Porsche 917k Fujimi monza 71'

[shood23]

Hi guys and girls this is my latest build. 

 

As you can probably tell from the tags I am not very impressed with this kit, you will soon see why. 

 

I only started this as i needed a quick simple build before my big build of the year in April starts but pretty quickly after starting the kit I began to regret my choice (and also regret having 4 variants of this car all made by Fujimi). 

 

So the build 

 

The box has some nice art on it. 

 

The plastic is been made up in a nice blue/green colour but this makes no difference as it will be primed and painted with zero paints gulf blue 

 

That's where all the nice bits about the kit end. Next I cut off the main body parts which had ridiculously thick and brittle attachment points which in places ripped areas of the plastic off much more than I wanted and with no pressure on the blade. But I need to fill the whole just above the window. 

 

Luckily Fujimi provide the part to do this. It first ok but will need a lot of filling to get the dips out before painting. 

 

I then went and stuck the rear hatch on with tape and drilled out the hole for another part that goes in later. 

 

And that's where the easier parts of the build stopped. I then moved onto the front panel that just didn't fit. The original part was too big to fit in the gap and then to top it off the cooling outlet on the part is not centered so I couldn't even file the part down to fit. So the other hood was used which isn't correct for the monza car but I can fix this later. Again this new part is too big so filled it down slightly to size and tried it and the tab inside the was blocking to from sitting flush so I had to sand that out an now finally it kind of fits but more will be done to make it better. 

 

Then obviously me being me I wanted to get a feel for how the car would look so a quick mock up was done. 

 

 

And finally the gaps for all the panels have been filled so I can get a nice flush look. You can see the bit on the lower part of the door that was the damage caused by the brittle plastic coming off

 

 

Oh and one final note on this terrible kit is all the panel lines have had to be scribed deeper or just plain added 

 

More soon

 

Shaun 

 

 

[Hamden]

 

Nice start to what is obviously a bit of a pigs ear - I'm sure you'll soon turn it into a silk purse though!

 

  Roger

[Borez]

Welcome to my world

[injidup]

Do all the Fujimi 917s have the same body moulds?

[shood23]

On Sat Mar 04 2017 at 7:39 AM, Hamden said:

 

Nice start to what is obviously a bit of a pigs ear - I'm sure you'll soon turn it into a silk purse though!

 

  Roger

 

Thanks for the vote of confidence Roger.

 

19 hours ago, Borez said:

Welcome to my world

 

I'm not liking it lol 

 

3 hours ago, injidup said:

Do all the Fujimi 917s have the same body moulds?

 

I have this one and 3 others all made by Fujimi and from what I see they all have the same apart from the 1970 lemans versions have a different rear hatch. I did check when I found the issue with the front panel and all versions have the same issue with the centering of the duct, so I guess they will all have the same issue with fit. 

 

Shaun 

Edited March 5, 2017 by shood23

[injidup]

Shaun,

i just got my kit out (Le Mans winner 1971) and had a look as I'm planning to make it my next build. I cut off the main body parts (sprue A looks exactly the same as yours) and they seem fine, with only a little trimming needed on the rear deck to make it fit.

I use Tamiya side cutters to remove parts (I always used to use a knife but found it a bit hit and miss with delicate parts) and the cutters do a fab job of removing parts cleanly. Even on the rear of the  lower body (part B26) once off the sprue, just a little cleanup is needed.

 

It has given me more confidence to tackle this kit!

 

Hope that helps.

[Bengalensis]

Please be careful with the front panel air exit duct. Many of the 917's had it placed off-centre to the right. Check references for the specific car/race to be sure. Just one sample photo here to show clearly.

[shood23]

3 hours ago, Bengalensis said:

Please be careful with the front panel air exit duct. Many of the 917's had it placed off-centre to the right. Check references for the specific car/race to be sure. Just one sample photo here to show clearly.

 

Right I didn't know this.... oops. OK well I take back what I said about the panel being wrong I will have to rework the front now with the more correct panel. 

 

Thanks for this comment bengalensis it's really helped me not mess up anymore. 

 

Shaun 

[Bengalensis]

18 hours ago, shood23 said:

 

Right I didn't know this.... oops. OK well I take back what I said about the panel being wrong I will have to rework the front now with the more correct panel. 

 

Thanks for this comment bengalensis it's really helped me not mess up anymore. 

 

Shaun 

 

There are variations, so for complete accuracy it's always best to find reference photos of the actual chassis# and race in question.

 

I'm sure you'll beat the Fujimi plastic into submission in this case as well.

[shood23]

I normally do a lot of research into my builds but I didn't on this as it was only supposed to be a short one. But I do want an accurate car visually so your insight helped a lot. 

 

So saying that I have ripped out the front panel put in and fit the proper one in with a few modifications to make it look better, plus I sanded off those awful attachment pins on the top side which I will replace with etch ones at the end. 

 

 

And after sanding off the filler on the rear end I glued the front and rear together as there's little to no detail in here anyway unless you have the engine set (which I have coming and am saving for a future build of the 70 lm car). 

 

 

More soon  

 

Shaun 

[injidup]

Shaun,

Do you have the Haynes manual for the 917? Not too expensive (compared to the more comprehensive 917 books) and plenty of useful info.

 

Kev.

[shood23]

9 hours ago, injidup said:

Shaun,

Do you have the Haynes manual for the 917? Not too expensive (compared to the more comprehensive 917 books) and plenty of useful info.

 

Kev.

 

I do not just yet, I was planning on picking one up or the big red 917 book nearer to when I plan on doing one of these kits properly with the full engine and hopefully(near) full frame but I think after my mishap with not noticing the front panel offset I may need to get one very soon. 

 

Shaun. 

[injidup]

I'd love the big red book but can't afford one. The Haynes will do for me!

[injidup]

If you think this kit is bad...

Following on from a thread on a Lotus cars forum discussing the most beautiful aeroplanes, I decided to buy the Airfix DH88 Comet kit as it really is a beautiful plane, and there was one left in my local model shop. It's a 1950's kit with a new box, and the kit really is awful. The "crew" are just a couple of blobs of plastic. Luckily it is only 24 parts (roughly) and cost less than $10 (2 coffees). The Fujimi 917 is a modern marvel in comparison!

Edited March 12, 2017 by injidup

[shood23]

On Thu Mar 09 2017 at 7:05 AM, injidup said:

If you think this kit is bad...

Following on from a thread on a Lotus cars forum discussing the most beautiful aeroplanes, I decided to buy the Airfix DH88 Comet kit as it really is beautiful, and there was one left in my local model shop. It's a 1950's kit with a new box, and it really is awful. The "crew" are just a couple of blobs of plastic. Luckily it is only 24 parts (roughly) and cost less than $10 (2 coffees). The Fujimi 917 is a modern marvel in comparison!

 

 

I have no doubts that there are worse kits out there like the old protar porsche 956 that's just terrible but at least they had the excuse of making it 30 something years ago but this porsche was made in the early 2000s (I think) plus I feel that with my recent builds I have been spoilt by the quality of tamiya/ebbro/aoshima with parts that just slot into place with no real work needed apart from a few dabs of glue. So I blame tamiya and the others for making life too easy for us modellers. 

 

Right so on with the build. 

 

Finally after many days and nights of filling and sanding I have got the car in some primer to check my work. 

 

As you can see I need to deepen a few of the lines and tidy up that front hatch a lot but other than that it's looking pretty good. I must admit I am also kinda falling in love with the look of this car, even the guys at porsche must have thought back in the late 60s early 70s when they were producing this car that they made a looker. 

 

More soon 

 

Shaun 

[injidup]

I agree with you about being spoilt by the holy trinity! I guess kits like this make us appreciate good design even more!

[Alan R]

Hi Shaun,

That looks a real beauty! I have wanted one of these for a while. 

 

You have truly made a silk purse out of a sow's ear!

Look forward to seeing more updates.

 

Cheers, Alan.

[shood23]

Thanks for the comments guys. 

 

On with the build. 

 

So I just couldn't help myself and had to fiddle a little more before the final primer coat. There were a few joins that were bugging me mostly the little add in part on top of the windscreen area so I refilled it and then couldn't help but fill in the bottom part and the 2 top corners of the front panel, the lines were really bad after I glued in the wrong panel and then pulled it out and then put this one in earlier in the build so I will redo the lines myself. 

 

Then put on the final parts for the rear hatch for the low down force spec car 

 

And finally put on the roof outlet which I forgot about when messing around with the front panel swapping.

 

More soon 

 

Shaun 

[shood23]

Right so finally some progress on this today. 

 

The main body has been coated in primer. 

 

 

The under engine part has been painted in a bronze/black mix of paints, it's still a little off where I wanted it so I will put some smoke over it later. 

 

The gearbox painted in alclad steel 

 

And the main big interior part has been airbrushed with tamiya German grey. I'm not sure is I am going to add a clear coat over it as most I have seen with this colour interior it was quite shiny. 

 

More soon 

 

Shaun 

 

[Hamden]

 

 

The shell looks superb in primer

 

  Roger

[shood23]

22 minutes ago, Hamden said:

 

 

The shell looks superb in primer

 

  Roger

 

It did until about an hour ago when I started to rub it down to get it ready for the gulf blue paint and went though in  couple of places, no big issue though just another quick coat of primer to fix. The thing that's bugged me about it is I now have to wait a day or 2 more until I can get some colour on. 

 

Shaun 

[shood23]

Right so finally after a few more days than I was hoping I am making some good progress. 

 

I have mixed up so fake glass fibre colour for the parts that need it and put some on a couple of the parts. 

 

 

 

These parts above have also had a light dusting of tamiya smoke to dull them, I purposely went a little thick in areas so it looked oily 

 

And better than that finally got some blue over the primer, this is after a few coats maybe 1 or 2 more are needed to get it right. 

 

 

Obviously the lower body part has been painted blue also with the same coverage. 

 

More soon 

 

Shaun 

 

[mbdesignart]

Just watched a video via Facebook by HistoricRacingHD of some guys restarting a 917 after it having sat sitting in a museum for 50 years . Some good detail footage of the engine bay.

Your build is coming along well.

[shood23]

Thanks mb I have been watching a lot of the gunnar racing videos on YouTube where they tore a 917 back down to the fibreglass and built it back up. 

 

So now on to the build. 

 

And I must start by saying that it's funny how my thoughts on what I said was a bad kit at the start has now change so much after a bit of paint. 

 

Right so in my last update I painted the car with zero paints gulf blue, since then I got some gloss coat on the body to ready it for the decals. 

 

I think I have said it before already but I will say it again. I have really fallen in love with the shape of the 917 it really was a great car looks wise. 

 

So today I have spent a very short time applying the few decals that go on this car to the point it's almost done. 

 

Some of you may have already noticed from the pictures but I had to remove the little part on the roof as the gulf stipe would never have gone over it nicely even with a bucket of microsol. So that part will now be painted gulf orange which luckily I have here already so I'm hoping the colour match is quite close. 

 

More soon 

 

Shaun

Edited March 20, 2017 by shood23

[shood23]

So a little more progress on this before I get the body clear coated 

 

I painted the rear wheel covers with the fake fibreglass colour I made up a while ago but more recent pictures I have seen has them in the same colour as the body interior so a quick respray with German grey was done. 

 

 

Next and staying in and around the wheel area I made a start to the brakes which there were 2 sets with the kit (vented and not vented). After primer I sprayed them with alclad duraluminium a few finishing bit like the calipers need doing. 

 

After this I went a little higher to the top of the engine, I have to admit I don't know what this is called, either way it was painted semi gloss black. 

 

Next up is the bulkhead that again has been painted German grey to match the interior. 

 

Next up were the seats and after my troubles with colour bleed I was a little worried about the turquoise colour coming through the primer to the red but there were no issues luckily 

 

 

And finally ally I have started to clear coat the lower section of the body as I will be needing this to have a few more colours than the upper part before I can start assembly. 

 

More soon 

 

Shaun