FormaCars' MKIV #9004 Build

[Doug @ Forma]

We ordered out Mark IV right after we returned from SEMA in November, we picked it up in December and started on it late in January. We thought it was about time we started a build thread and get caught up to where we are today.

We ordered:


MK IV complete kit
Powder coated chassis
Classic roadster seats
2015 IRS parts
17" Halibrand wheel package
Stainless side exhaust
Heater / defroster
Chrome roll bars, RH & LH
GPS gauge set


We also purchased a complete, low mileage (less than 20K) 2015 Mustang drivetrain (5.0 Coyote V8, MT82 6 speed and complete rear subframe with 3.73 rear end) from The Parts Farm (https://www.facebook.com/partsfarm/) in Georgia.

Our plan with this build is to leave the drive train mostly stock except for a tune. Aesthetically, we intend to push things a bit more modern, but with respect to the Cobra tradition. More on that later. :cool:

As I said, we drove from Columbus, OH to Wareham, MA to pick up our kit in December. We did so rather than having it delivered because we are also building a Gen. 3 Type 65 as well and wanted to take a good look at the SEMA car while it was still at Factory Five (it was going on the road soon and would be unavailable) since there is not yet a Gen 3 build manual. We have an eventful trip, dealing with some fairly serious lake effect snow on the way, but arrived back in Ohio in one piece with our new project.

Here are some pics from picking up our kit, more on the build progress to come.

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[wareaglescott]

Look forward to following along and your modern additions.
Didn't realize the Gen 3 coupe didn't have a build manual yet. That is interesting.

[Doug @ Forma]

Thanks. I think it's pretty common that the build manual lags behind initial production. I'm fairly certain that was the case with the 818. At least with the Type 65, there's a gen 2 build manual that will be helpful. Those first 818 builders had to be flying blind.

I like your color combo, that orange is fantastic. We have settled on our base color, a very similar early 2000s Ford dark metallic gray called Dark Shadow. We're still fine tuning the stripes and the interior. We will be working in our signature neon yellow-green accents. :D

[Doug @ Forma]

We're approaching our build a bit different than most, at least different than the manual suggests.

Rather than immediately removing the body and starting in on fitting sheet metal and mechanical work, instead we decided to properly locate and mount the body while it was in place from shipping and then fit the windshield, the doors, hood and trunk lid.

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We also are planning to flush mount the hood scoop rather than riveting it on. So we cut an opening in the hood that allowed us to push the hood scoop up from the bottom. Our body man will then mold the scoop to the hood for a nice flush appearance.

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Once everything was properly located, off the entire chassis went to the body shop to have the doors, hood and trunk fit to the body. In our case, there was a lot of filler work in the body at the back of both doors to get the contours right. I wish I got more images at the body shop, but I didn't.

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Once those were fit, we returned to the body shop with the body buck so we could remove the body from the chassis, place it on the buck and bring the chassis back to our shop. Our body man then kept going, getting ready for paint while we got to work on the chassis. We'll temporarily reunite them before final paint in order to do final trim on the header openings and work on the interior.

Doing it this way should give us very good fit of the hood, doors and trunk, allows the body work to be done in parallel with the mechanical, should result in less handling of the body and we won't be doing that messy body work on top of a nearly complete chassis.

BTW, if you're interested in our Type 65 build, Kyle has started a build thread on it, check it out (http://thefactoryfiveforum.com/showthread.php?23727-FormaCars-Gen3-Coupe-9-Build).

[Jeff Kleiner]

Didn't realize the Gen 3 coupe didn't have a build manual yet. That is interesting.

Awaiting feedback from the beta builders.

Jeff

[wareaglescott]

Seems like a good way to go about getting a head start on the bodywork. Good idea.
Did you guys take the body off and put the bulb seal on before dong this to ensure proper fit or does it not really make a difference at that point?

[awd-turbo]

We also are planning to flush mount the hood scoop rather than riveting it on. So we cut an opening in the hood that allowed us to push the hood scoop up from the bottom. Our body man will then mold the scoop to the hood for a nics flush appearance.

[/URL].


This is what I am interested in... Do you have anymore details? Did you use fiber glass to hold it in place? and then body filler to get the contours fixed?

[Doug @ Forma]

Seems like a good way to go about getting a head start on the bodywork. Good idea.
Did you guys take the body off and put the bulb seal on before dong this to ensure proper fit or does it not really make a difference at that point?

We shimmed the body up from the sheetmetal to leave space for the bulb seal.

[Doug @ Forma]

This is what I am interested in... Do you have anymore details? Did you use fiber glass to hold it in place? and then body filler to get the contours fixed?

I've got to gather some images and talk to our body man about the process details. I'll post those soon!

[Doug @ Forma]

Once we got the chassis back from the body shop, we dove into fitting aluminum and getting it off to powdercoat. Each part was fit as it was removed, all holes drilled, any trimming necessary, etc. The aluminum on the Mark IV required much less "love" than the panels on our 818.

Then we dropped the engine in the chassis. One nice thing about having a parent company that's a manufacturing organization is access to fork lifts: :D

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Once we got the engine and trans in place, we hung the differential so we could properly align the tail shaft of the trans to it. We then got the shorty headers mounted and test fit the side pipes in preparation for the body's return to the shop.

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We decided to wait until the body came back to tighten everything down since we may need to tweak things to get the side pipe alignment right. More on that later.

[FFRSpec72]

The aluminum on the Mark IV required much less "love" than the panels on our 818.

The 818 requires more than "love"

[Doug @ Forma]

Our build is progressing along nicely, I need to get this thread caught up with it.

About 2 weeks after separating the body and chassis, the body returned, primed and ready for paint.

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Now we can marry the body & chassis again, finalize the engine mounting and do the final trim on the side pipes and louvers.

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As you can see, our first attempt saw the right side pipe line up with the pre-cut openings quite well, but the left side was way too high. After a little adjustment, we got them nice and even. We ended up having to trim a fair bit beyond the openings that Factory Five made.

After taking a look at the Factory Five louvers, we decided to upgrade to the nicer Finish Line louvers. We were able to get them in time to trim the openings to match before the body had to go back to the body shop.

Lastly, while the body was here we decided to have the cockpit area 3D scanned so we had 3D CAD data to develop our interior. We're going for a more modern interior aesthetic and that will require 3D data to develop. Aerosport Modeling (http://www.aerosportmodeling.com/), a local prototype shop, came out with their Faro arm mounted scanner and did the scanning for us. We also had them scan the back of the MT82 transmission to help us with our sifter development (Which is coming along nicely, after a slight set back. Kyle has some info on that in our Type 65 build thread (http://thefactoryfiveforum.com/showthread.php?23727-FormaCars-Gen3-Coupe-9-Build&p=271956&viewfull=1#post271956).).

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After seeing the scanner at work, we're thinking real hard about all the ways a scanner could help us and trying to justify buying one. Very cool tool, but not cheap.

After all that, the body came off and went back for final paint and we continued the work on the chassis.

[wareaglescott]

Looking good. You guys are flying! I am excited to see what kind of interior you come up with.

[Yama-Bro]

Looking good. We have and use a Faro scanner/probe arm exactly like that. It's amazing how much easier it can make your job when you are designing a new part, but don't have 3D models for the mating components. Do you know what software your company is using to get the scan data into a CAD package?

[Straversi]

I remember the first time I saw "Overhauling" and they did a car in 7 days. I kept thinking about my neighbor who had been working on muscle car for years. I thought this show must make him feel like he's moving so slow. I get the feeling this build is going to make me feel the same way. Carry on boys, aren't you done yet?
-Steve

[Doug @ Forma]

Looking good. We have and use a Faro scanner/probe arm exactly like that. It's amazing how much easier it can make your job when you are designing a new part, but don't have 3D models for the mating components. Do you know what software your company is using to get the scan data into a CAD package?

I think they were using Geomagic Design X to create the surfaces, but I'm not certain.

[Doug @ Forma]

One more post to catch up to where we are today on our Mark IV.

After the body went back to the body shop, we pulled the engine and trans again to have better access to the chassis. As of today, the front suspension and steering are almost complete and we've got a good start on the sheet metal. The firewall & pedal box are coming along nicely. We really want to have the engine bay complete by the end of the week so we can get the engine and trans back in for good.

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But the real excitement has come from our body shop. If you're following our Type 65 build (http://thefactoryfiveforum.com/showthread.php?23727-FormaCars-Gen3-Coupe-9-Build), you saw Kyle post a picture of the color scheme for the two cars:

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We had decided on that medium gray metallic base with black stripes outlined by our signature neon yellow/green. We wanted to play with the black - metalic or not, matte or gloss - as well as wide or narrow neon. In the end we decided metallic on the black, wide on the neon and all gloss. We also decided to eliminate the gap between the neon and the main body color. Then at the last minute we flipped the script and decided to go with a metallic black base (called "Carbon Flash") with the medium gray stripes.

More on that in the next post ...

[Doug @ Forma]

Early this week, once the gray was laid down the center, we went to the body shop to lay out the stripes. Taping them off following the prefered tapered dims is tedious work to get right, but moving tape is a whole lot easier than moving paint.

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Next was painting the neon:

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A bit shocking, isn't it? :cool: It's the kind of color you need to use sparingly. :D

Once cured and masked, it was time for the Carbon Flash for the body and pulling the tape:

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No clear yet, but even without the gloss we're pretty excited about how it looks.

[wareaglescott]

love the color scheme

[Doug @ Forma]

Last Friday we got to see the paint with clear, and boy does it look fantastic. We couldn't be more pleased.

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The first shot of the decklid is out in the sun, the others are taken inside his shop. This week our body man is on vacation while the clear sets up. Next week the wet sanding and finishing and at the end of that week the body will come back here. We hope to be go carting by then, but that's perhaps a bit ambitious.

You can see also the way the scoop is blended with the body. He did a fantastic job of getting a nice crisp radius, plus notching the front so that the hood surface extends well inside the scoop. I still owe awd-turbo details on the process. I haven't forgotten, well, not entirely anyway. :p

More to come ...

[WIS89]

Doug-

Color looks great! I really like the accent color; it really complements the greys nicely.

It also looks good on the 818, and the decals down low help it as well. I think you have a very distinctive brand.

You all have really moved quickly on these builds, and it has been fun following along. I look forward to seeing how the interior ends up!

Thanks for allowing us to follow your progress!

Regards,

Steve

[Doug @ Forma]

In today's installment of "fun things to do with a fork lift" we load our freshly painted body up onto the racking to keep it out of harm's way.

The body arrived back at the shop today, nice and shiny. Until we're ready to mount it we needed a safe place for it to live out of the way of the chassis work and the fork trucks coming in and out (the other half of our shop space is warehouse storage for our parent company.) We thought of leaving on the trailer, but we'll need the trailer free to get our coupe to the body shop late this week or early next, so up it goes.

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It was a bit nerve wracking to watch, but it fit like a glove and should be better protected up there. We're getting a car cover ordered to keep the dust off of it too.

[rx7922]

the colors are oddly satisfying, i love the colors

[Kyle @ Forma]

Yesterday I installed some neon brakes, Doug test fit the new door card, and Tim worked on the wrong Cobra.

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[Doug @ Forma]

Yesterday I installed some neon brakes, Doug test fit the new door card, and Tim worked on the wrong Cobra.

Hey, I don't go posting snarky comments on your threads. :D

[wareaglescott]

I really like the calipers. Did you guys change the finish in house, custom order or what? Paint or powder coat?

[Doug @ Forma]

We disassembled them and sent them out for powder coat. We simply can't leave well enough alone. :cool:

[Doug @ Forma]

Wow, I can't believe that it's been a month since I posted an update. It's not that nothing has been happening, on the contrary, we've been busy and have neglected to update the thread.

First, I owe everyone some info on how we did our hood scoop. I already PM'd this to awd-turbo, but never posted it here. Unfortunately, most of our images of the process were lost when one of our guys' phone died before he got them uploaded, but we do have a couple.

We cut the hood so that the outer panel fit tight to the shape of the scoop and the inner panel allowed the scoop flange to pass through. This put the top of scoop flange against the underside of the outer hood panel. We kept the through hole tight to the scoop to minimize the amount of body filler required. One thing we did to make it look better is to leave about 3" or so of the hood to extend into the scoop. This made the hole more challenging to make, the scoop had to be slid in from the back and rotated in place and finishing the opening took more work, but we felt that the look was much better that way and was worth the extra effort.

We attached the scoop to the hood with panel bond adhesive, which is a 2 part adhesive made specifically for fiberglass. It's important that the panels be roughed when bounding, particularly the plastic scoop.

After it was bonded we filled the gaps with body filler creating a nice tight inside radius on the outside of the hood. We kept the filler use to a minimum to avoid potential cracking as the plastic scoop and fiberglass hood expand and contract due to temperature changes.

Many folks here recommend getting a fiberglass scoop if you intend to blend it in for better durability. The consensus from our team is that's not necessary, as long as you minimize how much filler you use and bond the parts together with panel bond. Our owner has a materials engineering background, one of our shop guys used to run a body shop and our painter does exclusively custom work so I have confidence their expertise.

Here's a couple of pictures, sorry we don't have more. The first shot is hard to visualize, but that's the bottom of the hood, looking from the front edge toward the back.

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[Doug @ Forma]

So here's where we are now.


Moroso oil pan and upgraded oil pump gears are installed
Engine and transmission are in the car
Shifter mechanism prototyped
Full suspension is installed
Brakes are installed (including the re-powdercoated calipers in our signature yellow)
SS brake lines are bent and flared, to be installed tomorrow
Fuel tank installed
HVAC system roughed in (we're using a Vintage Air Gen IV system mounted in the trunk.)

I'm sure I missed something, but the important thing is that we now have a rolling chassis!

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Also, as you may have seen in the Roadster Dash Pics thread (http://thefactoryfiveforum.com/showthread.php?24343-Roadster-dash-pics), we've begun to build our interior. I hinted earlier that we were going for a more modern aesthetic with our interior. It's been in development for many weeks and finally starting to come to fruition.

Here's a tease of the concept sketch that we're building to and a couple of CAD screen shots:

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Some things like the HVAC controls & vents, shifter surround & other details have changed a bit, but it's largely true to the concept. The center of the dash & top of the console will be gloss "piano black", the yellow stripe will be gloss vinyl wrap, the door insert will be padded black fabric and the rest of the door and dash will be black vinyl, the dash being padded.

Having access to 3D CAD as well as a large 3D printer, we can create some sophisticated shapes and create them right away. We're making good use of the printer on the interior, here are pics of the front and rear parts of the center console as well as one of the door mockups.

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We're also using custom Speedhut gauges with our logos on them. Here are the 3 larger gauges:

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Speedhut did a great job on these, we're really looking forward to seeing them in the dash.

We've got a busy month ahead of us, we're planning on being at the FFR open house with this and our 818S. Lots of work to do, but it's coming together!

[Vette1972]

Great designs Doug! Really well thought out. Watching the progress intensely.

Thanks!

[Yama-Bro]

Cool use of a 3D printer. I've been thinking of doing a glove box for mine like that. Are you going to use the printed parts as your final pieces or are they just prototypes for mock up which will be replaced with something else later?

[Doug @ Forma]

We're going to use these 3D printed parts, wrapping them in vinyl wrap and upholstery vinyl. The 3D printer allows us to make the transition for the console to dash and to integrate the AC duct into one part. Making it other ways would require several parts.

[wareaglescott]

I am totally uneducated in 3d printing. What is the material it is producing?

[Doug @ Forma]

3D printing is a general term for creating parts directly from 3D CAD data. There are a wide range of technologies & materials used. It's almost like saying "molded" for plastics, which covers vacuum formed, injection molded, extruded, compression molded and more and can be made from thousands of different kinds of plastics.

Almost all 3D printers cut the part in layers and build it one layer at a time, each typically a few thousandths of an inch thick. Our printer is FDM technology (the most common and the tech most hobby printers use) which extrudes plastic in a narrow stream, essentially "drawing" the part one layer at a time. It's kind of a CNC hot melt glue gun, squirting out plastic instead of glue. It can use a range of plastics, the most common being ABS (what we're using) and PLA but you can print just about any kind, as long as you can get it in a spool of filament.

Because the part's built in layers, the strength of the part is slightly less in the build direction than on the other directions. You also see the layers and if you are going for a finished part you need to fill or sand those or, more typically, both. It's a fast (relatively), but fairly expensive way to build parts. It does give you the opportunity to build in features that you couldn't with traditional technologies, like integrating the AC duct into our front console transition.

Our FDM machine is an industrial Fortus 400 with a fairly large build envelope of 16" x 14" x 16". It's older and fairly expensive to run, however. Chris & Kyle just went to a rapid prototyping show yesterday looking at replacements.

There is still a lot of innovation in the 3D printing space. HP just came out with a printer that produces near finished parts that are hard to tell from production molded parts. We're looking at one, but it's well into 6 figures and a very new technology. Because the patent on the FDM technology expired a few years ago (which is why you're seeing all these hobbyist machines out now), there are a number of new innovations happening as people take that technology and expand on it. People are integrating kevlar & carbon fiber into 3D printing now and sometimes at build prices under what our older technology ABS costs.

[wareaglescott]

very interesting. Thanks for the thorough answer.

[rx7922]

i hope you'll be selling a dash like that for us!

[Doug @ Forma]

i hope you'll be selling a dash like that for us!

This interior was design with mass production in mind. Well, as close to "mass" production as the FFR market will support. :D

After this car is complete, we intend to go back and refine it to get it to a palatable selling price. 3D printing everything will be cost prohibitive, so we'll have to invest in some tooling, mostly for vacuum forming. We've already purchased an extrusion die for the straight sections of the yellow trim.

If it all comes together as we hope, the idea is that it'll be a modular system. Meaning we'll offer a slightly revised dash for use with the FFR console, or this dash for use with our console. There will be versions of the console that use the rear panel and one designed to be used without it. The doors are intended to work with our dash or the FFR dash.

We'll also be able to finish it how you want. The center gloss black in our car can be any color you want, the stripe can be wrapped in whatever body wrap vinyl you want (brushed aluminum, carbon fiber, chrome) and we'll put on whatever upholstery vinyl you want.

Oh, and we'll be able to laser etch whatever graphic you want in the rear area where our FC logo is shown. Family crest, favorite quote, cobra head. As long as we can get vector art of it, we should be able to do it.

That's the goal, hopefully we'll be able to accomplish it all. First, get this car done for June 10!

[Doug @ Forma]

It's been all hands on deck pushing to get the car done for the FFR open house on the 10th, so I've neglected this thread a bit. As long as I'm here at the shop on a holiday, I might as well get this caught up.

Lots of little things coming together. We're using an ECUMaster ECU and Kyle has a base tune put together and has been up to his eyeballs in the wiring harness. We're shooting for a first fire this week.

HVAC ducting and shielding is nearly complete. With the air handler in the trunk, we're had to get creative in running ductwork. The floor ducts are exiting the side of the trunk and running down the back of the rear firewall just ahead of the rear wheels, so they needed shields to protect them from stuff thrown off the wheels. The dash and defrost ducts will run up the center console.

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We also mounted on of our fuel surge tanks (https://www.formacars.com/store/80008) under the floor above the fuel tank on the driver's side. It fits perfectly in this space and we are looking at making an install kit specific to the Mark IV for it.

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And last, but not least, the interior is beginning to take shape. Our custom dash sheet metal is padded, vinyl wrapped and installed, the finishing of the 3D printed console pieces is coming along and the piano black parts are as well. Door panels are both printed and will get vinyl wrapped this week. Still a long ways to go, but we're getting pretty excited about the finished product.

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We've got a crazy couple of weeks ahead to make the open house, hopefully I'll have time to update this thread along the way.

[2bking]

HVAC ducting and shielding is nearly complete. With the air handler in the trunk, we're had to get creative in running ductwork. The floor ducts are exiting the side of the trunk and running down the back of the rear firewall just ahead of the rear wheels, so they needed shields to protect them from stuff thrown off the wheels.
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On my build the tires rub the frame tubes behind the rear firewall at the upper limit of the suspension on a hard bump. Looks like there may be a problem with the path you selected.

[Doug @ Forma]

On my build the tires rub the frame tubes behind the rear firewall at the upper limit of the suspension on a hard bump. Looks like there may be a problem with the path you selected.

Hmm, that's interesting. We mounted a tire and checked for suspension travel and it looked OK. We'll give it another look, thanks for the heads up.

[Doug @ Forma]

It turns out we did have interference and we are redesigning the duct to sit more flush to the rear sheetmetal. Not sure how we missed that analysis, but I'm grateful to King for the heads up. Saved us some headaches down the road.

[Doug @ Forma]

We're pushing ahead toward the open house this weekend, although we've had to dial our plans back a bit. We're shooting for a go cart chassis with a partial interior. We we're just running out of time to get the car done to the level that we wanted it and no one wanted to compromise on anything.

Here's our revised HVAC duct. By using our 3D printer we were able to create a duct that was low profile and durable enough that we won't need the aluminum shields.

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We're nearly done with the wiring, the headers are wrapped, all hoses are run, all fluids are in, the HVAC system is charged, rough alignment is done. We should have first fire and be go karting today or tomorrow.

[Straversi]

That's a slick tool to have. Are those ducts drawing air into the HVAC system or blowing air into the cockpit. Floor vents?

[Doug @ Forma]

Those are the floor vents. They'll run along the outside of the seats to the footwell area.

[Doug @ Forma]

Well, despite good intentions and a lot of hard work by the team, we aren't going to have a running car for the open house. We'll be there, but we'll be pushing our roller off the trailer and into place rather than go karting. Such is life.

Good news is a good chunk of the interior is in place and it's looking great. We've got the dash, console and rear panel in place. The billet shifter surround and driver facing speedo surround are represented by 3D printed parts at this point. Also, our MT82 shifter is in place and it feels great. This should be a great help to those who want a 6 speed in their Roadster. Here are some images.

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We're all loaded and leave bright and early in the morning for FFR.

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Hope to see some of you Saturday.

[boBQuincy]

Also, our MT82 shifter is in place and it feels great. This should be a great help to those who want a 6 speed in their Roadster.

Is there any possibility of getting different gear ratios for the MT82? First gear of 3.66 may be ok for a 3700# car but would it be too much for a 2500# car?

[Doug @ Forma]

Is there any possibility of getting different gear ratios for the MT82? First gear of 3.66 may be ok for a 3700# car but would it be too much for a 2500# car?

That's a great question. Not sure, we'll look into it.

[Jeff Kleiner]

That 3.66 first gear coupled with the 3.73 rear will result in a 13.65:1 overall. It'll be great for yanking stumps or rock crawling on the Rubicon :)

Great looking go-kart!

Jeff

[Doug @ Forma]

Great looking go-kart!

Thanks, but it's still just a roller. We were close but ran out of time getting the wiring done.


That 3.66 first gear coupled with the 3.73 rear will result in a 13.65:1 overall. It'll be great for yanking stumps or rock crawling on the Rubicon :)

Or wheelies or turning tires into smoke. :D The V6 MT82 has a 4.24 first gear, even better! We do have the 3.73 in this car. We have the 3.55 in our Type 65, but we're also adding twin Borg Warner EFR turbos, so...

[Doug @ Forma]

Well, it's been a whirlwind these last few weeks. I've finally got the time to update our thread.

We had a great time at the open house and even took home 'Best In Process Build" for our Mark IV (and best 818 as well!). Our rolling chassis had a full drivetrain and a partial interior.

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We arrived home Sunday afternoon and after an afternoon of rest, hit the ground running on Monday to get done for the London Cobra Show. In that two weeks we completed the chassis wiring, installed the seat tracks and seats (with heaters), mounted the body, hood, trunk and doors, finished the interior including the custom door panels (with door poppers) and carpet, wrapped up the remaining sheet metal, installed the lighting, installed the roll bars, machine and install 4 billet pieces (2 door handles, gauge surround and shifter surround) and what seemed like a hundred of other details.

The team worked their butts off and we had a great looking car for the London Cobra Show (see the write up on our website (https://www.formacars.com/blogposts/2017/6/london-cobra-show)). Unfortunately, a last minute discovery meant that we still didn't have a runner. As I've mentioned, we are using ECU Master on our build and it turns out that the Coyote has "passive" ignition coils where power to the coils passes through the ECU rather than "active" coils where the ECU simply sends a signal and the power is routed directly to the coil. Well, the ECU Master will only handle up to 6 passive coils and so, out of the box, will not run our Coyote. The good news is that we found the appropriate coil driver chips and we've mocked up a driver module that should do the job, but we just ran out of time to install and test it before the show.

So, while we still have a lot of details we want to improve upon (like getting it running, obviously), the car is largely complete and we're very happy with the results.

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[wareaglescott]

Great looking build. I really like the custom interior. Wish I had the capability to do something like that. Well done!

I'm curious about your accent color body stripes and how they reflect on the windshield. Do you think that will be a distractor when driving? Maybe it's just the pictures but that looks like a pretty strong reflection.

[wirenut]

Man that is awesome! You guys are doing some great stuff, the awards are well deserved.

Are you guys going to sell the parts to duplicate your A/C ducts?

[Doug @ Forma]

Thanks for the kind words guys.


I'm curious about your accent color body stripes and how they reflect on the windshield. Do you think that will be a distractor when driving? Maybe it's just the pictures but that looks like a pretty strong reflection.

We'll have to see once we get her on the road (our inspection is scheduled for the 19th). I doubt it, though. I don't think it's a lot different than a white stripe on a black car


Are you guys going to sell the parts to duplicate your A/C ducts?

Frankly, we did this one thinking it was a solution that wouldn't have a lot of broad interest, but it got a lot of interest at the open house so we're looking at how we can bring it to market.

[WIS89]

Doug-

She looks terrific! I like many of the custom details you all created. I do think you will find a number of folks interested in various pieces. It is very unique and offers some interesting solutions.

I hope you will post lots more pictures when she is all completed. Great work by your team!

Regards,

Steve

[Doug @ Forma]

Doug-

She looks terrific! I like many of the custom details you all created. I do think you will find a number of folks interested in various pieces. It is very unique and offers some interesting solutions.

I hope you will post lots more pictures when she is all completed. Great work by your team!

Regards,

Steve

Thanks Steve, here are a few more interior shots:

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We intend to bring this interior to market. We learned a lot putting this one together, so the design needs some refinement first. The intent is that we'd be able to offer a lot of flexibility in colors & finishes to match to match your car & tastes.

[Wes Brimhall]

Very nice! Earlier you were working on the mechanism for the getrag transmission- wondering if you have any feedback on that or information on an offering for our installs. Thanks!

[Doug @ Forma]

Very nice! Earlier you were working on the mechanism for the getrag transmission- wondering if you have any feedback on that or information on an offering for our installs. Thanks!

This car has the first fully machined prototype of our MT82 shifter (earlier prototypes used 3D printed parts). From just sitting in the seat, shift feel and action are very good. We'll need to get some miles on it before making a final judgement, but initial impressions are that this design is going to work very well.


We've got the coil driver module in the car and testing it today, hope to have first start before the day is done!

[Doug @ Forma]

Hello all, I owe you an update on our Mark IV soon, but we've been at work on getting our interior package ready for release. We're close and would love some feedback on it. I've started a new thread for it here (http://thefactoryfiveforum.com/showthread.php?25621-FormaCars-Custom-Roadster-Interiors&p=291761#post291761), please let us know what you think.