Toyota Celica LB Turbo Group 5

This model doesn't exist, at least not the way I am going to build it. The main part is the beautiful 58009 Toyota Celica LB Turbo Gr.5 bodyset released back in 1978. Since I own my Monster Beetle and even more my XR311, I felt into a passion for Tamiya very first RC models, more precisely for their so highly detailed bodysets.

I'm not rich enough to offer myself this model original as per the 1978 release since prices are reaching too serious amounts for me. But the full bodyset was re-released a few years ago and it remains affordable even if its getting rare. But then, I had to find a decent chassis to hold it. The main issue is that models of that time were 1/12th scale and not 1/10th like nowadays. I found two modern candidates to fit this body on:
 the Tamtech Gear GT-01 chassis
 the M-01 or M-02 chassis

I don't like the Tamtech chassis: I can't really explain why, apart that I see it as a toy. Since I don't like it, let's go for the M-chassis...

The Toyota Celica LB Turbo Gr. 5 family

This model original chassis is an update of Tamiya first On-road chassis, and more precisely, it is the Competition Special variant. The bodyshells of the 4 models using it are 1/12th scale and come from the "Big Scale" static models line-up, thus their very high level of details.

The original model	Boxart
58005 Lamborghini Countach LP500S (1978)	58006 Martini Porsche 936 Turbo (1978)
58008 Lamborghini Countach LP500S (Competition Special) (1978)	58009 Toyota Celica LB Turbo Gr.5 (Competition Special) (1978)

This was the orginal bodyshell and chassis overview. Now let's see how to fit this bodyshell onto a chassis it was never meant for.

Chassis candidates

As mentioned in the header, not a single currently sold Tamiya chassis kit can fit this body on for scale reason. But there are candidates, among which one is used by Tamiya.

In fact, the Tamtech Gear series is 1/12th scale and is used to fit bodyshells re-released versions of the first RC models. But they are now lexan versions and no longer ABS versions as they orginally were. Despite of Tamiya high quality standards, lexan doesn't provide detail accuracy as the ABS does. The currently sold models in this series use the GT-01 chassis.

Tamtech Gear GT-01 chassis	From below
56706 Porsche Turbo RSR Type 934	56708 Porsche Turbo RSR Jagermeister
57103 Ferrari GTO	57104 Porsche Turbo RSR Type 935
57105 Lamborghini Countach LP500S	84057 Porsche 934

The 934 Porsche is the lexan re-release of the highly desired 58001 kit bodyshell from 1976: here in Vaillant and Jagermeister variants. A limited edition even gave tribute to the first ever limited "black edition" of the model that started Tamiya RC success story. Also notice the splendid Porsche Turbo RSR type 935 which is the lexan bodyshell version of Tamiya 2nd RC model.

Apart that I don't like the Tamtech GT-01 chassis, its wheelbase measures 190mm whereas the Celica LB Turbo bodyshell is 206mm. But the Tamtech Ferrari GTO (57103) chassis is very close with a 204mm wheelbase.

So I had to find another chassis alternative to fit on the Toyota Celica LB Turbo bodyset. It had to be short wheelbased, but above everything, it also had to be not too wide since the bodyshell is pretty tight. I logically searched for an M-chassis, but my Suzuki Swift chassis couldn't be a valid donor because of the vertically mounted dampers and the steering servo mounts that raise way too high for such a low-profile body shape. But M-01 and M-02 variants are goods candidates: to stay authentic, I chose the M-02 since the Celica LB Turbo is rear-wheel drive.

The M-02 chassis

The chassis I am going to use for this project

The above photo of my M-02 chassis was shot short when it arrived. It is far from being brand new, it needs serious cleaning, but it perfectly runs (and features ball bearings all around). It is the perfect candidate for my project, despite of its 210mm wheelbase to be compared to the original chassis 206mm. I will also have to find a solution for the wheels: original ones are too rare, too expensive, and can't be fitted onto an M-chassis (as far as I know). As you can see on the photo, battery holders and front body mounts were already removed.

This is the project overview: the only common part between the two is the bodyset.

Working on the chassis

The M-02 chassis was never designed to receive the Celica LB Turbo Gr.5 body: first, there's a 17 year difference between the two and second, Tamiya certainly didn't anticipate a nostalgic fan would attempt this some 15 years later . So it will require some adaptations for this low-profile front end and thin body to fit on. I will also have to think about a new body mount system since the original can't fit on the M-02.

Once the body mounts are removed, the body still needs to be lowered. The first candidate to work on is the steering rod.

Reversed steering rod

Height gain

This mod gives a 6mm height clearance where the steering rod links to the steering system. You only need to fix the sterring rod from the bottom at both ends, precisely the contrary of what the M-02 manual recommends. You can see the height gain on the second photo that shows the original mounting.
But that same photo also points out why Tamiya doesn't recommend to mound the steering rod downside: the steering rod end is now in contact with the top of the front gearbox housing. The solution is to trim the rod end lower part so it can smoothly slide onto the top of the gearbox housing. There's still a contact, but it doesn't significantly bothers the steering system. Never forget that this project is made to run, but not to race.

For the previous 6mm height gain to be effective, you also need to rework the steering linkage caps because they are still 3mm too hight.

What's needed to replace one cap

Right cap removed and replaced

For the complete system, you need four Rilsan collars and two 1280 metal bearings (those come from my Xsara WRC when I replaced them with ball bearings). At the left side on the second photo, the black part fixed by a screw is the cap that will be removed for this mod. The right side shows the finished mod. The Rilsan collars need to be pretty thin since their function is to retain the steering linkage, not to block them.

Compared to the standard M-02 chassis, the front end side of the body is now 6mm lower and the steering system is still smooth enough.

Second requirement: a transversally mounted modern battery pack needs to be placed and leave room to the body to take place. Since 1978, battery packs seriously evolved, both gaining elements (thus capacity) and shape wise. The M-02 chassis leaves no alternative: the battery pack has to be in stick format and transversally inserted into the chassis. On its side, the bodyshell is at its shortest width at that exact place (between the doors): 130mm wide, no more. Well, where's the fun when everything is easy?

The chassis with battery monts: too wide!	A modern battery stick pack: to wide too
An old NiCad stick pack with tightened wires: it fits!	Checking with the whole chassis

These photos only lead to one conclusion: neither the M-02 chassis nor modern battery stick packs can fit. Hopefully, I still had an old NiCad pack in my spare stock and it is a few millimeters shorter than the others. Short tightening the plug cables saves a few additional millimeters and the whole thing can be inserted bewteen the body doors. Not a single millimeter left, but it fits. OK, short tightening battery cables this way is not to be recommended, but I found no other solution. You may eventually consider LiPo batteries as their format is significantly smaller: I don't have any and my charger can't handle them. A complete LiPo investment only because of this project was too much for me.

Now that I found a solution, let's work on the battery holders since the bodyshell is currently the only thing that retains the battery.

On the first photo of the above series, stock holders are too wide to fit inside the body. I still need to free up a few millimeters when the side plates are removed. A way to do this is to cut the two spurs on the chassis side to free up 4mm. The side plates can't be used anymore to maintain the battery stick pack: rubber bands should do the job. This is not a great solution since rubber bands will never retain the battery stick pack as firmly as the side plates would. But since the bodyshell is pretty fragile, my guess is that the battery stick pack shouldn't move too much since I'll have to drive this model carefully.

Update while working on the chassis: I know it's stupid, but I forgot something important: I should have checked that my old 1300 NiCad battery pack still works . At full charge, I only had time enough to setup the TEU-101BK speed controller and to check it works fine... and that's all. Not enough to just hope making this model move, so I had to find another battery pack.

The stick pack battery width being still a problem, I tried to understand how to make it shorter by anatomizing (well, pretty much atomizing) the one that can't be used for anything good anymore. The trick is located at the battery pack end were the wires get to the plug: every battery stick pack has a kind of plastic cap that is used to protect its elements and to guide the wires so they get out horizontally towards the plug. You have to very carefully cut the plastic shield to remove the plastic cap end... and then you'll be suprised to see that the plug wires are solded vertically (compared to the stick pack axis). From a complete 140mm long battery stcik pack (with plug wires getting out horizontally and then folding them vertically), I now get a capless stick pack with its plug wires naturally oriented vertically for a total width of 130mm. 130mm, that exact width available inside the bodyshell. Well, almost...

Almost, because the inside width between the bodyshell doors is exactly 130mm, but 2 side mounts molded on the inner bodyshell make it 4mm shorter at the precise location where the battery stick pack needs to go.

The least I can say is that this bodyset is not a direct fit onto an M-02 chassis. So, let's trim these mounts to leave room for the new battery stick pack.

The battery stick pack made shorter

Trimming the inner body

Without the plastic cap end, the plug wires are obviously made to get out vertically. A Rilsan collar will be needed to hold them correctly. Now the battery stick pack fits inside the bodyshell since the inner body molded side mounts are trimmed (on both sides).

November 2010 update:
My last NiCad battery dying due to its age, I had to think about a new solution to feed the chassis. In fact, the solution was very easy and would have saved me a lot of time: there are very small battery packs which are fully compatible out there. These battery packs are the ones used on Tamtech models: their capacity is limited, but their shape is much smaller compared to classic battery packs. They are so small that I had to inserted foam to better fit mine into the chassis battery tray.

Tamtech battery pack with its plug converter

The battery pack fitted into the châssis

Autonomy severely drops but this solution is the best since the Mabushi 540 motor consumption is nt very important. You only need to make an adaptator to ensure plug compatibility.

Now let's work on this: in the original model manual, Tamiya recommends two different ways to fix an antenna tube, but I like none of them:
   by drilling a hole into the rooftop (1) and damaging the bodyshell
   by not mounting the window pane on the driver side (2) which makes the body looks incomplete

So I thought about alternative ways to fix the antenna tube:
   using the front wings holes (3)
   drilling the rear window pane (4): this a solution used on many modern models, but I don't like this one either
   drilling into one of the rear grills (5)
   alternative method number 6 which is not shown on the photo below because the antenna tube fits onto the chassis 

Since I chose not to drill the bodyshell, I won't drill the rear window pane and won't leave the pilot side window pane apart either. Alternatives 1, 2 and 4 are not good for me. Let's try alternatives 3 and 5 that I quickly tested to see how they look:

Using the front left wing hole

Using the rear right grill

Using the front wing hole looks weird to me. Using the rear grill looks much better and tends to remind how it looks on my XR311. But this idea led me to another that I defintely prefer: this is alternative number 6.

This idea is to place the antenna tube at the rear, outside the overall bodyshell. To do this, I used the chassis itself, and more specifically the rear bumper that is only good enought for better enclosing the rear gearbox housing since it is way too short to prevent any shock from the rear.

Antenna post

Close up on the antenna tube notch

This is easy to make: just drill a hole on the right side of the rear bumper, use a flat head screw that you insert from below and just add a blocking nut to hold the part. For the arm, I just found an E1 part from a TA-01 chassis I had in my spare stock (this part the antenna post mount on the standard TA-01 chassis). You can use other parts if you want, the main point being you need 40mm from the rear bumper end. You should not insert the antenna wire from below that part since it could hit the ground when running the car and cut the antenna wire. This is the reason why I made a notch at the antennna tube bottom to insert the antenna wire and keep it safe.

The bodyset is 1/12th scale and not 1/10th like current productions: the wheels need to comply with the original scale. As I said before, the original wheel set can't be used, at least not at the rear since the original traction architecture doesn't use hexagons. These first appeared with dents in 1986 on the 58059 Porsche 959 kit, and later in 1990 on the 58087 Manta Ray kit with the usual shape as we have them nowadays.
In the current production line-up, Tamtech GT-01 chassis wheels are 1/12th scale: with some modification and the use of special hexagons, they can fit an M-02 chassis.

58009 Toyota Celica LB Turbo Gr.5 :

Diplo tire set 'Front-A' w/ wheel (SP-5075)

Sponge tire set 'Rear-B' w/ wheel (SP-5057)

Tamtech 40145 / 40533 and 40534 / 40146

Checking dimensions:
   The orignal Celica front tires feature a 50mm diameter and are 24mm wide: Tamtechs are respectively 54mm and 20mm.
   At the rear, original diameter is 60mm and width is 30mm: Tamtechs are respectively 54mm and 25mm.

The Tamtech wheel set is an hop-up version for the two Porsche 934 Turbo RSR models (Vaillant and Jagermeister liveries): the standard wheelset has golden rim branches whereas the hop-up version is fully chromed. On the original Celica kit, rims are colored flat grey, but the rear wing being chromed (as well as other decoration parts on the body), I decided to leave the rims fully chromed. The Tamtech rims diameter is somewhat much bigger than the Celica originals: on the original Celica model, rear tires are very thick whereas the Tamtech have a very low-profile shape. In order to make the rear tires look thicker, I just painted the external rim sides in flat black .

But mounting Tamtech rims on an M-chassis is no direct fit: you need to make some adaptations:
   redrill the rims axis with a 4mm hole so they can mount on the M-chassis axles (as they are bigger than the Tamtech's). This is easy to do.
   the Tamtech hexagons are smaller than M-chassis standard.

The big issue is that such wheel adapters do not exist... well, they do...

The Tamtech wheel system and M-chassis hexagons

Adapters made by MAKi aka maquettedecox

These adapters were designed by MAKi aka maquettedecox, a member of the Vintage-RC forum (this explains the special gift he sent me). Technically, these are a two-piece system: a 10mm hexagon glued on a 12mm round part (which is an M-chassis hexagon size). The round part is drilled in order to leave room for the wheel axle pin.

Next: an M-02 wheel width is 152mm but here we need a 170mm width in order for the wheels to get as close as possible from the body arch wheel. The difference is mainly due to the tire width (30mm on the original Celica versus 25mm on the Tamtech). So we need to "fill" the 18mm difference at the rear of the chassis.

So, I used longer wheel axles because you can't offset rims by 9mm on each side and keep the M-02 wheel axles. In my spare part stock, I found wheel axles for my King Blackfoot: they are 44mm long (M-02 are 35mm). Obviously, a Tamtech rim is not wide like a Monster Truck's: some adaptation is required.

What you need for one wheel

Final result

Here's the list of the parts you need:
   Super Blackfoot or King Blackfoot rear wheel axle (reference 9805391 for the set of 2)
   two 850 metal bearings (a ball bearing is useless here)
   two 1150 plastic bearing (or better, 1150 ball bearings: the plastic ones will be replaced)
   and of course, MAKi's special adapters

Assemble everything as per the second photo: the most important is to fit the 850 metal bearing between the upright 1150 ball bearing and the plastic one shown on the photo. The plastic one will then receive the little wheel pin and MAKi's adapter. Mixing the order of the parts will firmly block the wheel. Now fit the wheel and screw the wheel nut. The rear wheel width is now  170mm long and the wheels are located right next to the body wheel arches.

To be honest, I would never have gone into this project without MAKi's solution that lets you use the 1/12th scale Tamtech rims on an M-Chassis. Only considering the wheels dimensions, it is possible to use M-chassis rims with 55D tires at the front and 60D tires at the rear. But as far as I searched, I couldn't find any nice looking rim for this project. Moreover, MAKi can provide different offsets for his adapters: mine have 6mm and 8mm offsets. But I made a little mistake when ordering: 7mm offset is perfect at the front, but tires hit the bodyshell arches at the rear. Reducing the offset to 5mm at the rear is the correct dimension. The 8mm offset adapters are not used... for the moment.

Well, this is not about cooking really: we're going to reduce the chassis wheelbase . The M-02 chassis is the shortest existing variant in Tamiya current range of products, but its 210mm wheelbase is still too long to perfectly fit the Toyota Celica LB Turbo Gr.5 bodyshell since its original chassis wheelbase is 206mm. We have to reduce it by 4mm and I only found two ways to do it:
   the hard way: moving the front and rear divetrains 2mm inwards the chassis
   the butcher way: cutting the chassis

The first way is pretty difficult to operate because of the suspension system. But here's how to proceed (thanks to DEE aka On the road again from the M-Chassis Forum):

The rear left arm (yes, my chassis still needs to be cleaned)

Spacers for the suspension system

On the first photo, you need to remove 2mm from the outer left side of the arm (A), 1mm from the inner right side (B) and 1mm from the outer right side of the arm fixation on the chassis (C). The 2mm to cut in (A) are only meant to keep the rear left arm free from the gearbox housing.
The second image comes from the user manual. In (1), place a 2mm thick spacer in order to move the spirng outwards, and add another 2mm thick spacer along the arm (2) on the MA20 screw axis. This second spacer is meant to maintain the lower spring axle along the arm.

These operations (except step A) have to be done on the 3 other arms to reduce the overall chassis wheelbase by 4mm. After some thinking about this mod, I decided not to go for it since I considered the arms would become too fragile to deal with running stress.

So I chose option 2: cutting the chassis. I know this is not the most elegant way, and yes, you could achieve a much better looking result. Unfortunetly, I had to deal with with the limited tools I have here and couldn't get better.

Cutting and reassembling the chassis

Rebuilt chassis

The process is pretty easy to perform: unbuilt the front and rear gearboxes to release the central chassis frame. In order to cut more accurately, I recommend to screw the two parts of the chassis frame together.
Then, you need to chose exactly where to cut: I decided to cut between the steering servo mounts since I noticed an exact 4mm free space that would allow me to still use the chassis holes to mount the steering servo. After drawing the two cutting lines separated by a 4mm distance, the saw got some action.

The next steps are to fix the chassis main frame parts we got after cutting. You can do this several ways but here's how I did: I chose to recycle FRP plates that originally hold mechanical speed controller resistors. You could probably think of better parts, but these were available so I used them . I used two FRP plates (previously cut) on the left side of the chassis and one more on the right side lower part of the frame. Drill holes in the frame to screw the plates and the chassis parts together.
On the right side of the chassis frame, you can't fix a plate in the upper part because of the steering servo: no problem since the servo mounts are now perfectly aligned with the original mounting holes on the chassis. So it's the sterring servo itself that will be used to hold the upper chassis frame. If the mounting holes were not perfectly adjusted, one of the chassis mounting holes just needs to be redrilled to achieve the same result.
Either the steering rod needs lenght needs to be adjusted or the servo neutral position needs to be setup up again since the steering servo has moved 4mm towards the front of the chassis compared to its original position on the full length chassis frame.

Now you need to tie cables with care since it is better to hide as many cables as possible for the final model to look nice. You also have to consider the pilot: it is glued on the bodyshell door but comes right above the chassis. The installed battery stick pack will definitely remain into this chassis since it needs to be placed with precision not to make the body move on either side. Last, the Rilsan collars have been painted flat black to better hide them.



The chassis is now finished with an exact 206mm wheelbase. After performing a test run, everything works as it should, from the steering to the overall shortened chassis strength. One more thing, and a pretty much important one: body mounts. As I said before, I don't want to drill the body. The original Celica chassis body fix system can't be used on the M-chassis, and the M-02 body mounts can't either. As the solution I chose can only be fitted once the body is painted, I will talking about the body mounts later on.

The bodyshell

This is the 58009 Toyota Celica LB Turbo Gr.5 bodyshell that was first released back in 1978, but the original version is blue whereas mine is white. The reason is because Tamiya re-released this body set as a limited edition for the 2009 Shizuoka model fair. It was sold only to the model fair visitors which explains why it is pretty rare (not as rare as the original bodyset from 1978 though). Apart from the plastic color and the package (a bag versus a box for the original), the two versions of this body set are exactly the same. Of course, mine is complete with all accessories, stickers, and manual... in japanese .

I chose to do it as per Tamiya standard livery, what's commonly called "boxart". To do this, I'll need some (!) paint:

85015 TS-15	87044 Surface Primer	XF-1 Flat black	X-11 Silver	X-26 Clear orange	X-27 Clear red	XF-7 Flat red
		XF-2 Flat white	XF-15 Flesh	XF-8 Flat blue	XF-3 Flat yellow	X-8 Lemon yellow

All these jars and sprays are needed to entirely paint and decorate this body set, including the driver, but still, one very important color is missing for this project. I spent a lot of time searching for a solution, I read tons of things about it, I made several tests all leading to bad results or even disasters. Then I found a solution: we'll see this further on.

The first thing to do is sanding some moulding defects here and there with 800 then 1200 sand paper. After my experience with my Monster Beetle bodyshell, I decided to glue the parts that need to receive the same paint as the rest of the bodyshell: namely to two rear wing stays and the front grill. The main interest is to sand the extra glue and to hide joints between parts.
Then, as for any bodyshell whether it is lexan or ABS, you need to thoroughly wash it in hot water with washing dishes product: this removes any trace of unmoulding product.

In order to make the paint better adhere the bodyshell, I thoroughly sanded it with 1200 sand paper. The aim is to create micro scratches on the plastic: you won't see them after painting, but they allow the paint to better stay on the plastic.

Before painting, I first sprayed a thin coat of fine surface primer on the inside of the bodyshell: this provides the best adherence condition for the paint. But the bodyshell needs to be painted interior and exterior and this can't be done in a single step.
I found useless to show you a photo of the surface primer coat since it bith the bodyshell and the primer are white .

To get this bodyshell painted, the best is to do this step by step: first, spray the surface primer on the interior and then paint it (TS-15). Next, spray the surface primer on the outside of the bodyshell, re-spray a light coat of paint on the inside to cover the primer projections and then paint it from the outside. You can easily perform the "interior paint finish" and the exterior painting in one step.



The above photo shows the interior after spraying the primer and the first coat of paint. The paint coat is not finished because I used quite an old almost empty spray I had and I suspected particles in the paint (there was, you can't see them on the photo).

Next, I finished the interior paint, sprayed the primer on the outside. After a light sanding with 1200 paper, I resprayed a light coat on the inside before I sprayed the first coat on the outside.

I always let each coat dry for half a day before spraying again: three thin coats were needed to completly paint the bodyshell. Next, I needed to perform quite a big work on finishing since my painting talents are limited. Moreover, I found some "oil effects" at two different places: obviously, the paint didn't stay there. To put things right, as for paint drips, you need to sand the defect (1200 paper), spray primer and then spray 2 or 3 coats of paint. Do this until you get satisfied with the result.

My painting talent is so bad that I needed 5 days to correctly paint this bodyshell at the rate of 2 painting sessions a day. The result is not too bad but I wanted something much better: question of talent, either you are gifted... or not .



While painting, I discovered something new: Tamiya was forced to modify its TS paint composition due to the new "trendy" environmental laws. So my two spray cans were the new generation and I noticed differences compared to old ones:
   the paint expulses with more force than before but it doesn't go farther
   the paint is more liquid.
This does make a change since, after measures with an old spray can, I found that you now need to increase the distance between the can and the part to paint by almost 10cm (to reach about an overall 30cm distance) in order to avoid paint drips. The problem is that less paint reaches the part to be painted and this tremendously increases the volume of paint needed to paint something.

To finish the bodyshell, you need to glue many additionnal parts. The parts meant to be painted the same color as the rest of the body were already glued before painting. For all others, I decided to paint them directly on their trees because many of them are too small. The driver also benefits from my super skilled paint talent:

Zooming is cruel, but the driver looks better than it seems on the photo: but I have to admit this is no piece of art . The "chrome" parts were sprayed with the best can I could find ("best" is actually "less worse") and black parts were painted XF-1 (flat black). Rear lights were painted clear red and orange: for a better effect, I painted them 2 coats inside and outside since they have to be glued on a "chrome" part.

In modeling, two colors are a serious issue for every paint manufacturer:
   gold
   chrome
In fact, the "miror effect" is the problem, but the material on which to paint is another one (there's no problem for metal, but plastic can't be ionized). For the RC market, manufacturers can produce gold plastic parts (like the rims for my Fox and my Monster Beetle) or chromed plastic parts (like my Blackfoot Xtreme bumpers and my Madbull rims). But they use industrial processes that you can't reproduce at home.

I have been searching and testing for months, but nothing gives any kind of valuable results. Here are my main attempts:
   chrome sprays: they lie! Either bought in hardware stores or car centers, the dozen sprays I tested give the same result: pathetic, deplorable, rubbish or crap. With or without primer, with or without a flat or satin black coat, those sprays are worth nothing. The best result you can get is a dull silver grey. But all share the very same flaw: whatever touches the paint makes it turn either drak grey or black. All the chrome sprays I tested don't derserve their name.
   adhesive "miror" vinyls: either for windows or any other surface, they all are thick, quite rigid and to not stick onto the plastic, even plastic previousled sanded or primered. Avoid them too.
   tinfoil + glue or double-sided tape: get to your kitchen, and you can cheaply test it. Whatever the tinfoil quality, the glue doesn't spread uniformly and thus shows marks. I couldn't test with glue sprays, but results are not very good anyway since the tinfoil is the best chrome and cheapest candidate so far, but still not reaching a real chrome effect.
   Spaz Stix paint: unfortunately, you can't use it on ABS. But it is an excellent solution for lexan bodies since it really makes a shiny chrome effect.

Here is another alternative I tested, but I recommend to use it only on small surfaces:

Bare-Metal Foil chrome

The part to chrome

The result

Shiny!

The Bare-Metal foil is a adhesive super thin tinfoil. It is meant to be placed onto the part and than to smoothly applied with a Q-tip or a paintbrush. On a part with such dimensions, this solution reveals to be difficult to use because the sheet is very thin and it folds very easily showing marks.

The photos show a first try, but it is very difficult to avoid marks on such a big surface. Being so thin, the big advantage is you can place different tinfoil pieces close to each other without noticing the separation lines, unless you look for them with a magnifying glass.

The resultat is the best I reached so far and the sorry state of my rear wing shows the long sequels of tests I performed, despite of intensively sanding it between each test. The last photo shows how shiny the result is, but we're still far from a true "chrome" as per my standards. So this Bare-Metal Foil Chrome solution is the best solution I found for small surfaces (like window outlining, details like door handles), but it is not meant to provide a chrome "miror" effect on large surfaces.

At that point, I had no more clues on how to get the desired result, so I started to search again. Browsing from links to others, I finally got to Alsa Corporation website and found this video:

Great! I found the french distributor I immediately called. And then, happyness: the person confirms they offer a true chrome miror effect, they can process a single part (they don't do large series) and they already successfully made it onto ABS model parts. Moreover, they gently strip the part to clean it in order to guarantee the result, and they add a vanish coat for protection. This process has a cost, but it is significantly inferior to what I really spent for those damned so-called chrome sprays. A few mails after, and after sending them the part to be chromed, here's the result:

The part as I sent it...

... and how it came back

wow! To be honest, the photo is far from capturing the real effect: with or without flash, using different light sources, I just couldn't make the photo better.

Now the bodyshell is finished, it still needs to be fitted onto the chassis.
On the original model, there is a bar at the bottom of the doors that fits directly onto the chassis. This system is difficult to reproduce with the M-02 chassis: you may find a way to reach the central frame, but it would be pretty weak due to the large offset. Bad luck too, one of the mounts is located right where the stick pack goes and this makes it impossible to fit.

As I don't want to drill the bodyshell, this means I can't use the M-02 chassis system: I need something different. I thought about Velcro bands on the inside of the bodyshell but experience tells me fitting the body is highly imprecise and the Velco bands tend to peel off.

A few months ago, a friend of mine showed me the Stealth Body Mounts from ABC Hobby. This system fits from the inside of the bodyshell: it is invisible (since no holes are required), reliable and fitting the body onto the chassis is very precise. There are two parts: one is mounted onto the chassis and the other one is a kind of claw you stick on the inside of the bodyshell. Here it is:

Out of the bag

the mount

The different positions

These official images from ABC Hobby explain how it works and how you can rotate the claw position to make it perfectly fit the bodyshell design. It's a pretty smart system, even more since it is meant to be directly fitted onto the original body mounts and that it only requires a 20mm clearance.

Fitting the Celica LB Turbo Gr.5 bodyshell onto the M-02 chassis is a question of millimeters, especially on the front of the car (since I even had to gain a 6mm clearance). It is not possible to use the ABC Hobby mounts with the M-02 chassis body mounts system, but body mounts can be fixed somewhere else on the chassis, the rotating claw offering a wide range of opportunities.

The front part of the chassis is pretty tidy: in fact, the best would be to let the body lay onto the body mount stays and the steering system pods. I couldn't find any way to use the body mount stays even if they were ideally located. But the ABC Hobby system can be relocated further at the chassis front so it can be mounted on straight body mounts. For this, the front bumper is a perfect candidate: finally, it will get a new function apart from reinforcing the front gear housing.

The basic idea is to drill the front bumper to fix the body mounts. These come from "low profile" models among which are the TB-02, the TB-03 / TB-Evo (all generations) / TRF415  and TA-05. The best part is that the ABC Hobby system will be a direct fit and the claw will rotate to cope with the plunging bodyshell design. But the front part is pretty tidy also because of the light buckets: you can't reach the body in straight vertical line from the bumper. So I made an offset oriented towards the steering system and slightly modified the Stealth Mounts.

The body mounts, the original and modified Stealth Mounts

Now mounted on the front bumper

I made it simple: drill the bumper, insert a flat head screw from below to screw the offset, screw the body mount on the offset and mount the Stealth Mount. Sorry, I have no idea where the offsets come from: I found them in my spare parts stock, I found they could let me do what I wanted from them so I didn't try to trace where they came from .

But, after several tests, this solution leads to a problem: there is so few room between the front drive train and the body grill that positionning the body mounts is very difficult. Too much, because this system leaves barely a one millimeter clearance between the body mounts and the steering system. So I completly changed all this by locating the front body mounts on the inner chassis in order to have more room to integrate them.

The original and modified Stealth Mounts

How they fit

I used usual angled body mounts screwed on the servo mounting holes: a longer screw fixes both the body mount and the steering servo on the right side of the chassis, and on the left side a screw and a Nilstop nut are used to fix the other body mount (since there's no servo on that side). This solution is much easier to make and more reliable.

At the rear, same method as the first version, but made easier: I drilled a second hole in the bumper, I inserted a flat head screw from below to screw the body mount and fixed the Stelath Mount right away. I just reused the hole I drilled for the antenna post and adapted the body mount length:

Rear body mount stay

Rear overview with the antenna post

I oriented the ABC Hobby mounts the way they are on purpose: to the rear of the chassis for the claw not to hit the rear window and the unused side to the exterior to hide them.

With the ABC Hobby Stealth Mounts, you have to glue the rotating head on the inner side of the bodyshell. For this, you need to precisely know where to place them in order to have the bodyshell perfectly fit onto the chassis. With lexan bodyshells, this is quite easy since either the bodyshell already has marks for drilling or you can mark the position before painting. Once painted, lexan bodyshells remain translucent enough to easily see where to fix the body mounts heads.

For ABS bodyshells, this is a little bit more difficult though. After thinking about different possible solutions, I simple chose the easiest: to flip the bodyshell and to place the chassis in it. Then time, a lot of time and even more time. Many adjusting, checking double and triple checking, new adjustments and in the end, you can visually see exactly where the two front body mounts have to go.

Once the two front body mounts are sticked, again you need to adjust and spend time to check and double check where the rear body mounts have to go. At last, the moment of truth:

 

Sorry? expecting another photo? Be patient, it's on its way... because I still need to place all the stickers for the lady to be seen. Yet the stickers sheet are vintage too: no precut stickers, scisors are mandatory. Personnally, I always prefer to cut at the closest from the drawings even if I skip tortuous lines: for the sake of it, I don't like big transparent useless sticks, but at the same time, the more smooth the cut lines, the better the stickers remains sticked.

At last...

After months spent working on the chassis and the bodyshell, my Toyota Celica LB Turbo Gr.5 on an M-02 chassis is finsished. It is the longest and the most difficult project I have ever done so far. When I started back in december 2009, I confess that I didn't expect it would take so long. I probably spent more time searching for solutions than to actually make them, but I'm glad with the overall result:

Real car reference driven by Harald Ertl in 1977

The final result

As far as I know, this model is unique and I wanted to share this project every single step for you to get some inspiration if you want to. One advice I could give to anyone who plan to start such a project: take your time. You need a lot of time to look for and find technical solutions, but most important, try to get the best possible idea of what you will need to do get the result you want to achieve. Even with a pretty long preparation, sometimes I remained stuck for weeks before I found a solution.

Paradoxically, the most difficult part for me was the bodyshell: ABS is much more difficult to deal with than lexan (hopefully, there was no need for masking). Apart from the weight and the moulding technics that were enhanced from the time, lexan is much easier to paint. ABS has a specific "static model" charm that lexan doesn't have, but it requires a true paint talent. I definitely enhanced my skills since the time of my Blackfoot Xtreme and my Monster Beetle but I'm still not fully satisfied with the result. Who knows: may be I can do better for the next bodyshell?

First run

It took place on a real RC track with a band of friends. But prior to running it, a photo session was required:



After working so long on it, the time to switch on the radio and to plug the stick pack finally arrived. The chassis behavior is what you would expect from an M-02, except from the grip : the Tamtech High Grip Slick tires are just great. In comparison, my Suzuki Swift with standard tires would let you believe it's a drift car . Anyway, this chassis is quick as you would expect from an M-chassis and I didn't notice significant behavior differences between this rear wheel drive version and my Suzuki Swift front wheel drive version, apart from rolling.

Yet, I didn't try to reach the chassis limits since I wanted to preserve the bodyshell. My driving was very conservative as it was all about cornering at low speed using smooth trajectories: accelerating was progressive but I had the pleasure to drive full throttle in straight lines before anticipating the next corner.

The conclusion about this model is definitely positive: of course it needs to be driven carefully to preserve the bodyshell, but my quite special Celica LB Turbo provides a true driving pleasure... and a permanent tension due to the required concentration you need at every moment not to fault and possibly damage the bodyshell. The photos show all the realism of this model when it is driven on the track, but they can't reveal the pleasure I had when driving it.

You can find more photos on the gallery.

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First publication: june 07, 2010 Last modified: november 24, 2010

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