Ferrari 458 Italia (Fujimi)

[ales]

Hi all

I have a week off so I've decided to start something new and try to finish it before I have to go back to work.

The kit is the 458 Italia from Fujimi, well discussed kit with many pros and just as many annoying cons. Built examples tell me that it still builds into a fantastic-looking model but that also might have a lot to do with the modellers. We'll see. I'll try to keep it as close to box stock as possible and I'll also do the modifications that have the right effort/return ratio.

Parts that will be painted body colour



I decided to remove the lower rear mesh - so that I do not lose the mesh detail there.





Same for the mesh in the front fenders

Before



After



Both of them were quite easy to do - just grind away with the dremel from the inside and then clean up. The front one is done in order to make painting easier - I see no way in hell I'd been able to paint that mesh black after the body was painted. I was also really tempted to cut out the little triangular mesh areas near the headlights but it's possible to paint it afterwards and I don't have PE saws anyway, so they stay in.

At the moment I'm at the cleanup-primer stage. Here are some of the parts drying in the dehydrator




I do need some help, though. What is your take on the colour of the dark parts on the body? The front grille/winglets, the areas at the back around the mesh I cut out, the lower parts of door sills - in some pictures they look black to me but in others the are that sort of weird metallic gray colour. Any ideas? Also if it's not semi-gloss black, what would you use to replicate that?

Cheers,
Alex

[ZoomZoomMX-5]

Originally Posted by ales

I do need some help, though. What is your take on the colour of the dark parts on the body? The front grille/winglets, the areas at the back around the mesh I cut out, the lower parts of door sills - in some pictures they look black to me but in others the are that sort of weird metallic gray colour. Any ideas? Also if it's not semi-gloss black, what would you use to replicate that?

Cheers,
Alex

That's because they can be either color, some cars have the metallic gray, others are black, and I'm not sure if that is a customer option or just for certain colors. The black is satin black, somewhat in between semigloss and flat black. Those winglets are very flexible on the real cars. You might want to sign up and check out Ferrarichat, the gray vs. black was discussed at some point on the 458 there.

I'm dying to get the Revell kit in my hands...the Fujimi kit left me wanting...it's okay, looks good on the shelf, but was rather disappointing to build. It's like they put their "D" team on the project instead of their "A" team.

[ales]

Thanks, Bob. I guess I'll go with black for this one.

I want the Revell kit as well but, at the risk of going off topic, it's also only good enough, just. I guess Revell's B-team is on par with Fujomi's D-team

Can I ask you to elaborate on the sink marks on the Fujimi body? Don't want to miss any hard-to-find ones...
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[ZoomZoomMX-5]

Originally Posted by ales

Thanks, Bob. I guess I'll go with black for this one.

I want the Revell kit as well but, at the risk of going off topic, it's also only good enough, just. I guess Revell's B-team is on par with Fujomi's D-team

Can I ask you to elaborate on the sink marks on the Fujimi body? Don't want to miss any hard-to-find ones...
Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.2; en-ee; HTC_DesireHD_A9191 Build/FRF91) AppleWebKit/533.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/533.1

Sink marks were in the rear spoiler and at the backs of the rear fenders, IIRC. Pay attention to the mold lines, they don't look like much at first but their locations make them tricky to eradicate, one side is much worse than the other. The big sink mark in the windscreen is obnoxious; why they molded the rear view mirror/console/base to that is beyond me

Also it pays to ditch at least the front brakes. The caliper is much smaller than the rear brakes

I just built the Fujimi Prius for magazine review. Aside from the simplistic interior tub (that is similar in design to the 458), overall it clearly is a better engineered kit. Fujimi used their A-/B+ team on that one

[drunken monkey]

Originally Posted by ZoomZoomMX-5

Also it pays to ditch at least the front brakes. The caliper is much smaller than the rear brakes

I just built the Fujimi Prius for magazine review. Aside from the simplistic interior tub (that is similar in design to the 458), overall it clearly is a better engineered kit. Fujimi used their A-/B+ team on that one

two things.
i) what would you recommend as replacement brakes?
ii) don't suppose you've seen the cr-z kit? I saw the concept at the 2008 motorshow here and developed a bit of metal love then and there...

[ZoomZoomMX-5]

Originally Posted by drunken monkey

two things.
i) what would you recommend as replacement brakes?
ii) don't suppose you've seen the cr-z kit? I saw the concept at the 2008 motorshow here and developed a bit of metal love then and there...

Try some aftermarket brakes or Fujimi parts pack brakes. Shame Fujimi botched the calipers, the rotors are decent and rotate inside the calipers, but it was really stupid for them to make the rear calipers so much larger than the front. The rear brakes are also missing the smaller parking brake calipers.

Haven't gotten the CRZ yet, hopefully around the holidays. Currently I have an Abarth 695 Ferrari Tributo to build...it's okay, they got the seats right but the wheels are too small, steering wheel isn't correct, bad tires and I'm sure I'll have to go medieval on the wheels/brakes like my standard Fiat 500 to get the wheels/tires centered and inside the fender openings.

[endac]

Looks like good progress so far, i'll definately keep an eye on this one

[drunken monkey]

sorry for continuing the hi-jack...
so it's only the caliper that needs replacing?

[ales]

No problem at all, this discussion is very helpful.

Now ... the calipers. I think I know what the problem is, Bob - the Fujimi D-team.

Let's start wit the picture of the kit calipers



I've sanded off the raised (thankfully! Don't have to fill it like on the Scuderia kit) Ferrari script.

Now look at what the calipers look like on the real car. Comparing the two it's obvious that parts 6 and 7 are for the front and 8 and 9 are for the rear. 6 and 7 are also a little bigger, like they should be.

Now let's look at the Fujimi instructions. D6 and D7 are indicated for the rear while D8 and D9 - for the front. To me it's quite clear that there is a mistake in the instructions. I haven't checked how the correct parts will fit on the parts of the caliper molded together with the hub but I know that I'll be using the correct version. Perhaps this is something for those considering building this kit to keep in mind.

And just to show that I'm making some progress - some painted parts in the dehydrator. I like black interiors and I'm not going to apologise for that

[ales]

Some more pictures of the brakes. unfortunately Fujimi didn't just make a mistake in the instructions - the back parts of the calipers molded together with the hub are also switched back to front.

Rear hub with the correct rear caliper face



Same with the brake disc



Fronts





What I'll do is I'll trim the back part of the caliper somewhat for the rears and I'll just leave the fronts as is. That's not the most accurate solution but it's the easiest. The caliper halves (holes) align just fine and there are no issues with the brake discs installed. Again, those building this kit, keep an eye out for this peculiarity.

Best,
Alex

[Entau]

Nice..your notes is definitely useful for reference

btw, did you swap the disk rotors as well? since the rear suppose to be smaller to the front disk

[ales]

Originally Posted by Entau

Nice..your notes is definitely useful for reference

btw, did you swap the disk rotors as well? since the rear suppose to be smaller to the front disk

To be honest, I don't know

Two of the rotors are indeed slightly smaller than the other two but since the parts are off trees I don't know anymore which ones were which numbers I cannot tell if Fujimi swapped them too during their design process. Larger rotors do have the details that are accurate(ish) to the front rotors on the real car and the plan has always been to use them at the front and that's how I used them for the mock-up above. I didn't bother with the Fujimi instructions back then because it seemed clear-cut. Same reason I was quite confused about Bob's comments about the caliper sizes because the ones on trees that looked like they belong at the front actually were slightly bigger than the ones that looked like rear calipers

Edit: I take that back, the engravings on all of the rotors aren't really accurate so I'll just go with the larger ones at the front and smaller ones at the rear

[Entau]

lol...i see, actually it doesn't really matter now, since everything is mixed up

i agree with you the bigger one should be on the front

[autodecepticon]

a really cool start... im planning to start this kit too... your WIP will be my big help and guide.

[ilferraristarosso]

Originally Posted by ales

Some more pictures of the brakes. unfortunately Fujimi didn't just make a mistake in the instructions - the back parts of the calipers molded together with the hub are also switched back to front.

Rear hub with the correct rear caliper face

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...458/458_11.jpg

Same with the brake disc

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...458/458_12.jpg

Fronts

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...0458/458_9.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...458/458_10.jpg

What I'll do is I'll trim the back part of the caliper somewhat for the rears and I'll just leave the fronts as is. That's not the most accurate solution but it's the easiest. The caliper halves (holes) align just fine and there are no issues with the brake discs installed. Again, those building this kit, keep an eye out for this peculiarity.

Best,
Alex

I agree!
Forget the Fujimi instruction sheet, better to build this kit with only good detailed pictures.

Max