Cyclone build and tune

[slothead]

Okay, I just cut the rear of the interior off a little shorter than your's because of the balsa wood body mount I made, but that's not a problem.

When you put the interior in the body and the front bracket goes where it looks like it's intended to, do you have a big gap between the dash and the windshield? I did, which is what made me rethink what I was doing.

Thanks for your help.

[Wobble]

The Torino I reworked has proved itself and goes like stink as it took out 2 Scaley Comaros in its debut American Muscle race, so now a bit more Cyclone time. The hood's welded on and I've just been marvelling at the fit of the tail lights into the rear panel, which is real good, but what I'm about to do is a real shame in some ways, 'cos the tail lights are going to be sanded almost flat and painted over.

[waaytoomuchintothis]

Thank you, well-wishers! I just got home from the Dr, and my coccyx isn't broken. Its just a really bad bruise and it already hurts less (thank you, better living through chemistry, even if it was a deep, in-bone injection). I'm cleared to get back to living my life. Its amazing how long a 10 day stretch can last.

I'll finish the Cyclone in the next few days, and I'll start the Chappyman E100 3D print experiment while I wait for the GTX to come along. I plan some serious paint for the old delivery truck, and very serious speed for it.

Oh, man, its good to not be hurting! I wonder how long this kind of dope lasts...

[slothead]

Good news waay, hope the pain med lasts as long as needed for you to get done what you want to.

I went to a 'wings & wheels' plane and car show at the Owls Head Museum on Sunday and spent time talking with folks there from Southern Maine Scale Modelers club about my issues with the Cyclone build. They invited me to their upcoming meeting and Ill bring the car, plus some other projects, to get their input on. Their display revealed some beautiful builds so this should be helpful.

If I get some good tips my next project might be redoing this Pioneer Charger street rod


as this vintage NASCAR to race with the Cyclones.


FYI - the Pioneer Charger 'Ace of Spades' pictured above is now selling for $229 at Electric Dreams. Not a lot to choose from that's affordable from this era anymore. Good thing we're getting a chance to build our own.

[proxieken]

Me and paint have not been getting along very well, so I decided a new tactic. I would rush paint everything. The directions stated you must repaint within 3 hours or after 48. Well I tried after 48 and then some and still got a tub full of ruined cars.

I set these up this morning and between primer, white paint, tape, red paint, decals and then clear coat it was under 3 hours.

No wrinkling.



So back to planning on painting up a few.



Every single one has some flaw that sticks out to me, but most are good enough to run some laps.

It is very strange going form primer to clear so quickly. The paint is so soft throughout the entire process if you press with your finger you will get a print. It did avoid the horrible wrinkling I kept getting that ruined at least a dozen cars I was trying to paint.



I am a bit side tracked because I am going to try to make this car with the 3D printer.



My hope is the glass and interior will work and I can just print one to add this car. I remember in the movie Greased Lightning the car swapped from fastback to standard for some strange reason from scene to scene. In the movie the blue was darker but I like the light blue here.

In the future I would like to make a mold for the fastback version but I think this Fairlane style is much less popular and did not seem to see much action.

So at least if I can get a decent enough print to play around with I can put this car on the track.

I have the red Carrera version but I do no think Scott drove a Talledega and I liked this one from the movie better.

Regarding your healing time- in a very odd way I have gotten some decent rest when injured. There is always some thing needing done around the house or some project. When I get hurt it is a rare opportunity to set and catch up on TV or whatever. All projects get ignored.

I hope you can find a bit of a silver lining in your recovery.

[slothead]

Wendell Scott is a hero of mine and I always loved the 1970 Ford Torino Cobra Sportsroof shown below.





(These photographs were taken by Michael Chiolero of his own vehicle and he granted permission for these photos to be used.)

As can be clearly seen this version has a different roof line than the Torino Talladega version released by Carrera. I got a poster of the Torino Cobra at the NY Auto Show back then and it hung on my wall for years as I dreamed of owning one one day. There was even a version of this car with hidden headlights, like the Cougar, which is even better in my opinion. I would LOVE to have you make something like this so I can finally own a few. And a 'Greased Lightening' livery would definitely end up alongside the Cyclones.

[waaytoomuchintothis]

Yep. That was an unsung hero of that era. The Talladega version got all the attention, but I always liked the lines of this car much better. There was a dark green one with hidden headlights a few blocks down the road from my house in those days, and I always heard that Cleveland rumbling up the street when he came by.

[slothead]

Something like this?



Hope this is giving Ken ideas for the project.

As a kid in high school if this car was at one end of a parking lot and a group of cute girls was at the other end, I'd have headed toward the car. Imagine how this car has improved in value over the past 5 decades. More than I can say for any of the former cuties I saw at my last high school reunion.

[crossovercrazy]

Ken,

You are becoming my "Obi Wan Kenobi - my only hope".

If make this 70-71 Torino with a racing hood, I'm good for a big batch for my Grand National, Grand National East, short track, etc. series. Of course, I'm also still down for a big batch of Roadrunners too!

[waaytoomuchintothis]

[waaytoomuchintothis]

Oops! I just saw that I forgot to put the exhausts on the Saleen, even though I cut out a spot for them to come through the bottom edge of the body. I'll put them on and post a picture tomorrow.

[slothead]

Very nice builds! The Cyclone turned out the way I was imagining mine would.

I'm holding off on doing more on my first Cyclone build while I work on getting the body and chassis combo (without interior and glass) up to speed on my track. I ordered some Quick Slicks for the SCX rear axle I'm using in the Pioneer Charger chassis. If I can get the lap time average down by about 0.3 seconds I'll complete the car. (I don't use the fastest lap for a car's qualification speed, it's the average of 5 laps sampled from a 25 lap run. I average the fastest lap from the 1st 5 laps, with the fastest laps from each of the remaining 5 lap segments to get a time reflective of how the car will perform in a feature race. Turning a single fast lap is not as important as consistency in a field of closely matched cars.)

I also have a Carrera Torino (#76) coming this week and will experiment with getting it's chassis to fit a Cyclone body. If it works out I may buy other Torinos to harvest the chassis for Proxie cars. The spare Torino body could get repainted and end up on the second Pioneer Charger chassis I got. Right now I'd love to have 2 competitive Cyclones in my Muscle Car Stocks class.

[Wobble]

[slothead]

That's where I trimmed the Pioneer Charger chassis and got a nice fit. I like the stance you have there. Do you have Pioneer Trans Am wheels on the car, or are those the ones that come with the street version of the Charger chassis?

I got SC01F Quick Slicks from SCC and put them on SCX NASCAR rear axle I'm using for the Cyclone and am very pleased. My desire to lower the Cyclone's qualification time was accomplished. The Cyclone went from last in it's class to 5th at 3.722 seconds. I wet sanded the tires with lighter fluid but there was still a bit of chatter so I'll the file the wheels to remove any flashing and redo the tires. I also might need to loosen the body screws.

I have a bunch of spare Cyclone parts to practice on before taking on the 2nd Cyclone kit. If I'm feeling confident I'll attempt the tricolor Pop Kola livery next.


The new Carrera Torino Talladega #76 arrived this week and was outfitted with Quick Slicks CA06F tires. The Torino qualified well and there are now a solid group of cars all within 0.3 seconds of each other.

[Wobble]

These are Pioneer T/A wheels I had spare but will not be used in this build as I want the Nascar steel wheel look on it. Also I'll be taking some material out of the top of the front arches to get it sitting a lot lower than in the photo.