AMT Eclipse

Well i just bought the new eclipse model.. Man not what I was expecting.. anyways Im looking at the directions and something jus dont look right.. After looking at it for a few minutes I noticed the turbo just kinda hangs there with the header on the other side of the motor.. Hum.. So tell me how does a turbo work with no exhaust pressure? Good job amt... If anyone else has this kit take a look at it and tell me if im looking at it wrong or its really f**ed up.. Later Rick S

Well i just bought the new eclipse model.. Man not what I was expecting.. anyways Im looking at the directions and something jus dont look right.. After looking at it for a few minutes I noticed the turbo just kinda hangs there with the header on the other side of the motor.. Hum.. So tell me how does a turbo work with no exhaust pressure? Good job amt... If anyone else has this kit take a look at it and tell me if im looking at it wrong or its really f**ed up.. Later Rick Sit is fucked up, i did a custom turbo, scratchbuilt my own and placed the header/turbo hook up in the FRONT of the engine, the way AMT makes it, i think its a V6 instead of the I4 thats in the real car, but other than that im really dissapointed, body kit molded on and
A HELLA AMOUNT of flash, IMO the supra was WAY better, the best part of this kit, the decals.


Josh

I noticed alot of flash on mine two.. ON the turbo though even if they tried to do a v6 setup the turbo has to be one the exhaust.. end of story.. major fuck up on amts part.. Did ya check out the headlights? They have some nasty looking lines on them.. Oh well guess ill do some scratch building to make the car look good.. Later Rick S

Well i just bought the new eclipse model.. Man not what I was expecting.. anyways Im looking at the directions and something jus dont look right.. After looking at it for a few minutes I noticed the turbo just kinda hangs there with the header on the other side of the motor.. Hum.. So tell me how does a turbo work with no exhaust pressure? Good job amt... If anyone else has this kit take a look at it and tell me if im looking at it wrong or its really f**ed up.. Later Rick S

AMT's Eclipse is as bad as the Supra is good. Obviously, the same engineers did not work on both models. Doesn't speak well for the upcoming kits of the Camaro, the blown Charger, and the RX-7 but lets be fair and take them on a case by case basis. The Supra proved they COULD do it right when they get the right people to engineer the tool.

i like the kit ecxept some problems but no kits are perfect really, well maybe with the exception of tamiya

i like the kit ecxept some problems but no kits are perfect really, well maybe with the exception of tamiya

Even Tamiya has had a few bad ones, believe it or not. There actually was a time (1960s and 1970s) that Japanese kits, though of better material quality than those produced in the USA, bore little more than a passing resemblance to what they were supposed to represent. How good their stuff is today shows a strong commitment to quality, one that the US based model kit makers still need to embrace with the same passion.

As far as the Eclipse is concerned, you can work with it, true, and you can get a decent looking model from it, that's also true. But some things about the kit just are so incredibly toyish. Here's my take:

Engine does not even remotely resemble a Mitsu 4G63, let alone the turbo parts, etc. It looks like a block of plastic off of a toy fire engine rather than a high performance DOHC import tuner engine.

Chassis is too "flat" and the suspension looks like it was lifted from a toy car (Revell's diecast kit's chassis, on the other hand, looks a lot closer to the real thing)

Interior is based on a stock Eclipse rather than the movie car. The movie car did not have a back seat.

Seats are wrong - both sets. The movie car had Sparco Torino seats.

No roll cage (the movie car had it)

No speakers or any other ICE at all (the movie car had those too)

NOS bottle and fire extinguisher in the the wrong position.

No stand for the NOS bottle.

Roof scoop is too long and tapers too much towards the rear.

The rear wing is exaggerated in shape, is too thick, and the support struts are angled incorrectly.

The decals are completely off. The blue of the eagle graphic is too light, and the sponsor decals are off in shape - look closely at the EUROLITE logos, for example.

Some sponsor decals are missing.

The Modern Image graphic for the hood should be metallic silver, not gray.

No carbon fiber texturing decal for the hood or any interior parts.

The TOYO TIRES decal is exaggerated in shape and does not gently curve over the wheel well as it should.

On the positive side, the Toyo Proxes tires and Axis Se7en wheels look pretty darn good.

Thats only for starters. I think the kit CAN be built into a decent copy of the movie car, or customized to your liking, but not without a great deal of work. You can glue the hood shut and "curbside" it if you don't want to mess with the engine problem. I just wish it was as good a model as their Supra is. Let's hope they don't screw up the RX-7.

AMT's doing the F&F RX-7? I don't know whether that's good news or reason to go run and hide! :grinyes: :evillol:

I haven't seen the plastic Eclipse. I won't be buying one based on what I've been hearing. I actually like Revell's diecast model, and am not worried over it's lack of authenticity towards the movie car in several key areas. I see more w/this model's potential. The body is thin and lightweight for diecast, the soft parts like bumpers are plastic, interior and chassis much more like you see in a Revell plastic kit than their former diecast disasters. They seem to be finally "getting it". AMT...the jury is out, I agree that it's best to go on a case-by-case basis with their models. Nice to know on this board what's good an bad, long before the magazines hit the shelves.

I sure wish their models were consistent; however I see the same thing happen at Revell, you can tell when a company's "A" team works on a model like the AMT Supra, or Revell's Integra, '69 Camaros and '32 Fords. It's just disappointing that all of the teams at the companies aren't as equally talented. I expected Revell's Civic to be in the same league as the Integra. Wrong. Basically it's okay, but it ain't no Integra. I've built the Integra, and like the '32 Ford it was absolutely a pleasure to assemble...you can tell the engineers are enthusiasts, just by the little ways they designed the parts. Dunno what happened to the Civic, some of the decisions made on that kit are just plain goofy...the front bumper/headlight assembly, wheel track, and screws for assembling the chassis. It's not like they shared chassis tooling w/their diecast models which feature similar engineering. Weird. They look good built, but require more tweaking to get the same level of finished excellence as the Integra.

AMT doing the F&F Camaro? Sorry, with Revell finally reissuing their nearly perfect '69 Yenko, I just hope too many people don't get duped by AMT's version which I can guarantee will never be in the same league as Revell's. It would be great for them to prove me wrong. Don't see it happening though.

And yes, Tamiya has goofed plenty of times. But they are such beautiful goofs... :loser: :icon16: :evillol:

i just bought the kit also, i think it has potential but im not going to build it like F&F, but the turbo is a little odd, but i liked it has a wastegate, i think i also will scratch build a turbo, another thing thats was on the eclipse and the supra also is the tires are too big, theyre suppose to be low profile but they look like stock size, they need to be more like the revell ITR's.

AMT's Eclipse is as bad as the Supra is good. Obviously, the same engineers did not work on both models. Doesn't speak well for the upcoming kits of the Camaro, the blown Charger, and the RX-7 but lets be fair and take them on a case by case basis. The Supra proved they COULD do it right when they get the right people to engineer the tool.

Well, if it ain't my favorite reviewer!

WaZU-U-U-UUUP... :silly:

The results are obviously inconsistent between the two kits, but do you have it on any other kind of authority that there were different engineering teams handling them?

I'm afraid my own take is a little more cynical. You see, for the better part of a decade, there's been a Tamiya Supra kit on the market to show everyone what the parts are supposed to look like...

I too have both the supra and the eclipse kit, both yet to be built. looking closely @ both of them I can agree that the supra has more attention to detail. I don't remember sitting here typing at work does the supra have a roll cage or did they leave that out? after inspecting the kit I may just do my own creation as replicating the movie car may not be the way to go. for $9 I can't really complain. expected more from the turbo components, as stated before they really didn't make a quality engine bay.

I guess we are all going to have to dip into our imagination and customization skills before any truly SICK eclipses are going to pop up around here :nutkick:

I'm afraid my own take is a little more cynical. You see, for the better part of a decade, there's been a Tamiya Supra kit on the market to show everyone what the parts are supposed to look like...

Hey, dude! WAZZAAAAAAAAAP!:iceslolan

Unfortunately, the existence of a Tamiya kit of anything does little to inspire or encourage a better job by any of the US "Little 3". They would do well to look VERY closely at just what makes Tamiya kits so damn well engineered!

The Supra encouraged me that perhaps, just perhaps, AMT was not headed for Chinese-made reissue oblivion. The Eclipse, on the other hand, was like, whatzzis?

RCErtl refers to plastic scale model kits NOT as models but as "activity kits". One might assume, from that stance, that the 1/18 scale diecast stuff qualify as "scale models" while plastic model kits get relegated to the same rung of the hobby social register as Tinkertoys and Legos.

Hey, what the hell do I know? I'm only a "model builder", right? :banghead:

Good to see ya again!

Best regards,

I too have both the supra and the eclipse kit, both yet to be built. looking closely @ both of them I can agree that the supra has more attention to detail. I don't remember sitting here typing at work does the supra have a roll cage or did they leave that out? after inspecting the kit I may just do my own creation as replicating the movie car may not be the way to go. for $9 I can't really complain. expected more from the turbo components, as stated before they really didn't make a quality engine bay.

I guess we are all going to have to dip into our imagination and customization skills before any truly SICK eclipses are going to pop up around here :nutkick:

Yessir! The actual Supra does indeed have a four-point roll bar - I won;t say "cage" becuase it does not have the extensions toward the front of the interior. The bar, painted yellow, can be seen very clearly in the scenes in TFATF where the Supra smokes the black Ferrari.

Agreed on the Eclipse. It needs some work, but unless you're fantastic at scratchbuilding, replicating the movie car is gonna be a practical impossibility.

The Eclipse has a quality engine bay like I'm Vin Diesel. And that's really stretching it some! :lol::lol::lol:

Glue the hood shut, rummage through the spares box for some more hot parts, and have at your own custom tuner Mitsu.

Best regards,

Can you post some pictures of the parts tree. I was thinking about getting it and using sone of its parts. If not then does it have racing seats,nitrous, a lot of decals and some nice engine parts?

Thanks

Can you post some pictures of the parts tree. I was thinking about getting it and using sone of its parts. If not then does it have racing seats,nitrous, a lot of decals and some nice engine parts?

Thanks

Veyron posted pics of all the parts in the kit, along with a comparison of the AMT and Revell (diecast) bodies, in another thread in this forum. Search on "Eclipse" and you'll find it.

I'll add my 2 cents here: The racing seats are junk, they don't even resemble the Sparco seats in the car used in the movie - or any other car for that matter. There is one nitrous bottle, it seems to be undersized (too small). The decals do not look good at all (a pic of those are in Veyron's post too), and the engine is at best total and complete junk. The body is decent, though it too has its flaws, and the wheels and tires are quite nice. But that's about it.

The Supra's not perfect, and it certainly is no Tamiya kit, but it's a better scale model than this.

Like I said, just my .02.

That AMT Eclipse engine bay is clearly one of the most unqualified disasters in any kit in the last twenty years.

Although I was thinking maybe I could fake a nice V-6 from that engine in the new Ala-Kart... :evillol:

Actually, I wasn't speaking so much from a quality standpoint vis-a-vis the Tamiya Supra. If John Mueller, Tom Montgomery, or someone else of that caliber headed up the Supra, I wouldn't doubt their capacity to produce a good kit on their own. But let's suppose they weren't involved.

What I was roundly hinting at, and will now be rude enough to say, is that the Eclipse might have been so botched because there was no Tamiya kit to copy.

'Member that twin-turbo question? Might be something a kit designer would miss, if his original pattern was something other than the real F&F car.

Somebody who knows the real story wants to help me out on this, they'd be more than welcome...