I've been playing with my AK917, and am satisfied that the chance I took buying a pre-order was worth it. Good bones, the hardware seems decent and the body is just gorgeous. Let's hope we get a domestic parts distributor.
Being the oddball that I am, I decided to replace the body with something a little different. Raised in the muscle car era, I've always liked the '71 Trans AM from the movie "Smokey and the Bandit". Pro-Line makes one that is really nice, almost a Can-Am look with nice flared wheel wells and front air dam.
Before I started the conversion, I made some changes to the 917 body that needed to be addressed. Mainly the wheel well cutouts are wonky- not big enough and not blended well. I made a 70mm circle template and used that to clean up the wheel well clearances. Now the wheels don't rub and the wheels are centered in the wells. I also got rid of the Rlaarlo and white circle stickers and put on some Gulf ones. I'll put this body on a display chassis for show.
The chassis has a wheelbase of 260mm and a track width of approx. 195mm (depending on wheel offset). The '71 T/A has a wheelbase of 260mm and front track of 198mm with a rear track 207mm. Plenty of room to fit some period accurate wheels/tires. Tamiya makes some mesh wheels with adjustable offset and in different widths for their Porsche 934 that would be a good match. Here's the Pro-Line body... Two noses are included, but only one set of front end stickers- WTF?? The hood firebird sticker is also silver, I'd prefer gold (I'll probably fix that) to match the gold mesh wheels.
Here's my AK chassis with all the unneeded parts removed (I'll cut a proper foam front bumper after the new body is fitted). Also shown are the replacement body posts.
Here's a pic of the body roughly fitted to the AK chassis. It looks like everything is going to line up nicely (except for the rear body posts, which will have to go through the rear window) and with the right wheel offset should have a great stance.
Color is going to be straight gloss black with mirror chrome trim. I may use the headlights from the AK body, and rig up some other lights.
This chassis looks good for a whole bunch of different bodies, and 260mm is a very common size. I hope we start seeing some other body swaps (I was REALLY tempted to go with the Pro-Line '67 Mustang but it's more of a drag car style).
Being the oddball that I am, I decided to replace the body with something a little different. Raised in the muscle car era, I've always liked the '71 Trans AM from the movie "Smokey and the Bandit". Pro-Line makes one that is really nice, almost a Can-Am look with nice flared wheel wells and front air dam.
Before I started the conversion, I made some changes to the 917 body that needed to be addressed. Mainly the wheel well cutouts are wonky- not big enough and not blended well. I made a 70mm circle template and used that to clean up the wheel well clearances. Now the wheels don't rub and the wheels are centered in the wells. I also got rid of the Rlaarlo and white circle stickers and put on some Gulf ones. I'll put this body on a display chassis for show.
The chassis has a wheelbase of 260mm and a track width of approx. 195mm (depending on wheel offset). The '71 T/A has a wheelbase of 260mm and front track of 198mm with a rear track 207mm. Plenty of room to fit some period accurate wheels/tires. Tamiya makes some mesh wheels with adjustable offset and in different widths for their Porsche 934 that would be a good match. Here's the Pro-Line body... Two noses are included, but only one set of front end stickers- WTF?? The hood firebird sticker is also silver, I'd prefer gold (I'll probably fix that) to match the gold mesh wheels.
Here's my AK chassis with all the unneeded parts removed (I'll cut a proper foam front bumper after the new body is fitted). Also shown are the replacement body posts.
Here's a pic of the body roughly fitted to the AK chassis. It looks like everything is going to line up nicely (except for the rear body posts, which will have to go through the rear window) and with the right wheel offset should have a great stance.
Color is going to be straight gloss black with mirror chrome trim. I may use the headlights from the AK body, and rig up some other lights.
This chassis looks good for a whole bunch of different bodies, and 260mm is a very common size. I hope we start seeing some other body swaps (I was REALLY tempted to go with the Pro-Line '67 Mustang but it's more of a drag car style).
