Martin

The plan was to buy the complete kit, but after 3 years on the forums, “Would be nice” became “Must haves” – thanks to you lot. Having a forum is like having a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other. One side tells you how to do it right, the other side tells you all the things you could spend your money on.

Getting a complete kit didn’t make sense when I knew we’d want to upgrade so many parts and with no resale market in the UK, it would be difficult to get rid of anything extra. So onto plan B...

Being in the UK, we needed to do a LHD to RHD conversion because FFR doesn’t offer it. The original plan was attend build school. After a quick call with Mark Dougherty, an offer of “get everything shipped to my place and I’ll store it for you until you are ready, and we can work through everything you need to know on YOUR car” meant that before I knew it, I had committed to a week in the US working with Mark.

The plan was to get a crate engine, or a turnkey engine from British American Engines just down the road from us. Just as I’d decided that turnkey engine was the way to go, my wife decided to speak up again. More immortal words – “You can’t build a car like this and not build the heart of the car. I’m not going to let you buy a turnkey engine engine”.

Nuts! I know nothing about engines. So onto Plan C...

A quick call to Fortes, and I’m committing to a second week in the US taking part in the engine build experience.

Now we need to start talking about engines/parts/drive train. They are expensive. More than I thought, but cheaper than the UK for sure. The British American Engine guys would definitely build a great engine for us, but it wasn’t allowed any more.

At this point, I had to make a tough decision. Despite wanting to order everything now and get on with it, the fact that I need to pay for the engine 18 months sooner than I had thought meant we’ve had to delay it for another year.

The final plan...

Buy everything for the car this year. Pay for the engine components early next year. Fly out with the wife to Wareham for the FFR Open house in June (sadly, 2012), spend a week at the Forte engine build experience, then spend a week with Mark sorting out all the major headaches before pulling it apart again and shipping the parts to the UK.

So what I am doing now? Buying all the parts, shipping them to “a guy on the internet” and not seeing them for 15 months. Sounds crazy to most people, but so does the idea of spending a small fortune on a car that is only good in the summer (and this is the UK summer I am talking about), smells, is loud and uncomfortable and will probably cost me £4000 to get insurance every year. All the people I’m looking to work with or do business with over the next few months have all been brilliant so far, no complaints from my end.