Fat Brian

Since you're using the 1/24 scale Arii kit the Monogram T/A kit is probably your best bet for donor parts. That kit has a flat hood for the custom version but it has a hole cut in it for the tunnel ram intake. You might be able to use the T/A hood to cut a patch panel from. Here's a pic I found of the flat hood.

Your body does need to sit a little lower on the fenders, it should rest on the notch on the front of the rear fenders. I also had to sand the front of the body to fit between the front fenders fully. What I ended up doing was cutting the floor pan out so I could attach the fenders to the body and still get the interior in. Once I had the body in the fenders correctly I had to bend the sides of the hood out so it would go over the cowl fully then trim the back edges of the hood until it laid on the fenders right.

This is an area where whether you're building something as a factory replica or a custom build plays a large roll in what color it is. Also, to get super nit picky I would call the areas shown the engine bay and the underside where the tire is the wheel well. Chrysler products in particular mostly had body color engine bays and the underside wheel well area would be body color, gray or black depending on who painted it and whether undercoating was applied.

Yes, you can get good results from cans. I would strongly suggest sticking with hobby paints at first, not all types of spray paints play nice together and you can minimize the risk of those issues by keeping to one brand or type of paint. I know they're more expensive but any value gained by trying general use paints is usually lost in time stripping it and ruined parts that have to be replaced. One of the most important things that improved my paint jobs was wet sanding my primer. Out of the can primer is too rough and paint won't lay down smooth on it. Hitting it with 1500 grit under the faucet makes a huge difference. Another thing is building up the paint slowly. Cans put out a lot of paint so giving it a few minutes to tack up between coats can help prevent runs. Another aspect of this is how far away you hold the can, too close and you gets runs but too far and the paint texture is rough.

I just bought a sealed California Sunshine kit a couple months ago, I'm very glad I didn't over pay now.

I would try to strip it first and see if the plastic got etched or if it was just a paint reaction. If you can get it to strip then you can better decide if you can save it or not.

The rear tires were used as fronts in the Big Al Thunderbird drag car with different wheels.

I put together a kit for my wife's cousin to build with. I used the Revell kits, a stock 69 and the Dick Landy 68. You need the body from the 68 for the smooth top and the 69 tail light panel and lenses along with the grille. Most everything else comes from the 69 kit but I did add the roll bar and back seat delete bar from the Landy kit if you want a racier build. The good thing about this mix and match is that there is a complete 68 vinyl top car left over.

I think part of it is that for a long time turbos were looked at as "diesel stuff" and due to the horrible attempts at passenger car diesels in the 70s and 80s there was bias against them. They also didn't have the immediate visual impact of a huge roots blower sticking through the hood.

If anything I would cut a small piece of plastic where the lens is to fill the deepest spot so it won't be just a big fill of putty.

Yes, this is the problem with the current crop of "AI" word calculators, they have no frame of reference for what is factual. They just regurgitate words frequently seen together without knowing their actual meaning. There's no actual intelligence to the "intelligence".

What bothers me most is how AI speaks so authoritatively about things it can't possibly have any knowledge of, though that is probably its most human quality.

The guys at Grind Hard Plunmbing Co did buy a very similar 4x4 Camaro recently.

Bare metal foil is a great skill to have in general but I would practice on a scrap body just to minimize the chance of messing up the paint on an expensive and fragile 3d print.

This is the same issue that caused me to strip a body 4 times. What I found is needing to work in very light coats and double up on the tape or switch to an automotive grade tape. I find it very odd that Tamiya tape doesn't protect against Tamiya paint.

Yes, I keep many pics. Some are for inspiration and others are reference pics of parts or assemblies I need to find or build.

I have to paint outside too. When the humidity is high you can get something called blushing where the surface of the paint turns flat in reaction to the moisture in the air. High temps can also cause the paint to go on drier at a given distance from the body since the heat causes more of the carrier liquid to evaporate through the air. I've got to where I prime everything with Duplicolor white primer because its easy to strip no matter what I put over it.

Personally, I think the paint is too textured like that to look accurate. I try to get it at least smooth even if I'm going to hit it with a matte clear at the end. I'm going to put "heavy" in quotation marks, work it up one pass at a time until it looks glossy and wet. There is a very fine line between perfect and getting runs. You will have to dial in the distance away you hold the can, too close and you gets runs, too far and you can't get rid of that pebbly texture.

The Revell Daytona should have about everything you need to get started. The race options aren't correct but can be improved. The Hemi engine is correct but you will need the NASCAR single four barrel intake. Other bits can be sourced from the Polar Lights or Salvinos Dodge stock car kits.

To me everything you showed looks like it was applied a little too dry. Auto body and airbrush painters talk about the "wet edge", where the paint has enough liquid in it to flow out smooth but not enough to run. After you make a pass with the spray gun the center will be shiny but above and below will be flatter. Working from a spray can is a little different but the principle is the same. Paint will never be glossier than when you apply it, if it looks flat or rough it will dry flat or rough. I think if you got to about 75% coverage with thin coats and let that flash off for a few minutes then finished with a wetter coat that was very smooth you would probably be set.

"We didn't choose to put two blowers on a Hemi because it was easy, but because it was hard."

I agree the "windows to nowhere" are a little odd. I wonder what one would look like with the notch style side panel but the extended sail panel? This would probably create a massive blind spot though.

I prefer this nose with the kind of fast back body but the early nose on the notch back body.

The store is in downtown Lowell just off exit 22 on I-85. The school is in Cramerton off 8th Ave, and the car chase was filmed on Hwy 16 just after it crosses the river into Gaston county. They've changed the layout of the road so you can't drive on most of what was filmed now.

That's one of my favorite movies and parts of it were filmed in my area. The school and gas station when Ricky was a kid and the road where the car chase happened are all within 10 or 15 minutes of my house. I think Bob was right in that the NASCAR fun police would have had issues with some of the on track antics.