Lotus Seven in Seven...

[Ferrari TR]

With the Seven forum group build deadline looming, I decided that I should start. With just 7 weeks to go till 3.21 the title seemed perfect.
Here's the plan so far. An SCCA spec club racer, therefore the Motorsports placement. I have the 7 kit, a set of Watanabe's and an F&F Supra kit. I'm planning on using the Supra for driveline parts though It may loose it's turbo and even a couple of its cylinders depending on space. I've got a color picked out too.
What I don't have is a roll cage, a narrow racing seat, a fire system, a modern racing digital dash, a fuel cell and a set of brakes that fit in the smallish wheels.
Sounds easy enough...

[jlrobe]

What brand are the wheels in the picture and where did you get them?

Thanks.
John R

[Ferrari TR]

Like most projects, the first part is filled with the thrill of all of the models potential.
The Supra motor is workable but it would require stretching the body in all three dimensions. That, considering the deadline, has killed the engine swap. This has an up-side however as classifying a three liter turbocharged Seven into an SCCA class would be interesting at best.

The wing fenders are gone, to be replaced with cycle style fenders. I spent the rest of day two fiddling with the ill fated engine swap. Next is widening the rear fenders, cleaning up the cowl and deciding the 101 little details that make up a model.
The Wheels are an ancient set of Fujimi RS Watanabe's that I've been kicking around for 15 years or so, while the slick tires are from another set of equally old Fujimi rims.

[Ferrari TR]

First mockup minus the front 'wing' fenders.

These are easy to remove, the hard part is making their presense disappear.

I've marked the rear fenders for my cuts. I decided they needed to be about 4mm wider to fit the fat slicks. I split some 10mm tamiya masking tape and used the tape to guide my razor saw cuts.

I cut a strip of 0.50 in sheet 4mm wide and rolled it around a bottle to get a rough shape of the fender, then I glued that with some fast setting CA to the inner part of the cut, starting in the middle and working to the ends one at a time. I then glued the outer fender on with regular plastic cement.
Here's the glued up fender extension before any sanding or trimming.

Although it looks rough in that shot it cleaned up nicely.

I'm not sure what's next...
Though I'm trying to get all of the body work at least roughed in.

[Ferrari TR]

I guess converting it to LHD is what's next.

I cut out the foot boxes on both sides and made mirror image replacements.

It's not as wonky as it looks but there is some room for cleanup, which will have to wait till the glue dries.
With the revised cowl and firewall in place.

The opening for the steering is filled ready for putty and the wiper mounts are gone, but not filled yet.

The engine still fits, though I have no idea if the steering will clear the exhaust headers.

[white97ex]

looking good

[WRC_413X]

Progress lookin good so far, Ill be watchin this one!
-btw nice title

[Ferrari TR]

My first attempt at 'cycle' fenders.
I first tried simply wrapping the plastic around a suitably sized bottle and holding them in place with rubber bands to form them, but they returned to almost completely flat again within minutes, this even after a couple of days. So into the hot water they went. One Ninety F is my favorite temp. for plastic forming. Hot for about five minutes and then cold to set the shape.

Making those and a coat of putty on most of the body killed my evening. I did find my lost spare set of XS Tuning brakes so I have one less thing on my ever growing list of parts to find for this sucker.
One week down, with just six to go!

[Ferrari TR]

The first mockup with the cycle fenders.
One hundred and thirty five degrees if anyone is doing the math.
A little crude is an understatement. They need a lot of shaping before they'll look right.
The body work now with the first coat of putty sanded and a second applied.

Looks like a car anyway...
I'm never sure what is next, a coat of primer over the finished bodywork would be nice.

[Ferrari TR]

Crickets...


Not much to show for week two. I removed the rings from the inside of the rims. With the cycle fenders, which look to be about 1mm too wide, the inside of the wheels will show, the brakes too for that matter... Which mean that I should drill out the holes in the rotors as they are only molded on one side. A lot of my time has been spent on sorting the suspension width for both the front and rear and deciding on what I'm going to do to put the brakes where I want them.

I still need to find a seat and I've had no luck finding a MSD ignition box either.
I'd already decided on a shade of green for the body and the Lotus F1 thread makes me want to add a yellow stripe too...

[billypee]

Green and yellow are the traditional colour and, for me at least, what I would choose. The more OOT you got with the car, the more traditional you should go with the paint job, IMHO. Different shades of green and yellow to the norm would be my choice.

Kind regards,
Bill

[Ferrari TR]

My choosen shade of green is a Cobra Colors 'tri-coat' Lambo neon green pearl. I'm thinking that a solid (not pearl) yellow stripe may not look right.
Also, that the roll cage and wheel centers painted in yellow may be enough.
Or maybe the combination will trigger a gag reflex in anyone that sees it...

Anyone have a Lucas logo link? (Seems more fitting for a Lotus than a MDS box)

[MattRS2000]

Originally Posted by Ferrari TR

Anyone have a Lucas logo link? (Seems more fitting for a Lotus than a MDS box)

You want to build a model that doesn't run?

Lucas, prince of darkness!

[Ferrari TR]

The taper in the rims has bugged me for quite a while. So I took a rim and chucked it in my trusty power drill.

Wheel meet file, file wheel...

A little work with some fine sandpaper cleaned them up nicely.

[Ferrari TR]

I just need one seat in a racer. But, what seat to use? After digging through a bunch of kit seats I found a racy set in the F&F Supra kit I was using for an engine donor.

Easy enough, just cut it in half to narrow it a bit and sand off the molded in belts.

It took a bit to get it narrow enough, and I will likely modify the headrest shape, but I do have a seat now.