Building the Steve

Mcqueen's Porsche 917k

from a Fujimi kit
1/24 scale
by Philip Curtis © 2007 Modeler Site info@modelersite.com
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To any follower of motor racing history the Porsche 917 needs

no introduction. One of the true classics, it was the car with
which Porsche finally achieved its long aim of winning the 24
hours of Le Mans in 1970. In various versions it went on to
achieve great success in numerous other sports car races
throughout Europe and the world.

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Once the powers that be legislated it out of endurance racing at the end of 1971,
Porsche changed their focus to the North American CANAM series, where the car
was heavily developed into an almost brand new beast. The roof was removed,
aerodynamics revised and turbo charging introduced to increase available power to
the region of 1500 horsepower. Complete domination of the '72 and '73 CANAM
series ensued, before once again the 917 was legislated out of competition.

Along the way the 917 also attracted the attention of an American actor by the name
of Steve McQueen. As well as one of the most successful actors of his generation,
McQueen was also an accomplished motorcycle and race car driver. He set up a
production company with the aim of making a movie that would capture the spirit,
and spectacle of the Le Mans 24 hour race.
In this film the Ferrari team were chosen to act as the "bad guys" whilst Steve
himself would be the "good guy" driving for the Porsche team. The resulting movie,
simply titled "Le Mans", is short on plot and dialogue.
Rather focusing heavily on the sights and sounds of the 917K and Ferrari 512,
making it one of the finest films ever made for aficionados of historic racing
machines. My aim with this model is to pay homage to the 917K as it appeared in
Steve McQueen's film in the famous blue and orange Gulf livery.

The kit
The basis for this build is Fujimi's superb 917K kit that
was released a couple of years ago. OOB it does not
feature an engine, but as we'll see there is a solution to
that. The kit is available in several different versions
including the 1970 Le Mans number 20 Gulf car that I
have used.
Fujimi use largely the same tooling for the different versions, meaning a bit of care
needs to be taken to ensure the correct parts are used. Otherwise the kit builds well,
with crisp moulding and quite good fitment.

Rivet counters will find a number of minor criticisms, for instance, the channel on
the rear deck is too angled in towards the rear and the radiator exit panel flip-up on
the nose is too wide. The former issue is quite debateable since most 917s differed
as they were constantly modified throughout their racing life, while the latter is
easily corrected. Minor quibbles aside the kit looks right, capturing the lines and
stance of the 917K perfectly.

The popularity of Fujimi's 917K kit is evidenced by the availability of a large

number of aftermarket parts. Chief amongst these enhancements is the Historic
Racing Miniatures (HRM) transkit for the aircooled, flat twelve cylinder engine.
The transkit is magnificently cast and also includes distributors, alternator, fuel
fillers and tanks as well as some chassis framework.

For this build I also used Studio 27 photo etch (PE) set,
Renaissance Gulf decals (the Fujimi decals are notoriously
translucent) and Renaissance PE. With both PE sets nowhere
near all of the parts were used, the Renaissance set in particular
was mainly left on the fret.

The Fujimi kit and Studio 27 PE are readily available from the
usual Japanese online stores such as HobbyLink Japan or
Rainbow 10. The best source I've found for Renaissance parts
is MediaMix Hobby based in Singapore. For HRM's engine
transkit, Strada Sports in the USA is my recommended vendor.

Bodywork
As I was ambitiously planning to open up the engine cover and nose panel it was
very important to take a lot of care in the initial construction stages.
The last thing you want to deal with is a fitment problem at the end of a build when
all the parts are painted and decaled. Along the way I was unable to resist the
temptation to open the doors, but quite sensibly stopped at just the one!

The nose panel is supplied by Fujimi as a separate part in two different versions
depending on the car modelled. It sits too high in both versions so the recess needed
to be enlarged enabling everything to fit flush. The supporting undercut was
removed in this process and subsequently replaced with plastic card. The previously
mentioned full width flip-up was trimmed back and holes drilled to accept the
Studio 27 PE fasteners that would be fitted after painting and decaling.
In similar vein the engine cover is provided as a separate piece so Fujimi could
release several different versions using the same tooling. As it was not intended to
open and close the hinge points are very fragile, so needed to be reinforced with
plastic card. Using liquid styrene glue resulted in strongly bonded hinge points that
thankfully gave no problems during the build, unlike some other areas!

The number 20 car raced at Le Mans in 1970 actually featured broader rear
bodywork over wider rear wheels than standard. Aftermarket correction kits for
these areas are available from Renaissance and Model Factory Hiro respectively.
However, the more normal rear end on McQueen's car precisely matches that
provided in the kit (part of the reason I chose to model the movie car).
I also chose to remove Fujimi's elevator trim tab and fastening details at the very
rear of the car. These were later rebuilt using Studio 27 PE, styrene and various
brass rod and rivets. The occasional frustration dealing with these very tiny pieces
proved to be well worth the effort, resulting in a realistically busy rear section
compared to the simplified arrangement in the kit.

Last major bodywork alteration was to open the driver's door. Removal was
achieved by very patient use of PE saws on the straight sections and even more
patient use of the back of a hobby knife blade on the curved sections.
For the most fiddly, tight curves a sewing needle in a pin vice finished the job.
Much car produced an undamaged door that fitted perfectly in the opening. Well, it
did until I snapped off the plastic section behind the door at the weak point of the
engine cover hinge. The door never fitted quite the same after that!
Next step in the process was to sand the door thinner and build up the internal tube
structure with 1.2mm styrene tube. The opening recess was trimmed in the same
manner as the nose panel with styrene card. I tried several designs of brass hinge to
attach the door but in the end decided the movement of the door was simply too
complex for my talents and instead retreated to good old styrene. The door can now
be positioned open or closed but remains separate and does not articulate, a fair
compromise for a static model?
Engine bay
As alluded to previously, Fujimi's 917K kit is curbside. However the rear deck is
moulded as a separate part, so it is just begging to have a full engine included back
there. The HRM transkit is a beautiful piece of work, in its basic form it works quite
well but requires a bit of extra work to get the most out of it. Apart from the
engine/gearbox assembly itself, the transkit also includes a new rear bulkhead, fill in
pieces for the side pods, fuel tanks, fuel filler pipe and some chassis tubing.

When installed in the chassis, the engine was found to sit too high, fouling the
engine cover when it closed. So a fair bit of sanding and test fitting was required to
ensure everything fit properly. The rear bulkhead and side pod pieces also required
some filling with superglue/styrene to eliminate the location lugs and achieve a
perfect fit that wouldn't allow any see-thought between the cockpit and engine bay.

I had intended to replicate the ducting on the inside of the engine cover from the
NACA ducts to the brakes, but the fit underneath was simply too tight. The wheel
arches had to be trimmed to make them fit properly with the cover in the closed
position as well. Don't know why this was an issue as they should have been fine for
an OOB kerbside build.

Plumbing the engine was a time consuming task. The big flat twelve engine has a
total of 24 spark plug leads, two distributors, four coils and 12 fuel lines! The fuel
lines were made from 0.4 mm fishing line and the spark plugs from Sakatsu 0.38
mm plug wire. Other fuel and oil lines were added to the fuel system and
scratchbuilt oil pumps on the right hand side of the engine bay.

The transkit's chassis tubing was a bit too fragile and incomplete for my taste, so the
decision was made to build the entire rear tube frame from 1.2 mm styrene rod. Rear
upper suspension arms were constructed in a similar fashion. Also scratchbuilt from
styrene rod was the bolt on rollover hoop that sits above the engine, I'm not sure if
this was fitted to McQueen's car during the movie, but nowadays it is a universal
modification made to all surviving 917s and it looks cool.
Painting was achieved using airbrushed GSI Creos Mr Super Metallic paints and an
assortment of dark greys. I tried to avoid using pure black, as it tends to look too
dark in scale. Instead GSI Creos German Grey and Tyre Black were used on the
chassis frame and suspension components.04 Black was only used in a few select
areas for contrast.
Front end
The kit already has a fair amount of detail in the footbox/radiator area in the nose,
so it would have been a shame to glue the panel down and cover all that up. The
first step to improve that detail was removing the embryonic chassis tube detail and
replacing it with 1 mm styrene rod. Styrene rod was also used to add a couple of
missing chassis brace tubes.
Since much of the interior surfaces in the 917 are rough glassfibre, texture was
added to the floor by covering it with lens cleaning tissue. The tissue was cut to the
appropriate size and brushed with liquid styrene glue, making the plastic underneath
tacky, soundly fastening the tissue in place. The same technique was used in the
cockpit and inside the open door.
The radiator was scratchbuilt from plastic card and PE mesh, with epoxy putty
simulating the weld seams. Detail Master radiator hose and Sakatsu compression
fittings completed the job. The same hose and fittings were used in the engine bay.
Brake and cockpit cooling ducts was built by winding thin wire around
appropriately bent styrene rod. This was then covered with Bare Metal Foil, worked
into the ribbing, primed and painted.

Pedals and brake assemblies were detailed with PE from the Renaissance set. Fluid
reservoir bottles and caps were fashioned from styrene round and hex rod. The paint
used on the chromed master cylinders and other chrome parts is GSI Creos Mr
Super Metallic Plate Silver, a very effective chrome-like paint. It is very similar to
Alclad but slightly "warmer" in finish and much more resilient to handling.
Paint and decals
Interestingly the kit instructions call for the underside of the body to be painted
white. Apparently this is a legacy of the white factory finish applied when the 25
original 917 homologation chassis were built and presented to the FIA in 1969. It
would appear they were simply never repainted underneath, so over the years they
must have become fairly weathered. I simulated this by applying a streaky coat of
Tamiya enamel Smoke with a broad brush then using Tamiya's weathering kit to
add some brown and orange tints.

The body was primed normally with grey followed by a coat of base white. I chose
to mask the Marigold Orange stripe areas before spraying the Gulf Blue, leaving a
white undercoat for the orange. There were two reasons for this, firstly as orange
tends to be fairly translucent I didn't want it affected by the colour underneath.
Secondly, as the boarder needed to be trimmed by thin black decals, matching the
number of coats for each colour would leave less of a ridge to be sanded down later.
Finisher's Gulf Blue was used for the light blue but appeared to be too dark to my
opinion. So a healthy amount of white needed to be added to lighten the blueness.
Marigold Orange was a custom mix of GSI Creos Orange and Fluorescent Orange.
In the "Le Mans" film the Marigold stripes appear very saturated so adding some
fluorescence tried to match this effect.
After reverse masking and painting the Marigold, a few light coats of gloss clear
were airbrushed and the paint left to cure. The entire body was then sanded and
polished with Micromesh and Tamiya polishing compound.

Next stage was to apply the decals, these were a combination of Renaissance and
the kit decals. Fortunately Fujimi included the bolder numbering used in McQueen's
car, noticeably different to the real racecar. When cutting the decals care was taken
to remove as much of the clear carrier film as physically possible. Using Microsol /
Microset and a hairdryer helped to bed the decals into the surface of the paint.
Unlike my normal practice, a clear coat wasn't applied over the decals to seal and
protect them. Instead I settled for just a final wax, in case the clear coats built up in
the
joins and affected the fit of the removable panels.
Conclusion
All in all I am very pleased with the final result. Building a detailed Gulf Porsche
917 has long been one of my desires and the combination of Fujimi's excellent kit
and the equally excellent HRM engine made it a reality with few major dramas.
There are many areas that in hindsight could have been improved and details that
should have been added. But that just leaves areas for development in the future.
Given the number of different versions and liveries available in scale for this iconic
racing machine there are plenty more 917s waiting to be built!