Hiro Fukuda

With most of the parts removed from the sprues, I've finished the pre-assembly stage and am ready to move on to painting.

The key to assembling the body is making sure the front corners of the cockpit tub are glued firmly with no gaps. When the front cowl is closed, the locating notches must align correctly on both sides.

For the front and rear subframes, I decided to paint the control arms gold first, then mask them before painting the frames. After mentally working through the masking process, this approach seemed to require the least amount of masking tape.

I plan to replace the kit springs with wound electrical wire, so this doesn't affect my build very much. However, Aoshima  made a mistake with one of the shock absorber parts. All four springs should have the same winding direction, but one of them is molded in the opposite direction.

Most of the engine components will be brush-painted, with carbon-fiber decals added as accents.

The interior parts are also off the sprues. Aoshima reinforced the base of the gear lever with extra plastic on the inner side. I trimmed away some of that and painted the inside with low-reflectance Musou Black to keep it less visible.

The kit also includes components for two audio systems. Parts 176 and 177, along with the center speaker, appear to represent the Sonus Faber sound system. However, the kit does not include the additional speakers needed to reproduce the complete premium audio package, such as the speakers behind the seats.