Marko Nykänen Posted June 21, 2020 Share Posted June 21, 2020 Yet another Eleanor build from Scale Production's conversion kit. Starting this thread might be big mistake, because my build is one big mess at the moment. I have done little bit of everything and accomplished almost nothing. At least it feels that way. And my plans tend to change during the process, so sometimes I take two steps back rather than forward. Oh well... Anyway, here are some thoughts and observations I have at the moment, regarding the conversion kit and references I have gathered from internet and the movie. Here's the link to complete gallery I have the build pics and some reference photos too. I attach some pics from there to this post. https://jva0316.1g.fi/kuvat/Ford+Mustang+Eleanor/ Engine and engine bay will be a mix of everything I have learned. Engine is basically the AMT's 289(?). Raised just little bit the cylinder heads and of course intake manifold. Distributor/ignition system will be built MSD-style, if I can manage that. Battery will be moved to trunk and windshield washer reservoir will be removed (already is). Air cleaner is still undecided. Scale Production's cleaner is nice, but I'd like it to be fraction shorter. And as many know, the valve covers are also way too long to the donor engine. So can't and won't use those. I probably combine these two pictures together: The body itself is quite nice. I am going to open the trunk lid and luckily the AMT has that one separate in the kit. The hood in the conversion kit was crooked/twisted/bad so I swapped the scoop to the AMT's hood. And yes, drilled the hood pins in the wrong place, when using the old one's as a guide. I know, I'm not the only one. Luckily. Yes, it looks bad in real life too, not just in the pic... But I like the AMT hood moore, because it has the correct shape in the nose area. Of course it is alwasy possible to make the shape but I got those "free" in the process. The Scale Production's hood has lost the shape and has basically round corners in the front. Or badly shaped anyway. I also shaved off the molded revers lights and will replace those with AMT's reverse lights. That brought the next problem with parts included in the conversion kit. The lenses were way too small. So have to fabricate those from scratch. So, what next. Yes, the wheels and tires. Those provided in the conversion kit are nice. But. I just don't like them. And I'm quite sure none of the cars in the movie had _only_ the knock off's keeping the wheels attached. As you can see in my pics, there's no way to fit any lug nuts in the wheels. Unless you add material to back of the wheel and put them there. So, after searching the web and this forum, I decided to buy Revell's Baldwin Motion Shelby Cobra, because it has similar wheels. One of my reference pics: Left is the modified Cobra wheel (rear), right is the Scale Production. Either one of those aren't correct in my opinion but at this time I like the Cobra wheels more. Tires are from AMT/ERTL 1969 Mustang Mach 1 -kit. With those I have wider in the back and slightly narrower in the front. As I believe should be. Not sure though. Might have read about it somewhere. When I got the Revell's Cobra, I noticed that it had some quite knock-off's too. Again I compared those to my references and noticed that I get better result with the Cobra's knock-off's. Actually they are spot on, or at least I think so. Just need some trimming. There's also a possibility to make wheels and tires changeable, so I can decide later (or leave undecided) which one's to use, have to only check the ground clearance with smaller ones. Interior. Mostly stock, of course I add the tacho and additional switches for nitrous. And yes, I swap the tacho to Mr. Model's version. It has readable decal at least. Steering wheel is still undecided. Too many options at this time. There's not much wrong in the conversion kit version. Only the center part is little bit different from the movie. What about the suspension and other stuff happening under the car? I have seen some very nice builds and upgrades to the steering and suspension (front and rear) and I'm not quite sure I can handle that kind of builds. It is known that the "hero car" is equipped with Total Control Products equipment. Many have built the rear suspension totally from scratch and they look lovely. But I won't. I will keep the leaf springs, which are very clearly kept in the hero car. Or at least one of those, some cars may have four links and all other cool stuff. Total Control Products has upgrade parts for leaf springs too, so I probably go with those. Or at least I try. I will add the subframe connectors too, I have one version already done but I'm not too happy with the outcome. Exhaust is somehow problematic. I would like to use the side exits, but it might be difficult or even impossible without major modifications to the bottom plate. Yes, I know, hero car didn't have side exits used for exhaust. For body color I have several possibilities. I can use the Gravity Colors Pepper Gray, go and mix my own with the actual recipe or mix some metallic gray how I like it. Because the metallic tones has usually too big particles in them, I guess that the "Extra Fine" in the recipe is still too harsh to the scale. So my plan B is to use some Alclad and tone that to my liking. But that is a thing to worry much later... I'm sorry that's there is so few pics of actual build at the moment, I have had no interest to take pics of different individual parts that are just prepared for first layer of paint. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Force Posted June 21, 2020 Share Posted June 21, 2020 Interesting project. As this car is supposed to be a GT500 the engine should be a FE 428 big block, small block cars were GT350, but I know some of the movie cars had 351 Windsor engines, this doesn't matter as the engine is never shown in the movie. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marko Nykänen Posted June 21, 2020 Author Share Posted June 21, 2020 14 minutes ago, Force said: Interesting project. As this car is supposed to be a GT500 the engine should be a FE 428 big block, small block cars were GT350, but I know some of the movie cars had 351 Windsor engines, this doesn't matter as the engine is never shown in the movie. Yep, I have read that too, so I'm replicating the 351 but I'm not going to put too much effort to that. And because of that second reason too, that we don't actually know what was under the hood. So have to go with what is written in the internet and what is seen in different pictures. There's just too much "Eleanor's" in the internet nowadays and probably 99 % of the pictures/videos are from later replicas which have nothing to do with the movie cars. Halicki's Eleanor was so much easier to research. I don't know if anyone has built replica's of that movie car. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vamach1 Posted June 21, 2020 Share Posted June 21, 2020 (edited) Trying to replicate a car (more than one) made for a remake of a movie with the star car being loosely based on a real 67 GT500 but got Fooseified can be a challenge. I plan to use whatever engine looks and fits the best and since I already have some diecast Eleanor's I will probably not even paint it the dark metallic gray. If you build it a little different you might even get more "likes" as people try to find what you did to suit your own taste. ? Edited June 21, 2020 by vamach1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cobraman Posted June 21, 2020 Share Posted June 21, 2020 You have my attention. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marko Nykänen Posted June 21, 2020 Author Share Posted June 21, 2020 52 minutes ago, cobraman said: You have my attention. Don't pay too much attention, this can go sideways in so many ways at any time For example here; As I was not happy with either of the wheels, I decided that I can try to modify Cobra's wheels. I will loose the elevated edge from the other openings, but it's not so noticeable at the reference either. On the right is the wheel with modified openings. I did also a quick mock up with both the wheels/tires. It's not too bad with the originals but I like still more of the Cobra/Mach 1 combination. Seems to have more attitude. Even though the rear wheels are quite tight fit. And as you can see, I have optimistically opened the side exhaust exits and the bottom plate is clearly visible behind. That might cause some head scratching... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marko Nykänen Posted June 21, 2020 Author Share Posted June 21, 2020 I didn't post the pic of the rear wheel modification I did before anything else. Originally rear wheels had smooth lip(?), so I made sharp corner to the bottom, so it is better looking and matches the front wheels. Also it's lot easier to mask when painting. Left is the modified rim. Now I have all four wheels "re-slotted", knock-offs are also ready for first layer of paint. I have to make the lug nuts before I paint the wheels, hopefully I have suitable material on stock... In the last pic you can see the difference in depth with the front and rear wheels. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George Bojaciuk Posted June 21, 2020 Share Posted June 21, 2020 I had asked Z-Man if he could do these wheels in wide and wider. He did! These will be for my Eleanor Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marko Nykänen Posted June 21, 2020 Author Share Posted June 21, 2020 7 minutes ago, George Bojaciuk said: I had asked Z-Man if he could do these wheels in wide and wider. He did! These will be for my Eleanor Yeah, I found your earlier post(s) about those and they look just what they should. I tried to find Steve's facebook page but couldn't. I might not have requested those but would have been nice to browse through, if there are pictures of his work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George Bojaciuk Posted June 21, 2020 Share Posted June 21, 2020 Unfortunately, he doesn’t make it easy to find! I’ve run into him at model shows and buy what I like when I see it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vamach1 Posted June 22, 2020 Share Posted June 22, 2020 (edited) Here's the direction I was going before I got sidetracked with other projects. The M2 diecast has what I assume would be the "correct" exhaust routing versus a "real" Shelby GT500. The green wheels are unique to the limited "chase " versions. Aside from the metallic blue ? I was not sure what else I would do differently but it's been a while so I and going to revisit where I was going with my build but I wanted to give those interested an idea of what comes with the resin kit (which i hope they make again) and how the chassis from the AMT kit will work but will require some mods unless one assumes the side pipes are just for show. Yours looks good so far Marko - maybe we can both get in gear and end up with two very unique tribute recreations. Edited June 22, 2020 by vamach1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marko Nykänen Posted June 22, 2020 Author Share Posted June 22, 2020 13 hours ago, vamach1 said: ... The M2 diecast has what I assume would be the "correct" exhaust routing versus a "real" Shelby GT500. ... Might be and even if not, that gave me an idea with routing the exhaust pipe. I just googled and it is done in real world just the same way I was planning. It might still require the bottom plate modifications. Here's the other way, but if the subframe connectors are used, that's not gonna work. Looks better though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adamelvis Posted November 17, 2020 Share Posted November 17, 2020 Good Work.! I have a Eleanor project that I am currently working on as well. Will be following ... Adam Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Funkychiken Posted November 19, 2020 Share Posted November 19, 2020 Its a great start to a cool car! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MININORTHFORDMAN Posted November 20, 2020 Share Posted November 20, 2020 woah cool project im also doing a gone in 60 seconds build but the slicer from gin6s 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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