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John McEleney finally had a few minutes to visit the garage today and check the progress of the build. His enthusiam towards the car and all of us building it was awesome to see. He was right when he said "SolidWorks is such a cool company and this project is the essence of who we are." Maybe one day we'll see John riding to work in one of these awesome Factory Five cobras.
Next time John, bring your work clothes! We'll let you turn some wrenches.
- Jeremy Luchini
Too many toys, too little time. Unfortunately, it has come time that I have to part with one of my favorite cars that I have owned...my 1971 Triumph TR6. I need to free up some garage space to complete the rebuild of my 1974 Jeep CJ5. Also, since I now prefer to bicycle instead of drive on nice days, I don't get to drive it much any more. It is a great little car...sporty and muscular looking and with a six cylinder in such a small car, it really goes. So if you can't afford the $685,000 for a Koenigsegg, maybe $12,000 is a little more in your budget. For complete details about the car, please go to http://wilkiesworld.net/tr6.htm. If you or anyone else is interested or would like more information, please contact me at jim@wilkiesworld.net.
- Wilkie
I picked up quite a few parts on Saturday that I had ordered recently. Air cleaner, valve covers, fuel line, carb, oil pan, etc, etc. That combined with the parts that Jim Foster sent me made for a photo opportunity. We still have many parts we are waiting for from the machine shop in Mass and we expect to get the cam and valvetrain components this week. Hopefully the engine components at the machine shop will be shipped this week as well. We need those parts before we can start assembling the engine. 
Steve McGilvrey
Today wiring tea
m members Chris Morse, Jim Ferrater, Joe Duca, Scott Stanley as well as the fashionably-late Lorne Silkes did some rough wiring-harness routing to see roughly how things will fit. Final placement and looming will be done once more sheet metal is in place (that way we can drill holes in it) :-)
At right, Chris zip-ties the fuse box into place while the guys figure out how to make 57 wires invisible.
Not too many problems here -- we need a wire for a possible future reverse light (the car doesn't have one, but might need one to pass inspection),
Below, Scott shows the Front Lighting harness who's boss.
-- Mark Gibson
We are cruising right along, but we will know how to stop safely now! We installed all the brake lines this past Friday night and Saturday. Thanks go to Tom Sherman, Robin Richter, Dan Drumea, Jeremy Luchini, Howie Buccieri and Lorne Silkes with their expertise and assistance. We installed the front lines in on Friday night to the tune of Accidents Will Happen by Elvis Costello. We agreed that this is not our favorite song to listen to while working on the car. Otherwise, on Saturday while installing the rear brake lines, Car Talk was deemed the favorite radio show to listen to.
The lines were installed without little difficulty and found a nice place for our proportioning valve. We needed to fabricate our own rear lines to the correct size, so that gave us a little more creativity. Some hardware is needed to finalize mounting the calipers. Once they are mounted, we will add brake fluid and bleed the system of air.
It was our intention to install the fuel line as well. After having some difficulties with the type of fuel line we had, we agreed to upgrade the line. Once we obtain the new fuel line, installation should take no longer than an hour (boy, it's nice to work on brand new clean parts). The fuel line will then wait for our engine and its manual fuel pump to be hooked up to.
Adam
Cool cars and cool people. That's what is was all about this week as the build team leaders spent the day among the FFR community getting to know a little more about Factory Five and parts vendors such as MPE Racing, Disc brakes R'us and Breeze Automotive (Just one of the great advantages to being located in Massachusetts is the close proximity of all these companies). It was a great time at the factory - taking in a quick tour led by Jesper and spending plenty of time getting ideas for our own build. On the way back from Wareham, we toured MPE Racing and Disc brakes R'us, the vendors who supplied our IRS and ceramic-coated exhaust. Pretty cool seeing all the powder-coated color options you can do on a FFR kit, from fuel lines, to pedal boxes, to frame, to transmission, to calipers, to aluminum panels, these guys can make everything under the body ridiculously awesome looking. The biggest treat of the day, for me, was the trip to Breeze Automotive, where I must have spent 3 hours with Mark and Tina, an incredibly warm and friendly couple, in business selling everything you need for a cobra (if you're going the non-donor route on a build - like us). We picked up all sorts of great products like a gas tank guard, overflow tank, front mounted battery box (Mark's own design - and the best I've seen), dash mounts, exhaust mount insulators, gas pedal and pedal covers, and more...
Yes - we could have stayed in Concord and ordered all this stuff over the internet and maybe tried to stir up a Cobra conversation with the FedEx guy, but we all know technology and shipping will never replace the advantages of face-to-face time with those you want to do business with.
- Jeremy Luchini
With the arrival of the front lower control arms and the mount/balance of four mondo BFGoodrich Radial T/As (courtesy of Lorne), Jim, Mark, Adam, Lorne, and Jeremy set upon the "half-hour" task of installing the front suspension. "We've got all the parts, what could go wrong?" we asked. A partial list:
Nonetheless, a mere 4 1/2 hours later, with only the very occasional (okay, constant) use of a dead-blow hammer and colorful language, the job was complete! And the results are worth it. We've got wheels! We haven't yet, but as of today we could lower the chassis onto its own tires.
Special mention goes to Scott Harris, who took one for the team by battling the vicious finger-biting rear calipers as he mounted rear disks and pin-drive adapters. Don't worry Scott...it'll feel better when it quits hurting!
-Mark Gibson
