of scale. I pitched it and began working on a tubular manifold. If the driver spent the money building a custom block, they probably wouldn't run a cast manifold. After an hour or so I had bent up a pretty cool looking tubular manifold. I mounted the turbo opposite its original position so it would more easily clear the radiator. I bent up some more styrene rod to mock up the intake manifold. Not 100% sure I like it just yet, but I haven't had a chance to work on it again. I also just started work on the DOHC valve cover. Only have the cam covers cut out so far. Will be adding many more details. Slightly further away to show general size and fitment. Future plans include scratching up an external wastegate, charge piping, intercooler, COP ignition, and a Megasquirt style ECM. The car will retain the stock body with only slight mods to the front end if needed for charge piping.I am planning for a slight drop, photoetched big brake kit, and wider front tires if I can find any that will work. My planned paint job is a dreary tan color with black steel wheels. The only external sleeper hints will be the big brake kit if it fits, and maybe an extra opening for the intercooler. That's all I have so far. I would like to start shooting some primer soon to check for gaps and such.