how to lower the stance? - Revell 65 Mustang fastback

[eran_k]

i'm in the process of building this kit, and before i move forward with assembly id like to lower the car a little, nothing to radical but it seems to sit a bit ti high.

any tips or ideas for this specific kit?

[Mark]

For the front, it's probably easiest to just shift the wheel mounting stubs to relocate them in a lower position relative to where they are now.

For the back, it's either trim the shackles at the ends of the leaf springs, flatten the springs a bit, or cut the axle from the spring and insert material in between to relocate the axle relative to the springs.  I'd first look at photos of 1:1 Mustangs to see how much of the leaf spring is visible, then see if the kit is similar in that respect.  If you can see more of the spring below the car on the model, then you'd want to alter that in order to make it look more like the actual car.

[DJMar]

I've got the original Monogram issue of this kit on my bench at the moment. I think it sits a wee bit to high in the front for a stock Mustang, and certainly too high for a proper street machine. The rear seems fine to me for stock, or if you want a bit of forward rake or to fit a taller tire in the back. 

As Mark said, the front is easily lowered by moving the wheel mounting tab up. Simply cut and glue. With a little extra styrene, you can get almost 4mm of drop this way without touching anything else on the front suspension. It's a pretty big change, so test this first with the wheels/tires you're planning to use to be sure everything clears.

The back end is a little more complicated, because of the one piece molded leaf springs and rear axle. There's really not much material to take off the spring shackles. You can try flattening the leafs a little, but you've got very little wiggle room, unless you want the rear mounts to hang off the frame. Maybe you can get a millimeter or two this way, and that might be all you need.

Personally, I would remove the rear end from the leafs and drop it by shimming accordingly. The one challenge to this method is keeping everything square, but if you drill some locating holes first and use the chassis as a jig, you can get everything glued back up without too much trouble.