70 1/2 Camaro pro touring

[1930fordpickup]

This is headed in the right direction.  Nice work on the flares. 

[Mattilacken]

Great progress as always! 

[ksnow]

Awesome work so far and a great looking real car to simulate. I am definitely following this build.

[gotnitro?]

The spoiler treatment is a huge improvement ! These split bumper camaros had great character lines 

[Beans]

Looking awesome!!  This is similar to a project I have planned so definitely following.  

[Steve H]

On 12/5/2021 at 10:27 PM, Spottedlaurel said:

Great to see another of your projects on the go Steve, good luck with it!

I definitely think there's something of this style to come on one or two of my future builds, I just need to find the right subject and constituent upgrade parts.

Hi Nigel, thanks for checking in. I would love to see your take on a similar subject. I’ll keep an eye out…

Cheers, Steve

[Steve H]

On 12/6/2021 at 12:13 AM, 1930fordpickup said:

This is headed in the right direction.  Nice work on the flares. 

Hi Andy, thanks for the kind words. Flares still need some love. I went cross eyed the other day, needed a break from that for a day or two… 
 

 

On 12/6/2021 at 1:12 AM, Mattilacken said:

Great progress as always! 

Slow but sure Anton.

On 12/6/2021 at 5:31 AM, ksnow said:

Awesome work so far and a great looking real car to simulate. I am definitely following this build.

Thanks Kyle, great to have you on board. The real car is awesome, hoping I can do it justice. I do have a few liberties that I plan on taking. Thanks for chiming in!

On 12/6/2021 at 5:47 AM, gotnitro? said:

The spoiler treatment is a huge improvement ! These split bumper camaros had great character lines 

Yes, these cars have really grown on me the last 10 years or so. I always liked them, but REALLY like them now. A bit more massaging on the spoiler today. See below.

On 12/6/2021 at 7:13 AM, Beans said:

Looking awesome!!  This is similar to a project I have planned so definitely following.  

Hi Joe! Sounds like there are lots of you guys with plans for this car. Looking forward to seeing everyone else’s take. Thanks for following along, hopefully it will be helpful for your future build.

Cheers, Steve

[m3fan]

Hey Steve,

Good thing were all so used to wearing masks as with all the body mods and sanding your doing the dust cloud must be something to see!! haha

But seriously your work speaks for itself. Look forward to color!

[Steve H]

Small update.

The rear bumper needs to be “tucked in” a bit. On the  real car, the bumper is flush with surrounding body. 
I will thin the bumper achieve this look. Photos before…

And after…

I will do a final cleanup after bumper is stripped, but it’s real close now.

I did a bit more work on the spoiler. Added some thin styrene to the lower portion where it joins to the rear quarter. There was a bit too much of a gap for my liking. Still needs a bit more work but getting closer.

Front spoiler glued on, but needs some re-shaping to allow attaching a splitter.

As you can see, the spoiler is not flat across the bottom. I hope to tackle that tomorrow, more soon.

Thanks for having a look, and comments always welcome.

[Steve H]

14 minutes ago, m3fan said:

Hey Steve,

Good thing were all so used to wearing masks as with all the body mods and sanding your doing the dust cloud must be something to see!! haha

But seriously your work speaks for itself. Look forward to color!

Hi Russ!! Thanks for having a look sir. I was thinking about the colour. I might bust out some spoons this weekend. I won’t be painting it for a while, but it would be good to narrow down my options. The sanding gets a bit monotonous at times, hopefully the end result will be worth it.

[adamelvis]

Wow, lots of great work here so far. Will be keeping an eye on the progress.

TCB,

Adam

[Jonathan]

Nice attention to detail.  I really like where this is going.

[Steve H]

4 hours ago, adamelvis said:

Wow, lots of great work here so far. Will be keeping an eye on the progress.

TCB,

Adam

Hi Adam, thanks for having a look. I have spent a fair bit of time in “planning” the last couple of days. With the bodywork well underway, I’ve started playing with interior, chassis, and engine. Hope to have an update soon.

 

3 hours ago, Jonathan said:

Nice attention to detail.  I really like where this is going.

Hi Jonathan, nice to hear from you. Trying to replicate some of the actual cars details, but I will be using some creative license in few areas. I appreciate you taking the time to comment.

Cheers, Steve

[mustang1989]

Nice catch on that bumper. Small details like that add up over the course of the build. Continuing to watch this beauty come together Steve.

[KWT]

Oh wow this looks great. Glad a stumbled into this one. That bumper treatment is a nice touch.

[NOBLNG]

Hi Steve. Nice work on this one so far. I like the flares and I love the goal you are shooting for. 😎 That orange plastic is ugly stuff to work with! When I built this kit, I had interference between the interior tub and the windshield/dash area, so that I had trouble getting the floorpan to meet up with the firewall. I also wound up installing the front subframe and powertrain after the interior and floorpan were in place. Link to my hack job:http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/topic/133121-amt-70-12-camaro/page/2/

 

Edited December 11, 2021 by NOBLNG

[Plowboy]

Nice work so far Steve! I can't wait to see you work your magic on this one!

[Steve H]

10 hours ago, mustang1989 said:

Nice catch on that bumper. Small details like that add up over the course of the build. Continuing to watch this beauty come together Steve.

Hi Joe, the hardest part right now is deciding which details NEED to be done to capture the look of the car, and the look I want, and what can left alone. Thanks for following sir!
 

 

8 hours ago, KWT said:

Oh wow this looks great. Glad a stumbled into this one. That bumper treatment is a nice touch.

Thanks Jeremy, thankfully the bumper already had a flat back, so this was a pretty simple mod. Oh, I hope to have some info on the shop truck for you tomorrow.

8 hours ago, NOBLNG said:

Hi Steve. Nice work on this one so far. I like the flares and I love the goal you are shooting for. 😎 That orange plastic is ugly stuff to work with! When I built this kit, I had interference between the interior tub and the windshield/dash area, so that I had trouble getting the floorpan to meet up with the firewall. I also wound up installing the front subframe and powertrain after the interior and floorpan were in place. Link to my hack job:http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/topic/133121-amt-70-12-camaro/page/2/

 

Hi Greg, thanks for the info! Funny, in the back of my mind I was remembering a build from a while back on this forum where someone had an issue with fitting the chassis and body… it was you! I’m changing things a fair bit, but will definitely do some test fitting, thanks. The issue I had when trying to do my first test fit of interior shell/body was how much the body had to be stretched to get the interior in, yikes. With how much time I have in the flares, there was NO WAY I was stretching it that much, something was gonna “pop”. So now I need to plan how final assembly is going to go.  I have a plan, hoping I can execute…. 

4 hours ago, Plowboy said:

Nice work so far Steve! I can't wait to see you work your magic on this one!

Hey Roger, thank you sir! My list of stuff to do on this keeps growing, it might be more voodoo than magic…

 

Cheers guys, and thanks for taking the time to have a look.

[Steve H]

So, with the bodywork getting “close”, I’m bouncing around a bit with various other parts. One of the last pieces of bodywork is the splitter. I haven’t built the splitter yet, but here’s where I’m at. Traced the spoiler outline on tape and transferred that to styrene. I have since cut and shaped the leading edge.

On the real car, they added returns the the corners of the spoiler

First I added material to flatten the bottom of the spoiler, then added similar returns at the corners. I will still round the corners a bit, and do a bit more fine tuning on the shape at wheel wells, then add the splitter. As you can see, I managed to put off the work on the headlights, not looking forward to that.

 

Started tinkering with the engine… I’m not a fan of molded in oil filters, so that has been cut free.

I have a complete 3d printed LS3 with Edelbrock cross ram intake. However, to simplify one part of the build, I am going to use the block/trans from the kit, and the printed heads and intake. I’m sure it won’t be “technically” correct, but it saves some messing around. Besides, they fit like a glove!

If you have seen my builds, you already know I like LOW. So… started planning the ride height. To achieve 1” of drop at the front I modified the front sub frame. Cut off the two blocks at the mounting point, thinned the trans crossmember, and notched the rear part of the frame. To keep things lined up, I added mounting pins in the existing locations. I pre-drilled small pilot holes in the old pins before removing so I had an accurate location for new ones. I will also lower it more at the spindles, haven’t got there yet. Sorry  for the blurry photos 

before…

after…

The interior will get some reworking. 

To channel the body over the frame the inner door panels need about 2” removed from the bottom. First I cut off the “L” shape where they mount.

Then cut off and reshaped the lower edge of the door card. Quite a bit of grinding and sanding needed to be done where the panel meets the rear inner fender. The end result, you can see the amount removed compared to the rear package shelf.

The next job will be fitting this where the rear seats are/were. No back seat drivers in this one!

You may have noticed that I removed the factory dash face. I have some aftermarket items to use there. That will be down the road a bit… 

Thats it for now fellas, more soon.

[Cool Hand]

Making some good progress there Steve, thanks for sharing the tips on how you are going about dropping the ride height. Looking forward to a stance mock.

[Steve H]

41 minutes ago, Cool Hand said:

Making some good progress there Steve, thanks for sharing the tips on how you are going about dropping the ride height. Looking forward to a stance mock.

Haha. I usually start with a stance mock up, I’m trying to be a tease. It should sit almost exactly as the 1:1 when I’m done, if I can sneak it down a bit lower I will. I’m starting to get into the meat and potatoes of this thing now. Thanks for checking in Luke

Cheers, Steve

[Misha]

Great work and very informative, enjoying this a lot as I have the same orange kit and always wondered just what can be done with it to make it 🤔 interesting. By the way, where is the rear panel for the interior from, is it resin or did you scratch build it?

Cheers Misha

[Steve H]

12 hours ago, Misha said:

Great work and very informative, enjoying this a lot as I have the same orange kit and always wondered just what can be done with it to make it 🤔 interesting. By the way, where is the rear panel for the interior from, is it resin or did you scratch build it?

Cheers Misha

Hello Misha, I wish I could scratch build that well. The panel is from the AMT ‘67 Chevelle pro street kit. I’ve already robbed a bunch of parts from it so I figured one more wouldn’t hurt😬. As Greg mentioned above, if you are building this kit OOB I think there would be challenges. One thing I noticed while re-working the inner door panels, they were not the same size! Didn’t matter much to me because I modified them anyway, but it’s something that could be missed if you were building it stock. I haven’t got to the firewall yet, but based on Greg’s comments, I will be giving that area a close look when I get there too.

Thanks for checking in Misha.

[Steve H]

On to the rear of the interior, here’s the rabbit hole I went down…

Here’s how I got there. First I cut apart the New replacement piece, and made a raised “bench” to replace the seat bottom.

 
Next up, a hole for a subwoofer, add the back and re-attach the kit package tray.

The sub is from a diecast car, it will get stripped and painted. Next photo shows that package shelf is now at the correct height.

Seats  that I will use mocked up.

Thats it for now

[Misha]

That’s really looking sharp Steve! Enjoying your build at a time when I’m away from the bench, unable to work as I’m in bed with a bout of bronchitis. Lots of time to meander around the forum.

Your channeling of the body on a modern vehicle is very intriguing!

Cheers Misha

Edited December 13, 2021 by Misha
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