Hardbody Camaro Build with Brian Meharry Part 4

While I wait for the clear coat to dry I can get started on the interior. Tamiya gunmetal is a little less boring than plain old black. The Tamiya PS series pants are made for vac-form bodies and interiors. The interior detailing and mounting tips shown here can be applied to any scale race car,

I use Citadel paints on things such as clothes, gloves and seat belts because they are a low sheen. They are paints from Games Workshop that are used to do board game figures used for example in wargaming. I dated a pretty attractive nerd a while back, and that's how I learned about these paints.

Here’s the finished interior. The helmet is Testors gold; I used Testors gloss red on the roll cage and fire extinguisher on this Parma interior.

Once the body, hood and grille are dry it's time for the final assembly. I've gone back to using shoe goo- I Don't know what it is about that stuff but it works very well keeping parts together and it remains flexible. I recommend using JB plastic weld to reinforce the inner fenders above the wheels. That is a major place where cars have the font end sheared off in an impact. Or just try not to hit anything. Good luck with that.

I used the Shoe Goo to assemble all the body pieces. I put a small sheet of styrene in the front where the hood mates up to the body. I also used a sheet of styrene painted red to fill in the rear tail light openings.

Now that the body is complete its time for final assembly. The motor bracket on the Womp chassis is designed for 16D motors so we need to open up the bushing hole in order to elevate the rear of the TSR D3 motor that I will be using.

The rear of the motor is elevated so that the 8 tooth angled pinion is centered on the axle for best gear mesh. The motor is soft soldered below the front and on top of the bracket. I used one motor screw to secure it to the bracket also. This motor isn't going anywhere.

Here’s a shot of the complete chassis. I used to fill in the blank space with brass plate when stretching a Womp chassis, but that was when the extra weight was needed and the only motors available were 16d. Tires, gears and controllers are much better than they used to be too. I think the TSR D3 motor is well suited for this chassis. This motor runs in reverse, that's why the gear is on the other side. It's an advantage for left turn oval racing.

The lightest car that I race with an FCR chassis is 170 grams ; this one comes in just below 135. You can always add weight in the tuning process to suit your driving style. From the test laps that I took, I would race it as is.

Sponsor decals are Parma self-stick. I cut them out with a knife and placed them. I feel they hold up much better than water slide decals. After a few test laps, this car turns easy 2.6 second laps on our 85 foot tri-oval (my best time with my current cars is 2.78). Braking is very good with this car because it is considerably lighter than most FCR based models.

I put the car I built in the case at Mid-America Raceway for sale. If no one buys it I'll just take it out of the case and whup on y'all later. Building this car took me about 12 hours worth of work. With a little planning you could do the same or better.

I hope that you enjoyed this hardbody building series and will visit the Mid-America Hardbody Series page on Facebook. There are more tips and tricks there as well as race reports and building ideas.