Eric Stone

Thanks for the continued encouraging comments. I'm trying to get the body finished up, but I am now realizing how much trim painting work there is... The second shot of flat black turned out ok, so I unmasked it and painted the red stripe. I had only masked to the bottom of the side trim on the body (nose was just masked off around the headlights), so after I painted the red stripe, I sanded the side trim lightly to scuff it up and smooth off some of the excess red. Now I'm hand painting the side trim on. It was easier to mask below it for spraying, and now I will have to mask above it and brush very carefully to get the top edge of the trim painted neatly. THEN, on to all the window and door trim... I'm pretty happy with the overall look so far, even though there are some imperfections that I'm trying to keep from bugging me. I'll have to leave it for a few days while I'm across town for Christmas, but will be back on it hot and heavy when I get home. BTW, my 1:1 is a 5.0, 5spd with a few minor mods.

Here's a mockup of the interior so far. I lost the E-brake handle, so I had to carve a new one out of some sprue, and its paint was still drying when I took this pic. Once it's installed, I think the interior is done. I used some old Soft Flock I still have around to do the carpet, and the interior is Duplicolor 'Candy Apple Red'. I shot the flat black on the bottom of the body this evening, and screwed up some on the hood, so I had to sand and sand and sand to smooth it out, then shot some more black. I'm about to go see how it came out, and maybe unmask it all if it looks good... I also tinted the rear and quarter windows, sunroof, and the top of the windshield. I'm not sure if I'm going to keep it or redo it, since it's not perfect. And yes, that's my '91 LX hatch in my sig.

The solid colors can result in a shine, but in my experience, the Duplicolor metallics will always need clear to be shiny. I also have to deal with humidity, so blushing may be another facet to my painting challenges. It figures, I use Duplicolor "Candy Apple Red" (which is not candy or metallic, but straight opaque dark red) on some interior pieces, and I get a nice glossy shine... So now I gotta brush some flat clear on it to take the shine off...

LOL I'm dying to know how you did the new lower section. I think I know the answer, just build up some areas and take away others until it's right, but I'm hoping you have some sort of clever fix. I've heard you can start with an SVO lower front valence and work from that.

Jason, how'd you make the front end?

Very cool!

That looks good! I like the black stripe down the side, nice touch.

Jason, that looks good. Did that start out as the 93 Cobra kit? I see the battery is on the correct side... Where did that wing come from? I need to get a project like that started, as you can see in my sig.

Those 32 headers look pretty good. I hadn't thought about using the electrical heat shrink- that's a good idea.

I've tried aluminum tubing, but it's a pain. The next set I try to build will be solid solder. For the flanges, I'd use thin sheet styrene, and for the collectors, I'd use a small piece of tubing with some thin sheet styrene as a collector flange, then wrap a piece of the heavy lead foil that comes around the top of a wine bottle to make the collector look right. I've seen too many sets of scratched headers where the builder tried to cram all the tubes into an oversized piece of tubing, and the collector doesn't look right.

Good luck finding one at Hobby Lobby. They are available on eBay, with prices varying from a fair deal to outrageous depending on the seller. Mustang3.8 has one to trade in another thread on here. I'm interested in it, and he and I messaged a couple of times about something, but we haven't nailed anything certain down yet, so if you can work something out with him, go for it. You're already into this project and need it more than me. I just need one for a future build. I have one started that will be a 93 Cobra R, but it has hit the back burner lately.

I wonder how hard it would be to cast copies of the tails from the Revell 93 Cobra. They'd be pretty close (but not perfect) for an LX. I can try in the next few days. I don't have any clear resin, but might be able to use the Testor's window glue. I need to copy some of the vertical 79-82 Mustang taillights anyway for a parts kit I'm rebuilding. Never tried copying lenses, should be interesting. The window seems like it might be hard to do... There are a couple of sources currently offering a similar Coupe body where you might be able to try purchasing a rear window by special request, but neither of them has the greatest customer service reputation, so I dunno how productive that would be... (Please, nobody hijack this thread by debating the customer service reputations of these two sources if you know who I'm referring to!) I bought my Fox last year with 66k miles. A few months later, a friend found the green coupe and bought it, then sold it to another friend of mine. At that time it only had 45k miles... It helps a lot that we don't get snow most of the time, and that none of us daily drive ours.

D'oh! Ya know, you're right. The 87-93s have the flatter trim with the shallow indention. I guess I've never had my 91 parked next to a four-eye to compare, and for some reason the resin body looked "right". I haven't paid much attention to my side trim I guess, plus I've probably been looking at the 79-81 Monogram kits too much lately. If the underhood is correct, it should have the battery on the driver's side, because the air intake tract goes to the pass. side front corner. The earlier Fox kits have the battery on the pass side, but I know the 93 Cobra kit has it moved, and I guess the GT 'vert would too if they did it right. If you go carbureted, it wouldn't matter, but to properly do the 5.0 fuel-injected engine, you'd have to move the battery. The last year for a factory-carbureted 5.0 Mustang was '85. I'm guessing that would also be the last year for the battery to be on the pass. side. (I have no idea if you already know this or not, so excuse me if I'm preaching to the choir.) I can shoot lots of pics for you, share saved ones, and pull a measurement of that chin spoiler so you can fab one up. Here are some 'nice' pics of my hatch and my buddy's 93 Coupe, but if you want down and dirty detail shots lemme know and I'll shoot some. http://public.fotki.com/Chevelle350/cars/91mustang/ http://public.fotki.com/Chevelle350/cars/9193/ Also, there are some FoxBodies in these- http://public.fotki.com/Chevelle350/cars/mustang45th/ http://public.fotki.com/Chevelle350/cars/ffw-ennis-08/

Thanks, Chuck!

The side trim that was on there is correct for an 87-93, but it'll be interesting to see how the new trim looks under paint. What engine are you gonna use? I see a 99 Cobra back there... Would be cool with a 4-valve mod motor swap! Also, let me know if you'd like some reference pics/info for detailing colors.

Heh I'd notice something like that on a model of one of my vehicles. There are a few of those Turbo Trans-Ams on eBay right now...

Those all look pretty danged good!

This thread is kinda motivating me to try to build my Nova HT...

Well, the chassis pan is stripped and re-primed, ready for some more white paint, then chassis assembly. At some point, I will need to install the radiator and engine, then fabricate some radiator hoses, since I realized this kit does not have any. I have made them out of aluminum tubing in the past, so I'll try that again on this one. The interior got some primer and paint. I couldn't find a caramel color I liked, so I ended up painting it red, using some Duplicolor paint I had for another build. It's drying right now, and maybe I'll put in some flock and detail and assemble the interior tomorrow night. The white on the top of the body came out ok. I've done a little polishing, not sure how much more I want to do, since I don't want to burn through the paint anywhere. I need to sand the bottom half a little bit to prep it for the black, then mask off the top. I ended up with a parts kit 79 Cobra the other nite, so I can use the chassis and body from it for mock-up purposes and won't be risking harm to the paint on this one. The 79 is missing some parts for the Turbo 4, so I think it will end up with a big block Ford.

I oughta grab one. I built it when I was a kid, and it looked nice until I tried clear-coating the bare body, then it was a disaster. Only good that has come of it is that Damien gets a hood, but I hope it's not too trashed. :-)

That sucks. It looks like a very nice kit, but I haven't started building mine yet. I've been debating on whether to put a smallblock or use the kit's straight six in mine.

Decals look good. Is all the plastic the same?

I've had luck using Sculpey for mufflers. Make a muffler-shaped form a little big, bake it, then file/sand/cut it down to the right dimensions. You can then drill it and insert some wire that will hold it to the tubing or styrene pipes. Not sure how you'd attach to solder, unless you used superglue or epoxy. The ones I made are two chamber Flowmasters for a Revell '06 Mustang GT. Some aftermarket muffler companies (at least Flowmaster does) have drawings on their websites for helping customers decide which muffler will fit a custom application, and you can use the dimensions to build an accurate piece. As for the pipes... K&S aluminum tubing, or solder would be my first picks.

Biggest thing to watch out for on these (99-02's at least) is the transmission. I've had four friends who had transmissions go out between 60 and 80k miles. Somehow, mine survived 181k miles without a fluid/filter change. It was shaking a little when accelerating from a stop, and had a very intermittent hard shift, but was otherwise ok, and I decided to have it rebuilt before it stranded me. Torque converter was fried, most likely from me driving it hard, and from idling for about 11 hours straight during a hurricane evacuation a few years ago. Running great now though. Had to put new intake manifold gaskets on it last spring. Other than those 2 things, it has only needed routine maintenance. Mine's a 99, so it's only rated at 275hp. Went 16.24 @ 85mph weighing in at 4800lbs.

The Turbo T/A wheels have 20 holes, the F250 wheels have 24. I bet NOBODY would notice the difference in scale though, unless they owned (and were obsessed with) the truck. haha