1/18 custom 3rd Generation Camaro Trans Am racer

Good luck.

Had some new energy and inspiration, so tried to forge ahead yesterday.

Here's where we are in pictures.























Going to sit on this one for a few days (weeks), and let it sink in.  Still not sure I like the halo bars.

Also need to focus on a couple of other projects.

However, stay tuned!

Nice! 

Okay, so had a couple of days to work on this one.

First, found a DIY video on YouTube about how to make a mount for a Dremel.  Involves attaching a joist hanger to a board, and drilling a 3/4 inch hole in the joist hanger.  Very ingeneous.



With the Dremel stationary, very easy to fishmouth a piece of tubing.



So I set about reconstructing the cage.  I cut out all the old roll hoop crossbracing, except for the piece holding the shoulder belts, and built a new single crossbrace.

   

These are the first halo bars I formed up (at the front of the car) and the original plastic side protection pieces (which I intend to still use). This is the tubing I will be using.

  

Need to stabilize the roll hoop, so going to bring a bar from the middle of it to the passenger front foot well.

  

And then there will be one rear brace on each side, from the main hoop to the rear spring perch.

  

Then let's check some body fit, just to make sure.









So far, so good.

Going to build the second rear brace today, and go back and revisit the halo, now that I have a little bit more confidence.

Thanks for your support and encouragement!

So this one is finally about to tax my abilities, as well as patience.

Wish I could chalk this one up to a "lemons/lemonade" scenario.

Got the chassis all together, including regluing all the cage bars, and the firewall.  Loose fit had appeared that everything was going to be close but acceptable.

Well, when I dropped the body back down onto the completed rolling chassis, all the tolerances went in the same direction.

The original roll cage, starting with the roll hoop itself, are way too tall.  I ended up taking all this off the car.



With these bars out of the way, I began measuring how much room I actually do have, and got out some 1/8 inch thin wall aluminum tubing, and my handy-dandy trusty tubing bender (we used it to create the stainless steel hard lines for the real race cars), and started cyphering.

Got the width of the main hoop on the first shot, which was encouraging.  Then started on the halo bars, and did an A-pillar cross roof bar, and that's where we sit.





At least the body does now sit down properly on the chassis, but I have a lot of work to do.



The first issue I can into was notching tubing that small to get it to fit together. Back in the old days, we had a "fishmouth" cutter/tubing notcher.



Going to build a stand for my Dremel to hold it steady. Trying to notch tubing with a tube in one hand and Dremel in the other was less than successful.

Second issue will be compound curves to get the tubes to follow the contour of the roof and A-pillars.

Thanks for hanging in with me, hoping I can.

Now See!

  Folks told me I was crazy for working on Diecast!

 My 1/18 T-Bird roadster is almost re-stored and my Dodge Dually Pick-up is looking mean as a R.V. Hauler! What I like about them as off base projects, is you get to use real world products on them from the Auto parts store!

Going to be sweet when done. What's the color scheme?

So, real paint brings out the flaws, and the hood really shows it.  Was working up some details on the engine compartment, and since the hood will be stripped before I go to a final, thought I'd put a gloss black coat on it for shits and giggles.

Picked up some other details along the way, still not complete, but "Casey Jones you better watch your speed"!





Had to shorten the exhaust headers the same length as the chassis, built a couple of aluminum couplers to make them match.







More soon, getting close.

Thanks for your perseverance in showing a really different side to the hobby. I have already learned a lot from this thread and really look forward to seeing where this ends up taking you.

Taking a pause, stepping back and seeing what we have.

Put all the components together that can be.









Only got to figure out how to get these pieces installed.



Stay Tuned!

JB Weld - Phase II

Pictures tell the story.















Needs a little more work, but close.

Coming along nicely. 

So I took courage (and Dremel) in hand, and launched off on a hood build.

Here it is after it had been cut and blended back together.  I forgot to take a picture before I starting to JB Weld them back together, but here's a picture of what is left of the other two hoods, compared to the new one.



So what I do is tape the pieces together, and then lay in a layer of JB Weld.

    

I inserted a wooden toothpick to give me what I thought would be a good angle.

   

Test fit on the car (I'll lay in another coat of JB Weld on the outside to blend everything together).









Got the replacement Solar seat installed, as well.

Here's a comparison of the stock GMP seat and Swede70's custom resin Solar seat.

  

Swapped the seat belts from the GMP to the Solar, and plugged it back into the chassis.


  

Z28.

Quick update.  Been piddling and dabbling, still trying to wrap my head around where to take this build (plus, it's been cold here, and my garage/workshop is unheated).

I have come to the conclusion that I won't be able to duplicate my racer, so going to take this and go a slightly different direction.

Looking at hoods now.

Here is the stock one.

r

Looking at two alternatives.  Will be using the same technique I used to create this hood for a fantasy Mustang.



What I did for the Mustang was laid the hood from a GMP '69 Z28 over the Mustang hood, taped them securely together, and used a Dremel cutter to slice through both of them, and then used JB Weld to blend the scoop into the hood.

For the Camaro, I have the choice of two different hood scoops.  First is the classic '69 Z28 scoop; and next is the 2nd Gen Baldwin Corvette L88-based scoop.

Here are some side-by-side comparisons.







Each one has its own character.

Any preferences?

Looking good. 

So, here's where we are as a starting point.



Having defined which chassis I am using helps me visualize where the conflicts are, and a potential cure (which usually means breaking out a Dremel).

Here's what I have removed as of now.



The two little round threaded pieces are attaching points for the SunStar body the SunStar chassis, and interfere with the rocker panel of the GMP chassis.



The other pieces are from the front of the engine compartment, which interfere with the radiator mounting frame of the GMP chassis.



That work allows the body to drop down onto the chassis.  Still not perfect, but closer than I have been at any other time of this build.



Now I can reassemble the cage, and give some support to the bodywork.

Looks like this one will work. 

So this is where we currently are.



And you may ask, what have I been doing for the past three weeks?  Body looks different, have you already painted it?

Well, this one went sideways early, and it has taken a lot of effort, soul-searching, and additional expense to get to where it sits right now.

One of the most complex builds I have undertaken, and lots of errors in judgement along the way.

I'll provide the highlights, and then add a link to the full album for "progress" shots.

I ditched the late model GMP Camaro chassis, that just wasn't going to work.

There was just no way I was going to get the body to sit down onto the chassis properly.



So, as I pointed out in my last post, I looked to a 1st Gen GMP Camaro chassis.

After a great deal of effort, I was able to shorten the 1st Gen wheelbase by 7 scale inches (about .3895 true inches), and reassemble it.





Used two 00-90 screws in the stock location to attach the two pieces back together.



Here's a comparison between two, more or less, identical chassis.



Here's what I cut out.



The good news is that the cage remains intact, only thing I have to cut is to shorten the bars that go forward to the front suspension mounting points by 7 scale inches.

Of course, I will also have to shorten the drive shaft (done that before on some of my other customs), as well as either shorten the exhaust dumps or build some new ones.

With the major chassis correction behind me, I then tried to mount the body onto the revised chassis, but found I had made another strategic error.

I had cut the first 3rd Gen body apart at the base of the A-pillars, to emulate how we actually built our real racer.


That proved to be a fatal flaw, as I needed the structural integrity of the entire body to allow me to mount the 3rd Gen body onto the 1st Gen chassis.



Hence, I had to source another entire model, in order to start over again with the modifications to the body.

Took delivery of the new model yesterday, and stripped it last night, and tested some fit.

You can see above that I think I nailed the wheelbase, but now I have to grind away, again, everything that conflicts to get the body to fit.

First target will be the bulkhead at the front of the engine compartment, which will then dictate as we go front to rear.



I apologize for the length of time between posts, but this one has taken on a personality of its own.

Oldtimeracer

I really hate that my first thread here is going to be a failure, but I have come to the realization that this isn't going to work.

No matter what happens to the project, there is no way this thread can be a failure.

This is some interesting stuff, to say the least. I remember reading about major plastic conversions as a kid, this brings it up close and personal.....turns it into a real learning experience.

Thanks and good luck on plan b or wherever you go with this.

Very nice!  Both the model and the real cars.

I really hate that my first thread here is going to be a failure, but I have come to the realization that this isn't going to work.









The body sits on the tops of the tires, which keep it from dropping down into the proper posture.  Without a great deal of cutting and then rebuilding flares, I am going to call the initial project a failure.

However, I have a backup plan.

I have a spare GMP Trans Am Camaro chassis.

   


The new plan is to scavenge pieces off the GMP chassis, and use a combination of the GMP pieces and the floor pan from the SunStar Camaro to create a new combined chassis. I'm essentially planning on adding the front and rear clips from the GMP to the mid-pan of the SunStar. Here's a few "teaser" shots.







And you might ask yourself, why not just drop the SunStar body onto the GMP chassis?



How many of you knew, without looking it up, that the 3rd Gen Camaro's wheelbase was 7 inches shorter than the 1st Gen?

This is really interesting. I hadn't considered doing anythign quite like this in the past. This opens up new doors for the future. Pretty cool work and it looks very good.

BK

Great to see you over here Jim. Look forward to yout models.

Well;

 This is an interesting build. I am not usually interested in this kind of vehicle, but you caught me on this! I will follow to the end for sure!

Diecast pieces are at the stripper, so I've worked on the T-tops a little. As I was sitting in my shop, it reminded me of building the real one.

Sports Car Club of America rules at the time of our build required that the car have a stock roof and windshield (eventually we would add a Lexan windshield when the rules changed). The location of the roof heavily influenced where the rest of the fibreglass body was hung on the chassis.

You can see the stock roof in this picture, which includes the front A-pillars.



In order to get our roof located correctly, I borrowed a buddy's IROC Z and drove it down to the shop. We set the two cars side by side and moved the roof around on the cage until it looked right.

When then fabricated some mounting tabs and welded it onto the cage tubes.

With a realization that the A pillars of the diecast donor body are cast into the body, I thought these pictures, to some degree, represented the roof mounting process we went through back then.





And then just for fun, I laid on the front windshield and rear glass.






Hoping the stripper calls today and says the body is ready.

Going to try to pick them off one at a time, simultaneously.

Here's how we look at the end of today.



From the front to the back, I'll start with the hood. If you look at one of the earlier pictures, the hood stood up at the base of the windshield. There were some details cast into the underside of the hood that were interfering with the air cleaner and windshield base, so those have been removed.





The donor has T-tops, and of course, our car had a solid roof, so beginning to work on melding them together, and then closing the gaps with body putty.



And, of course, we've got the fuel filler relocated.



I will keep walking around the model, correcting items as I go, knowing full well that frequently a correction will require another one, due to the relationships of pieces changing as you go.

As you get deeper into one of these blending projects, the level of detail increases, with respect to the accommodations that need to be made to each major component.

Got the doors hollowed out, and mounted one onto the body.



One of the first things I need to consider is this major disconnect where the body and floor join along the rocker panel.



I can certainly trim back the floor pan of the GMP chassis (and again violate my own requirement to keep it as intact as practical), but there is still a gap that will need to be filled somehow.

Front (and rear) track is too wide, so I need to figure out how to flare the fenders to cover the tops of the tires. I have a choice of several pre-molded flare lips that I will need to test fit.



Will also need to close this gap, at the rear, or at least detail it to where it doesn't simply look like two models squished together.



The dry break comes up short compared to the Sunstar rear window. Thinking about cutting it off, bending some aluminum tubing, and actually having it come out at the molded in fuel filler location on the SunStar body.