Does anyone make the engine/engine compartment for a 1/35 AFV Club M18 Hellcat?

Thanks for the help in advance.
Fred

Verlinden has released a resin Continental R-975 engine (originally designed for Sherman M4 and M4A1 kits - also included in the "Sherman engine compartment" set #1120) that could be used with the Hellcat :

Royal Model has released a set of Hellcat mufflers (RM-346) :


This could be a start for your project....

Frenchy

Frenchy,

Thanks for the information. I already have the Royal Models muffler set. How difficult would it be to put the Verlinden Sherman engine compartment into the Hellcat? Keep in mind that I am somewhat of a novice at this.

Anybody can respond if they know. Thanks.

Doing that right now. The AFV Club hull is too shallow overall, so I added a styrene shim all around the lower hull that lifts the upper hull clear of the tracks and improves the engine's clearance inside the compartment. The engineering of the Verlinden resin engine isn't good--getting all the little curved exhaust pipes into place caused much muttered cursing, though it looks impressive when done. You'll need to add the two air intake pipes around the bottom and feed them forward to the firewall (the filters are in the fighting compartment). You'll need to scratchbuild the firewall detail and the fuel tanks alongside the engine from styrene sheet. The fit is tight, and you may need to thin the underside of the engine deck, as the scale thickness of the plastic is bout two inches. The Eduard set includes the engine grills, though you'll need to add styrene strips to give some dimension to the exhaust louvers over the mufflers, as these are slats that direct the exhaust upward. The grills are a bit too petite (real ones are rather heavy metal rods welded together, not screening), but other than scratchbuilding them, there's little you can do. You don't need to actually connect the Royal Model exhaust pipes to the engine, as that area is not visible. The M18 engine compartment is well shown in the Squadron walkaround book on US tank destroyers.

Yikes! That sounds a little too complicated for me. I thnk I'll just end up attaching the Royal Models muffler assembly to the rear bulkhead so that there is something to look at under the grill and that will be that.

I am curious about the hull being shallow. I wasn't aware that there was a problem. How thick a shim did you add?

Fred

I'm curious about this as well. Thank you