Auster racer project

[ratdat]

This is a bit of an odd model but it's been fun building it so far so thought I'd share what I've been up to. I better start at the beginning.

While paint and filler was drying on my current project I started looking through some of the other kits I have. I eyeballed this old Fujimi Nissan Auster coupe kit and had an examine of the contents. The Nissan Auster is otherwise known as a Datsun Violet (Stanza in Australia and HL510 in the States)



Although it's an interesting and unusual car to build the kit was really crappy. For a start it's motorised so has no underside detail at all and only half an interior as the batteries are supposed to be under the floor. Secondly the molding is appaling...check out the pic with of the hood!



The model is kind of uninspiring to look at too...a neat little coupe shape but just not very interesting. The only thing I could do with this is make a custom or drag car or something.



Then I turned my attension to another duff kit I have, this awful Revell Skyline. This is also a motorised kit devoid of any chassis detail but worse still this car is just plain ugly. Also it's a four door with the rear door fixed shut because of the body kit..one of my pet hates on real cars.



Then the stupid idea hit me Put the body kit on the Auster! Sure it's loads smaller but I have a saw and glue
So I pulled some parts from the Skyline kit including the wheels and put it back on the shelf and got to work with the Auster.
I have so far got quite a long way with the body (first prime is now done) and made up a new chassis so it can have full engine and suspension detail too. I'll post some pics of the work I've done so far. The chassis in particular has taken a fair bit of scratch building to get it to work. More details in a bit

[drumcat]

dude this is gonna be a sweet and unique build cant wait to see more can you post some more pics?

[ratdat]

First off I had to trial fit the parts to see if it was possible. It looked good so I just went ahead and got the glue out. These are the main panels from the Skyline kit...



The front arches were a reasonable fit right from the off. I just had to trim and clearance the front bumper and trim the body molding off the side.



The rears were a bit to long so I simply cut a bit of the end Then glued them in place with some liquid poly.



The side skirts were way too long so I cut about 9mm out of the center to shorten them then glued them on too. So far so good. It seems to fit together quite well and certainly makes for a more interesting car! Next it needed the front and rear lower spoilers.



Both of these were of course, way to wide so they had to be cut down by about 7mm and trimmed where they protuded into the wheel arch appeture. Here the rear one has been glued on and the front is taped on for trial fitting. Now it's beginning to take shape. I still have the rear spoiler at the back of the tailgate to sort...that's next.

[ratdat]

Originally Posted by drumcat

dude this is gonna be a sweet and unique build cant wait to see more can you post some more pics?

Stay tuned...I'm bringing the story up to date as we speak

[ratdat]

The rear spoiler was made up from a couple of strips of plastic sheet. I considered using the one that came in the Skyline kit but it was just too hard to make it fit.



The non-existance of the shut lines on the hood was bugging me so I got the panel scriber out and started cutting some but ended up going mad and cutting the hood open instead! Now I'd really made some work for myself since this kit has no detail underneath whatsoever. Any how to cut a long story short I went through some other kits until I found a chassis that was close... here you can see it in place and the now opened hood...



The chassis comes out of a Revell BRE Datsun 510 kit and with a little trimming at the rear slotted right in. Here you can see the fit at the rear. The suspension there is from a Tamiya KPGC10 Skyline kit. It's actually the same suspension more or less as the 510 on the Tamiya kit is more detailed...



However, while the rear end is all sweet the front end is totally wrong Not only it the chassis way too short but the strut towers are too far back to align the suspension with the wheel arches AND the inner wings aren't tall enough to reach the tops of the fenders... more plastic sheet coming up

[ratdat]

First step in sorting the front end out is cutting the inner wings off but leaving the chassis legs in place.



I shaped a 5mm strip of plastic sheet and aytached it to the rear of the inner wings then glued them back in. This sorted the front/rear alignment but they were still way to short and more importantly not tall enough.



So... there's nothing for it but to extend the height of the inner wings using plastic sheet. Shaping some of the bits was a bit tricky but here it's coming together...



Here I have got the lower part of the firewall cut away from the upper part (from the Revell 510 kit) and fitted it in place ...the upper part was not tall enough, was the wrong shape to fit and didn't look anything like a real Nissan Auster firewall ...so I'll have to make it!



I used several pieces of sheet laminated together to extend the chassis and form a front crossmember. The method of attaching the chassis in this model require me to make it out of layers like this. Here it is from the underside. Notice that the chassis legs on the Revell kit are hollow..these will be filled in. Still needs filing and shaping in these shots...



After getting the chassis extended I cut more plastic sheet to extend the inner wings to the front panel then filled all the joins and rough bits. Here it had some shaping and is beginning to look decent. The chassis is beginning to look like it's meant to fit there ..



I made the upper part of the firewall from some sheet plastic and shaped it to fit the scuttle and the curve of the hood apeture as best I could while keeping it looking something like the real car. After some more filler and sanding the engine bay is starting to look good!...

[flyonthewall]

Different, interesting, i like it!

[ratdat]

Finally I get to start whacking the filler in the body ...there's a fair bit of sculpture to be done at the rear! I decide to fill in the Testarossa style vents..I want to make this an authentic looking race car and those vents just don't cut it
Notice the roll cage... that's from a the Revell 510 kit (albiet one I'd already built) Apart from all the legs being too short and the rea braces being wrong it's really not far off fitting. I'll use it as a pattern to make a new one up. This ones going to have a full on multi point cage!



Right, that brings it up to date pretty much. I just put the first coat of primer on it this evening so I could get an idea of how much work there is to do on the body still. I have yet to gut the panel lines too.

I've been trying to sort and engine for it. The first idea was to use a Nissan 3.0L V6 from a Nissan King Cab truck but it was 1/20 scale and although i could have probably got away with it ...well, it's just not right is it?

Next up was the idea of scratch building a Nissan FJ20ET (2.0L DOHC 16V Turbo from the old Gazelle RS-X and Skyline DR30) from a cut down Skyline S20...that might still happen. I've cut it down but it will take some work to make it look like an FJ20ET.

Third and most likely at the moment is an L series. I have one from a Datsun pickup model I could use. The nice thing about this option is that this is the engine these cars came with... however to make it more worthy I'm thinking of scratch building EFI and a turbo setup on it...

What do you guys think? What ever goes in it has to be a Nissan motor ..and no, an RB26DET wont fit!

[RyanGiorgio]

Looks like a very interesting and extensive project. Your doing a great job though. Keep it up man.

`RG

[EMAXX]

Very cool idea dude. Keep us posted.

[ratdat]

Here's some pics of it after a quick coat of primer. There's still a lot of sanding, filling, filing and smoothing to be done before it sees paint! So far I've butchered three kits to make it but I think it'll be worth it







I'm going to leave it for a day or so to make sure that primer has fully hardened then I'll do some more. In the meantime I might get on with making the engine and front suspension for it. I'll post some more pics as it progresses.

What does everyone think so far..am I wasting my time or am I on to a winner?

[Modgod]

Winner! First words I said was THATS NICE

[86_SR5]

Lot of work went into this I can tell. I'm feeling that nissan 3.0v6, big motor, it would fit? Put it in, bigger IS better, in my opinion anyway.

[CamaroSSBoy346]

Intertesting Car, Intereting Shape, Inmteresting Body kit, Very Interesting.

[SchuberT]

looks AWESOME... killer... amazing imo... best slaughter job i've ever seen