codex99

@astyanax Thanks for this. So the mystery of how the fin is stabliized laterally is the pin hole connector and the gray cross axle - I figured it had to be something like this. In your first fin design I found that the Bionicle tooth could be somewhat stabilized by using an old-school slotless friction pin to fix the pin connector. in fact I found a few cases where the old-school friction pins were helpful in attaching the body panels. Again, thanks for all of this - if I ever meet you in person the beer will be on me ;)

@astyanax I finally got the parts to finish some of your mods. The exhausts look fantastic (although I substituted black palm tree trunks for the barrels) but my favorite mod is using the Sian tile/plate as a license plate - this is an inspired use of what otherwise would be a useless plaque. I am now building your rear fins, but in your latest version (with the #2 angle connector securing the Bionicle tooth) I am having trouble trying to figure out how you construct and stabilize the fin. Do you by any chance have a photo of the fin assembly not attached to the car? Thanks, and again thanks for all of your work on your instructions

Back in the 1990s I was really into Technic (I even maintained an early Technic website - now lost to the mists of time), but around 2002, when Lego was close to going out of business and had completely given up on the theme, I gave up on the theme too. I've not built a Lego set of any significance in 20 years but this Christmas my kids bought me the 40416 Ice Rink from the Lego Store and apparently got a free 42115 Sian with it (or maybe it was the other way around - I mean I wasn't there and the kids are kind of hedging the question :) The large supercars have always been my favorite Technic models so I was VERY excited to put the Sian together. This, then, is my tediously long review of the Sian and my impressions of the state of Technic and Lego over the last 2 decades that I've been away. I know that everyone in this group is totally familiar with modern Technic sets so I thought it might be interesting to share my thoughts as something of an old-school outsider. Part I - My Unboxing Video. I don't make unboxing videos, but if I did here is where I'd ask you to subscribe and hit that like button: However lots of other people do make unboxing videos. My favorite is the one where Lego sent this guy a free promotional set and he opens the box upside down and everything sort of flops out. I love that video, but I'm guessing Lego's PR department didn't. Anyway, back in the olden times, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, all of the medium and large Lego sets would be packaged in boxes with flaps that opened to reveal windows showing some of the specialized elements. If you were a kid (or in my case, an adult) at Toy R' Us in the 1990s and didn't open the flap on the 8880 Super Car or the 8480 Space Shuttle and immediately want it then you were probably already dead inside and there is nothing anyone could have done to help. Also, some these boxes also had somewhat useful plastic sorting trays. One of the last big Technic sets I bought, the 8448 Super Street Sensation, even had windows showing numbered boxes (along with the wheels and tires, which have yet been equaled). Beginning with the 42056 Porsche, Lego kind of returned to the 8448 box, albeit without windows, but with much more upscale (read: adult) graphics. The Porsche, the Bugatti and the Lamborghini all have really beautiful boxes. I especially like the Sian's weird trapezoidal-shaped inner boxes which I imagine weren't trivial to manufacture. It's the nicest Lego box I've ever had. It's so nice that I'm likely going to keep it, if for no other reason than a place to store all those blue friction pins I didn't use (but I'm kind of getting ahead of myself here). Part II - The Instruction Book(s) Wow, these are really, really explicit instructions - like approaching one-piece-per-page instructions. If you can't build the model from these instructions I'm not sure what to say. The "coffee-table book" stuff in the front is nice, I guess, but not really necessary. On the other hand I absolutely love the inventory list in the back (with part ID's even - back when I had my Technic website there is no way Lego would have shared that information - trust me I tried). I know a some people have complained about a few errors in the instructions, but for a model of this size and complexity I think Lego did a pretty good job. If you want to see what inaccurate instructions really look like take a peek at the 8458 Silver Champion booklet. Part III - A Brief Interlude In Which Your Humble Reviewer Rants About Color. So let's talk about color - this will be fun!. The first photos of the Sian I saw made it look as if the car was a metallic green (and this is not an impossibility - I have an unbuilt 8466 4x4 Off-Roader in my closet that has beautiful metallic green panels) but, no, the car is just plain lime-green and as EVERY REVIEW has stated the shades of lime are not uniform. I can understand that some of the connectors made of different plastics might be different shades but there isn't really an excuse for the #21 and #22 panels or the 1 x 2 liftarms to be different. On the other hand it's not like this is a new problem; I remember people complaining on Lugnet about the purple color matching on the 4755 Harry Potter Knight Bus and that was in the early 2000s. As I recall Lego's response then was the same as it is now - something along the lines of "Yep, we know - too bad, so sad." Anyway, I quite like the choice of lime green for the body and the color matching problem dosen't bother me nearly as much as it seems to bother others. But there are plenty of other color issues that do bother me. While I appreciate that the Lego color palette has expanded so much over the last 2 decades - this is good for everyone - Lego really doesn't need to put every color somewhere in every set. I understand it's now pervasive across all of Lego's themes and I even understand that it does make building easier, especially for large, complicated models. I also get that most (but not all) of these spurious colored elements are not visible in the final model, but really? Here's an example: Look at the Sian's front axle assembly (which is honestly a hot mess, but again I'm getting ahead of myself) - it has red, lime, yellow, gray, black, blue, green, white, brown and tan pieces. The only thing missing is a few pink pieces (and I know what your thinking - don't give Lego ideas. Sorry). So, if I'm going to build this thing the first order of business is to buy a lot of gray and black pieces. Finally there are those color-coded connectors and axles. Heres a trus story: in the 1970s and 1980s ALL Technic connectors were gray and in the late 1980s black friction connectors appeared (8865 Test Car - a set close to my heart). So there's your color-coding: gray (or occasionally dark gray) for non-friction connectors and black for friction connectors. But now Lego has decided that friction connectors should be blue. Blue, a primary color that clashes with every Technic model, except, perhaps, for the front half of the 42083 Bugatti Chiron. Perhaps I'm just a special snowflake with delicate flower-like sensibilities or perhaps blue connectors are an actual crime against humanity. I'm not sure, but I've ssen Youtube videos where decidedly non-Technic Lego builders are complaining about all of those visible blue pins. So, my second order of business if I'm going to build this thing is to swap out several hundred blue and red connectors for black and gray ones - the colors god intended. And while I'm at it, replace as many cross axles with black ones that I can. Now, with the preliminaries out of the way I'll began to actually review the set, assuming anyone's interested.

Hey @MickG. I'm just a little older than you and the Sian was the first real set I've built in 20 years. Here are a few things I'd say. 1. Spend the time to organize your pieces from each box - it will save SO much time later. 2. Count out all of the pieces from the call-outs before beginning the step. When you are done you shouldn't have any extras and if you don't count them out you'll probably miss a connector and you won't know it for maybe another 100 or so steps. 3. As @howitzer said pay attention to orientation - you begin building that rear differential he's talking about in step 12, and there are still more than 1000 more steps to go. 3. Test everything as soon as you build it and when you get to the end of box 2 go ahead and put on the steering wheel and the hubs/tires then test drive it; if the steering doesn't work or the paddle shifters and transmission doesn't work this is a good time to know it.

In the 1990s and early 2000s I was big into Technic, but I haven't built a set of any significance in about 20 years. However my kids got me the Sian for Christmas. My first impression was "this looks awesome." My second impression, looking through the instructions, was "this looks like a mess." It took me a while to get all of the parts but I just finished building the set using @jb70 's and @astyanax's instructions. I wanted to thank both of you for the time and energy it took to create instructions and to thank everyone else in this thread for their improvements to the Lego version of the model. I now have a properly pimped-up Lambo.