Last test fittings before final assembly starts

Over Canadian Holidays I've put clear coat over CF decals and painted other parts in Zero CF. Most of the parts are ready for assembly by now. Doing final test fittings before it will start to come together.

Brakes and suspension adaptations done

I’ve made a decision to adopt brakes from Fujimi kit to the Tamiya’s donor chassis. Needed to remove parking brakes and uprights which were moulded together with rear rotors. Also reduced ride height at the front.




Looking at the profile of the body I can see that front bonnet bulges too much. I start to understand issues with Fujimi body jaykay was referring to. But it’s too late to change plans now. Unless there is an accurate conversion body for Tamiya kit.


My scratch made from plastic diffuser keeps deforming on its own. I am now thinking about making one from metal. Have some thin brass sheets I can use for that.

Scratch building started

Started making some items from scratch using parts of MFH F40GTE kit as templates.

Current plan is to detach rear engine cover. Rear bumper is not going to be attached to it, but rather I plan to attach to the chassis and floor. So, first I needed to make racing diffuser, which is missing in Fujimi kit.

Next I made big front radiator and supporting structure around it.

I am facing issue of warped rear engine cover and at present I am not sure how I will be able to fix that. But I will continue modifications and scratch building for now until I am ready to paint.

Still undecided if I will make bigger intercoolers. And I need to start making roll change bars next.

Continued F40 chassis conversion work

Continued with modifications to chassis:
- removed most of the front structures not relevant to race car. made a compromise by removing most of the bridge over from suspension, but leaving some material on the sides to keep it's strength. not willing to fully re-create racing frame
- adjusted front of the floor to fit inside Fujimi's body
- re-made rear firewall from Fujimi and Tamiya parts. not 100% accurate, but most of this build will not be very accurate anyway
- made some rising side blocks on the floor, so it fits well inside Fujimi's middle body
Next will attempt to re-create bigger front radiator of the race car and structures holding it in place. Will also think about scratch making bigger turbo intercoolers and turbo air intake boxes used in race car

F40 GTE LM1995 conversion started

Inspired by new release of MFH F40 GTE I've decided to make my own conversion, but in 1/24 scale. Idea is to kit bash Fujimi F40LM and Tamiya F40. I plan to use full chassis and cockpit from Tamiya kit and mate it with body, wheels and brakes from Fujimi kit. It will not be 100% correct and perfect, but I will try to address as many differences with real car, as I am able to. Here are some photos of the work so far. Mock up of Tamiya chassis. The design of this 38 years old kit is typical Tamiya. Fit is good and amount of detail is pretty decent. Race car has bigger turbo intercoolers. Not sure if I will be able to make them or will live with incorrect smaller ones, yet.
Fujimi body does not fit as is over that chassis. However with some modifications and added material, I think I will be able to make it work.
For some reason Fujimi did not include channels behind rear windows. It's open space and looks strange. Current thinking is to get those cut from Tamiya body and transplanted onto Fujimi's. Hopefully I will be able to do it. Also plan to cut off street car's muffler and scratch make straight tail pipes.
Next things to do are modifications to front end of the chassis to get rid of street car's structures, adoption of Fujimi's breaks and wheels to Tamiya's chassis, some mods of Fujimi's rear end lower body to accept radiators from Tamiya. scratch making of racing diffuser and many other smaller mods.

More work on 962C body panels

Deeper I get into this project, more "ambitious" it gets. Cut out rear engine cover. Also decided to make front clamshell detached. So, done even more cuts.
Next was time to mix some Tamiya 2 parts putty and try to improve door fit. First photo shows small patches of putty I've applied. Second photo shows my first crude attempt to replicated exhaust pipes using donor 956 floor as a guide. Need to improve my putty forming skills for the future.

SF70H livery decals finished

It did not actually take 7 years to complete decals on this model, even though I am still not done with CF ones. There were just 7 years this build was on hiatus as well. Happy to finally return to it and make some good progress. As I've said pretty much all sponsor decals are applied and mostly CF decals left to finish. However CF decals application is the step when I often lose interest. Hopefully it will not go to hiatus for 7 more years :)