AA-ron
07-12-2023, 12:25 PM
I thought I'd post a few of my thoughts and observations after the first 500 miles on my Roaster.
Thinking back, way back, when building this car was just a dream, all the way to while the build was underway, I always appreciated "newbie's" early reactions to owning and driving one of these things.... so.... I thought I'd return the favor and pass along my thoughts.
From start to finish, my build took about 10 months. I finished last month and it was legal about 3 weeks ago. Through the course of the build, Factory Five did a great job, even with all the adversity in the supply chain they faced. Thanks FFR!
So here goes:
First and foremost, the car is tight and fast. The fast part wasn't a surprize, but for some reason, I thought that a garage built car would have a little "slop" in it (certainly considering I have absolutely NO auto-mechanical experience). In fact exactly the opposite is true. This thing drives tighter and cleaner than any car I've ever owned. I have a relatively mild engine compared to most it seems, a Ford Racing Boss 302 from Mike Forte that dyno'd at 358HP. Well, it's fast, very fast-- fast enough where it scares the hell out of me. Granted I only have 500 miles on it and I'm still learning it, but it's faster than I expected.
Since I've had it on the road, I've been pretty diligent about doing a "nuts and bolts" check about every 100 miles (because I'm paranoid) and here are the results of what I've found:
100 miles: cooling lines needed tightening and 2 of the header bolts needed to be re-torqued.
200 miles: changed the oil, but nothing else needed attention
300 miles: a few rattles surfaced, all easy fixes.
Door latch bolt had loosened, which I locktighted and fixed.
Hood hinge needed to be tightened, probably loose from day one.
A very very illusive "SQUEAK" from the rear that drove me absolutely nuts, turned out to be the trunk lid squeaking against the trunk lip seal (odd right?). I lubed it with a little silicon spray and 200 miles later its still silent.
400 miles: nothing needed any attention.
500 miles: the header bolts (same ones) need to be re-torqued. I do have loctite on these threads, so any advice here would be great.
Here's some more general reports that are a little more specific to my somewhat funky build. As some here know, I put my muffler in the nose of the car and vented the exhaust right behind the front wheels. A big concern here and rightly so, was if I'd be plagued with exhaust fumes and would I be potentially adding too much heat to my engine bay. I'm happy to report that I don't have any exhaust smell if I'm moving more than 5 to 10mph. In stop and go traffic, and when the wind blows just right I do smell it, but I'm assuming that is normal. From a temperature standpoint, the engine seems to run pretty cool and never exceeds 195- 200 (normally at 185 or so). I've had it out in stop and go beach traffic at 90 degrees ambient temp (as bad as it gets here in Maine) and no overheating problems (I don't count the first overheating problem relating to wiring my rad fan in reverse.... duh).
Foot box heat: I'm not sure if this is a byproduct of my exhaust being in the nose of the car or not, but I'm not getting high foot box temps-- at least where it's uncomfortable or even noticeable really. I do have copious amount of heat mat, so that seems to be doing its job.
My funky rollbar allowed for an elevated third tail light. I had a buddy behind me a few days ago say you can see me from a mile away (very very bright LED light). This makes me feel much safer as I live on the beach and there are lots of "out of towners" rubber necking, and rear end collisions are very common in my town as a result.
The brakes on this car are awesome. I have the standard set-up from Factory Five and they work perfectly.
The engine performance is also as perfect as I could hope for. It continued to run smoother and smoother as I approached 500 miles (where I am now). I'm guessing it was the EFI learning as I drove. Whatever the reason, it idles smoothly, accelerates smoothly, and sounds amazing.
I built my muffler in a way that would allow me to tune the sound by adjusting baffles and insulation. So far its right where I want it. There's a nice loping idle sound and then it flattens out as you accelerate. The x-pipe combining both right and left banks gives the car a very different sound-- kinda like "angry" European and I love it.
So I'm not without a few issues (aside from those two header bolts loosening).
My large size 12 triple E sized Fred Flintstone feet have made learning the pedal spacing a bit challenging-- although I'm figuring it out. I'm very glad I extended my foot box next to the go pedal. This has definitely helped.
The other issue I had early on was setting my right height too early and not accounting for the sag that happened. When I brought it in to have it aligned, unbenounced to me, it had sagged 3/8" and it was too low. I raised it and had it re-aligned. It has not sagged noticeably since. In any event, if it does continue to sag, I know the alignment was performed at the correct height, so all I'll need to do is raise it and I'll be good to go.
My paint job is good but there are a couple of pinholes, luckily in areas that aren't that noticeable, but I notice them... so be it, nothing I can do about it now. This is going to be a driver so I'm not too concerned about it really.
Speaking of the paint job.... one of the most difficult and surprisingly frustrating part (very small part) of the build was putting the protective clear plastic paint protection over the leading edge of the rear fenders. This almost beat me. I went through probably 5 pieces before I was able to get it to lay flat and invisible. WTF! I kept saying "I just built a freekin' car and THIS is what defeats me?????. I finally got them in place and am happy. I did get a few small chips before I put them in place, but oh well.
I'm sure I'm missing a bunch of stuff here, but I'll wrap up this very long post with this:
This car makes people smile! Whether they are 8 years old or 80 years old, male or female--- they all smile when they see it. It's always nice to see people smile, so I count that a huge win!
Again, thanks to everyone on this amazing forum!
Thinking back, way back, when building this car was just a dream, all the way to while the build was underway, I always appreciated "newbie's" early reactions to owning and driving one of these things.... so.... I thought I'd return the favor and pass along my thoughts.
From start to finish, my build took about 10 months. I finished last month and it was legal about 3 weeks ago. Through the course of the build, Factory Five did a great job, even with all the adversity in the supply chain they faced. Thanks FFR!
So here goes:
First and foremost, the car is tight and fast. The fast part wasn't a surprize, but for some reason, I thought that a garage built car would have a little "slop" in it (certainly considering I have absolutely NO auto-mechanical experience). In fact exactly the opposite is true. This thing drives tighter and cleaner than any car I've ever owned. I have a relatively mild engine compared to most it seems, a Ford Racing Boss 302 from Mike Forte that dyno'd at 358HP. Well, it's fast, very fast-- fast enough where it scares the hell out of me. Granted I only have 500 miles on it and I'm still learning it, but it's faster than I expected.
Since I've had it on the road, I've been pretty diligent about doing a "nuts and bolts" check about every 100 miles (because I'm paranoid) and here are the results of what I've found:
100 miles: cooling lines needed tightening and 2 of the header bolts needed to be re-torqued.
200 miles: changed the oil, but nothing else needed attention
300 miles: a few rattles surfaced, all easy fixes.
Door latch bolt had loosened, which I locktighted and fixed.
Hood hinge needed to be tightened, probably loose from day one.
A very very illusive "SQUEAK" from the rear that drove me absolutely nuts, turned out to be the trunk lid squeaking against the trunk lip seal (odd right?). I lubed it with a little silicon spray and 200 miles later its still silent.
400 miles: nothing needed any attention.
500 miles: the header bolts (same ones) need to be re-torqued. I do have loctite on these threads, so any advice here would be great.
Here's some more general reports that are a little more specific to my somewhat funky build. As some here know, I put my muffler in the nose of the car and vented the exhaust right behind the front wheels. A big concern here and rightly so, was if I'd be plagued with exhaust fumes and would I be potentially adding too much heat to my engine bay. I'm happy to report that I don't have any exhaust smell if I'm moving more than 5 to 10mph. In stop and go traffic, and when the wind blows just right I do smell it, but I'm assuming that is normal. From a temperature standpoint, the engine seems to run pretty cool and never exceeds 195- 200 (normally at 185 or so). I've had it out in stop and go beach traffic at 90 degrees ambient temp (as bad as it gets here in Maine) and no overheating problems (I don't count the first overheating problem relating to wiring my rad fan in reverse.... duh).
Foot box heat: I'm not sure if this is a byproduct of my exhaust being in the nose of the car or not, but I'm not getting high foot box temps-- at least where it's uncomfortable or even noticeable really. I do have copious amount of heat mat, so that seems to be doing its job.
My funky rollbar allowed for an elevated third tail light. I had a buddy behind me a few days ago say you can see me from a mile away (very very bright LED light). This makes me feel much safer as I live on the beach and there are lots of "out of towners" rubber necking, and rear end collisions are very common in my town as a result.
The brakes on this car are awesome. I have the standard set-up from Factory Five and they work perfectly.
The engine performance is also as perfect as I could hope for. It continued to run smoother and smoother as I approached 500 miles (where I am now). I'm guessing it was the EFI learning as I drove. Whatever the reason, it idles smoothly, accelerates smoothly, and sounds amazing.
I built my muffler in a way that would allow me to tune the sound by adjusting baffles and insulation. So far its right where I want it. There's a nice loping idle sound and then it flattens out as you accelerate. The x-pipe combining both right and left banks gives the car a very different sound-- kinda like "angry" European and I love it.
So I'm not without a few issues (aside from those two header bolts loosening).
My large size 12 triple E sized Fred Flintstone feet have made learning the pedal spacing a bit challenging-- although I'm figuring it out. I'm very glad I extended my foot box next to the go pedal. This has definitely helped.
The other issue I had early on was setting my right height too early and not accounting for the sag that happened. When I brought it in to have it aligned, unbenounced to me, it had sagged 3/8" and it was too low. I raised it and had it re-aligned. It has not sagged noticeably since. In any event, if it does continue to sag, I know the alignment was performed at the correct height, so all I'll need to do is raise it and I'll be good to go.
My paint job is good but there are a couple of pinholes, luckily in areas that aren't that noticeable, but I notice them... so be it, nothing I can do about it now. This is going to be a driver so I'm not too concerned about it really.
Speaking of the paint job.... one of the most difficult and surprisingly frustrating part (very small part) of the build was putting the protective clear plastic paint protection over the leading edge of the rear fenders. This almost beat me. I went through probably 5 pieces before I was able to get it to lay flat and invisible. WTF! I kept saying "I just built a freekin' car and THIS is what defeats me?????. I finally got them in place and am happy. I did get a few small chips before I put them in place, but oh well.
I'm sure I'm missing a bunch of stuff here, but I'll wrap up this very long post with this:
This car makes people smile! Whether they are 8 years old or 80 years old, male or female--- they all smile when they see it. It's always nice to see people smile, so I count that a huge win!
Again, thanks to everyone on this amazing forum!