The build goes on

[JohnMac]

Having acquired an unbuilt gen1 coupe back in June, we’ve been working on it 3-5 days a week. After trying to organize the build manual, mostly in my sub-conscious, and reading a lot of the forums and pestering some of the members, we’ve finally gotten most of the aluminum panels in and yesterday the engine/transmission slid into position. The brake lines have been run and bled with no problems and we mounted the battery behind the diff for better weight distribution.

I’d read a lot about things not fitting- motor mounts, exhaust pipes, brake calipers, but in our case nothing serious. We had to cut the frame and rearrange the square tubing a bit to make way for the wilwood pedal box clutch not to hit it and the crossmember for the instrument panel had to be cut loose from it gusset in order for it to be level. We leveled it up with a ratchet strap and rewelded the gusset.

The engine is from Ford Performance, 427/500 hp coupled to a Tremec trans. We’re using a hydraulic clutch and will probably not be installing the AC. Looking at the supplied setup we decided the deep sump oil pan was too low and ordered a road race pan which is level with the tubular cross member. Everything lined up after a bit of pushing and a few we’ll placed taps with a hammer and lever. We had to shim the trans mount about 1/4” for the driveshaft to be level. I bolted on the supplied Hooker headers which cleared the foot boxes and look as though they’ll mate up to the side pipes.

We’ve yet to refit the body and haven’t ordered the intake manifold or FI unit which I’m looking forward to.

[John Dol]

John,

Excellent, can you share some pics?
Sounds like a nice project with a 427
John

[GThompson]

Cool!! What s/n Coupe do you have? I'm doing bodywork now, truly a pain in the neck!!

[JohnMac]

136855

[JohnMac]

Not at the shop today but will get back to you with the SN. It was originally ordered in 2012 and is the complete kit. We haven’t started the work on the body yet.

[cob427sc]

Gen I bodywork was a bear! I did one of the early ones and out of the various FFR cars I've built, that was the worst. Rear drivers quarter was way out of alignment and I won't go into what it took to get the windsheild to fit. All came out fine in the end but a ton of work, even more than a GTM.

[GThompson]

I had to add about 1/2” to the leading edge of the driver’s door. The doors on the black bodies were pretty rough, I hrard many bought new red doors instead of fixing the black doors. I’m REALLY hoping the capability of the chassis once I’m done with it makes me forget all of the work the body is taking. Though, after driving my M3 on some dirt roads last year, I’m thinking I could fund some nice suspension mods, smaller brakes (15” rims don’t fit over the stock M3 brakes), a roll cage, and a few sets of rally tires by selling the Daytona. Tough call.

[JohnMac]

I believe our sn is FSR1000576CP

[JohnMac]

Here it is February 23 with a bit of snow on the ground but temperatures due to be in the 50s this week. Our gen1 coupe is coming along slowly but surely. We’ve had some challenges but have managed to overcome most of them. Our engine/trans install went well with very few hiccups. We’re using a 351s/427 Ford Performance engine and Tremec 5speed trans. It slipped right in and the driveshaft hooked up with no problems. We had to replace the oil pan due to its deep sump was going to give us clearance problems. We’ve elected to use a Holley Sniper efi unit which involves a bit of wiring and head scratching but that’s mostly finished. The Ron Francis wiring harness is well thought out and all the gages are installed in the dash- I just hope all the connections are correct as per the instructions- al least the gage lights work!
We’re using the VintageAir HVAC kit which doesn’t exactly fit in front of the dash and behind the firewall. We ended up fabricating a bracket which raised it up about a half an inch and rearward. I noticed the hamster-like fan was hitting something and after 3 fittings found the clamp holding the motor in place was loose and one of the rubber snubs had fallen out- that’s now fixed.
The windshield kit was another problem. In pre-assembling the wiper boxes we found the cable was not engaging with the gear smoothly. The kit uses a setup used in a lot of English cars but the motor and wheel boxes are from India and very poorly made. We ended up going with MG wheelboxes. The wiring for the switch and motor has me a bit baffled as I can only get the motor running at one speed and it won’t park! As long as the wipers sweep it’ll get through Delaware DMV- we don’t plan on driving it too much in the rain!
The radiator surround and the coolant hoses have all been modified. We cut the lower outlet off and re-angled it to better join up with the water pump. George is a great pattern maker and fabricator and covered all the exposed piping with aluminum sheet. The ss corrugated coolant hose was scrapped in favor of straight aluminum tubing and rubber hose cut to fit. He made a bracket to solidly mount the filler neck and expansion tank.
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Now to fit the body and nose!

[JohnMac]

Work goes on with the coupe. We’ve finally run all the AC and heater hose, cut in the VintageAir control panel, plumbed in another temp. sending unit, hooked up the headers (again) and finally got the LucasIndia wiper motor operating correctly.
After wiring it up per the FF5 distractions (sic) I’d been baffled because it would only run on hi speed with no parking function. Yesterday I decided to split the motor case and take a look inside. It appeared that the brushes weren’t all contacting the armature. I probed around the springs with a small screwdriver and put it all back together and voila, it worked perfectly and ran quieter.
Next week we may work on fitting the body... wish us luck!

[John Dol]

This is from memory for the doors:

Make sure the rear tub is in its final place and mounted.
Place the door in the opening and make sure you have proper gaps. Trim if nescessary.
Remove the door.
Put on the hinge
Mount the strikers
Mount the latch in the door frame
Hang the door frame on the hinge. Don’t forget the copper bushings
Adjust the frame so it latches properly.
Cut the front and back of the door per the manual.
Cut the center panel out
Open the door frame and slide door cover over the frame.
Center the door cover in the body opening again and clamp in place to the door frame.
Secure the door cover to the frame.

On the gray and black bodies you may have to cut a relief in the door cover by the latch for it to fit.

HTH,

John

[JohnMac]

Thanks John! George and I have been working on the build since getting the kit back in June. Because of the build manuals somewhat odd way of prioritizing what to do next, we went about putting things together rather haphazardly. We probably spent way too much time trying to make the FF5 supplied wiper wheel boxes from India??? work with out jamming. We finally ordered 2 from a MG parts house. Because our kit was a complete unbuilt gen1 version from 2012, getting date proper instructions was a problem. The FF5 forum members have been very helpful as have been their many photos documenting their builds.

Mac Morgan

[JohnMac]

With the weather warming up and most of the small stuff finished I decided it was time to get the chassis off the lift and out for a short spin up the shop’s driveway. I knew the engine would start having wired and programmed the Sniper’s efi ecu. Right off the bat I couldn’t engage 1st gear and suspected the hydraulic clutch- turned out the system still had some air in it. It wasn’t much of a spin and everything performed well.
Having spent too much time wiring the gages and wondering whether I’d done it correctly. Other then a burnt out lightbulb in the tach, all the gages worked.
Now it’s off to mounting the body and doors. Wish us luck!

[smithtlw]

Awesome to hear about the gokart! Thanks for the update.

Todd