Brendan

What I did when I built mine was I cut out 4 square tabs from sheet plastic and glued them to the underside of the body to give me a surface to glue to. Two on the nose of the car and one on each side near the fender. To fill in the gap, I took another piece of plastic and used that to fill in the gap between the resin pieces. And then filled in the seam with automotive putty and sanded to shape.

The problem is that the other teams were going to do that with their diffusers. But when they asked the FIA for clarification, they were told they could not. That's what the main protest is about. Some teams were given the okay; some teams weren't. As for the race, what's going to happen is that Lewis Hamilton is going to start toward the back and on the first turn, he's going to plow through the field and take out everybody. Because if he can't win, nobody can win! (As you can see, I'm not a big Hamilton fan.)

Just to let you know that the body is not resin. It's a plastic kit. The only parts that are resin are the add ons to the body. It you look carefully at the body, you can see the injection pins on the inside of the car. As for cutting stuff off, an easy way to do it is to use sewing thread and just move it back a forth across the seam and it will cut right through it. Fujimi's only made a couple of full resin kits. And they go for in the $200 range.

There are about 6 stickers that I know of that come to mind. Two on the body; one is an event sticker which is a long rectangle and the other is a class sticker which is shorter and more squarish. There are two stickers on the inside of the car; one is to certify the roll cage and the other is usually on the fire wall to certify the chassis. The next two are on the engine block and on the transmission housing. There's quite a few more that would be on all the electronics. All are required.

I use Tamiya's X-31 Titanium Gold over Flat Black. It seems to get a pretty good result. I've also shot semi-gloss and dull coat over it, depending on how much of a shine I want on it.

I have built both of these kits for a customer. And I had to cut the resin pieces in half to make them wider to fit the bodies. The pieces were off anywhere between 3 to 6 mm. It would have been better if Fujimi had just casted them in plastic.

One question: Did you shake the can thoroughly? I've run into problems in the past where I didn't shake my can enough and it remained sticky for several days.

Like Cal said, the idea has been done before and failed miserably. All the stuff that Accura says is innovative has all been done, so it's not innovative. There's too many downsides to having big wheels on the front of the car. First off, you're drivers are going to have to have huge Popeye arms to steer the thing. Also now you have to run larger brakes in the front which they are not allowed to do. Also you will lose a lot of straightaway speed. Last is that now you have such a large rotaional mass you have to get up to speed and be able to brake. And the only real advantage is you're getting traction in the corner. There's too many disadvantages that the outweigh the advantages. If you've looked at the time sheets, both the Audis and the Peugeots were maintaining their speeds while the Accura had only one fast lap that got them the pole. I'm betting at the start of the race they'll be passed in the first lap. But I'm hoping they'll be able to keep up with both cars. Since they'll be the only factory P1 car racing all season long.

Nothing really special with these kits except that they're 1/16 scale. They have been around for a while and have been reissued several times. They can be pricey for what they are. Other than that, they build up nice. Unfortunately I gave all mine away and don't have any pictures of them. If you have built a Tamiya kit or a Fujimi kit, you could build these cars. They do need some work; some slight fit issues.

Got back yesterday from the show. Had a nice fun drive up the coast. Got to experience all the weather from sunshine to rain and sleet and even a little bit of snow. I got to meet Gregg's wife. And let's say this: Gregg is a lucky man. Gregg did run into the some problems. Had an incident with his camera. I won't go into detail about it but a very nice lady lent him the use of her camera for the show. All in all, it was a very fun show. Got to meet a lot of people. The turnout was better than I thought it was going to be. I believe the model turnout was 1031. A little lower than previous years but not as much as I expected. A lot of vendors and a lot of people showed up. Here's a link to the gpma pictures taken by Kevin Stewart. They're mainly going to be race cars because that's what the group is about. http://gpma.org/gallery/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=4335

Awesome job on the build. At last year's NNL West, a gentleman had one built up, fully detailed and ended up winning the GPMA Award for best race car. Your car looks just as good. I think Greg took a couple of shots of it at the show. Thanks for sharing.

This type of thing happens quite a bit. I use a water base acrylic clear coat over the rims to help prevent it. Something like Future Floor Polish. It will dull the aluminum color a little but not much. Another thing is to make sure the paint is completely cured before you put the rims and tires together.

His products are outstanding. I have built his Lola, several of his Porsche GT3, his Lamborghini GTR, and many other of his kits. His wheel sets are outstanding. I usually get them through Strada Sports. Anything that Scale Production makes, Kevin can get. As for a web site, do a Google Search for Scale Production Resin.

Any dust particle is harmful to your lungs. Just get into the habit of wearing a mask whenever you do sanding. What most people's concerns with working with resin is developing contact allergies to it. Which can happen. (A very small percentage of people develop contact allergies.) I have a contact allergy with resin so I wear gloves whenever I'm handling it. I am especially cautious when sanding as it can irritate my lungs. Another thing to get used to is that whenever you touch resin, wash your hands with soap and water. That's what my doctor and my brother who is a Biochemist said to do.

Like what Jairus said, there should be a little plug-in in the back of the transmission case which they would plug into a starter to start the motor. They also would push start them as well. And in some cases there was an actual electronic ignition on some of the cars. It depended on who was the owner of the car and what motor and chassis they were using. Also it would depend on if it was a road course car or an oval course car. I'm assuming that since you're saying it is an Indy car that it is an oval course car.

With only $62 million start up, they'll be out of money halfway through the season. The bare minimum is going to be at least $100 million. This is an absolutely stupid idea. There's no way they're going to be able to do it. The economy is not good. There's no way they're going to find sponsers to back that big of a project. You have Honda that had a big operating budget and they pulled out. And I'm betting Toyota will pull out after this season. As for Danica Patrick being a driver is an absolute joke! She's not good in the U. S. so what would make them think she'd be good driving over in Europe. On top of that, there's no way she'd be able to get the license for the racing series. There's too many other better drivers out there. Look what happened to Micheal Andretti when he raced Formula 1. He got his rear end kicked and didn't even last a year. And for how old he is now, he's still a better driver than Danica.

The C9 ran more races than just Le Mans. For low downforce tracks, they ran with the vents covered. For high downforce tracks, they ran with them open. You're trying to get rid of of high and low pressure coming off the tires when they spin at high and low speed. And they were also used to help draw heat from the tires, especially under breaking. Back in the day they didn't use argon or neon gas for the air for the tires. So when the break rotors got hot under breaking, it would actually affect the pressure. The vents were used as a way of drawing heat off the tires. Hope this helps.

Between me, Hossain, and Bauer, we had two tables. Probably be the same this year as well. I'm the one who gets yelled at all the time for having too much stuff built.

The reason why they probably went with an automatic is so that they could get a better MPG rating. And also to help it get past the new smog regulations. I was thinking it looked like a cross between a Toyota and a Subaru. It's not a bad looking car but they need to get rid of the grill. Also does this mean they're going to be phasing out the Ford Fusion? The Fusion was the replacement for the Taurus. I also think that they didn't get as many sales with the Fusion name as they did with the Taurus name.

You always want to put your decals on a completely dried surface. You also want it to be a gloss surface. As for drying times, it depends on the paint you use. Some paints can take 24 hours to dry and some can take several weeks. As for putting a gloss coat over the decals, there's two different views on that. Some don't like it and some do. I like putting a gloss coat over my decals. But you need to make sure the gloss coat you're putting over the decals is compatible with the decal. Some gloss coats will "eat" the decal, which will ruin the entire project. Make sure you test before putting gloss coat over the decals. If there's anything else I could help you out with, let me know.

It says it's 1/24 but it's more like a cross between 1/24 and 1/25. Studio 27 has always had scale issues. And yes, it is a curbside kit. Thanks for the kind words.

I can tell you exactly what happened. You put too much paint down too quickly. And the paint started to collect in the low lying areas and also the lip of where the seam line is. The paint was already drying underneath and wet paint went over the top and the bubbles are the result of off gassing from the drying paint. I've had this happen to me quite a few times when I used spray cans, especially with Tamiya sprays. As for trying to fix the problem, your best bet is to strip it as suggested by everyone else.

Thanks for everyone's comments. Hossain, I'll have at least 14 kits for the NNL West. I even got a bike done, just for you. Nick, Yes the car did take second place. If you send me a airline ticket, I'll go. You're looking at about a thousand for me to fly back there. Problem with living in a rural area. Closest airport is over a hundred miles away.

The reason why they used the twin turboed V-6 is because of the weight issue. The V-6 produced more horse power and more torque than the V-8 and weighed about 50 pounds less. It also gave it a better weight balance...closer to a 50/50.

How did I miss this one? Awesome job on the Ferrari. And yes, you are right about the chrome on the windows. I've seen several pictures of these cars with the chrome instead of the black on it.