Accurate Miniatures Corvette Grand Sport

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Wheels:

• 15" Halibrands

Tires:

• 7.10/7.60 front
• 8.00/8.20 rear

https://www.corvetteactioncenter.com/specs/c2/1963/grandsport/gsspecs.html

Vintage Tire Size Conversion Chart:

https://tengtoolsusa.com/blogs/news/vintage-tire-size-conversion-chart

 

Edited May 26, 2022 by afx

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Stance:

https://revsinstitute.org/the-collection/1963-chevrolet-corvette-grand-sport/

Edited May 26, 2022 by afx

[Pierre Rivard]

JC, Bill, Andrew, thanks for the help.

I like the stance on the last pic posted by JC. I was thinking of adding a bit of lean and this is a good guide.

As for tire sizes it's always hard to figure out from era tire size specs because aspect ratio being 70% or 78% on road tires may not be the same for race tires.

Measuring era pictures and scaling around the known 15" wheels my best guess was that the fronts were about 25-26 and the rears about 27

Kit tires equate to 27 front and 28 rears, a bit large as expected.

Just for fun I dropped Fujimi GT40 tires on the GS rims to see the difference. The Fujimi tires measure to an equivalent 26 front and 28 rear. I would not want to sacrifice the Fujimi kit for tires but just see how it looks.

 

[absmiami]

InAccurate Mini’s “other kit” was the Mclaren M8b.  Kit builder’s Hell …

[Len Woodruff]

Thanks for posting. I need to build some my GS kits.

[RancheroSteve]

Maybe too late at this point for you, but if you can get hold of the a-arms that HRM makes for this kit, they help correct the front ride height. In hindsight, I wish I had lowered the rear a little when I built mine.

[MarkJ]

22 hours ago, Pierre Rivard said:

Welcome back friend! I am looking at ways to get the car to look more natural and I agree with you that some decal solution is needed to break the tall sidewall appearance.

Despite the challenges I love this car so much that I have a second kit on order. First one will be chassis 004 Sebring 1964.

Okay, so you're doing the blue #3 car. Looking forward to your color mix for that metallic blue. Should be awesome as usual. I guess it will be like the #65 car that someone posted earlier in the thread. I've always liked that color.

Edited May 26, 2022 by MarkJ

[250 Testa Rossa]

Can't wait to see how this one turns out!

[Pierre Rivard]

14 hours ago, MarkJ said:

Okay, so you're doing the blue #3 car. Looking forward to your color mix for that metallic blue. Should be awesome as usual. I guess it will be like the #65 car that someone posted earlier in the thread. I've always liked that color.

I'll use Mecom blue and Cadillac Pelham blue as starting point and do mixing test cards. Right now I see it as a slightly grayish medium blue metallic.

[Pierre Rivard]

18 hours ago, RancheroSteve said:

Maybe too late at this point for you, but if you can get hold of the a-arms that HRM makes for this kit, they help correct the front ride height. In hindsight, I wish I had lowered the rear a little when I built mine.

Beautiful GS Steve. What did you use for tires and tire decals?

[MarkJ]

1 hour ago, Pierre Rivard said:

I'll use Mecom blue and Cadillac Pelham blue as starting point and do mixing test cards. Right now I see it as a slightly grayish medium blue metallic.

Yes, that sounds like the way to go.  Are those Tamiya colors or Vallejo?

[Pierre Rivard]

48 minutes ago, MarkJ said:

Yes, that sounds like the way to go.  Are those Tamiya colors or Vallejo?

Definitely Vallejo. Brush painting Tamiya is mission impossible. 

[RancheroSteve]

6 hours ago, Pierre Rivard said:

Beautiful GS Steve. What did you use for tires and tire decals?

Thanks, Pierre - I'm sure yours will be great!

Tires are just the kit tires. Decals I can't quite remember - maybe Fred Cady, but I keep a few different sheets around that have the Goodyear Blue Streak circles. I know Indycals makes some now: https://www.indycals.net/decals/tires/blueringtires.html

Anyway, build thread here from a few years back, and once again, good luck with yours. I'll be watching.

 

[Bugatti Fan]

The McLaren, yes that was the other one I was trying to think of.

A friend of mine built one and he politely referred to it as being 'very challenging'.

[4mula1fan]

I got aggravated with my Vette, so I made a 69 Z28 out of the parts. I'll have to dig it out of the case in a day or so. It did pretty well at a few shows. 

[Pierre Rivard]

Today I tackled on finishing the chassis ride height. This is a major issue with this kit and a must fix for me to proceed with the rest of the build.

I first took action on Bill's observation that the body's fender lips need thinning. I want to address this first before finessing the wheel positioning.

My first time using a mini grinder...cools and a bit scary. Worked out ok, with some finesse sanding to follow. I might want to remove more material eventually, not sure.

 

[Pierre Rivard]

Discovered yet one more interference to fix. Tire contact to roll bar support. Fixed that and Thinned at an angle the back side of the rear disc/hub part to get rear wheels to align properly.

For the front side I still need to go lower. The fit from hub/disk to upright is a square into square so I removed some material to allow to slide the interface up. Lots of finessing to get the 4 tires to sit square to the ground.

 

[Pierre Rivard]

And finally the result. 

 

[SfanGoch]

Nice work. You might consider getting medium and fine grit diamond burr sets. You won't get the rough edges that occur when using regular grinding bits or drum sanders and you'll have better control on how much material is removed.

[absmiami]

Against all odds …

[935k3]

The Dremel sanding drums are better than any of the grinding bits for this kind of work.

 

Edited May 28, 2022 by 935k3

[afx]

I only uses a Dremel if I have a large amount of material to remove.  Regardless I like to finish using a sand paper wrapped around a wooden dowel.

 

 

[MarkJ]

Looks like you nailed it to me Pierre. The fender openings look so much more like the real car now and the car is sitting down like it should now. I think you also cleaned up the work you did on the fenders perfectly. 

[Ace-Garageguy]

Looks REALLY good. Sits like a road-racer instead of an off-road rig. Nice work.

[Pierre Rivard]

Thanks guys, I like the way she sits. She now looks more like a race car.

Lots of work on making stuff fit and integrate but I got used to that building dark side Nascar racers out of street car kits.

I look forward to the rest of this build.