Dom87SS

so that was your cobra on ebay. Saw the pics of it up there and thought at least he left no doubt about it by taking pics from every possible angle. are they still considered a slot car if they dont have slot car tires on them? they dont appear to have chassis, motors, flags, and have plastic model car tires just no interiors. or are these just mocked up with model tires for pics?

well i made a intake last week, but it was way too big so i cut the plenum off and reshaped it to be a bit smaller. then attempted to make a base for the intake and some runners to fit the plenum on it. its no were near where i want it to be, but could be the start to my intake. That is if i dont give in and redesign a new intake for it next week. i cut teh trans tunnel out because the drive shaft angle wouldnt work with the stock floor. so i bent up some sheet to form a new tunnel that will let the drive shaft connect to the rear end and trans without obstruction. also cut some more floor out to lower the rear end a little more. i also boxed in the upper control arm area as it come with just an open hole there. i still need to make another piece to connect to what i have and the upper part of the rear frame cross member. im using a stock shock that i cut down to accept the lowered ride height, its not pictured here. i cut the trans tunnel out because the drive shaft angle wouldnt work with the stock floor. so i bent up some sheet to form a new tunnel that will let the drive shaft connect to the rear end and trans without obstruction. also cut some more floor out to lower the rear end a little more. i also boxed in the upper control arm area as it come with just an open hole there. i still need to make another piece to connect to what i have and the upper part of the rear frame cross member. im using a stock shock that i cut down to accept the lowered ride height, its not pictured here.

rims - they are slot car rims (foam tires removed) made by pro track. at scale they are between a 17-18". Just something to keep in mind as they wont fit a lot of regular tires you have. tires - i am making these myself.

so didnt get much done, but it took me all night to do it. Dont know what was up, but it took me a good 3-3.5 hours just to do a few little things. first off i removed the radiator and trimmed it down some so i could tuck it up closer the the grill/headlight area. still needs to be squared off as i just roughed in the top and sides for more room. Chopped off the fan motors and made my own that a shorter, also to help tuck it back more. then made a brace for the radiator to sit on out of 3 pieces of rod. next i got to work a little further back. i had already removed the trans cross member over this week because i did not like it. it was just too boring for me, so i bent up some rod and made a frame on each side. then crossed it with another piece of rod with some slight bends to it. then figured id build a drive shaft loop off this piece. the loop was the worst part trying to get it to stay while i tried fixing the other pieces to it. It was just a pain to do for some reason and really shouldnt have. So that ended my night and i am letting it all dry till i get back at it tomorrow.

the cross brace is square to the tubes, the mounting bar that gets bolted to the frame is on an angle this is because the front side bar on each arm is longer. The lower ball joint isnt on center, it kicks back. so i had to make the upper arms kick back as well. the arms are made from 4 pieces of rod, 2 small triangle piece of sheet (at the ball joint area) and 2 slivers of rod on either side of the arms to replicate the arm passing through the mounting rod. I did some more sanding to them, and figured what i had was good, since most of it wont be seen anyway once mounted, and put them on teh chassis. i had originally planned on it being silver, but with the aluminum block, heads, intercooler, inlet side of the turbo all being silver i thought it would be too much. Plus i like black, and this satin black is definitely way cool and hope it all gets tied together for a clean and intimidating looking engine compartment. I have not seen these new decal, do you have a link or pic of them?

thanks, appreciate the comments

here is what i got done tonight. It wasnt a lot, but forward progress is never a bad thing. mounted the upper a-arms to teh chassis and started making my spindle first from a piece of styrene rod. I also started planning out the rear suspension. To get the car as low as i want it, part of the floor needed to be removed. im trying to keep as much material in place as possible here so i trimmed out just one section of floor. and once the rear end is in, i will make a new floor piece to cover up the hole. next thing i did was make a radiator mounted electric water pump out of some tube, flat stock, and 2 different sized rods. its hard to see what all is done with the lighting and the part being white, but it is to resemble a meizer pump.

so i made a little progress tonight. got some paint on the engine/trans/turbo setup and realized my down pipe needs more smoothing since i can still see cross hatching marks from my files. I also tackled making upper a-arms for the car since the car is so low the stockers werent gonna work. Also need to make a spindle as well. This is my first time attempting to make a-arms, and kinda dreaded it. Im not thoroughly pleased with them but for a first time tackling it, i think they came out ok. Im on the fence if i want to redo them or just run with them, time will tell i guess. Check out the pics and let me know what you think of it so far. Also decided to break out a new car to work on while paint and glue dry on the impala, a big bodied 66 buick wildcat. its a kit i just picked up and though would make a wild outlaw radial car. That was till i opened the box and found a curbside kit with a horrible casting inside. So since its open and i still need a in between car, i think im just gonna paint it up and try my hand at foiling, since ive never really done that either. And if it turns out, i can throw it on the shelf. The since holes, mold lines, and lack of detail are plenty in this kit which is so disappointing from the looks of the car on the box.

so i didnt get much dont today, but i did do the intercooler piping on the interior and take the interior apart so i can start getting everything painted. The pipes themselves arent finished as they need a bit more sanding and some filler to help make them more round and have a better looking flow to them, but you get the idea here.

this would add more pain to building a model than its worth. you would need to make the tire with a crown about 7/8th around and a flat spot on the other 1/8 or it will sit the car too high off the ground. I understand what your saying about it, and yes slicks do have a crowned area, but when the weight of a vehicle is on a tire it looses that very quickly at the contact patch. you would need to either sand a flat spot on every tire you got, or have them build it into the tire which doesnt make a ton of sense because then they can only be positioned in one spot. Also the width, height, and how much sidewall the tire has will play a role in how much contact patch the tire has in real life and how it sits under load. Which is also different per vehicle from rail, to funny car, to door car, to street car. There are just too many variables to make the tire 100% correct all the time. Flat is the best your gonna get without making custom tires for each application.

here is what i did with the down pipe today

I read the 1/12 scale post wrong. Thought 1/1 for some reason. 1/12 I can do but it'll be pricey. PM me if you want a quote on how much they will be.

I'll hopefully get more done over this upcoming 4 day weekend.

I've personally seen cars run mid 7's with stock location suspension and these tires and cars run high 6's on a 315 this year. Technology is here and making it possible. I love watching the big power monsters get down on these small tires and no wheelie bars, its pretty exciting. Mickey Thompson can hook you up with them

so im just about done designing my intake manifold for this car, and hope to have it ready by next week and on the car. its getting hard to draw the lines on how much detail needs to be on this motor. it could really get crazy, but i think that'll take some of the fun out of it for me. guess time will tell how i go about it. also designed a fuel cell for under the hood to hold the methanol for when the motor sees boost

I seen this kit a few weeks ago and it looks nice. Gonna pick it up next time I'm out at the hobby shop.

Good idea, ill give it a try next time.

Thanks guys, appreciate the feedback and comments

funny you should ask. I just finished making the down pipe/exhaust for it. here is how i routed it. it runs under the car as well to the trans cross member and has a slight turn down with a slash cut to direct toward the ground. In scale the pipe is 5.4" in diameter, its freakin huge and i couldn't bed it so i cut sections up, glued and sanded away. It consists of 10 pieces to make this part.

ok here is what i got done today. i made my collectors...about 4 times after not liking them. then got to the point of "ok move on" just like i did with the headers. the final consisted of taking a large tube and sliding it over the 4 individual pipes then cutting it flush through to make a flat surface. i then glued a piece of what i was going to use for the crossover pipe to the flush area. i then cut a small band from the large tube again and cut a section out so it would wrap around the crossover pipe making a small step from large tube to small tube. once dry i used a round file to "merge"the band to the big tube piece and round it off. i think it worked better in vision than reality but again will work for the project. i then made the crossover/merge pipe out of 3 pieces of styrene and mounting it to the 2 existing pieces of styrene. and mounted up a radiator with electric fans up and out of the way but behind the head light and grill still. this was out of my box-o-parts and should be an easy to recognize part for most. then cut it to an angle to where i wanted the turbo mounted. and cut a piece of flat stock the size of the housing on the turbo and glued it down the glued the turbo to that. it all fits under the stock hood too, even though it looks lifted in the front right corner it does sit flat after a small adjustment.

they are made on a $260k rapid prototyping machine

made a mount for the turbo , modified the floor to tuck the engine/trans up higher and further back, trans cross member, motor plate. my first set of headers ive ever built. not the best by any means, but after spending hours redoing this part then that part i said im done, it is what it is. Now i gotta keep moving on with the collectors, merge pipe, crossover, exhaust, and intercooler piping which all im sure will be a joy to fit in that small space.

i will be selling them, hopefully come january. im looking at making slicks in different sizes, then an assortment of different drag radials in different sizes. Well see how it goes. Same goes for the turbos and intercoolers along with a few other items im currently working on designing for scale use.

made my first set of 315/60's today as well, here they are next to the 275/60's

I make the drag radials I hope to get some more work done over this long weekend