1977 Japan GP Imperial Lotus 78 MkIII

[Scale-Master]

I have been intending to build this car for decades and decided to just do it after agreeing to build this kit at the same time as a friend who is building the Tamiya kit (as the JPS).
The decals and templates are from an IPMS Convention magazine (1994 at Omaha).

The first thing I did was replace the rear wing end plates since they are slightly larger and a different shape from the Andretti JPS car. They were scratched from sheet plastic. The black one is the kit JPS part. I made the mounting tabs longer for ease of holding them for painting.


The front wings were molded to the tub and were unevenly warped on my kit; (think lots of dihedral). I cut them off and set them up with pins for reassembly. This will be an added benefit for executing the two tone scheme too.

The skirts molded to the side pod outer panels were also modified for this version. You can see the difference between the virgin bagged part and the modified one. The skirt is shorter and the pod has a radius on the front bottom.

The roll bar was modified to be taller since Nilsson was taller than Andretti.

Those should be the only parts modifications needed and the rest of the building, except for the body color and decal changes, should be essentially the same as the JPS version…

[Scale-Master]

The engine parts were painted prior to assembly. The FORD lettering on the cam covers was molded pretty weakly on this Academy knock off of the Tamiya kit, but I tried to do what I could with it... The kit provides spark plug wires, I added a wire for the coil (not sure why they don’t include that) and I added the injector lines made from monofilament line.

[Scale-Master]

The trans and engine are almost done. It has a few fit/alignment issues that I suspect are not present in the Tamiya counterpart this Academy kit was copied from.


The body has its base color coats, TS-8 Italian Red and TS-11 Maroon.

[zeptrader]

Thats look really smart, can I ask a question, how many cans of TS spray did you use for the body?

Thanks
Colin

[Scale-Master]

I primed it in white and used already "open" or previously used spray cans for the colors.
The entire body was done in red, then masked for the maroon to be sprayed on top of the red.

The red had more than 3/4 of a can, now it has about slightly less than 1/2, the maroon was about 2/3s used, and still has almost a 1/4 left. I sprayed some of each color into my airbrush cup and reduced with lacquer thinner for much of the application, and only used the paint directly from the can for the final "full" coats.

[eyckles]

Hi,

Great start. Will certainly follow this thread, because i'm planning to this version myself. Didn't know witch color to use for the 2 tone. So now i know. Thanks.

Lesley

[Scale-Master]

Making steady progress…

[stevetriumph]

Looking very nice. Will you get some pics next to the JPS car your friend is building, that would look great.
Regards,
Steve.

[Scale-Master]

I can get him to post some photos, but the geographic distance is likely to inhibit a shot of them side by side.

[CifeNet]

So far so good! Keep it up~

[512BB]

Intersting project and nice work that you are doing, I will definitely stay tuned! Btw, this is the first time I heard that Academy released a 78 MKIII!

[roymattblack]

Did this car ever get completed?
I'd like to see the end result.
Roy.

[Scale-Master]

Finished Thread:
http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbul...light=imperial