Day 11

I did not work on the GT model yesterday. Instead, I drove to Jason Heffner’s shop in Sarasota. Chip, a good friend of mine, trailered his yellow and black GT from AZ to FL to have twin turbos, a new exhaust, and a number of other small modifications installed. It was a gloomy day with rain, wind, flooding, and even a few scattered tornadoes – not the type of day you want to take a three hour drive across the state. However, this was an opportunity I could not pass up! When I arrived and opened the front door, I had to smile. :-) There, laid out on the floor in front of me, were pieces of his GT. They looked just like the model pieces, only supersized!

I was able to watch the guys in the shop work on the GT, and (rather than be annoyed at my interrupting their work space), they happily answered all of my questions and let me take pictures. Each one of them did a great job, and made my experience there a VERY pleasant one!

After working on it for awhile, Chip and I stood by and watched as the car was brought to life for the first time with the new twin turbos. The throaty growl made an incredible sound!

Towards the end of the day, it was the moment Chip and I had been waiting for. The car was put on the dyno, and we crossed our fingers hoping the new set up would bring it up to 800 horsepower. The sound at wide open throttle in the power zone was so great, that standing behind the car, we had to plug our ears!!! They dyno’d the car three times in 4^th gear (which goes up to almost 190 mph), and when it was finished, we went over to the graph to see the results. It did not hit 800 hp. No sir! It hit 841 hp, even with catalytic converters on the car!!! :-)

By the time I got home, it was already way too late to work on Ralphie's GT. But it brought a smile to my face this morning as I started to put the finishing touches on it…

The first thing I did was cut out the decal section where the four #2’s were. Since I had to use my nails to get the back part off rather than just dip it in water, I chose to peel the back off of each decal before cutting it. The first #2 was for the back of the car. I tried to cut the entire skinny number, but found that that caused problems with the decal getting wrinkled. Luckily, I printed a total of eight #2’s, so tossing that first one was not an issue. I also had the foresight to put a red background on the white #2’s, so what I ended up doing is first peeling the back off of the decal, and then cutting most of the red off of the #2, but leaving it in the hard to reach places. The red matched the car, so unless you look closely, you do not notice the different between the red in the decal and the red in the car.

The next decal I added was the gold arrow. I cut all of the red from this decal, and ended up having to shorten the length of the arrow as well. Ralphie put this arrow on the car for Rally IV’s track day at the Texas World Speedway. If he were to get in an accident on the track, the arrow would show the tow truck where the tow hook was on the car. The GT model does not have a tow hook, but I added the arrow anyway.

Time to add the American flag decals that Ralphie has on the sides of his car. These are located on the white side stripes, just before the words “Ford GT”. On the driver side, the flag is facing forward, and on the passenger side, the flag is facing backwards.

In other words, the stars are near the front of the car, and the stripes are near the words “Ford GT”. These are not stickers, but decals that need to be dipped in water before separating the back and applying – similar to how the white stripes were applied. However, when I tried to do this, the flag ripped into about 5 pieces. I had not even applied pressure to remove the back. This was not a good sign! But since I had 3 flags for each side, I had 3 chances to pull this off. The second flag worked better. It still ripped right down the middle, but I was still able to apply the decal without visibly being able to tell that the flag was in two separate pieces. The other side surprised me! The back of the decal would not come off after dipping it for 10 seconds in water. I was being VERY careful not to rip the flag. Therefore, I set it back into the water. I decided not to use the tweezers, as this might have caused the other ones to rip. The decal fell to the bottom of the bowl of water, and the back of the decal fell right off. I was not sure how to get the decal out of the water in one piece without the back on, but I used my finger and gently pushed it up the side of the bowl. I then set it in place over the white stripe, and it went on perfectly, without so much as a tear!!

The last sticker to apply was the memorial sticker for our friend Daniel. Because this was so small, I cut most of it before taking the back off. I also noticed that the top and two sides around the clamshell window are supposed to be black. I went ahead and painted that area black. It not only looks more realistic, but the memorial decal stands out more as well now.

I had to wait for the black paint and new flag decals to dry before applying the clear coat. But there was still some prep work that could be done...

Ralphie has clear plastic fender guards on the front and rear of his car. When I was at the shop yesterday, I tried to think of a way to manufacture these fender guards. A few hours later, Chip handed me a Gatorade and the light bulb went off! The idea was to wash out the container and cut the fender guards from the plastic.

I used a couple pictures of the fender guards that Ralphie had sent me pictures of to figure out the shape. Then, I punched a hole in the Gatorade bottle, found a section with a nice curve in it, and cut out a large enough piece for all four fender guards. I started with the first, and placed it in the GT model for size as I continued to trim it down, adjust the curve (it had to be flattened out a little bit), and file the edges down. The rear fender guards were the most difficult to make, but all of them turned out okay! These will not be clear coated, so I am not gluing them on the GT at this time.

This evening, when the decals and paint had a chance to dry, I prepared the car for the clear coat. To do this, I first used aluminum foil to thread through the wheel wells and completely cover the wheels and tires. This took about 45 minutes to do, as there was a bit of trial and error to get it to flow through smoothly without ripping, catching on something, or sliding out. The two left wheels went smoothly, but while putting the foil on the right wheels, the flag decal came off...TWICE! It was dry, so I had to apply more water to get it to stick again. I was planning on putting the clear coat on tonight, but these decals seem to need extra time to dry. Part of the problem might be that they were placed on top of another decal rather than the model directly (though I don't see how that would make a difference).

I finally managed to get all of the wheels and tires covered, and then I went ahead and covered all of the clear plastic parts with blue tape. The small fog lights, headlights, and side windows took the most time to do, and the only thing I am slightly concerned about, is that after spray painting, when I remove the blue tape, the memorial sticker from the clamshell window will come off with it. I did plan ahead for this and made an extra memorial sticker just in case...

I am completely ready for the clear coat, but I still have to wait for the flag decals to dry. The fact that they came off so easily after sitting for about 8 hours concerns me a little bit. Therefore, I will have to wait until tomorrow to spray paint on the clear coat.