AMT 1970 Impala, Using '67 Supernatural Chassis

[doorsovdoon]

I started work on this beautiful looking '70 Impala while I waited for decals to be made for my annual '68 and'69 chargers. Engine bay detail was lacking a bit in this old promo style car, so I wanted to see if the chassis from the '67 Supernatural Impala would work on this, and yep, it fits like a glove. I had to cut the inner fenders off the '67 and make a cowl on top the firewall. I also cut the floor out of the old style interior tub on the '70 as the '67 has realistic floor pans moulded in. After I cut what needed to be cut, it all fits extremely well!

[1972coronet]

Nifty kitbash, Gæreth! Are you planning to use the '67 Imp's 427/4-speed or the '70 Imp's 454/4-speed? 

IIRC, the last year for a big block/4-speed Caprice/Impala was '69 (someone'll correct my info, please). That's not to say, Build it correctly or don't bother. I'm keen on phantoms, and a '70 Impala 454/4-speed would be the best.

Keep up the great work!

[slusher]

cYour the man on kit bashing!  Coming along nicely Gareth. Looking forward to more buddy. Are you making your own decals for your 68 builds?

[doorsovdoon]

23 hours ago, 1972coronet said:

Nifty kitbash, Gæreth! Are you planning to use the '67 Imp's 427/4-speed or the '70 Imp's 454/4-speed? 

IIRC, the last year for a big block/4-speed Caprice/Impala was '69 (someone'll correct my info, please). That's not to say, Build it correctly or don't bother. I'm keen on phantoms, and a '70 Impala 454/4-speed would be the best.

Keep up the great work!

Thanks mate. The 427 will fit right in as it now has the '67 chassis, but I'd like to use the 454 that came with the kit. It won't take much work to get it sitting in there.

15 hours ago, slusher said:

cYour the man on kit bashing!  Coming along nicely Gareth. Looking forward to more buddy. Are you making your own decals for your 68 builds?

Thanks mate. Yes, the decals for the Charger builds are done, I had my local print shop do them. I want to make a few resin casts of them before I build them so I don't have to mess about with the dreaded Country Charger bodies again! Lol

[1972coronet]

40 minutes ago, doorsovdoon said:

The 427 will fit right in as it now has the '67 chassis, but I'd like to use the 454 that came with the kit.

Visually they're the same engine (Mark IV, 396-402-427-454, ad seq.), with minor visual-in-scale changes, should you feel compelled to go for a stock look.

[doorsovdoon]

5 minutes ago, 1972coronet said:

Visually they're the same engine (Mark IV, 396-402-427-454, ad seq.), with minor visual-in-scale changes, should you feel compelled to go for a stock look.

Yes, the 454 looks just a tad smaller than the 427 side by side. That's about as much as I know about these engines. The reason I want to use the engine that came with the '70 is I didn't want to put something in there that might not have been available in the actual car at the time. If the 454 gives me a hard time fitting in the '67 chassis I'll just put the 427 in it.

[espo]

18 minutes ago, doorsovdoon said:

Yes, the 454 looks just a tad smaller than the 427 side by side. That's about as much as I know about these engines. The reason I want to use the engine that came with the '70 is I didn't want to put something in there that might not have been available in the actual car at the time. If the 454 gives me a hard time fitting in the '67 chassis I'll just put the 427 in it.

Since they both represent the same basic engine, besides the internal cubic inch displacement, the only real difference between them would be the transmission. You might consider cutting the automatic transmission from the "454" engine and switching it with the manual transmission on the "427" engine.  

[doorsovdoon]

3 minutes ago, espo said:

Since they both represent the same basic engine, besides the internal cubic inch displacement, the only real difference between them would be the transmission. You might consider cutting the automatic transmission from the "454" engine and switching it with the manual transmission on the "427" engine.  

I'd like to, but the two engines look slightly different scale. The bell housing on the 427, and engine as a whole, looks a bit larger than the 454. I don't know if the two engines are different sizes in real life?

[1972coronet]

21 minutes ago, doorsovdoon said:

I don't know if the two engines are different sizes in real life?

Not at all -- exact same engine series ('Mark IV'), which covers the 396/400/402**, 427, and 454 (and subsequent larger displacement 'crate' engines). 

** The 396 was bored-oversize to 402 cubic inches for the 1970 model year. While the legacy of that (now-arbitrary) '396' designation was a marketing move, and was sold as such in the Chevelle and Camaro (SS-396), it was also dubbed "'Turbo-Jet' 400" for the Malibu ( Malibu 400 ) and the bigger cars (Caprice/Impala). 

Never Mind the Bollocks in this article; decently-comprehensive ne'er-the-less: Chevrolet big-block engine - Wikipedia

[doorsovdoon]

17 minutes ago, 1972coronet said:

Not at all -- exact same engine series ('Mark IV'), which covers the 396/400/402**, 427, and 454 (and subsequent larger displacement 'crate' engines). 

** The 396 was bored-oversize to 402 cubic inches for the 1970 model year. While the legacy of that (now-arbitrary) '396' designation was a marketing move, and was sold as such in the Chevelle and Camaro (SS-396), it was also dubbed "'Turbo-Jet' 400" for the Malibu ( Malibu 400 ) and the bigger cars (Caprice/Impala). 

Never Mind the Bollocks in this article; decently-comprehensive ne'er-the-less: Chevrolet big-block engine - Wikipedia

Thanks for the link. These engines have quite the legacy, and still a favourite it seems! ok, so the scale difference on the 454 engine then is just a product of it's time. That's good, the engine from the Supernatural impala will fit straight in and has better detailed parts fitted. Just need to swap the boxes. I think I read in the link there how to identify a small block from a big block by where the dip stick is located, though I won't be going in to that much detail on this build, haha!

[espo]

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21 hours ago, doorsovdoon said:

I'd like to, but the two engines look slightly different scale. The bell housing on the 427, and engine as a whole, looks a bit larger than the 454. I don't know if the two engines are different sizes in real life?

I can see what you're faced with from your picture. As everyone including myself have pointed out that these are the same basic engine externally in the real world, the problem you're facing is the '70 Impala kit is an older product from the old AMT company and the Supernatural '67 kit was from a kit designed much later and may very well be based on better proportions than the earlier kit. Only a suggestion, but are you wanting to give your build a 4 speed or stay with an Automatic? My thought is that since the "427" engine fits the chassis so well maybe stay with that engine, and it is a little better design. Should you want to keep the automatic I would remove the transmission where it meets the bell housing and do the same with the 4 speed. I know that the automatic would have a torque converter inside the bell housing area and would even have a slightly different shape, but we're dealing with plastic representations here, so we have a little room to be creative. Doing this will leave a small difference in the length of the transmission and effect the length of the drive shaft, but it will be easily fixed.  

[doorsovdoon]

1 hour ago, espo said:

My thought is that since the "427" engine fits the chassis so well maybe stay with that engine, and it is a little better design. Should you want to keep the automatic I would remove the transmission where it meets the bell housing and do the same with the 4 speed.

Yes, 427 with manual is the plan. Sorry, my mixing up between the two engine's numbers and the different boxes has confused everyone,.. but mostly me, Lol.

[doorsovdoon]

Polished the paint and got some foiling done. Before I painted the car I accidently shaved off the wrong scripts. I was meant to delete the ones on the front fenders but instead I removed the ones on the roof pillars.? ah well, nothing I can do about it now.

[Csaba aka felhasznaaloo]

42 minutes ago, doorsovdoon said:

Polished the paint and got some foiling done. Before I painted the car I accidently shaved off the wrong scripts. I was meant to delete the ones on the front fenders but instead I removed the ones on the roof pillars.? ah well, nothing I can do about it now.

Very nice progress there.

If you need the same script, just in a different spot, you could "foil copy" the script - not on this particular build I mean. I did it once. I used aluminum foil, not BMF, not self-adhesive kind. Burnished it on the script, did not cut around the outline but carefully lifted the foil, then filled it from behind with epoxy (less glue is better than more). Shaved off the script from body (in my case the script went back to its original spot, but the area needed major repair and the script was in the way.) After the glue dried, I cut the script around and glued it in place with a little more epoxy.

[doorsovdoon]

34 minutes ago, Csaba aka felhasznaaloo said:

Very nice progress there.

If you need the same script, just in a different spot, you could "foil copy" the script - 

Thanks Csaba. I think I seen that somewhere on the forum a while back, might have been one of your threads. Unfortunately I already painted the roof, the 'skin' of resin holding the script together would show. It's a great idea, I just wish I'd noticed my mistake before paint. 

[doorsovdoon]

On 2/9/2023 at 6:53 PM, 1972coronet said:

Visually they're the same engine (Mark IV, 396-402-427-454, ad seq.), with minor visual-in-scale changes, should you feel compelled to go for a stock look.

As I'm going with manual, do you know if the '70 came with bucket seats and floor shift, or column shift and bench? I have looked on the Googles but can't find anything definitive. 

[AMT68]

'69 was the last year bucket seats were available in the Impala (and Caprice) and the same is true for floor shifters and 4 speeds. Only column mounted 3 speed and automatic transmissions were available.

Probably why the AMT '70 kit always confused me offering a floor mounted shifter. 

[doorsovdoon]

Some progress on the chassis and floor.

[doorsovdoon]

Made some arm rests and winder cranks, not great but best I can do. Also filled and shaped the gearbox tunnel for console delete. I might go with a darker blue on the carpet, maybe even black.

[Csaba aka felhasznaaloo]

Nice progress!

[slusher]

Looking  ? awesome Gareth!

[charlie8575]

This is coming out very nicely.

Charlie Larkin

[doorsovdoon]

I put a bit more detail into the windshield cowl. 

[espo]

It's the little details like this that add so much to the overall look of a model. 

[Csaba aka felhasznaaloo]

Very nice! Reminds me when I was building a '70 Challenger T/A and 3 years (!) into the WIP I realized there are no wipers in the kit.☺️ Making and adding those and then fighting the hood not closing all the way was the most memorable part of the build.