1:12 Tamiya Porsche 910 :- 6- Underfloor & suspension springs

Back to the lower part of the Porsche & to paint the under floor.  Had some different ideas on what colour to do for the whole car, but we had just seen a nice blue Aston at an race so decided to do it in a similar shade of blue.

Best match was a Halford's car spray, which now does go well on plastic kits. After masking off all floor area of the car that had been done before it was sprayed light coats of grey primer to give the paint a good base, giving it a light sand between coats to give a good base.

When fully dry after 24hrs I gave the under floor gradual light coats of the blue using very fine grade sanding sticks between spraying.  When done it had a final coat of clear lacquer to help with the finish.
















Time to spruce up the car's springs.  I could have left them black, but we have seen on race cars quite a few powder coated in red, yellow etc. I sprayed the springs in Humbrol matt primer, then a couple of coats of gloss Bright Red (Humbrol 19).  A good way to hold them while painting was to use a skewer to hold all the springs in place allowing me to turn them while spraying.

1:12 Tamiya Porsche 910 :- 5- Exhausts

Now to do the exhausts.  The pipes were done as per stage 7, but to make sure the pipes C16 to C21 set in the right position I dry fitted them in the mounting holes on the engine block till set.  All what was then needed was to sand & fill the complete system to remove any seams.

When it came to painting I followed Tamiya's instruction & sprayed them Black...  WRONG! just see below how they came out

Having seen race cars this is not how it should be.  Time to give them a sand to take off most the paint without removing any detail & re-do them. 

This time I gave them a base coat of Vallejo grey primer & allowed it to cure.  The front part of the pipes in a 1:1 mix of Vallejo Gun Metal Grey & Matt Black & the box section in just Gun Metal Grey.  The rear pipes were done in Vallejo Buff (976) as if coated in a heat protective layer & allowed this to dry for 48hrs.  All that was needed then was to scratch back some of this layer to show the grey base to simulate wear & tear.  To me these now look more real than before.

With the pipes set at the correct angle they glued into the engine block with no issues & there you have the complete unit ready to mount in the chassis.

1:12 Tamiya Porsche 910 :- 4- Finishing the engine

To give the engine a bit of a "used" look & to highlight some of the details I painted the oil cooler grill on the gearbox with Gun metal grey  (70.863) together with some dry brushing of the engine block with it. I painted the alternator, fuel filter unit, distributor & the belt/pulley in matt black.  The fan unit was first painted in Black metallic (71.073) Then the blades & the pulleys were painted Gun metal grey to make them stand out.

These were fitted to the engine together with the painted fuel pump (Part No. F3), the rear gearbox support & part C15. Using the clear tubing I cut the fuel pipes to the lengths given & using a thin superglue fixed them to the engine block.

I found that some of the clear tubing measurements are also a bit too short for my liking, so I advise to add 5-7mm to each & then test fit & cut as required. As you can see below a couple of mine show a nasty kink in the tubes, which in a real car wouldn't happen.

When it came to fit the ignition wires I had a suspicion that the tubing diameter was too thin to go on the engine block & when testing it out found this to be true.

 It was OK for the distributor but no way could I get it to go on the engine.  I keep silicon tubing used by carp fishermen that comes in different diameters for various projects & by using this to make a spark plug "cover" it got round the issue as small bits of tubing were glued to the engine block & then the tubing from the kit was glued inside these instead.