TRD 3000GT - Opinions and help needed

[flyonthewall]

Started a bit of work on this a couple of days ago to see what it involves. Its a conversion using the Sard Supra, which has the TRD gubbings, being made to fit the road car - voila TRD 3000GT Widebody.

Eventually it will be a resin bodykit but its turning out to be not as straight forward as i hoped. To cut a long story short the problem is that the real car is only slightly wider that the original. So when this is scaled down to 1/24, making the wider arches and casting them in resin so they can be grafted on, will be awkward and they will easily break or warp.

So i'm wondering what you guys think will be the best approach?

Either;

Have the wider arches cast in resin, they will be thin, brittle and rather rough and will need moderate work to graft them onto the car body with some filling.

Or

Have the transkit consisting of the main parts ie front, rear, sides and choice of two wings along with detailed instructions showing how to extend the arches. This will mean the modeler will not only need to widen and contour the arches, but also mold in the rear bumpers and cut the vents out from behind the front wheels, as highlighted in the first pic...

[tonioseven]

I'd almost rather take my chances with the thin, brittle pieces. But then again, with the right instructions, making arches would be useful experience down the road on future projects. I vote for the second option.

[fullbloodchop01]

Originally posted by tonioseven
I'd almost rather take my chances with the thin, brittle pieces. But then again, with the right instructions, making arches would be useful experience down the road on future projects. I vote for the second option.

im with tonioseven on this one:sun:

[daggerlee]

The second option, I wouldn't trust thin resin to withhold to polishing or sanding pressures or accidental flexing of the body to occur that might cause them to 'pop off' or crack, ruining your paint job. Include proper disclaimers and such "For advanced modelers only" etc.

[Ayala]

just a suggestion... how about cutting the side fenders and replace them with resin pieces, then just put putty between the seams? so you can make the resin thick enough and it wont break easily. cut like so, but it needs some support though (fenders).

[stump]

Chris, I also was thinking along the same line as Ayala, by cutting out old peices and replacing the whole fender, you may not need it so thin ?

[bah humbug]

This is gonna be tough. Looks like it's gonna be hard to install to the stock supra.

At least your working on a supra.

BUt I think best choice is numero dos.

[Jonno]

Maybe if you posted the instructions here to make the widened fenders, we would be able to tell you

Although I like the idea of using complete resin pieces for the fenders, it would be quite costly, IMO.

[Vric]

why not the first full body resin by SAS ?

[bah humbug]

That's one good idea! I thought about that b4 when I was thinking if he wanted to make a top secret supra, how would you make it so that we would be able to cut up the stock supra and attatch a wide body top secret body kit on.

A whole resin body sounds better IMO. It would be IMO easier for you and the customer.

BTW how much do you think the resin body would cost?

[Vric]

Originally posted by bah humbug

BTW how much do you think the resin body would cost?

that's the main question

[ShOrtyOC714]

Coming ouy pretty nice, my advice is just do whut ever u think is better....

[flyonthewall]

Originally posted by Ayala
just a suggestion... how about cutting the side fenders and replace them with resin pieces, then just put putty between the seams? so you can make the resin thick enough and it wont break easily. cut like so, but it needs some support though (fenders).

I guess that seems like the obvious solution doesn't it? But unfortunately out of the question! You can imagine that you are hardly left with any of the original body so it will be very weak and you can pretty much gaurantee that there will be some very poor fitment issue with the chassis and othe conecting parts.

Originally posted by stump
[b]Chris, I also was thinking along the same line as Ayala, by cutting out old peices and replacing the whole fender, you may not need it so thin ?

Interesting idea Greg, hadn't considered that. Its sort of along the same lines as to how i improved the C-west RX7 side skirts http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbulletin/t63655.html

This one is not so easy though, i can see people tearing their hair out coz they didnt cut out the pieces right. Also making the masters for this will be awkward.

Originally posted by Vric
why not the first full body resin by SAS ?

Ah, the easy way out! Not an option for me on this project coz its costly, fully cast bodies will be left for projects such as the HKS Altezza and Cusco Imprezza.

[daggerlee]

Maybe you can advocate kitbashing by requiring your customers to buy both the Sard Supra and a regular Supra...I'm not exactly sure what you did on the conversion, so I don't know how practical that would be..

[Honoturtle]

Nice conversion Chris, I await the day you make a thread like this for your F50GT.

I think it'll be better if YOU gave us a nice template to cut out the little vents, just tell us the proper spot to place them.

IT is true that the body will become weak with a lot of it gone. My S2000 with the missing hood, front, etc. is already quite weak, hence it dosen't have a roof as well. So without the fenders, it's going to be hella rough.