What have I gotten myself into? P/S Mustang - 9/18 - hood & spoiler update

[futurattraction]

I began this project sometime back to give myself a break from my Fairmont and business stuff. This is going to be a full throttle effort to capture as many details as possible of a contemporary Mustang pro stock body. So far I havent messed it up, but theres no guarantee itll be anything but a pile o plastic if things dont go according to plan.

As can be seen, the stock body has been removed from the beltline down and replaced with flat panels made out of .040 sheet styrene. Lower door lines have been scribed into the panels and a narrow lip added down at the "rocker panels".


Another alteration has been lengthening and tapering the rear deck along with adding new panels behind the rear wheel well openings.




I successfully pieced together the hood and lengthened it to correctly match up with the lengthened nose. From the centerline of the front wheel well openings to the nose is a scale 45 inches.




Rear wheel wells were opened up and were very recently fitted with much wider lips. More work still needs to be done to get the proper radius on the wheel well openings and match the lips up more with the 1:1s.


Accordingly, the front wheel well openingss have been drastically reduced in size, fore and aft, and the upper arch of the opening lowered.

Will call this set of pics good. Will post more later.

Edited September 19, 2013 by futurattraction

[futurattraction]

I'll start this entry by posting a couple pictures of what has provided much of the inspiration for this project, Cale Aronson's car:

There was a lot of rework I had to do to get the front air dam to look similar to the 1:1s. I messed my first effort up and have something that looks a whole lot closer now. It still needs a bit more massaging, but at least it's getting there.

I’m to the point where it’s make-or-break time. There are three major changes I want to make to the body to accurately replicate the 1:1 cars: narrow/taper from front to rear, bulge the hood to reduce frontal area and narrow the roof and taper the upper the windshield and B-pillars out into the upper body sides.

This direct overhead shot shows what the body looks like in its current configuration - soon to change!

As you see, I’ve taken the first, no-going-back-now step. I removed the roof panel as one piece, from door to door.

I laid out the centerline of the body and measured outboard the appropriate amount to allow the the narrowing and tapering I'm going for.

Results from this round of surgery, LOL

Here is a revealing shot of how the altered body compares to a stone stock 2006 'Stang.

Nose-to-nose comparison...

More later... Comments welcome.

[ScaleDale]

HA!! Welcome to my world. (I edited that way down in honor of your Christian beliefs...)

I know we exchanged a pm or two on this, but if you want i can send you some of the measurement I used on my P/S Mustang build. I have an NHRA approved blueprint of the Five Star Race Car Bodies 2012 Pro Stock Camaro that I used as a reference for how much to cut the body. I can post them or send them to you by PM or email.

Key for the NHRA are these. They are consistent across all brands in current competition.

width at the B post - 2.63 inches / 67mm

wheelbase - 4.2 in / 107mm

overall height - 1.76 / 45mm

width over rear axel - 2.65 / 67mm

All these have been scaled down to 1:25 from the 1:1 measurements. If you stacked all the current Pro Stock cars up, all these numbers would match. The cars have RF chips implanted in the bodies and they run them under scanners to make sure they match the blueprint.

You're on your own if you ever decide to try a P/S Camaro. The wheel wells are so different from stock that they are more like a funny car that a stock car. The body is also narrowed more in the front than the center, which makes for a very difficult mod.

It's a model car, though. That's my standard disclaimer...

EDIT: Also note that the grill is airbrushed on but the headlights work. I recommend a two part epoxy putty called Milliput for some of the more radical body work. It fills well, sands smooth and acts as a strong adhesive to hold what is now a severely compromised body together. I used the contemporary Mustang grill from one of the Slixx decal sheets (Pro Mod Grills) on mine. I wound up filling the headlights because I did the front end crazy.

Dale

Edited August 25, 2013 by ScaleDale

[tyrone]

Awesome project Scott... I love where this is going.....

[futurattraction]

Thanks Dale! I'd appreciate any more info you care to share...

[futurattraction]

Thanks Tyrone. Coming from you, it means a lot... If worse comes to worst, I can always turn it into a roadster! LOL

Edited August 25, 2013 by futurattraction

[hOLMS]

Scott, man your off to a great start, good luck to you and I'm loving it, go for it, your doing a fine job!

[Nitrozilla]

I hope this means something coming from someone whose builds take on a life of their own no matter how well intended my original plan is.

Good Luck With That !!!!!!!!!!

Awesome start to, what I'm certain will be an ultra kewl finished project.

What ???? I'm out of popcorn ??? Guess I'll have to go to my backup...........BROWNIES. Num.

[ScaleDale]

Scott: One of the first things I did with my version of this was to get a profile of Larry Morgan's car and scale it to 1:25 in software I have (PhotoShop). Then I measured it and recorded the different dimensions to give a starting point to work from. Here is what I came up with. The wheelbase I scaled it to is an NHRA standard for Pro Stock.

Note: I'll still post my stuff, but a check tells me your reference is built to ADRL Extreme Pro Stock rules and might be different from what I have from NHRA.

ADRL Link: http://www.adrl.us/rules/extreme-pro-stock/

I have more tomorrow if you want.

Dale

[Jeremy Jon]

Nice work, looking great!!

[PappyD340]

Lots of slicing and dicing there Scott, but looks like your off to a very NICE start, hanging around for more!! I'll have one of those brownies now please!!!

[brett]

looking really good so far Scott, its only plastic has to be pretty far gone to not be able to glue it back together

[Red rocket 10]

Scott this is going to be a masterpiece , I like it a lot .

Good luck buddy.

Leonard

[comp1839]

WOW, scott! you are doing an incredible job. keep up the good work.

jeez, i wish you worked in bigger scales!!!!!!!

[Ira]

Great Body Work Scott!

[comp1839]

that's still small scale in my book paul. LOL.

[ScaleDale]

Dale,

Question, what is the 1.1 and the 1.2 line based off of. It looks like it's in the middle of the side wall? I see the leading edge of the wheelwell is part of the 1.2 measurement but the other side (right) is what I'm questioning. And the left side if the 1.1 is the same dimesioning line. Where is this line dimensioned from?

I'm assuming the orange line (just under the quarter window) is the same 1.3 height as the top door plain? (scratch that, I see it says .30 under it)

All of the red lines got locked together in one layer and I couldn't move them when I found an error. The 1.2 is the width of the rear wheel well (1.25 in a white box) and the 1.1 is the length of the rear overhang measured from the back of the wheel well. The overall length is off by 0.05 inches if you add it all up due to rounding to the nearest 1/10 of an inch. Sue me...

The 0.3 is the distance from the bottom of the rear window to the top of the rear wheel well.

Dale

Edited August 25, 2013 by ScaleDale

[futurattraction]

Dale,

Where is the 1.25 rear wheel well opening you referenced being measured at? Most of my other dimensions are spot on or are at least within what I believe are allowable tolerances. What is the prescribed/standard rear tire diameter for this class these days?

[comp1839]

scott, 33.5-17-16 tires are used. goodyeaqr only in nhra. 16x16 beadlocks are mandatory.

[futurattraction]

Thanks Dave! Do you know what the real world dimensions of the tires are? OD, section width and tread?

[comp1839]

i can only give you the goodyear sites info. i never ran the goodyear 2200 tire so i don't know it's characteristics.

tire o.d.- 33.8

circumference- 105

section width- 20.5

tread width_17.4

i can tell you they will get bigger in o.d. and width after 3-4 good burnouts. how much really depends on a lot of factors.

[ScaleDale]

Dale,

Where is the 1.25 rear wheel well opening you referenced being measured at? Most of my other dimensions are spot on or are at least within what I believe are allowable tolerances. What is the prescribed/standard rear tire diameter for this class these days?

Wheel well at widest point measured directly from the scaled photo. Here's another I worked up from an artists rendition.

Dale

EDIT: I have what Competition Resins sells as current Pro Stock tires, and they seem big. I'll measure them and post later.

Edited August 25, 2013 by ScaleDale

[futurattraction]

Thanks again, Dave. I should've thought to look at the Goodyear site and it didn't even occur to me. Those dimensions should be more than good enough to do.

[futurattraction]

Thanks for the new drawings Dale.

[ScaleDale]

Welcome, Scott. Thanks for the 4 link and front struts I'm putting on my Pro Mod '49 Merc. (yes, guys, I paid)

The Competition Resins Modern Pro Stock slicks measure as follows: (actual followed by scaled up)

OD 1.34 inches 33.5 in.

ID 0.64 in. 16 in.

Tread 0.6 in. 15 in.

Width 0.8 in. 20 in.

Dale