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Chad1376

Building the Europa

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This weekend, the Europa gets paint.  I thought this was a "generic" FWD body to save Protoform from paying licencing fees.  Nope, It's a Seat Leon Cupra TCR.  "sigh" - There are so many awesome cars we never see here in 'merica.  I'm going to try to get as close as I can to the stock photos and post up some painting progress.

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Spent darn near the whole day measuring, drawing, and cutting custom masks.  I want to do this with no outside stickers, since I don't think they ever look that great.  Tomorrow, I'll glop on the latex, and hope I don't get any bleed-through under the vinyl.

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Impressed with the masking so far, I'll be following progress. 

I really like these shells, been considering one for nearly a year now but don't have a chassis to put one on yet. 

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Great masking work, how have you cut those letters out so accurately? What machine are you using?

Looking forward to the next update. I would have tried to copy the old BTCC Cupra livery onto this bodyshell (either Works team silver / yellow or the Red Bull / Repsol ones)

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5 hours ago, ChrisRx718 said:

Great masking work, how have you cut those letters out so accurately? What machine are you using?

Looking forward to the next update. I would have tried to copy the old BTCC Cupra livery onto this bodyshell (either Works team silver / yellow or the Red Bull / Repsol ones)

I have a small vinyl cutter.  The lettering was easy, since I found a *.svg of the actual lettering (vector format) and pumped it through.  The cutter won't cut accurate letters much smaller though, and I definitely have to stay away from fonts with serifs or a lot of detail.

Window masks were done by first scanning the original window masks in a flatbed scanner to get a good start (factory masks usually aren't very close to begin with.)

The scan was imported in Autocad, and I traced over it.  Then I printed a trial cut to test the fit and see where adjustments need to be made.  Once the basic shape is good, the lines are offset, detail added and the actual mask is cut.

i-X3kM429-M.jpg

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There's some little goofs here and there, but overall I'm really happy with it.  M07R should be here by tomorrow, and some additional blue blingy suspension bits shortly after that.

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Looks fantastic, may I ask what colour that is? Is it the new bright gunmetal (PS-63?)

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5 hours ago, ChrisRx718 said:

Looks fantastic, may I ask what colour that is? Is it the new bright gunmetal (PS-63?)

Yes - and the lettering is PS-47 (Pink/Gold Iridescent).  It's actually is more like copper/burgundy with a black backing.  I'll get some pictures in better light once the car is more complete.

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Very professional painting, but isn´t the Europa a FWD car shell? Isn´t it too big for an M-chassis? Guess it should fit an an FF03 or similar...

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9 hours ago, ruebiracer said:

Very professional painting, but isn´t the Europa a FWD car shell? Isn´t it too big for an M-chassis? Guess it should fit an an FF03 or similar...

There's two versions.

https://www.prolineracing.com/touring-car-190mm/europa-clear-body.asp

https://www.prolineracing.com/mini/europa-m-clear-body.asp

9 hours ago, Problemchild said:

Q - is it best to paint the. Cut out or to cut out first then paint?

 

JJ

I dunno?  I didn't have my chassis yet and didn't want to wait to paint the body.  This body has wheel centerline marks and templates for the wheel cutouts, so I should be able to trim them pretty accurately.  I'll cut them small and sneak up on the right fit.

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I changed the title of the thread to keep this build in one spot.  I received the M07R chassis yesterday and got the kitchen table organized to put it together.  This is about as far as I got.  After a day of working at home, I'm too brain-dead to concentrate.  That's OK.  I have some Yeah Racing goodies being delivered, and don't want to get to far ahead until they're here.

I give the Tamiya tool kit a solid "meh."  I bought it because it has just the tools needed, and they are less likely to wander off into my garage with the other tools.  Feel and quality is so-so.

i-ZfMxBrp-XL.jpg

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Looks good so far! Which Yeah Racing bits are going on it?

I agree re. the tools. I like that my Tamiya screwdriver's tip is a perfect fit for Tamiya's JIS screws, but in terms of feel I prefer my Stanleys.

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Progress..

8 hours ago, TurnipJF said:

Looks good so far! Which Yeah Racing bits are going on it?

Without listing everything, I'll say "half of them."  Now that I'm seeing those pieces on the car, I want the other "half."  I know these offer no real performance benefits (at least for me), but they sure do look nice.  Better turnbuckles are a necessity, since the stock ones are difficult to adjust, and without a reverse threads on one end,  the turnbuckle length is at the mercy of whatever random point the ball joint started to thread  onto the rod.

I'm really happy with the packaging and precision of the whole kit.  It's light years ahead of the M01 I had years ago.

i-JrCbdCF-XL.jpg

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Body looks incredible!

I found that it was very wide on my M07, so I used some wider hexes on the rear and velcroed the doors to the battery retainers.

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11 hours ago, Big Jon said:

Body looks incredible!

I found that it was very wide on my M07, so I used some wider hexes on the rear and Velcroed the doors to the battery retainers.

Good to know.  I think I read that somewhere else too.  If it doesn't look "right" after the body fitted, I'll look into wider hexes or axles.  I'm in nickle-and-dime mode now anyway.  Ohh- I need to order this - ooh, I need to order that :lol:

Speaking of which, I ordered the rest of the Yeah Racing blue bits.  The YR M07 turnbuckles are hard to source here in America though.  I might piece together a kit by measuring what I need and ordering individual parts intended for other vehicles.

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Ready for electronics.

I spent some time juggling shims to eliminate play everywhere possible.  Any slop left is down to tolerances between axles/inner bearing races, etc.  The rear sway bar was super loose where it passes through the chassis.  Enough so that I think it would have been ineffectual.  For this I stripped some insulation off of 18-gauge wire and slipped it over the bar, to tighten it up where the notches are molded in the chassis (not unlike real sway bar bushings.)

I hated the little piece of silver tape that's supposed to cover the bottom hole to the gearbox.  I guess it's there so you can change/tighten the pinion without removing the motor.  Anyway, I put the tape on the inside, and filled the hole with black silicone.

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A minor aggravation. The tabs for a brushless motor don't fit into the chassis without modification.

First I tried bending the tabs straight up.  It allows the can to seat up against the motor plate, but not enough rotation to align the mounting screws to the plate.

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I really didn't want to start carving up the chassis with a Dremel tool.  Some careful carving with a razor minimized the required hacking.

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Looking at the Tamaya motors, they have the wire connections at the back.  I'm guessing this is a "design feature" to encourage purchase of Tamiya products.

 

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Motor choice is tricky with this model if you want to avoid modifying the plastics, but you aren't locked into Tamiya motors. Speed Passion, Silverback and no doubt others also have rear connectors. Others have side connectors exiting sufficiently far back on the can to clear the chassis. There is also the option of spacing the motor outwards slightly using a heatsink disc. That said, you appear to have done a very neat job of modifying  - in the photo with the motor fitted, it looks factory!

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Some pictures, before I get it dirty or crash into a curb.

Big Jon is right, the body is very wide.  This is actually the best angle to hide it ;)   There's a huge lateral gap between the wheel cutouts and wheels along the bottom center of the car.  I might try to tape some wire to the inside, and use it to pull the bodywork in.  My next body will definitely be a nice Tamiya body that I know will fit better.

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There's Not much room on the chassis to hide or organize wires.  I used magnetic body mounts, and the added height of the magnet assembly required I relocate the front posts to the bumper.  I still need to glue the tires before I drive it.

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First Drive:

It's FWD (duh) - with all the FWD handling quirks.

  • Need to modulate throttle gingerly to get it to turn.
  • Need to back off the throttle, not "nail it" when understeer occurs.
  • Power-off to induce oversteer and get the car to rotate.

All the reasons I chose the M07 and not the M08.  I think it makes for a more realistic driving experience, since it requires more finesse, rather than brute-force RWD drifting.

That being said, I do want to stiffen the rear end and play with the alignment to get more power-off rotation. I'm also going to want a hotter motor pretty quickly.

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