Revell 1998 Trans Am

[mustang1989]

Ask anyone who really knows me and they'll laugh themselves silly about the idea of me building a simple OOB model. It just never seems to happen. My projects will take anywhere from 4-6 if not 8+ months to complete because I simply cannot leave the OOB kits alone. With that being said, I've been wanting to build a late 90's / early 2000's Trans Am for a while now. I was working in a Pontiac Dealership as an auto tech when the 1998 Trans Am equipped with the new LS1 engine were being freshly delivered and I instantly fell in love with these cars. I mean the 93-97 T/A's were nice but these...….these were fast right from the factory. No factory American built car had given me the "butterflies in the stomach" feeling under hard acceleration before my first test drive in one of these things had. Beautiful and fast cars these were and even though I never actually owned one of these, I got several chances to drive pre-sold and the used offerings that were there on that lot (I was NOT one of those techs who went out joyriding in owners vehicles-just a wrong thing to do to another mans car) and I loved every minute of it. 


Anyways I'm going to build this car pretty much OOB. I just need something that I can actually make some worthwhile progress on. I will take the liberty of dropping it a scale inch or so but I do like these in stock form so there won't be much at all in the way of "extras".

 

I owe the fact that I got this kit at all from BigTallDad as a gift so a BIG shout out goes to Ray for it. Thanks bud.....you are da MAN!!!

We'll be going with red for it:

Edited April 10, 2020 by mustang1989

[Dragonhawk1066]

Looking forward to seeing some progress pics. I, too, love the 98-02 T/A's and that Ram Air hood just made them mean looking, especially the black ones.

[mustang1989]

6 minutes ago, Dragonhawk1066 said:

Looking forward to seeing some progress pics. I, too, love the 98-02 T/A's and that Ram Air hood just made them mean looking, especially the black ones.

Thanks Craig! I was contemplating a black paint job but I already do enough black paint jobs as it is. Needed something different but definitely not silver or white.

[Dragonhawk1066]

1 minute ago, mustang1989 said:

Thanks Craig! I was contemplating a black paint job but I already do enough black paint jobs as it is. Needed something different but definitely not silver or white.

Yeah definitely not silver, and only white if there's some sort of 30th anniversary blue stripes. Black and Dark Blue looked the best to me, and that red one looks pretty nice too, I haven't seen very many red Ram Air T/A's in this vintage, so good call!

[mustang1989]

That was another reason I even got this model to begin with was the fact that there just aren't that many of them being built.

Edited April 10, 2020 by mustang1989

[kelson]

Looking forward to this,bought the same kit years ago, I planned to paint it sport gold metallic a factory colour, but have never got around to it.

[mustang1989]

On 4/10/2020 at 10:38 PM, kelson said:

Looking forward to this,bought the same kit years ago, I planned to paint it sport gold metallic a factory colour, but have never got around to it.

Thanks Curtis. I did see one thing that I did NOT like about this kit as well as the 1:1 scale cars when they were new is that it comes with ONE tail pipe. I didn't understand it or like it then and I sure aint going to do that to this car. I've already got the necessary parts coming to make this a dual outlet exhaust as of today.

[matthijsgrit]

I love these 4th Gen. Had a 99 Z28 myself...

How about something special for colors: https://ls1tech.com/articles/mega-rare-purple-trans-am-6-speed/

[slusher]

Looking forward to this buil Joe, always enjoy your work!!

[mustang1989]

17 hours ago, matthijsgrit said:

I love these 4th Gen. Had a 99 Z28 myself...

How about something special for colors: https://ls1tech.com/articles/mega-rare-purple-trans-am-6-speed/

I've seen that color on a few and while I do like it I'm more of a red fan with these cars. That does look good though.

48 minutes ago, slusher said:

Looking forward to this buil Joe, always enjoy your work!!

Thanks Carl. Glad to have you along.

[Dann Tier]

OOOOOOO!!!, this is gonna be NEAT!!!!   i've never seen one of these built before!

[mustang1989]

On 4/22/2020 at 9:24 PM, Dann Tier said:

OOOOOOO!!!, this is gonna be NEAT!!!!   i've never seen one of these built before!

Thanks Dann. I'm currently work on the chassis and engine painting and assembly. Hope to have progress photos soon. Thanks for following along.

[KWT]

Heck yeah.. I'll be checking in on this one.

I picked up another one to do a different build than the black bird I did... And hopefully better too.

[mustang1989]

20 hours ago, KWT said:

Heck yeah.. I'll be checking in on this one.

I picked up another one to do a different build than the black bird I did... And hopefully better too.

Glad to have you on board Jeremy! Looking forward to the next T/A of yours!

Got the engine finished up this morning. It only took me around a week to get everything together on this one and I stuck to my guns on my OOB goal all except for the oil filter decal. It's not much but it adds a lot to any engine build. For some reason the exhaust manifold texture came out grainy in the  photos but it looks smooth in real life. Weird. Anyways,  here's the 5.7 liter LS1 engine for this beast. It's my first OOB engine in YEARS!

[espo]

Even OOB this engine looks very nice. 

[mustang1989]

On 4/26/2020 at 12:08 PM, espo said:

Even OOB this engine looks very nice. 

Thanks Dave. 'Preciate it man.

Working on the chassis now...….

[iamsuperdan]

Will be watching. I've had a soft spot for these since owning a 95 Z28 convertible. 

And I love red cars!

 

[slusher]

Really nice engine, Joe!

[Mattilacken]

Will be following! Love these cars, had a 1998 Camaro which will be replicating in the future.

[mustang1989]

On 4/27/2020 at 2:22 PM, iamsuperdan said:

Will be watching. I've had a soft spot for these since owning a 95 Z28 convertible. 

And I love red cars!

 

Thanks for taggin' along Dan.

On 4/27/2020 at 8:34 PM, slusher said:

Really nice engine, Joe!

'Preciate it Carl. Great to have you along as well. 

On 4/28/2020 at 4:00 AM, Mattilacken said:

Will be following! Love these cars, had a 1998 Camaro which will be replicating in the future.

Thanks Matt. Will be lookin' for that Camaro build of yours.

 

Just about got the chassis done so I should be posting pics in the coming days fellas.

Edited May 5, 2020 by mustang1989

[Dann Tier]

Love that engine detail, Bud!!!!

[mustang1989]

On 5/6/2020 at 12:58 AM, Dann Tier said:

Love that engine detail, Bud!!!!

Thanks Dann. 

Ok folks. It's been a couple of weeks since my last progress post but I'm trying not to "update" everybody to death. I've been payin' a lot of attention to pictures and trying to get it as close the those and also from what I can remember when I used to work on these. I managed to acquire a Camaro kit which had the dual outlet muffler and will be using that on this build instead of the single outlet one. The muffler is not glued into place yet so it is just there for display purposes at this point. I'll be stripping the chrome plating from the assembly, cleaning it up and modifying it so that both pipes will lay in the right place at the right angles as well as drill out the ends of the pipes to hollow them out. I used lots of different black tones by way of gloss, semi gloss, satin and flat finishes as to give the chassis some depth and more detail. The differentials always seemed to rust so I finished it up in a semi rusted state in what would be a "soon after new" look the way it would look after the car had been on the road for about a month or two. The heat shield just in front of the differential was achieved by the use of Matte Aluminum Bare Metal Foil and the fuel tank & spare tire areas were given a coat of darker gray to add contrast.
 

cleaned the wheels up, added the WS-6 center cap decals and coated them with a light coating of Tamiya Smoke to get rid of the toy chrome look. I also gave the tire tread areas a light sanding to give 'em that "road wear" look (uh-oh....looks like I might've missed one ). Pretty happy with these.

I'm really glad that I chose to lower the car some because there would've been a whole LOT of air between the tires and the top of the wheel openings. I might try to lower the front just a smidgen more to get it where I want it....

[Scalper]

those wheels look sharp 

[mustang1989]

2 hours ago, Scalper said:

those wheels look sharp 

Thanks Andre! 

[AmericanMuscleFan]

So this is where you were hiding my friend!

There's nothing wrong to have a side project to relax a little bit from a very demanding project like your Maverick.  You made great and fast progress on this build Joe and this bird will look good I have no doubt about it!!!