...

Sadly, not much is happening right now. The weather has been too cold to accomplish much (some day I'll get a decent garage heater) and there are some personal issues going on that are taking the majority of my free(?) time.

I got a bit more done on the body buck on the weekend but I still need to attach two more legs. Then I'll need help turning it over as it's big and bulky. Soon, my pretty. Soon...

Accomplishments - some big, some not-so-big

I got some more cleaning/painting/straightening done in the garage this weekend. It's beginning to look like an actual work space instead of a disaster overflow. There's still more stuff to be moved to the basement - so that can be the disaster instead ;-)

The majority of the weekend was spend supervising/helping/kibitzing as my wife installed a complete new suspension in our 1993 Miata. She's going to run that in autocross this year and the 183K-mile stock suspension just wasn't cutting it. She wanted to install the suspension herself and she did. I only did grunt work when she couldn't get a bolt loose or advised when there was something she didn't understand in the directions. She did VERY WELL with it. Now it's about an inch lower with new springs, shocks and anti-sway bars.

I had Monday off due to President's Day and I took that opportunity to cut the end pieces for the body buck. OSB is some nasty, splintery stuff and I don't like it. But, the ends are cut and now I just need to get the rest of the 2x4s to build the frame. And I finally finished the inventory of all of the boxes of Roadster parts from Factory Five Racing. That's a huge relief. Now I need to call them to tell them what was missing.

And hope for warmer weather...

Allergies are already beating up on me. Sigh...

Because of that I didn't get into the garage to work on any cleaning last night. However I got through the inventory of about half of the boxes from FFR. So far I'm only missing one toggle switch, besides the stuff they listed as not-yet-shipped. The only thing I didn't actually verify the count on was the rivet packs. I'd rather buy an extra box at the hardware store than sit and count to make sure they really shipped 1000 rivets in the plastic bag.

Hopefully tonight I can get something constructive done.

FFR 6897 - IT'S HERE IT'S HERE IT'S HERE!!!!

It arrived today!

Hiding in the truck.

The snake charmer coaxing it from it's den.

Seeing the light of day.

Easy...easy...

Ah. Safe on the cart.

And finally tucked into my garage and surrounded by junk. The other side of the garage is undergoing a cleanup/painting/rearranging that should be done this weekend. Once that's complete, the FFR will move to that side where it will have some breathing and working room.

I ordered it with an unpainted frame, passenger roll bar, and a 3-link rear suspension.

My FFR Roadster is supposed to be built on February 14.

So today I get a call from Colin Stewart of Stewart Transport asking if I want it delivered on Tuesday, February 10 instead. I asked how this was possible since it's not scheduled to be built until the 14th.

"I pulled in a few favors." said Colin. It seems that he has a truck coming this way a week earlier than planned and he wanted to try to fill it. It's okay if I don't want it yet though.

HOLY CRAP!!!! YES, TWIST MY ARM. I'LL TAKE IT SOONER!

The garage isn't ready.
It isn't painted.
It isn't cleaned out.
There's not enough room for everything that has to be in there.
My donor isn't torn down yet.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh the terrible problems I have.

This will be a busy weekend. Where I was originally going to be painting, I'll now be rearranging. I've got to move two cars to make room for the kit and figure a way to maneuver it around in the garage since I need the 'big' side to disassemble the Mustang.

Once the Mustang is torn apart I'll have to move the Roadster to the 'big' side so I can put the Miata back in the 'small' side.

My house already looks like a used car dealership. With two more cars out of the garage it'll be even worse.

Anybody want to buy a CRX Si?

In the beginning...

(image used without permission)

Well, here's my blog. I've successfully avoided them for oh-so-many years but I figure this is the best way to chronicle the build of my Factory Five Racing Roadster Mk 3.1. It will serve as a record of my progress as well as a history to be submitted when I try to title the car.

It all started around 1965 when I was but 7 years old. I saw a picture of a 1965 Shelby Cobra in a magazine and showed it to my father, saying he should buy one.

Sadly, he didn't.

Being so young, I forgot about it shortly after that.

Fast forward to 1976. The Gumball Rally movie came out and being a car freak I had to go and see it. Once again I was smitten by the look and sound of the Cobra (I recently found out that two different cars were actually used in the movie.) To this day I still drool when I see that movie - pretty frequently as I bought my own copy a few years ago.

Moving on to 1978. I was in college and was taking my at-the-time girlfriend home for the summer. I was, of course, jabbering about cars. She mentioned that her father had a friend who had an old car and would I like to see it? Of course I would! So we went over there to meet him. He opened up the garage door AND THERE SAT A SHELBY COBRA!!! He offered me a ride and I was in the car before he could even finish asking. He fired it up, pulled out onto the street and punched the gas pedal.

OH...........HOLY............CRAP!!!!!

I had a sh!t-eating grin on my face for the rest of the week after that ride.

Shortly thereafter the girl broke up with me so I never got to go back to see the man and his Cobra again.

Every few years I'd get the bug and check the kit prices but they were still out of reach.

Fast forward again to 2008. I'm now 50 years old, somewhat settled in my life and my kids are grown. Digging around in some web sites I came across several different Cobra enthusiast boards including ClubCobra and ffcars. Through those I started researching prices and construction of the various kits. After considering a number of them, and weeding out quite a few due to price constraints, I settled on a Factory Five Racing Roadster. Visually it's styled after the 1965 AC Motors body style used by Shelby for his Cobras. Due to litigation from Shelby Enterprises, Factory Five can't and won't call it a Cobra but that's what it looks like, and that's what I'll be mostly calling it in this blog.

Anyway, FFR has an affordable kit and the list of included parts is tremendous. I especially like the frame they use - it appears to be extremely strong and well built. The body has a few spots that aren't quite original looking, but they can be fixed. They're so minor though that most people would never notice the difference anyway.

The FFR concept is that you take a donor car - in this case a 1987 to 1993 Ford Mustang - and use various pieces in conjunction with their kit and you come up with a Roadster. Having rebuilt several vehicles in the past, it sounds like it shouldn't be too much of a problem for me. I love to tinker so this is right up my alley.

So the first order of business was to find a donor. I read numerous newspaper and online ads and finally ran across a car that seemed usable. It's a 1989 Mustang GT with a supposedly rebuilt engine. And when I got it in November, it was filthy and ran like crap. The remaining two-tone paint is a faded red on top and titanium on the bottom. Interspersed freely within those are black, yellow and rust. It has a red interior which is in surprisingly good shape given the appearance of the outside. But it has a 5.0L engine, T-5 transmission and 8.8" rear axle and those are the main parts I need.

We named it Morton.

It's actually so ugly that I haven't taken any pictures of it yet.

With a concerted effort and much research, primarily at sbftech.com, I got the engine running well. It doesn't seem to burn oil and the exhaust is surprisingly non-noxious so I guess it's actually in pretty good shape.

So with the donor procured, the whining started in earnest. I did my best to convince my wife that life wouldn't be worth living if I couldn't build a Cobra replica. I moped, I cajoled, I whined and finally I mentioned that Factory Five was having a sale. Ah, the magic word.

The sale was a $2000 discount off of the kit price, or a bundle of upgrades, most of which I didn't want from them anyway. So she relented and on January 29, 2009 I ordered my Factory Five Racing 1965 Roadster Mk 3.1 base kit. Boy, that's a mouthful. I specified a bare, un-powdercoated frame as there are a couple of modifications I want to make, a passenger side rollbar and the 3-link rear suspension upgrade. The ready date of my kit is February 14, 2009 - what a Valentines present for me!!!

I'll take copious pictures when it arrives and I'll even get some of Morton the Mustang before and during the dis-assembly process.

For now, I'm working frantically on cleaning and rearranging my garage. This whole thing is happening much, MUCH faster than I thought it would so I'm scurrying around trying to get everything ready. The weather is not cooperating though. It's been at or below freezing pretty much since I placed the order. With no heat in the garage I can't stay out there too long and I can't paint. But this weekend is supposed to be around 60* so I'm hoping to get a lot done.

Well, that's enough for my introductory post. Stay tuned as I'll be adding commentary, pictures, random thoughts and way too much babbling as I go on.