In my first year of 'proper' slot racing I've tuned, built and painted a good few models but this is my first go at a scratch-build for a competition. I have built the Penelope Pitlane Birkin Bentley, and I might do a post on that later, but it's not exactly competitive.
I'm building this specifically for the Wolves Early Birds meeting, and it's fairly unusual for me to be this prepared. Usually I'm cobbling something together the night before, or in a different country. This time I wanted the car to be put together properly and not look too much like a bodge. I do work for a well-known luxury car manufacturer, after all!
I decided to go with the Mercedes W154 from George Turner Models, not for any particular reason other than the way it looked on the stand at Gaydon. It's very low and purposeful looking. The car, that is, not George's stand.
The stock kit comes with a resin chassis designed for an S-can motor. It looks like a quality piece of kit but I wanted to fit a bigger motor and have a really solid platform for the powertrain. By a stroke of luck the Penelope Pitlane 'Competition Inline' chassis fits under the body with only a tiny bit of modification, and with a bit of tweaking the mounting posts even lined up with the holes. The wheelbase is slightly longer than the Inline Competition chassis was designed for so I soldered it up rather than using the supplied screw.
The only real challenge so far has been finding wheels and tyres. The real car ran on 19" rims, and for faster circuits the rears could be increased to 22". I liked the way it looked with the bigger rears so that's how I decided to model it. PCS do some nice laced wheels in scale 19" and 23" and I had a pair of each so I gave them a try. I was pretty happy with how they looked. After a bit of rummaging in my bits box I found some tyres which gave me dimensions which complied with the Early Birds rules, but are not exact scale matches. Technically the rear wheels are a bit big. They also have a strange stepped cone affair on the back which makes them quite wide and interferes with the rear suspension detail. I might take them to work and see if we can turn them down on the lathe.
Here is the rolling chassis:
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The motor and gearing are just for testing. I'll probably use a 25K Flat-6 RS and some very short gearing otherwise I'll have no brakes at all. I'll solder the guide mount on as well.
To get the chassis under the boat-tail body I had to trim it down:
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I was going to box the sides back in, but after soldering the folds I decided it's more than strong enough as it is. The holes in the chassis for mounting the body are very large, and the last time I used one of these chassis (on an MRRC Cobra) the body flopped about all over the place. This time I soldered some lengths of brass tube into the holes to control the wobble and to space the body correctly on the chassis.
The body fits quite snugly, with some very minor Dremelling required around where the axle bushings fit:
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And here is how it looks so far:
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Before it goes to Paint I'll do some testing. The ride height is (just) Early Birds compliant, and the stance is very close to the scale drawings I've found on the 'net.
So far it's gone together really well. The quality of both the GTM kit and the chassis is very high, and the fact that the two fit together so well was a nice bonus. I expected a couple of evenings of faffing about gluing new body posts in, but it wasn't necessary. I'll post a bit more once I've given it a run on the track.
I'm building this specifically for the Wolves Early Birds meeting, and it's fairly unusual for me to be this prepared. Usually I'm cobbling something together the night before, or in a different country. This time I wanted the car to be put together properly and not look too much like a bodge. I do work for a well-known luxury car manufacturer, after all!
I decided to go with the Mercedes W154 from George Turner Models, not for any particular reason other than the way it looked on the stand at Gaydon. It's very low and purposeful looking. The car, that is, not George's stand.
The stock kit comes with a resin chassis designed for an S-can motor. It looks like a quality piece of kit but I wanted to fit a bigger motor and have a really solid platform for the powertrain. By a stroke of luck the Penelope Pitlane 'Competition Inline' chassis fits under the body with only a tiny bit of modification, and with a bit of tweaking the mounting posts even lined up with the holes. The wheelbase is slightly longer than the Inline Competition chassis was designed for so I soldered it up rather than using the supplied screw.
The only real challenge so far has been finding wheels and tyres. The real car ran on 19" rims, and for faster circuits the rears could be increased to 22". I liked the way it looked with the bigger rears so that's how I decided to model it. PCS do some nice laced wheels in scale 19" and 23" and I had a pair of each so I gave them a try. I was pretty happy with how they looked. After a bit of rummaging in my bits box I found some tyres which gave me dimensions which complied with the Early Birds rules, but are not exact scale matches. Technically the rear wheels are a bit big. They also have a strange stepped cone affair on the back which makes them quite wide and interferes with the rear suspension detail. I might take them to work and see if we can turn them down on the lathe.
Here is the rolling chassis:
The motor and gearing are just for testing. I'll probably use a 25K Flat-6 RS and some very short gearing otherwise I'll have no brakes at all. I'll solder the guide mount on as well.
To get the chassis under the boat-tail body I had to trim it down:
I was going to box the sides back in, but after soldering the folds I decided it's more than strong enough as it is. The holes in the chassis for mounting the body are very large, and the last time I used one of these chassis (on an MRRC Cobra) the body flopped about all over the place. This time I soldered some lengths of brass tube into the holes to control the wobble and to space the body correctly on the chassis.
The body fits quite snugly, with some very minor Dremelling required around where the axle bushings fit:
And here is how it looks so far:
Before it goes to Paint I'll do some testing. The ride height is (just) Early Birds compliant, and the stance is very close to the scale drawings I've found on the 'net.
So far it's gone together really well. The quality of both the GTM kit and the chassis is very high, and the fact that the two fit together so well was a nice bonus. I expected a couple of evenings of faffing about gluing new body posts in, but it wasn't necessary. I'll post a bit more once I've given it a run on the track.