Boy! I didn't think anyone had noticed this post! Thanks everyone, especially Alex Nahooy, your references were invaluable.
Let's see, to answer some of the questions asked: I did have to make my own seat belt holes. I used a small drill, drilled 3 holes and then smoothed out the edges with an Xacto. The interesting thing to me about the belts was that, Tamiya gives you this thin rubber sheet to cut your own belts out with. Having tried this chore with a Hasegawa WRC Ford Focus, I can tell you that unless you have a full sized paper cutter, cutting rubber with anything in a straight line is an unpleasant experience. SO! I dug out my S27 precut material. Here's the interesting part: The material is cut into 1/20 sized strips and 1/24 sized strips. And to fit the PE buckles included with the P34 kit, I had to use the 1/24 sized strips! So you perfectionists out there may want to check that!
The tyres I HAND PAINTED! No stencil, no decals, nothing but hand eye coordination and patience! The seams around the letters isn't very deep, so with the way I letter my tyres, it's pretty difficult.
How do I letter my tyres? Ah! The trick I do is to take some acrylic paint - I use Apple Barrel Colors craft paint - mix it with water in a small container ( I use bottle tops from water bottles) to make a thinned, "manageable" paint. It's more or less like "washing" seam lines, only the seam is bigger. So then I just fill in the molded letters. It usually takes several coats as when the water evaporates, it leaves only a little paint. Does that help?
The mesh on the PE parts - at least on the air box - I masked off and then touched up the blue afterward. The radiator ones I just sprayed with Testors flat black from an arm lengths distance.
One other thing of note: The actual rear wing itself comes with these 6 PE parts that you're supposed to glue together in two pairs of 3's. Thankfully I didn't do it that way! I simply puttied the damn things in. Here's why that is important: After I took the pics of this car, that damn rear wing fell to pieces! The PE support part broke and it was all for naught! That's why my post sounds so pissy! Well, after a nights sleep and with nothing better to think about at work, I thought, "Hey! The Japanese markings still make the car look cool without that wing, maybe I can salvage that thing and put Depallier's regular wing on instead! If I had glued those PE parts in there I'd be up the creek **** with the paddle no (Any Nicko McBrain fans out there?). I tore the putty out and the salvage job has begun! Good luck to us all!
