INVADER - Nitro Slash drag car

[Doom!]

Well poop! I hate when your ready to go and you have to wait again.

 

[johnnydmd]

PETG sheets arriving today I will do a pull and see how it comes out. Should be good, I'm pretty confident. Then I'll cast the rear, which is waiting.

Probably hard to tell from the pic, but that mold is very heavily coated with Flex Seal clear, and hopefully will minimize any foam penetration. I *think* the foam will be enough to fill this, it's not really that much larger than the front half, and there was a decent amount of excess when I did the front. Might cut some wood blocks to plop in while the foam is rising just to be sure...

Meanwhile, last night started putting together another chassis that is going out.

This is the third one. So far the other two have gotten good reviews/feedback

I also fired up the car with the SH .28-8 and the new turbo head button. Got the needles set, and yeah, this has vastly more power than the modded KE25. I don't think any other mods are necessary to that engine aside from the head. Maybe ceramic bearings...

 

[johnnydmd]

Well...I managed a pull on the first try. It is pretty rough. Some of the detail was lost - like the hood scoop (and the hood vents would have been too had I not pressed them down while it was cooling. The form didn't hold up - the heat affected it, and it got some dimples and ripples. Well you live and learn I guess. I went ahead and put the inner decals and headlight masks on, and will paint it and use it for now. It'll look a little better painted and with the film off.

(I need to move those vent stickers over the wheels, doh).

The rear part I'm definitely going to use water putty for that. And I will print out new molds for the front (that are much more sectioned as well so I can demold more easily).

I sat it on the body, looks like it'll fit well. I'll put some post holes in tonight and see where I gotta reposition anything. It's possible I need to cut out holes for the shocks in the hood though. If so, I'll do something about that in the design on the next mold. I think though, I have enough clearance to drop the body down and get the carbon fiber splitter (which I'll also cut tonight and mount) down to 5-10mm over the road.

With the next form, since it'll be water putty, I will most definitely drill some suction holes in the hood vents, scoops. The grill formed rather well, but might do well to have some small suction holes there too.

 

[johnnydmd]

Got all the details on it, going to paint it tonight. It's basically a trial run as this front is going to be a spare and I want to see what works and doesn't.

Stupid me even got the splitter a little cockeyed, I swear I keep failing my "measure twice, cut once" mantra. That said, I do think it mounted well and all the other parts fit right.

Headlights are masked and ready to paint. I also started pouring the rear piece form, but had to stop when the rain started and I couldn't go outside and cut up the 2x4 pieces that will fill in most of the empty space.

One four pound can of water putty and a few wood chunks filled up the roof area. I have two more cans, and I'll put as much wood in there as I can fit, and that should wrap it up. I worry about demolding, due to the shapes and how it may hang up. However, now I can use a heat gun to at least soften up the molds and make it a lot easier to bend and pry them off in the spots I suspect will make it tough to slide off. I was sure to coat the mold with silicone spray lubricant, and tested to see if the putty would slide off easily, and it did.

I've started printing out the new molds for the new front form, which I sectioned a bit differently than last time, and that one should be very easy to demold.

 

[johnnydmd]

Rain. Just ain't stopping...so I can't cut the wood I need for the rear mold yet. So I decided to just go ahead and paint the front half and see how bad it might be. I decided to paint the hood vents too, using a stencil for the grating. The thing actually came out halfway decent I think. I do need to work on my fine brush skills, lol - the outlines of the hood vents are a little uneven, but I'll see if I can do better on the next one, or just mask it. Once I pulled the film off the piece, I realized that a lot of the imperfections were in that film, and that the body itself wasn't as bad as expected.

(Don't ask me why the hood scoop and fender vent stickers look purplish in this pic, they aren't in real life - and those sparkles on the hood are not visible with the naked eye - I think they are tiny air bubbles in the plastic?)

I should do the orange strip fatter next time I think.

Then it was time to assemble the headlights and glue them in (used hot glue for that).

I really love how the headlights came out! There are two LEDs in there, the green one, and then a white one that is underneath and lights up the bucket, which has the rims around it unpainted to allow them to light up. Kinda hard to see it in these pics tho.

This pic shows where the worst of the deformities are:

It's really not terribly noticeable at first glance, so this piece will suffice for now, and I'll get the new front form created "at my leisure".

Tonight I HOPE to pour the rest of the rear form, and while that's drying I'll paint the blower/engine, and I need to grind/shape a little on the front splitter left side to even it out since I somehow mounted it a little crooked.

 

[Doom!]

The front is a little wavy looking, but as you say, it's kind of a placeholder at the moment. I think the foam let you down on the first pull but still looks pretty darned good. I know the second go at it will be great.

 

[johnnydmd]

The front is a little wavy looking, but as you say, it's kind of a placeholder at the moment. I think the foam let you down on the first pull but still looks pretty darned good. I know the second go at it will be great.

The foam was worth a try, but in hindsight I should have figured it wouldn't withstand the heat. WF definitely warned me, lol. I really thought about just tossing it after taking the molds off and it being so mangled, but I figured I could see what I could do while waiting for the rear molds to print out.

I can take my time now on the front, I'm racing in two weeks and wanted this body for it, so hopefully the rear is done (and should be) this week and I can focus on finishing up some chassis that I promised to complete.

The rear of the car and spoiler section is gonna resemble something from a sci-fi movie, lol. I've got some internal ductwork that takes air in from the rear window scoops and funnels it out of the rear deck, through corrugated tubing, and into the spoiler and out of vents to add more downforce.

 

[Doom!]

Love watching your projects evolve, this is going to be cool. Love the Viper body and know you will do it justice.

 

[johnnydmd]

Finally, stopped raining! I got home from work, cut a two by four into a bunch of 7 inch chunks, nearly used the entire thing to fill the form! You don't realize how much space there is sometimes. Had some other wood I added as well for thinner/tighter spots. I used two more 4 lb cans of water putty and filled it nearly to the top. Figured I'd give it a day to harden and thoroughly dry, then pour the rest.

I will top it off tonight, let it dry, then demold tomorrow night. There was slight leakage, but that was surely at the seams where the mold pieces are taped together and not leaching through any perforations in the mold as I very thickly coated that mold with Flex Seal spray and then used silicone spray lubricant to make the putty slide off easily.

 

[johnnydmd]

Finished the pouring, let it dry a day, and demolded. This came off much, much easier, and the defects were much less severe and easily patched.

Basically some minor voids, some seams to sand down and fill.

As it dried, I noticed some spider cracks forming in various places, but nothing too bad. I expected that a bit, as that's what happens when you fill it with a lot of wood. Nothing too major, hopefully it doesn't get much worse. It's been drying for several days, and the cracks that formed don't seem worse. A few new ones appeared this morning but they were very thin. While it was still somewhat soft, I started scraping away (more like whittling) the front so that the front piece would mate over top.

After I was satisfied with the fit and that it would bolt up, I finished sanding.

That one long spider crack was becoming a PITA. The wood putty was so thin that I was applying would just re-crack as it dried. So, just figured the epoxy would fill and make it smooth, which it did.

The epoxy serves two purposes - one make it perfectly smooth - two, it aborbs into the putty making it much, much stronger. As long as this thing doesn't shrink up too much more as the inner reaches cure 100% over the wood chunks, it should be something that lasts a long time. I guess if cracks form, I'll fix and repair them as needed. My dragonoid form is 3 years old, same method (though I used less wood filler), and it's held up perfectly and looks the same as the day I finished it.

Meanwhile, as this thing fully cures overnight, I've started cutting the spoiler bits, and printing out more stuff for that.

Tomorrow I'll do a pull, and probably paint it as well. This really has been exhausting.

 

[Doom!]

Looking good, glad the back was easier than the front.

 

[Greywolf74]

Good stuff man!

 

[johnnydmd]

I did a pull, was gonna wait another day, but the epoxy coat seemed hard (it had been 12 hours). Pull came out pretty good - had one wrinkle that was avoidable but I didn't see it until too late (I'll just trim it and cover the scar with a decal, lol. It didn't wrap under the car as well as I'd have liked, but I really can't sag it any more or it'll really wrinkle. Might try swapping out one of the vacs for my shop vac next pull. The form held up nicely. I did notice some areas of the epoxy that deformed (probably not quite cured in a few spots). I'll sand those and re-fill as necessary after a few days. Got the body parts fitted and on the chassis - really sits nicely.

The wheel tubs are spot on! Body really fits well I think. Overall I'm really happy with this project even though it has drained the life out of me, lol. I'm gonna paint it tonight, and then take a break, though I will print out the new molds for casting the front form properly and get back to it in a few weeks time.

Ironically, and I doubt coincidentally, a company that frequents the FB groups I post on is coming out with the same body in May. I am very curious as to how they do it. If it's like their other bodies, it'll be high quality I'm sure - but it probably will use stickers for grill detail rather than try to form it, at least that's what they did with others.

 

[Doom!]

The back end looks pretty danged good, looking forward to seeing it painted up.

 

[johnnydmd]

Man. Trial and error. I swear, why is there always at least ONE error with every step? I wouldn't have minded this one as much, had I not already painted the dang body!

I never had this happen before, but the protective covering left all kinds of marks on the surface. Probably due to high heat, but really I think because this covering was sloppily applied by the manufacturer, and loose as hell. Of course I wouldn't see this until I got done painting and pulled the cover off.

Just totally aggravating. However, I do have more plastic coming in the mail, and can make another one, though I think I'll just run this one for now as a test/beater. I did rig up the lights, and get all the wiring done.

Conceptually I think the thing is working, just have to refine and execute it better.

I kinda mucked up the paint anyway, the sidepipe exits look a little silly(not sure why I made the silver part so fat!), and the green stripe wasn't lined up quite right. I'll put the mirrors back on, and then do some of the things I had planned like putting real window bolts in (which I think will look pretty awesome), and just run this thing and see how it does.

Design-wise, super stoked that everything fits perfectly. That was pretty nervewracking wondering if all the hard work would be lost and have to start over. Only thing I think I need to to is add some support inside the body where the rear spoiler bolts on, as pushing down on it flexes the body some. Thinking my best move might be a 3d printed brace that forms to the body.

 

[WickedFog]

Despite all the blems... damn it looks killer dude! I want one so bad!

 

[johnnydmd]

Despite all the blems... damn it looks killer dude! I want one so bad!

Thanks man, that actually makes me feel a little better. I know I can nail this, just was hoping last night I was done for a while, lol. My workspace is a hideous mess of trash all over, I really need to clean it all up!

Tonight I'm gonna do the rivets, thinking along the lines of like this in terms of spacing, etc. And fixing that faux sidepipe exhaust!

One thing that kinda shocked me, is just how much SMALLER the car looks with this body compared to the Proline Vette. I'll post some side by side pics tonight.
I just saw on Big Squid pics of the "other" Viper drag body coming out. I honestly thought of throwing in the towel when I heard about that and getting one, but now that I've seen the pics, I'm 100% sticking with this project. I don't quite like the looks of theirs, and as suspected the front is reminiscent of a Nascar with generic flat fascia's using stickers to simulate detail. It's a cool body for sure, and I'd have probably not even taken this on had I known, but I definitely prefer the real car's lines. Plus instead of tubbing the wheelwells, they just made the car a lot wider.

 

[WickedFog]

Yeah, yours looks way better dude. I wonder what this shell would look like done up all Road Warrior like Might be something to consider with this prototype later on.

Are you still planning on making new molds after this? I ask because almost every big project I take on, after the first attempt, I learn stuff about it. And sometimes I start from scratch after figuring out better ways to do something. The second and third attempts always seem to turn out better. Actually, I never really finish many projects because I tend to get to a point where I want to start over lol. You have far more willpower than I do in my old age

 

[johnnydmd]

Yeah, yours looks way better dude. I wonder what this shell would look like done up all Road Warrior like Might be something to consider with this prototype later on.

Are you still planning on making new molds after this? I ask because almost every big project I take on, after the first attempt, I learn stuff about it. And sometimes I start from scratch after figuring out better ways to do something. The second and third attempts always seem to turn out better. Actually, I never really finish many projects because I tend to get to a point where I want to start over lol. You have far more willpower than I do in my old age

I'm definitely re-doing the front mold using water putty. The rear mold is good to go, though I need to refine it and sand down the epoxy a bit in areas where it's got some blemishes, but I knew that from the get-go, I've always had to do that when slathering on a thick layer of slo-cure stuff. I'll probably use less 2x4 filler inside the front, just because I really fear cracking as the putty cures around it. The rear one seems stable though, no new cracks have formed in two days, and I think it's fully cured now.

Haha, I actually totally thought of doing some Mad Max/Road Warrior stuff with this one! I had bought some 1/2 inch corrugated tubing, and I was thinking of using it somewhere, maybe running a pair of vents out the back window and attach it to exit under the wing - actually that could be highly functional to suck air out of the body that might build up at high speed

 

[Doom!]

Shape wise you nailed it! Can't do much about flaws in the material. I saw the bitty design body and your is waaaay nicer looking. I know the final round of this is going to be killer.