François

You know when you're too close to the forest you can't see the tree? I've been working with the steering mecanism for the last week but just found this problem today. (Hint, look at the rotation of the steering vs the rotation of the wheels) 20250330_213929.mp4 The problem is that I printed a left hand worm instead of a right hand. I've reprinted the steering column parts with the correct worm so easy fix. I test fitted the dash board, fits like it should but I don't like tge dial gage area Newly redesign dashboard with a test dial in place. Exploded views of the clutch master assembly And assembled Brake and clutch masters in place on firewall with brake piping done Pedal box completed and installed Functional brake and clutch pedals 20250330_202844~2.mp4

You know the saying that goes 'one step forward 2 steps back'? Well that's exactly what happenned with the head lights. I had 1 completly installed but I wasn't bright enough to test the lighting before gluing everything in place. It turns out that the light from the bulb shines thru the bucket wall, which is only .040" thick and even though it's chromed. So I had to remove it by breaking the mounting bracket. I took the opportunity the redo the chrome on all 4 buckets since I didn't like how it looked so that's a plus. I also printed a heavy wall bucket liner that I painted black on the outside and silver on the inside. Now, the light goes out only by the front of the bucket as should be. Bucket without liner (this bucket is not chromed so the efect is worse) Bucket with liner inside, problem solved The heavy wall liner And liner in bucket On the plus side of my Hydra day, all the firewall parts are painted and I started the pedal box assembly. The hydra logo on the brake and clutch are kinda cool! If all goes to plan, I should have working pedals once hooked up to the spring loaded clutch and brake masters.

A lot was done today. I printed all the parts for the firewall assembly and they are ready for paint. I test fitted the firewall on the frame and it fit perfectly. I test printed the steering wheel, first print not perfect but the second should be good. I completed the radiator core with a fine wiremesh and pleated core. I threaded the gearmotor leads thru a rubber hose to hide them and started to install the head lights. Unfortunately, I scratched one of the head light bucket so I had to rechrome it. I'll have to wait a couple of weeks before installing it. Firewall parts ready for paint Test fitting of firewall Steering wheel test print Completed radiator core Threading gearmotor leads First of 4 head lights installed

I'm starting work on the firewall assembly, all parts are being printed. Here's what the printer plate looks like.

Thank you Cody! I very much enjoying this build, glad to see orhers are too.

I finished the front suspension installation. Brake line are in and the steering works. I also test fitted the radiator, the blower top cover has the final paint color, looks pretty good. 20250323_201805.mp4

The wheels are printed, I test tried them on just gor fun and to see if it rolls... it rolls. 20250316_140322.mp4 (sorry for the poor picture quality)

The rear end is all done and I'm very pleased with the way everything went together easily. Next step, the front end. Viewed from under Some brake line routing

I finished all the ubolts for all the leafsprings assembly, here's how I proceded in order to get identical shapes. Raw material (cheap steel pin) inserted in bending jig After bending After trimming Finished rear leafspring I dry fitted the rear suspension with both rear axels, althought not easy to get in place, everything seems to fit perfectly. I installed the brake lines (black rubber hoses) that will eventualy be routed towards the firewall and brake booster. Similar lines will also come from the front brakes.

Did some assembly today. I worked on the rear suspension. It's going to be quite a puzzle to get all these parts assembled in the correct order but I think it should all fit nicely. As a reminder, here is the only reference I had for the rear suspension And here is my design And the result so far

Finished painting all the frame parts using Revell's silk black (same color I used on the Bentley's body. I could find it in spray can format so I got the little plastic bottles instead. By adding a bit of revell aqua thinner (it's a water based paint) in a 3 paint to 1 thinner ratio, I got a very nice airbrushable consistency. I also made the aluminium stiffener plates that are installed on both sides of frame (still need to but the bolts in).

Hi all, I'm back home and slowly restarting the Hydra project. But after over a month off, It's kinda hard to do. I started painting the bunch of parts I printed for the frame and drive so I should have a fully assembled frame with front and rear axes in place in a few weeks. In the mean time, here are some pictures of the painting job. The chromed front bumper The front lights And chromed radiator A bunch of parts primed and ready for final paint

Hello everyone, just to let you know that I haven't vanished from the face of earth. Just on a little ski trip. Should be back on the Hydra sometime in march.

All the steering components have been printed and assembled, everything fits and works as should. 20250124_213251.mp4 I also started to print some boby parts, here's a test print of tge right side tool box.

Thank you everyone. I was finally able to drive everything from the gearmotor hidden in the blower. From the blower spinning dome to the 4 rear wheels. I small victory for me! 20250121_164637.mp4 I'm printing parts while waiting for a revell paint order I did for the frame, suspension and drive components (silk black). I decided on the body color, it will be Tamiya's gunship gray which is a blueish gray. It should look a bit like the prop car made for the movie .

I've been more busy skiing than modeling this past week but I still managed to finalize the blower drive. I decided to add a subframe between the radiator and blower's front face to facilitate the assembly and paint. This way, I can chrome both the radiator and blower front face at the same time without having the blower housing in the way. Since the blower housing will be painted the same color as the bodywork (color to be determined), I made it in two halves that can easily be assembled later. I also made a small drive shaft between the crankshaft and the blower. If this was a real car, this shaft would drive the blower from the engine but on the model, since the gearmotor is hidden in the blower it's the other way around. Blower drive With half of the blower housing in place Small drive shaft Gearmotor spur gear (bottom) driving blower spur gear (top) Overall view of model so far

20250108_085356.mp4 I received the new gearmotor and after some tweaking and alignment issues, I got it mounted in front of the radiator, directly in line with the crankshaft. It will eventualy be hidden by the blower housing. Here's a little video showing the new gearmotor in it's new location at work rotating the car's engine and transmission. You will notice the transmission's output rotation being controlled by the shifter. 20250108_085356.mp4 But then, all hell broke loose and the crankshaft snapped! So after a complete dismantle of the lower engine (it's a vefy good thing the head assembly in bolted so it can be easily removed), I was able to replace the broken portion of the crank along with 2 connecting rods and caps. Broken crankshaft after repair being reinserted in the bloc I printed and assembled the 2 differentiels and temporarily connected them to the transmission output and was then able to drive everything from the gearmotor 20250109_175732.mp4

Bk9300, the frame is suprisingly stiff. The engine when bolted in adds a lot of ridigity. I'll be adding some aluminium stiffener plates on both side that should also help. The problem I forsee is more torsionnal but the body should help a lot for this... I think. The model, once completed, will be in an enclosure of some sort so will be protected from inquisitive hands and will sit on support jacks like the Bentley.

I received the 6mm dia gearmotors in 2 different ratios but unfortunately, they won't do. One simply doesn't have enough torq. As for the other, it could do but it's border line on torq and I find the rpm to slow. It's to bad because the assembly was quite nice with the gearmotor hidden inside the starter housing. I'll install the starter but it will only be for show. Here's the too small gearmotor/starter setup So I had to rethink how to drive the engine. I found another type of mini gearmotor, it has alot more torq but it's much bigger, too big to pass as a starter. Instead, the new motor will be hidden inside the blower and it will be inline with the crankshaft. I even figured out a way to drive the rotating thingy in the front of the blower using the same gears I had planned to use to drive it in the first place. I ordered 2 different torqs, hopefully one will do the job. Here's what the new design looks like And here's the new gearmotor type While waiting for the new motors to arrive, I started the frame. It's all printed and assembled, a lot easier and faster to print and assemble than the engine. I also test printed the radiator since the new gearmotor will be mounted in it. For a test print, it came out pretty good. At the risk of repeating myself, this model will be huge ! The assembled frame (that's an 18 in ruler next to it) With the engine and the gas tank I printed last summer And with the radiator cowling and blower I'm always impressed with what the printer puts out but like I said before, garbage in, garbage out. I guess I'm not giving it too much garbage !!

Plug wires installed

Well, the Hydra Coupe 16 cylinder engine is done and it's a beast! You might think it's out of scale for a 1/12 model but it's not. Everything is to scale. Unlike some other large scale engine out there, If you were to blow it up 12 times, this one would actually look like a very huge V16 engine. Althought I will admit I might have spaced the cylinder bores a bit more than necessary to fill the engine bay. I still need to put in the plug wires and fine tune the fit of the clutch but aside from that, it's done. The transmission is mounted and the drive/no drive mecanism works well. I've ordered a few micro gearmotors (2 different ratios). The gearmotor will be hidden inside the starter motor housing and will drive the ring gear. In the meantime, I can rotate the engine using the transmission output shaft. Here are some pictures of the transmission assembly, followed by pictures of the completed engine and a small video. All transmission parts ready for assembly The completed engine And some details Snd a small video showing the drive mecanism being engaged 20241229_205449.mp4 Next up, the frame, suspension components and front and rear ends.

Now that the engine is done, I started on the transmission. And, naturally, I had to complicate things. I thought it could be fun to have the choice of running the engine with or without the rear wheels turning. Do to that, I incorporated a sliding gear mecanism that will be actuated be the shifter. Here's a little video showing how the thing will work. 20241224_203654.mp4 And a cross section of the engine with the transmission in place the printed parts And mounted on the engine just to see what it will look like That's it for now Merry Christmas !!

John, the stroke is 10.9mm (131mm scale up) compared to the 75mm stroke on the engine I based my design on. It had a top rpm around 4500. I would definatly not try my engine at that rpm. In the video, I used my dewalt drill at the low speed setting which has a top rpm of 600. I ran it at maybe half that? It's all plastic with a little bit of light oil for lub, so I won't be trying to run it any faster.

Ok so, I have many goals on this build. One was to have a working V16 engine and valve train that would drive the rear wheels. So far, as you're seen in my earlier post, the valve train is done and fonctionnal. Today, I made another step towards this goal. I now have a fully fonctionnal engine. All 16 pistons move from the crank shaft while driving the camshaft. I had my doughts but I pulled it off and it works very well, with very little torq needed to move averything. It wasn't easy to assemble but considering the precision needed but everything came together without a hitch. I more than pleased!! Here are some pictures and videos, enjoy! 20241221_192038.mp4 20241221_193142.mp4

All the parts for the engine are printed (and being a V16, there's a lot of parts!) And most are painted. I still need to do a bit of weathering, a bit of oil here and there but nothing too fancy. It took me 4 tries to print the bloc but the 4th one is flawless. Here are some pictures. Lower engine components Exhaust (not painted) Distributer Water pump Fuel pump A bunch of hydraulic fittings. I painted them aluminium then applied a yellow wash to get a cadmium plating affect A spark plugs with rubber cap and wire (I'll do the cadmium effect too the lower portion of the plug) I made a sanding jig to precisely sand the end of each crank shaft segment, there are 8 segments in all glued end to end so the lenght of each part needs to be a precise dimension in order to properly fit in the engine bloc. The jig The segment in the jig before sanding And after sanding Segments before and after