1:16 Factory Five Roadster

Building this one for a fellow modeler. It will be a pseudo replica of his Factory Five Roadster. I'll be swapping out the 427 big block for a 3D printed engine that more closely represents what he has. I'm going to attempt to 3D print correct wheels for it as well. 

One of the downsides to this kit is the open frame tubes on the top side of the chassis. You can't see it under the interior, but it will be visible through the engine bay. 

I'm going to take up the bulk of the space with styrene strip first and then smooth out the rest with putty. I'm using 0.125" square stock but it's just slightly too wide to fit in the channels. Instead of trying to sand down each piece, I found it easier to take a 3mm wide chisel and widen each slot slightly to fit the styrene strips. 

First strip in place. I only filled back far enough to cover what would be seen through the open hood. 

All of the filler strips in place. I'll sand everything down roughly to shape and then coat it with some putty to finish. 

I also started work on the body. In addition to the opening hood, this kit also has opening doors and trunk. All of the openings have a false panel molded in place to add strength to the body. I removed the false panel from the hood and trunk so I could start working on the fit of these panels. I'm leaving the door panels in place for now as I still need to do some more body work and I don't want to risk snapping it in two. 

Trunk lid fit in place. I also sanded off the rivets around the interior opening that would normally be used for a tonneau cover as the subject I'm modeling doesn't have them. 

I thinned the hood scoop opening as well as fit the hood in place. 

The subject I'm modeling has a smooth hood underside with no undercoating. The kit parts have a textured surface which I'm working on removing. I got the bulk of it off, but I still need to apply a skim coat of filler and then sand it again. 

Did some more work on cleaning up the chassis. Not a fan of these square blobs on the A-arms which are a result of the molding process. 

A little bit of time with an Xacto blade, a file and some sandpaper certainly makes it look a lot better. It's not perfect, but it won't be highly visible either. 

On the car I'm replicating, the hood clasps are a little further back, so I filled in the kit locations with some styrene rod. 

I have also started replicating the underhood reinforcement. It's a fiberglass hood, so all of this will eventually be smoothed out and painted body color. Here I'm making a pattern of the corner. 

From the pattern, I'm able to cut this corner piece from .015" sheet styrene. 

Both corners cut out and glued in place and then the section between is .015" styrene strip. 

All of the reinforcement is complete and installed. Once it dries, it will get sanded and smoothed out with some filler. 

I also need to modify the trunk area. The full scale I'm replicating has a three level trunk interior, without the boxes in the forward corners. Here those boxes have been removed. 

Starting to fit the first of the new floor levels into the kit part. 

Sanded down the underhood bracing and cleaned up all of the glue squeeze out. 

Added a little Mr. Dissolved Putty to fill in all the gaps. 

Finished hacking up the kit trunk area so it can fit it with a floor that looks more like the real thing. 

Here is the new floor all glued up out of sheet and strip styrene. The little cutout in the middle layer is for a battery cut off switch that I will add later. 

New floor test fit in place. I still need to fix the open areas of the walls so the floor isn't glued in place yet. 

And test fit into the body to see how it looks. 

So this model of the Cobra doesn't have the oil cooler scoop under the nose. The Factory Five Roadster I'm trying to replicate does not. The owner doesn't seem to mind, but I can't leave well enough alone... 

Marking out the approximate location of the new scoop. 

No going back now. 

First piece of sheet styrene in place. 

Front view. This is just the "bones" of the new scoop. I'll add some epoxy putty later to the outside to get it to the correct shape once the sides have been added. It also needs to be trimmed at the bottom because it's a little too tall. The actual hole will also be cut in later. 

Sides have been added with styrene and then filled in with some Milliput epoxy putty. 

Roughing in the shape of the new oil cooler scoop with sandpaper and files. I also laid out the opening which will be cut out once I've got the sides mostly shaped. 

Close to final shape. 

Opening has been cut out using a rotary tool to rough in the shape and then fine tune with files and sandpaper. Pretty happy with the result.