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Gallery: Completed Civic FD2

Reviewing the FD2 contents

Review: ZoomOn Spoon SW388

• Kapci 2K automotive primer

• ZP-1307 Spoon Sports Blue/Yellow
• Kapci 2K automotive clear

Additional Parts:

• Scratch-built MoTeC dash and AntiGravity battery

• Custom stickers for the steering, ECU, dash and battery
• Top Studio braided lines and resin hose joints
• Several different thickness of wire added to the interior
• Various resin & photo-etch scratch-built items for the interior
• Hobby Design HD07-0022 Air Valves
• New frames around front and rear windscreens
• All spoilers, canards and lips covered with HD carbon decal
• 0.7mm wire used to make rear side windows rivets
• Hobby Design HD01-0045 red Honda badge on tailgate

• Brakes and rims modified to glue directly on the hubs at any position

• Molded tire valves removed from rims
• All body defects corrected using styrene or resin pieces

ZoomOn Box. This is the Latest ver. full resin kit

These are all the resin parts found inside the box

Together with decals, windows, manuals, masking & photo-etch sheets

First thing I did was to start cleaning the parts. Above are the rims during cleaning. ZoomOn did a great job molding the valves with the rims, however I removed these to replace them with metal ones later on. Left pair is standard, right is cleaned with no valves

Then I temporarily assembled the suspensions, brakes and wheels where I discovered that all of these needed some work to align the rims perfectly in the middle of the arches

So I decided to tackle this problem my own way! Above is the steps I took to modify the rims and brakes in such a way that once sprayed, I would be able to attach them fixed wherever I felt best. This will avoid correcting each suspension unit separately and as a procedure, it's similar to the one in my tutorial "Lowering certain Tamiya kits".

The Motec dash was missing so I decided to make my own from an extra resin piece

After 2 weeks of sanding and filling, every chassis and interior part was attached to the sticks and ready for primer

So everything was then airbrushed in automotive 2K primer

This was followed with the first colours being airbrushed accordinglyv

Chassis was first airbrushed in black, then masked and airbrushed in automotive white together with all of the roll-cage and door pieces. Thanks goes to Mark for this great paint!

After that, the door panels were masked and airbrushed in satin black, while the back of the seat and the rims were airbrushed with 2K clear

Back of the seat was then masked, MOMO decals attached and finally airbrushed with matt clear. Spoon logo on radiator was airbrushed while brakes and pedals were finished

At this point I decided to make a new, more realistic battery from scrap resin pieces and wire. Finally, a new sticker for the front was made according to a 1:1 Antigravity battery

New stickers were also custom made for the dash, ECU and steering. These were done to add more details and according to the real items installed on the Spoon FD2

All the parts were painted and detailed accordingly, so all that remained was assembly

To make the battery more realistic, I added a tray made from a scrap photo-etch piece

After installing several parts in place, it was then time to start plumbing! For this job I've used 0.6mm braided line and 0.8mm resin hose joints, both from Top Studio

Referring to the real Spoon Sports FD2, I've added all the necessary plumbing

Then, I focused my attention on the wiring. Once again, I constantly referred to the real Spoon Sports FD2 where using several wires of different thickness, I detailed the interior

Several other detailing parts were scratch-built, like the master switch, power steering pump, electrical box and knobs next to the fire extinguisher

Finally, here's a look at the interior floor with all the interior and plumbing complete

At this point all that remained was to assemble all the remaining pieces together (except for both door cards) and call the interior done

And here are two pictures showing the door cards installed in place

The chassis was also finished. This was simply airbrushed with semi-gloss black and only minor details were added. This is since all of the chassis will be covered later on

Next, were the wheels. These were finished with silver lug nuts and HD air valves

The brakes were also finished, as seen above, so it was time to assemble them too

Finally, tire decals were attached and everything assembled together

With the wheels ready, it's now time to start working on the body. This will take more time than expected to prepare for primer since the body is in a very poor state. Its surface is very grainy, like covered with harsh orange peel and has several flaws which need correction. All of this will consume a lot of time to finish. Very disappointed indeed

So first thing I did was the most time consuming; sand down the ugly body surface! Then, I began correcting errors. First job was the hood where the original vents were molded very badly. So I removed them and made my own. Old exhaust hole was also filled

Next was the side-skirt! Here I cut off the part where there was a molding defect, and instead inserted a new styrene piece. This was then filled with super glue and sanded. Also, a note on the front bumper to anyone building this kit, the Latest Version: You need to cut off the two pins marked red above. Left one is still there while the right has been removed already. Instead, you'll fit the supplied covers later on

Then finally, after more than 2 weeks of sanding and corrections, I was able to lay down my first layer of primer. Top side of the above picture shows the body I began working with, bottom one is after first layer of primer! Still some work to do, but nearly there!

And here's another picture of the other side. Once again, top part shows the body with damages as I received it, bottom shows the first layer of primer applied. Quite happy!

After applying the primer, all remaining defects like small scratches were corrected and body was once again sanded down to obtain the smoothest surface possible

Then I tried to fitting of the original front and rear windows and discovered they fit horribly. So I took a local friend's idea and built 2 frames around the openings (seen above in white) so that later on I'll cut new windows out of clear styrene and fit from the front

The side windows had the correct shape, however due to the thickness of the resin, they were not fitting well, So I sanded down the whole frame around the side windows (marked red above). Between the arrows, you can notice the original thickness I had to sand down

Finally, I repaired all the necessary parts and got them ready for primer. I decided to use the smaller front splitter, however I changed it's sides for bigger ones to fit the APR decals later on. The rear splitter was repaired for a missing piece of resin. The bottom splitter, had one of the sites molded very badly, so I cut that out and replaced it with a new piece of styrene. Finally, I made two new pieces of styrene and these will be attached in front of the front wheels later on, just like the real Spoon FD2 (see inset picture above)

With all the hard work done, it was then time to airbrush the final layers of primer. For this, I have utilized the 2K automotive primer to help me fill any remaining minor scratches

Then, I utilized the kit's masking sheets cut to size and airbrushed the blue

Once dry, I began removing the tape. The kit's masks began leaving patches of glue on the yellow paint. This was since the masking tape was like a paper with glue on the back. It made me mad as I was confused how to remove it without damaging the yellow

However, using home DIY masking tape to pull the glue up from the body and soapy water, I was able to remove all the glue residue without damaging the yellow paint!

With the glue removed, I applied a quick layer of 2K clear to seal the colours off

All the parts that will be covered in carbon decal were airbrushed black to start the work!

Next job was the metallic part of the hood. This was first masked, then airbrushed with Zero Paints Candy base Silver followed by Candy Electric blue

Then, all body decals were attached and finally sealed off with several layers of 2K clear

All the items seen above were covered with HD carbon decal and followed by 2K clear

After a week drying, it was time for polishing! First thing was to remove all orange peel

Once all polishing steps were performed, body was masked and window trims airbrushed

That's the final outcome, now it's time to start assembling everything together!

To make the rear side windows rivets, I have used 0.7mm electrical wire

Finally, all remaining pieces were assembled to the body and the Spoon FD2 called done!

For the complete set of finished pictures, head over to the Gallery section, or click here to be directed