Another Lotus 102

Steffen_T · Post by **Steffen_T** » Tue May 01, 2007 1:50 pm

Hi all!
Thank you for all the positive comments!
Steffen is right. The car on the picture has the shape of the 102 and the livery of the 102B. But the pictures of this car are still a great reference for this conversion. I have seen this car a few years ago myself. It was used as a 'simulator' where you could play Grand Prix 3 while sitting in a real car. Of course there was no engine in the back...

@ wilchan:
I will not try to recreate the engine, because I didn't wanted to show it anyway. The only change I could imagine to make would be the use of other exaust pipes.

Today I found the time to finish the reshaping work on the engine cover. Now I only have to clean it a bit.

The next thing I will try to change will definitely be the undertray. I already have an idea...

wilchan · Post by **wilchan** » Tue May 01, 2007 3:42 pm

Woooo it looks very coool... The 2 tiny air inlets are so well-made... Keep it coming !!

-- william

Jacques · Post by **Jacques** » Tue May 01, 2007 3:53 pm

Hi Steffen,

can you please explain us how you did the sharp edge on the back of the air intake ? Did you do it like wichan on his Lotus 102 conversion ?

I am also looking forward to do such a conversion, but that's really the part, I would like to be sure how to do as simple as possible. And the result on your car and also wilchan's car is really perfect.

Keep on going !

Jacques

Steffen_T · Post by **Steffen_T** » Sun May 06, 2007 5:41 pm

Hello Jacques,

when you came along with your question, I finally noticed how importend it would have been to make a few pictures during the conversion. Now I will have some trouble to explain you how I did the airbox, because I went a slightly different way then Wilchan.

Step 1:
At first I removed the old airbox and filled the hole with a styrene sheet and some putty like Wilchan did it. I got this shape:

(side view on the left, top view on the right)

Step 2:
I glued just a single piece of styrene sheet (green) in the middle of the enginecover and gave it a bit more stability with some putty (red). The putty should be very close to the styrene, and it should be only in the front half of the new airbox. Otherwise it will be in the way during Step 4.

Step 3:
After the putty became hard, I started to sand the styrene sheet in the middle until it got the final shape:

Step 4:
For the last step I have absolutly no idea how to draw it. You will have to understand my explanation. I took a second piece of styrene sheet with an straight edge and putted a layer of some kind of Vaseline on to it.
Then came the interesting bit:
I placed a lot of putty between the rear of the plastic airbox and the rear of the styrene airbox on the left side. After that I immediately took the styrene sheet with the Vaseline layer and pressed it on to the fresh putty. While pressing I dragged the styrene forward and backward, forward and backword,... Because of the movement the putty gets a smooth surface under the styrene and because of the Vaseline the putty stays on the engine cover and doesn't stick on the styrene. The result was very satisfying for me, because I finally got a nearly smooth surface. I repeated step 4 on the
right side of the engine cover where the result was also very good. I hope you have understood how the last step worked. I know it is a bit difficult to discribe it without pictures.

You can also use this technique to modify the rear end of the engine cover behind the two little air inlets.

In the meantime I have started to work on the undertray. This time I try to use some old pens to get the shape right:

Jacques · Post by **Jacques** » Sat May 19, 2007 5:50 pm

Hi Steffen,

many thanks for the explanation but the conversion seems very hard for me so I first need to wait until I feel ready to do such a massive conversion....or maybe one day someone will offer a copy of the body of the Lotus 102....that would be fine for me as I am quite lazy anyway

Can you tell us what type of putty you used in step 4 ?

Keep us informed about the next steps.

Jacques

Steffen_T · Post by **Steffen_T** » Sun Jun 10, 2007 9:32 am

Hi all!

I am currently working on the undertray which I try to scratch built with the help of a few old pens. Until now everything worked fine but I fear the result won't be 100% accurate. But I like the result so far.

When I started I cutted away everything arround the exhaust pipes which was within the area of the second and the fourth pipe of the undertray. I took two pens with a fitting size fixed them under the exhaust and filled the holes with putty:

Afterwards I removed the middle pipe of the undertray and sanded the upside of the two new pipes into a coorect shape. Then I fixed a Tamiya Pen Marker between the two pens and made sure that there would be enough room left for the gearbox:

To sand the new middle pipe, I removed it again and sanded it into the right shape:

Then I removed the original pipes on the outsides, sanded pipes 2 and 4 into shape and used the internal part of a pen to create the inside of the two last missing pipes. I am not ready with the undertray as you can see, but I think you can imagine how the result will look like.

@ Jacques
Here is the putty I am using. It is a simple two components putty.

roly01 · Post by **roly01** » Sun Jun 10, 2007 10:11 am

Steffen,

That difuser is comming along very nicely, but I think you didn't do yourself and fafors.
You could have asked any one here for a left over mp4/5b's undertray and cut of the rearend of that and stick it to the Lotus's.
But that's not very importand and to late by now.
I think, by the looks of it, that your way of making the difuser it will end up very nicely indeed aswell.

Keep it up.

wilchan · Post by **wilchan** » Sun Jun 10, 2007 2:23 pm

Wooo , that's very smart approach. I used MP4/5B undertray and merged it into the Lotus one. The most difficult part was that there were not enough contact area to hold 2 pieces together.. When I sand the filled-gap, the crack always re-appear.. I had to do 3-4 times to get them hidden .. Woo steffen, keep them coming...

-- william

Shunter · Post by **Shunter** » Sun Jun 10, 2007 5:16 pm

Clever thinking and i like how you did the undertray. Coming along nicely and enjoying your work.

Steffen_T · Post by **Steffen_T** » Tue Jun 12, 2007 5:13 am

Thank you for your comments!
Of course I thought about using a MP4/5B undertray for my Lotus too. But there is a slightly difference between the undertray of the McLaren and the Lotus and I was confident that I might achieve a better result if I try to make one myself.

Steffen