Scion TC rally "spec"
 

Alright I'm new to the site and going to take full advantage of it.

As the title says I'm going to attempt to make a rally styled Scion TC. I've made a "slammed" GT-R already (it only has about a 1/2 centimeter of clearance all around), but for my TC I wanted to have a car that I could drive on my driveway and street without having to worry about it "tripping" over gravel and cracks.

Here it is for now.
http://i1034.photobucket.com/albums/...mods/001-2.jpg

It has a custom flat grey/silver metallic speckled paint that I did a while back with just some spray paint but I will be getting rid of it to do a rally inspired paint scheme. My Uncle is actually going print me out some vinyls with companies on them.
http://i1034.photobucket.com/albums/.../Xmods/004.jpg

Now what I've done:
-Lifted the body up with a couple of spacers on the clips.
-Did a simple "rally" lift to the suspension from a youtube video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wH8n0fdW5jo)
-Used the foam wheel and tires kit, then wrapped the foam tire with the normal tires using the extra double sided tape (I will be finding a better way to glue tires down to keep them from coming apart.
-Locked the diff (it was already sticking so I just went ahead and locked it).

Now what I plan to do:
-Round out the rear of the side skirts to help with clearance since the rear tires rub from time to time.
-New rally inspired trunk and rear window spoilers.
-Make mudflaps for the rear bumper.
-Once I can get a new job I'm going to buy all of the metal parts to make it more durable.
-Create covers on the inside to help prevent dirt and sand from getting into the gears and steering components.
-AWD kit if I can find one (need help finding them!) and another stage 2 motor (GT-R is hogging it).
-And finally new rims and tires (model kit rims and tires or metal ones from ebay and then try to make tires.)

So far the car is running as well as I want it to for now, I'm hoping to give it a little bit more of a lift but it runs on carpet so I don't think it will need it since right out of the box new they won't even do that. Sorry for the large post but I figured I would give a nice full description to start things off right. I am always looking for feedback, critiques, and suggestions and hope to have a fairly unique and amazing machine THAT WILL BE UTTERLY UNSTOPABLE!!! I mean...

Hey,welcome to the forums glad to see more people getting into xmods love the tc so far good luck with it

I actually got the TC when it first came out as a Christmas present and got the '08 GT-R when it came out. I haven't touched them or run them for almost a year but I saw this guy running a gas powered one the other day and was all "Hey let me get back into my Xmods."
Thanks for the good luck.

welcome to the site (and back into xmods!)
you have quite the list there, but if you need any insight or opinion, a fair amount of us will be more than
happy to lend a voice/ hand :) good luck with it all, ill be watching this thread

Well thank you for the welcome and believe me I will have plenty of questions since I haven't ever done any modding besides lowering my GT-R.

Sorry for double post but needed to post today's update or at least update number one.

Sanded down the body and old paint and started to mock up templates for where I'm going to be doing the trimming on the ground effects.

Alright first issue. I'm going to be using a bigger wheel and tire option to get more ground clearance but they like to rub on the ground effects.
http://i1034.photobucket.com/albums/...ionwork005.jpg
So I made a little paper template just to get an idea as to how much I'm going to trim up.

After doing some looking over and mocking up I decided I should go ahead and get my baby all sanded down. I had put around three and a half thick coats of paint. I started with a high gloss metallic silver color, hated it then put a flat black color over that, I later then got the idea to do a splatter style paint and then added a flat grey and then light spray of metallic silver to get the splatter/speckled effect.
http://i1034.photobucket.com/albums/...ionwork015.jpg
http://i1034.photobucket.com/albums/...ionwork016.jpg

I used a piece of extra skateboard griptape that I had lying around to do the sanding, needless to say it is very coarse and I ended up sanding away some of the detailing and body lines but honestly I don't really care since most rally cars are just shells. Next update should be the trimming work, more sanding/possibly primer, and the star of custom pieces (mudflaps, spoilers, and "rally" lights).

Update of what I've done so far.
First mocked up some of the parts I was going to add on to car.
Got the "rally" lights made up.
I simply used a small piece of PSP game case then used some extra TechDeck wheels for the actual lights. Painted the lights to look more like rally lights the superglued them to the plastic piece.
http://i1034.photobucket.com/albums/...onwork0162.jpg

I then made the rear mudflaps and got them glued in although I would like to get them molded on but don't know what type of molding clay or plaster I should use for them.
http://i1034.photobucket.com/albums/...onwork0122.jpg

I have repainted the Roof and windows with just some cheapo acrylic paints so they look pretty flat right now but I bought a can of Krylon clear coat yesterday so hopefully that will give them a nice shine. I am having a bit of a dilemma right: not sure how to make a "dirt guard" for the inside fenders or what to use for one, thinking about giving the car some fender flares but not sure what kind of putty to used, and going back and forth on car color. I bought a can of red and white, I'm going to lay down a base coat of white just to make the red pop but not sure if I should keep it white and just ad red stripes or red with white stripes. Been looking at a lot of rally cars and noticed they are usually white except I like the look of the red EVO rally cars, so I guess I'll just see what I like more by doing some pre-lim sketches.

majority of the people that have custom body projects use styrene and putty.
i recommend using tamiya epoxy putty as it takes a day at most to cure, but you can work with it for at least an hour, getting it to the desired shape.
from then on its just years (jokes LOL, depends on you) of sanding.

that should pretty much cover the materials you need for your work (dirt guard inside your shell, and all the little bodykits)

good progress so far! keep it up

Thank you, I was looking and saw a lot of people using putty and the styrene just didn't know what would be the best and the name of it.

Ok so I started paint today. Probably was a stupid idea since I haven't even made the fender flares or molded the mudflaps on yet but once I have the money, can find a hobby store, and get some putty and styrene I'll do the extra work to it.

Now for the paint, after sanding down another layer of old paint I got the car to be as "cleaned up" as I could. I went cheap on the paint, bought the plain old Wal-Mart multipurpose 1 dollar rattle can paint in white and red and a can of Krylon clear coat (which should hopefully make up for the other crap paint).
To start I did about 4 light coats of the white.
(picture is overexposed)
http://i1034.photobucket.com/albums/...TCpaint001.jpg
http://i1034.photobucket.com/albums/...TCpaint002.jpg
http://i1034.photobucket.com/albums/...TCpaint003.jpg

Now before I ended painting for the night I did 2 coats of the red which will need some work but I figured I'd leave the paint to get a good drying over night before I did anything more.
http://i1034.photobucket.com/albums/...TCpaint005.jpg
http://i1034.photobucket.com/albums/...TCpaint006.jpg
http://i1034.photobucket.com/albums/...TCpaint007.jpg
Last one is pretty blurry, I couldn't hold the camera still.

Tomorrows projects:
Finish red coats
Make custom exhaust tip (going to be using a Lego piece)
Paint the details in: grill, mudflaps (again), and possibly windows
Finally get it clear coated and hope all goes well.

Dangit! I tried adding a race stripe to the car after getting another layer of red down, but the red paint for some reason is taking forever to dry do it got all blotched and now I have to redo all of the red on the main body but the stripe on the hood came out nicely. Sorry for the double post, this was just an update.

you should check out my susp. travel mod in the tutorial section. It opens up lots of travel.

Hmm I think I will, I think I looked at it before but can't remember. It's going to be an outright rally car so I'll need as much travel as possible.

Alright so I got the car painted (mostly lol still doing the stripes on the body). It's a nice bright and "full" looking red, reminds of the rally EVO's lol. Did two light layers of the white as seen above and then two pretty good layers of red.
lol my ghetto hanging rack to keep anything from landing on it.
http://i1034.photobucket.com/albums/...TCpaint007.jpg

The body had some issues with paint (the side stripe didn't go very well). But the stripe on the hood came out rather nicely, though somewhere between taping off, painting, and then clearing a small spec of something got on it, also the white has a lot of tiny, almost unnoticeable black specs in it.
http://i1034.photobucket.com/albums/...TCpaint001.jpg

The front grill had some issues
1. I forgot to tape off the grill
2. I repainted the grill but it got a little sloppy.
3. The paint around the light area where it was taped off got a little splotchy and almost peeled looking.
To paint the grill I just used some simple cheap acrylic paint and then did a coat of Krylon clear so it looks nice and shiny.
http://i1034.photobucket.com/albums/...TCpaint003.jpg

Finally the last piece done is the rear, I forgot to tape off/repaint the mudflaps but honestly I really don't care since they probably will get all dirty and the back wasn't really painted. The exhaust was just a lego piece I had painted unfortunately I didn't have any of more of my dads metallic silver.
http://i1034.photobucket.com/albums/...lypaint005.jpg

I will finish this up by saying Florida really isn't the best for doing spray painting, the humidity just wouldn't let the paint dry so hopefully once the main body gets finished and dried I'll let it sit inside for a couple of days to get a really good and dry. Hopefully the main body turns out alright and I won't have to repaint anything, and then it will be time to start a new project. Paint my '08 GT-R, possibly paint my larger corvette rc that I got at Disney, or get a new body from ebay and do some serious work with it I'm thinking a Dune Buggy Beetle.

Sorry for double post but here is the final progression of the car.
Alright first up is the battery remounting. I took the tray and moved to fit onto the top of the chassis which took awhile but I did find a way to do it without having to cut the wires but long story short I had to re-solder the wires to the tray.
http://i1034.photobucket.com/albums/...RallyTC002.jpg

While I was busy re-mounting the battery tray, the main body "dried" so after working and getting ticked off at the battery tray I decided to clear the main body. I am, however, very impatient and really tend to rush things. Needless to say the clear coat went on too thick (not to mention the rest of the paint) and while I was trying to mount the body I thoroughly messed up all of the long past two days of work I had done. Then during a "trial run" I managed to flip the car several times (since it is an outdoor car/street car) from various cracks and rocks. I tried the 7mm travel mod to the front suspension but it just made the car too jerky (and is part of what made it flip right off the bat). I also had to remove the mudflaps since the rear wheels kept catching on them and caused it to lurch and flip.
http://i1034.photobucket.com/albums/...RallyTC003.jpg
http://i1034.photobucket.com/albums/...RallyTC004.jpg
http://i1034.photobucket.com/albums/...RallyTC005.jpg
http://i1034.photobucket.com/albums/...RallyTC006.jpg
http://i1034.photobucket.com/albums/...RallyTC008.jpg
http://i1034.photobucket.com/albums/...RallyTC009.jpg

I might do a little more work just to clean it up at some point and if my Uncle can send me some vinyls I might be able to hide a few of the goof ups. It actually runs great, it's a little top heavy now but if I put a couple weights on the bottom to help balance it out a bit. I'm going to try and get some video of it running on the street until I can get it a little more dirt proof to run in dirt and off road. Next project will be to get my '08 GT-R cleaned up and running smoother than it is now and make a track at some point.

Did you ever primer the body before you painted? and moving the batteries to the top wasnt really necessary, by doing that the center of gravity was thrown completely off, which is probably why you are flipping so much. Sorry to hear about the roll over though.

This was my first serious attempt at a project so it really was more of a trial and error run on the car. I didn't use any primer, cheap paint, wrong/bad sandpaper, and a number of other things so I wasn't expecting the car to come out looking amazing, I would have liked it to come out looking nice but really wasn't expecting much out of it.

I am going to start some work on my GT-R soon and it will be a be more of a serious project. Hopefully, because of the TC, I will do a better job since I have a better idea of what I'm doing now, as well as looking on this site and others for more help and techniques.

love the way its looking bro, be sure to post some videos ;)

Thanks. I actually flipped it before I could get pictures of the car with nice paint and I fried one of the FETs the other day so it doesn't run at the moment. I should be getting some new FETs soon, as well as looking into getting a V2 board and new motor. Until then this project is dead, although my uncle is sending me some vinyls with some companies on it to make it look more like a rally car.