jaymcminn

Lowering the suspension on the Fujimi Enthusiast 911s is pretty easy due to the modular nature of the kits. The brake/hub assembly is designed to be mounted at different heights on the upright to accommodate the different ride height of the variants. By gluing the hub assembly higher on the upright, you can lower the ride height. The main thing to watch out for is not going too low- the mockup in the original post has about 2 scale inches of ground clearance! Fortunately all 1/24 roads are flat... It's also necessary to narrow the track to tuck the wheels up into the wells. Due to the design of the suspension, it's easy to take about 1/16 of an inch out of the hub spacer to get the wheels tucked. The swing-arm rear suspension is easy, too- by cutting the tops off of the rear shocks and repositioning the hub assembly on the swing axle to center it in the well, you can get the rear end down. It's also necessary to narrow the rear track as well, I found that I needed to grind out the wheelwell lip and the interior tub to get the wheels not to rub. Here's the modified front suspension... and the rear suspension, showing how much the hub spacer needs to be shortened to tuck the wheels into the fenders. Before... After... And finally, a pic of the body shell now that it's been cleared and polished...

That was actually a lot of my inspiration for this build. Magnus's cars are wild!

Bill, I'll post up some pics of the modified suspension parts tomorrow. It's actually pretty easy to get this kit to sit low due to the way Fujimi designed the suspension to accommodate the different variants of the 911.

Yes, it's the Fujimi Enthusiast kit. It's actually the Testors re-box from the '80s.

Next came the color choice. I was originally going to do Gulf livery, but that's reached the point where it's completely played. I was also limited by the stripe color choices in the Fujimi kit- red, green, or navy blue. Fortunately, Hobby Design released a set of Carrera stripes last month in colors including white, yellow, orange, red, and black. The stripes are beautifully registered and look amazing! The original plan was to do bright green with the Carrera stripe in yellow, but that looked a little too "agricultural" (think John Deere!), so I went with something a little different... The color is Tamiya Metallic Green. THe orange fascias are Tamiya Brilliant Orange... they're a pretty good match for the orange stripe. Since these pics were taken the paint has been cleared and polished and it looks amazing,. I'm going to wind up doing the window trim in chrome rather than black (went back and forth on that one a while) which should look really hot with the green. The interior will have body-colored floorboards and rear shelf with a rollbar I'm modifying from the Revell '68 Firebird kit. I'm going to do diamond-plate floormats and kick plates on the interior as well. The competition seats and door cards will be finished in saddle tan- I want to try a finish on them that will look like distressed leather. I'm thinking about doing aluminum velocity stacks on the engine as well. Keep an eye out for updates and, as always, questions and comments are welcome!

Porsche is unusual among sports car marques in that there has been a thriving mod scene for decades. In the 70s there were the "canyon carver" 911s that were modified to handle like they were on rails. The 80s brought flat noses, whale tails, and big flares. The 90s saw the tuner market explode as the water-cooled engines started to come into their own. The big trend now is toward that 70s retro design. The look is usually inspired by the '73 Carrera RS, with its "ducktail" rear spoiler and smooth front fascia. Paint colors range from vintage racing livery to wild original color combinations. Interiors tend to be Spartan, even by early 911 standards. Engines generally receive modest tweaks to bump up power- it's all about getting the whole package, and overpowering an early 911 ruins that package. Fuchs wheels are almost mandatory (Minilites or BBS are okay, too) and the suspension needs to sit LOW. These cars are generally referred to as "hot rod" or "outlaw" 911s. Here are a couple of examples... I started my build with the Fujimi/Testors '73 RS kit. The nice thing about the Fujimi Enthusiast 911s is that you receive parts in the box to do a LOT of different touches to the car- three different types of mirror, a couple of different headlights, racing and street seats, etc. The first order of business with the kit was to set up the ride height- out of the box these tend to sit like Bigfoot. Fortunately, the design of the suspension allows for a lot of tweaking to get it to sit just right. I narrowed the spindles to tuck the tires into the wheelwells and moved the brake/hub assemblies up to get it sitting just right...

Curtis, that is really sharp. I'm going to be starting my build of this kit soon and I hope it turns out as nice as yours. Great use of color, too... it really looks period correct without imitating any existing livery.

I've never really understood the mentality that causes people to throw up their hands and say "yup, no more good music. Gonna go listen to my 8-tracks now". There are a lot of great artists out there in virtually every genre producing fantastic music. Like blues rock? Check out the Black Keys. R&B? The debut album by Michael Kiwanuka is one of the best debuts of all time. Alternative? Silversun Pickups rock like nobody since Smashing Pumpkins. I'm a fan of everything from country to classic rock but there's a thrill in discovering and sharing new music that that I can't imagine ever growing tired of. And yes, the Beeb sucks. But bad music is as old as music itself and it isn't going anywhere... just like the good stuff.

Hmmm, the "Real Sports Cars" series is a bit of a mixed bag. with everything from curbsides to cars with a fair amount of detail, like the recent Lambo Aventador and Ferrari F12. Looking at these pics, the door gaps seem a but big, which might indicate opening doors... hopefully there will be full engine detail. Either way I WILL be buying one of these!

Hmmm, I wonder if the full detail Revell Magnum 308 could be used as a parts donor for this? It would be an interesting model to go on the shelf next to the Lancia Stratos and Lamborghini Countach.

Beautiful work, Matt. I've been following the progress of this build and the results definitely justify the work you've put in! I like the idea of doing a nice box-stock "palate cleanser" build after a tough one like this... any ideas yet?

Hmmm, five cars for a lifetime, huh? Well, let's see: 1- 1963 Corvette coupe- silver over saddle interior. 2- Ferrari 458 Italia Spyder -white over red interior 3- 1987 Bentley Mulsanne Turbo R (maintenance is included, right?) 4- '32 Ford roadster- something along the lines of the Tom Gloy lowboy pictured below 5- Maserati Ghibli- the prettiest shape ever on four wheels Current DD- 2005 PT Cruiser Convertible (pic is of my actual DD)

+1 on the Bondo 2-part glazing putty. I used to spend a fortune on Evercoat Glaze-coat only to have most of it go bad. The Bondo is very good quality in a smaller size at a great price.

The proportions of the body seem way off on the kit. The original is a striking, if not especially pretty, example of 70s Italian design. The kit doesn't do it justice.

Will do, Greg. See you then!

That's the one, Skip. I'll contact Kevin at Strada and see if he has any in stock. Thanks!

And a few more... This was a pretty amazing kit to build. The final fit of the doors and hood is a bit fiddly, but the results look great if the car is opened up or with the panels closed. The metal transfers are fantastic, too. The kit decals, however, were terrible... the wheel centers fell apart while I was trying to position them. I might try contacting Tamiya for another set. The licence plate decal came from the Revell Mercedes SLS kit. As always, questions or comments are welcome! P.S. This is also the first test of my new photo booth... built to Alex Kustov's specifications from foam core. It works pretty well, but I haven't found the right white balance on my camera yet (lots of color correction required on these pics to make them look this good)... any suggestions?

And a few shots of the finished model. The panel fit is pretty impressive... you'd never notice the slightly larger gaps on the opening panels if it were a darker color. I washed the non-opening panel lines with a medium grey just to make everything match.

The finished chassis- it looks kinda cool like this! One of the more unusual aspects of this model is the die-cast metal base plate on the chassis. It's there for the sole purpose of adding weight to the finished model Weird, but it really makes the thing feel more substantial when you pick it up. The body is suitably complicated on this car. I used Tamiya pearl white over their fine white primer and topped it off with Testors One-Coat clear. The body mounted to the chassis...

This was a relatively quick buildup of the Tamiya McMerc kit. The engineering on this kit is extremely ambitious in some respects and less so in others. The opening doors are impressive and the hinge mechanism for the hood that replicates the 1:1 are nice, but the motor follows Tamiya's recent trend toward top-end only detail. It still looks pretty good with paint detailing. The kit was built box-stock with the exception of heat-shielding on the underside of the hood- later I might replace the plastic mesh insert on the front end with photoetched mesh. This is the intake plenum before installation- it's a pretty typical Tamiya piece in that they do one complex part that represents several different parts. This approach poses some paint challenges, but makes for very impressive parts fit... The taillight assemblies are amazing in this kit. Red lenses go over chrome reflectors and a clear LED assembly mounts on top of that. After installation in the body, a clear lens snaps in from outside the body... the results are amazing. These are the assemblies before installation... The interior and exterior are where Tamiya did the bulk of this kit's engineering. The interior is a pretty complicated setup with separate pieces for the different colors. The results, however, are amazing. The hardest part of the interior build was masking the doorjambs and painting them the body color. Note the metal transfer for the "SLR" badge on the dash. The satin-plated pedals are a nice touch.

The Tamiya kit has excellent engine detail- here's a pic of the built-up engine from mine. and a shot of the completed model... this is the "competizione" version.

Tamiya by far. It doesn't quite "fall together" like many of their kits, but it builds into a spectacular replica with a little work. The Fujimi kit is a curbside with limited engine detail and the Italeri/Testors kit has stance issues. The Tamiya kit is also fairly plentiful, and the Monte Shell racing version comes with a nice fret of photoetched parts.

Waiting until I get a photoetched detail set before I start mine... I'll enjoy watching your build in the meantime!

Recently, I've been building exotics and classic sports cars. Before starting a build, I'll spend a lot of time online deciding exactly how I want to build it... often there will be a specific car I decide I want to replicate. For current model cars, there are even online configurators where you can play with different colors and options. Good research is often the first step in building a great model.

+1 on the Meguiars Ultimate Compound. It's fantastic stuff for your scale and 1:1 needs.