Lancia Delta Integrale EVO II
The Lancia Delta was a uninspiring C-segment car introduced by Lancia in 1980 based on the Fiat Ritmo, but thanks to its racing successes, became the myth we know today. Logically, from the orignal model to the latest version, introduced in 1993, the car suffered many aesthetic and mechanical modifications, which can be summarized as:
- Lancia Delta HF 4WD Turbo. After the banning of Group B in the World Rally Championship Lancia replaced the S4 by the Delta HF turbo 4wd, incorporating to the Detla model four-wheel drive with Torsen and Ferguson differential and a 165 hp. turbo engine.
- Lancia Delta Integrale 8v. In the factory increased the power of the engine to 185 hp. The body suffered the first modifications, with flared wheel arches and wider tires to increase track width and make the car more stable.
- Lancia Delta Integrale 16v. Major modifications focused on the engine, where the 8-valve cylinder head was replaced by a 16-valve one, along with a new turbo (Garret T3) were able to reach 200 hp. and the larger size of the cylinder head forced to make bulge in the front hood. Wider tires were also used and the power balance between the axes was changed.
- Lancia Delta Integrale Evoluzione I. The most spectacular version of the car, with improvements in the engine (210 hp were reached.) Suspension, brakes and wheels more widened.
- Lancia Delta Integrale Evoluzione II. Basically it was the same car (Evoluzione I) but with improvements in equipment, which could be considersed very luxurious.
There is no doubt that all changes made by the engineers Lancia proved very effective, as the car won the World Rally Constructors championship during 6 consecutive years (from 1987 to 1992), thereby becoming the legendary rally car it is currently.
This is a picture of the car in its original version
And this is a picture of the Evoluzione II version where the cosmetic changes are clearly visible.
In the world of the slot cars some manufacturers have reproduced this car at 1/32 scale. One ot them was SCX, who introduced a pretty good reproduction of the car in December 2004, with the decoration with which Carlos Sainz and Luis Moya participated in the 1993 World Rally Championship (reference 6157).
Continuing the "cleansing" of excess of slot spare parts that I have accumulated over many years, I found stored a Lancia Delta body in its Altaya Rallyes de España collection livery, taking up space in the drawer and trying different chassis I realized that the chassis of the Ninco Fiat Punto (reference 80832) was allmost the same distance between axes and thought attach the chassis to the body and thus go drawing parts and incidentally make the Evoluzione II version of the Lancia Delta Integrale. These are the starting point body and chassis:
To make the car started by the body. After remove the paint completely with alcohol did the few modifications that needed the car, as the gas cap.
Changed the car mirrors by other ones that had saved, from a Scalextric Ford Mondeo, topped with a little bit of putty. Also paste a small piece of plastic to simulate the front wing indicator.
I changed the output side of the exhaust pipe. I covered the right one and opened a new one on the left side.
The body did not need any modification more, so I applied a coat of primer to match the surface and fix the mistakes it may have.
With the few flaws corrected I painted body with red acrylic paint Tamiya X-7 reference.
Once the paint thoroughly dry, I painted the other details of the body, such as gums crystals, door handles, the hood grilles, side indicators or the bottom of the rear lights. For the gums glasses or hood grids lines remain perfectly defined, previously masked with masking tape and painted with acrylic paint Vallejo, which as I always say, for such details is ideal because if we made a mistake, it allows us to eliminate it away completely with a stick or a cloth moistened with water. This is helpful in case of mistake. The masking process is very heavy and laborious but the results are worth it. Judge for yourselves.
I did the rest of the car decoration with decals. Car decoration really was reduced to the longitudinal stripe that ran through the car from front to back, a few logos and license plates as you can see in the picture below.
And as you can imagine, the placement of the scarce waterslide decals had any difficulty. After leaving the decals to dry completely, apply a generous coat of automotive varnish to protect the decoration in case the car run on the track.
The chassis gave me more work than expected. As I mentioned above, the Lancia Delta Integrale had four wheels drive, and the SCX model too, but I wanted to use the chassis of the Fiat Punto Ninco, which is only rear-wheel drive, so had to change the front axle supports for a car with all-wheel drive. I cut the original front axle chassis stands and carefully hit other supports (the red ones of the image below) for housing the bearings. To make sure that the position of the supports was adequate help me out of an original Scalextric chassis that I screwed on a wooden board where it had struck a graph paper. Helping me with the dimensions that show me the graph paper and a 3/32 large rod let well positiones the supports for front bearings and the screw holes. It was a very laborious work but I left the chassis perfect with the supports in their appropriate position and height.
To finish the chassis, painted it with acrylic matt black paint and then varnish with Citadel satin varnish, with a very satisfactory result.
For the car mechanics use a Spirit SX-03 long can motor with a 9 tooth pinion and a Cartrix 29 teeth crown. For the rear axle use a Avant Slot one and for the front a standard 3/32 axle. To make the car with all-wheel drive place a Avanr Slor pulley on both axles and a Ninco transmission belt. Tires are the Speedline Deltona from Team Slot narrowed a bit to place a NSR classic tires NSR, like the Ford P68 fits, painted with Humbrol enamel.
Finally, must change the car interior. Originally the car included a flat tray with pilot and copilot, and other elements, including the rollbars, as correspond in a rally car.
As I wanted to make the interior of a street car that tray did not serve me, so I began by shutting the sides to fill the gap from the tray to the base of the glass, which as you can see in the picture below was about 8 mm. approximately.
First I made a paper template and then cut two pieces of plastic credit card,...
...remove from the tray seats and other elements to leave it as clear as possible and glue the side pieces in place.
The front seats, a Recaro ones in the original car, I made from 0, starting from a template drawed on paper and then cut from a credit card.
I opened the holes seats had under the headrest, I think they are to pass seat belts. Once a seat made, use it as a template to make another exactly the same.
Stick a bit of putty on each backup...
...and well dry time gave it the right shape with a file and sandpaper. I also made the seat holes with a 1 mm. thin drill.
Finally, I made the car dashboard with plastic parts to define the shape and putty to fill the structure, trying to be the most similar to the original car.
The rear seats were much easier to do. On a piece of plastic sticking a piece of putty shaped by sandpaper of different grains and a half-round file.
Once the rear seats finished I realized that the front seats were little small compared to the rear so I decided to do it again because the difference of size was very evident.
With all pieces of the interior finished stick them in its proper position and give a coat of paint.
Finally, I pasted the rest of the parts of the body in place.
And this is how looked the slot car already built:
I do not particularly like reproductions of street cars in slot but in this case I´ll make an exception. In the photographs it can be seen quite well, but live the car is gorgeous. Perhaps the red should have been a slightly darker and muted tone to match more than the original car, but did not want to complicate with mixed colors. What I am especially proud is the interior and especially the chassis, as I said above, it was more laborious than expected. As always happens to me, I see the jobs simplest than they are.
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