Things that FFR could fix for (nearly) free on the Mk4

[JohnK]

In another thread there was some discussion about the hole for the trunk handle being drilled off-center relative to the license plate pad. Fixing this seems to me like a relatively simple, straightforward and low-cost thing FFR could do to improve the product. I can think of a few others, and I'm sure that collectively we could come up with a decent little list. Here are the items I can think of that would cost FFR next to nothing to fix, and would (IMHO) enhance the build experience:

1) drill the trunk handle hole centered on the license plate pad
2) Do not drill the hole for shifter on the trans tunnel top sheetmetal. It never lines up properly anyway. If you can build a roadster, you can drill the hole in the right place.
3) Stop welding on that little tab above the PS fuel tank mount that sticks out into the trunk.

I realize that the trunk hole issue may require a small change to a template or tooling, and the shifter hole delete would require a change to a CNC file, but these are pretty trivial, relatively speaking.

What else would people like to see FFR change? I'm sure those of you that have built more than one of these probably have a list in your heads.

[BradCraig]

I have the 25th anny changes on my MK4 body, license plate\handle issue was resolved AFAIK. Mine appears to be dead on.

Agree on 2 and 3!

[Danomatic]

Not sure if this has been resolved already. The long bolts on rear quick jack/body mounts could be redesigned so you dont have to drop the fuel tank in order to put the body on/off. I know of a fix where as put a threaded coupler and bolt it from the back and reverse the bolts and thread in from the quick jacks or bumpers. Still a headache though

[rthomas98]

The drilled out hole is definitely for T5 trans. Because it fit perfectly for me. But once again I am running a 302 with a T5.

[egchewy79]

A new revision of the manual would be nice. Many mistakes in there that could be fixed rather easily

[GoDadGo]

Fix the driver's door by simply making a new inner door mold.
It would make the fitting process much easier.
Split the door and pull a mold off of it.

Door Split
https://youtu.be/6UK6K2jcwTU

Final Bodywork
https://youtu.be/po1Bb2_XDDk

Completed Car
https://youtu.be/9WEe6-wdNtA

[mladen]

A new revision of the manual would be nice. Many mistakes in there that could be fixed rather easily

This! It would also be immensely helpful if it was printed in color. Much easier to see detail that way. I find myself going for the PDF much more than the printed manual because of that. But the printed one is much more convenient when actually working on the car.

[JeffP]

This! It would also be immensely helpful if it was printed in color. Much easier to see detail that way. I find myself going for the PDF much more than the printed manual because of that. But the printed one is much more convenient when actually working on the car.


I printed the pdf and put it in a 3-ring binder. Win/win!

[Mike.Bray]

A few years ago I was able to buy a long-time dream car, a Viper GTS coupe. While it was an amazing car with a ton of V-10 power, I really didn't enjoy it all that much. For one it's huge! It barely fit in the one car stall of my garage. And it was a bit too refined with power windows, AC, cruise control, etc. My (relatively) new wife is a car gal and mentioned one day how much she always liked the old Cobras (probably after watching the Gumball Rally) and that started a conversation. Two or three years later we decided to sell the Viper (for quite a bit more than we paid for it) and started getting serious about building a Cobra.

Having built a couple of cars before including a Cobra kit car I had a good idea what to look for so started doing some research. I ended up selecting Factory Five for these reasons:

A) Been around for over two decades and into the 4th generation of the Cobra.

B) As an engineer and old manufacturing guy I appreciated their investment in technology like 3D parametric modeling and CNC lasers & press brakes. An owner willing to make these types of investments in the business is a serious owner.

C) I think the kit they offer is good value, good quality at a fair price. And I liked the design compared to other kits.

D) A ton of aftermarket support like this forum, Jeff Kleiner, and suppliers like Breeze.

However, having been most of the way through the process with my car I've seen a few areas that could and should be improved.

A) For the most part I thought the quality was good, not better or best but good. Obviously FFR is under price pressure as their market is not the uber-rich. I would rather have paid an extra couple of thousand dollars for my kit for a little better quality.

B) Fasteners. Half of my POL list was fasteners. Seriously? Apparently it would have been even more if I had gone with the IRS. Because of price pressure I'm sure FFR has an agreement with a major fastener manufacturer/supplier, I would guess it's in Taiwan, so when they can't supply that's it. Understand FFR doesn't want to pay premium pricing to McMaster or Fastenal but they should develop a second and third supplier of fasteners with the pricing they need. 99% of the fasteners in my kit could be sourced from my local Ace Hardware so there's nothing all that special about them.

C) Everyone's favorite topic, the POL list. You wait 8-10 months for your kit and then it's missing a bunch of items that's going to stop you in your tracks. There's are supply chain issues everywhere but some of the typical POL items seem a little crazy, like fasteners. My POL list was less than a page long, apparently I was extremely lucky.

D) Another POL complaint, FFR appears to ship POL items with new kits first and then fill old backorders. I've seen numerous posts on this forum where kits were delivered after mine and items still outstanding to me were included with these newly delivered kits. I actually ended up borrowing a set of door latches from another builder that received them with his kit months after I received my kit while my latches were still on the POL list. I finally received them a couple of weeks ago but not complete. IMO the way FFR handles POL items makes better business sense for them than it makes for good customer service.

E) Inventory and pre-ship. I received a lot of items with my kit that I had no use for. Brake kits, spindles, roll bar, Wilwood master cylinders, headlights, firewall, tunnel cover, rearview mirrors, gas pedal, radiator hoses, brake & fuel lines, etc. A couple of weeks before the due date, which FFR is remarkably good at hitting, the order is finalized and they build a BOM. This BOM is used as a picking list and then supplied with the kit. If I had that BOM before shipment I would have marked off a lot of items and told FFR not to ship them. TBH I wouldn't even be all that concerned about the cost credit, just a bunch of stuff I didn't need and had to deal with. I have spoken to FFR about this and how much money they could save a year but they don't seem interested.

F) Manuals. Having written technical manuals I can say the manual I received is actually very good and well illustrated. Having a printed version as well as a PDF copy is very nice. As mentioned above if the printed version was in color it would be better. Maybe a paid option? The one thing about the manual that really bothered me was the incomplete BOMs for each section. For example, fasteners. Sometimes fastener details were called out and other times they weren't. In some cases going back and searching through the inventory list would provide the answer. To me calling out out which wrench is going to be required but not which fasteners just is not very helpful. Consistently adding torque values at each step of assembly would be a really good idea. Not only saving time looking it up but also as a reminder.

That's my list.

[ggunter]

My pet peeve would be the hand brake. Although mine works fairly well after much massaging, I think a redesign is in order. The cables wrapped under the crossmember could be done a bit better. I received my kit in August of 2020 and found my hardware to be of good quality. A lot of grade eight hardware. Even in areas that would not need hardware of this quality. Since then, I know the supply chain nightmares may have forced them to probably go with different hardware suppliers and possibly hardware that could be of better quality.

[John Ibele]

Owner of an older kit, some of these may have been fixed already:



Windshield post cutouts that actually match the angle of the posts. Not a huge deal given the size of the bezel, but simple and free to fix.
Do a quick touch with a wire brush attachment on the ball joint threads before shipping.
Quit pretending that builders will stick with one brake reservoir and just ship them two, with matching manual updates.
e-brake as noted in previous post. It can be made to work, but with more fiddling than some want to take time with.

[Hoooper]

As far as things that could be fixed on the existing kit, not cutting the trans tunnel hole would be good, not cutting the hole in the trans tunnel for the speedo wire, pretty much any of the precut holes for the donor setup which can easily be cut by someone who is using a donor but arent used by non-donor cars

Option for TIG welded frame

This will never happen, but an option to upgrade to a space frame not based on the needlessly heavy 4" tubes. Something like the challenge frame revised to not need the big tubes.