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Surfdog57's Gen 3 (#12) build journal.

74K views 425 replies 33 participants last post by  SurfDog57 
#1 ·
Hi Ya'all I thought I'd start a thread to document my build. My kit is scheduled to be complete at the end of June. This will be an Occasional daily driver but mostly a track car! (I daily drive a family truckster when Ive got the kids in tow, and my 370Z when I'm solo, so this ride is mostly for summer cruising and the track (High Plains Raceway in Denver)
So here we go! Here are the options I have picked.

-Complete coupe Kit (yay!)
-shipping crate
-powder coat chassis
-FFR vintage gauges
-coyote 3v headers
-Roadster Coyote straight tubes
-body cutouts
-Comp aluminum race seats
-heat/AC
-wiper kit
-MKII floormats
-Carpet
-Battery cutout
-17" Halibrand replica wheels
-roadster Coyote installation kit
-IRS components
-12.19 IRS Wilwood brakes (I'm working to mod the order to slotted only, not drilled)

My plan is to drop in a Ford 5.0 (302) Coyote motor from Ford racing, paired to a Tremek TKO or T-600. The back end will host a Quaife LSD.



I have poked around a little bit and am suspecting to hit a few snags.

-I suspect it might be a bit of a challenge fitting my steering column around the coyote motor. (I don't think the kit was built with Coyote motor in mind)

-I will have to build up a custom drive shaft (no biggie)

-I foresee fitment challenges with the header/exhaust.

-I have to keep my wife from vetoing the project at every stage.(I plan to use the forgiveness better than permission technique primarily)

Wish me luck folks. My kids and I are super exited to get this project off the launchpad.

Here are some questions I need answered.

-Will a Ford Racing 5.0L 4V DOHC Aluminator XS Crate Engine fit under the hood (with that tall intake manifold up there) or am I limited to a "Ford Racing 5.0L 4V DOHC Aluminator Crate Engine"

-What gear ratios and specific Tranny would be best (Assuming that I'll probably be limited to the smaller 420 HP motor) (I'm thinking a T-600 but don't know about gear ratios etc so am starting from square one)

-How stiff is steering, and should I put in an electric power assist kit? Is it difficult to "retrofit" one if I decide later its needed, or should I do it on the initial build.

-should I do roll up windows or stick with scoops and sliders (remember I'll have AC) I lean toward roll-ups (despite the weight) primarily from a security standpoint (I will occasionally have to lock the car and leave it unattended I would guess)

Thanks in advance for any input you all generously provide. I look forward to bumping into you around the community.

-Cliff
 
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#401 ·
@SurfDog57 So to recap regarding Wilwood brakes.... they have an off-the-shelf 2-piece floating rotor setup. It's 12.88" diameter, and exists on the rear of your Coupe. This floating rotor could be used on both front and rear of the coupe with the SAME calipers front and rear also. (Making spares easy, as you'd only need a spare left and right rotor/caliper, since that would cover both sides front and rear). They do not offer an off-the-shelf floating 14" rotor, based on what I'm hearing...which is why you had a set custom made by Wilwood, which you're using for the front of your Coupe?

Second question; you mentioned upgrading the potentially flimsy FFR front spindles. These spindles are a custom design from FFR, and the only other option that has been used is the old Mustang donor stuff, none of which is even as good as the FFR spindles anyway. So to truly "Upgrade" the front spindles, you'd have to go custom again. Any ideas here? I can't see adapting an S550 Mustang front spindle (something I thought about once) because those use MacPherson strut front suspension, not easily adaptable to the double A-arms of the Coupe.

Nice pics!!!
 
#402 ·
Correct on the brakes, except willwood is not making my front rotor it’s a different shop.

I’m looking into spindle options but will not move forward if floating the rotors fixes my knockback.

I’ll give specs and info on those spindles if I move forward on them.

I think the 12.88 rotor will be fine for most guys. I’m sort of kicking my own ass by upgrading like I did, but in the end the upgraded brakes should be very good for the endurance stuff I’m building toward.

Probably unnecessary for more normal track day car.

(The same guys who fabbed my rotors I think made the “FFR” spindles so they should be able to come up with a stouter design. We’ll see)


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
#403 ·
Since the last few posts, I’ve now received my Gen 3 Coupe-R and I have freshly renewed motivation! Aaaaaand more questions...


1. Front brakes: are you happy with the front FNSL6 (Forged Narrow Super Lite) calipers? Do you wish you had gone with the non-narrow version, the FSL6 (Forged Super Lite) so you could run 20mm/0.80” pads?

2. Rear brakes: do you find the staggered size acceptable for brake bias/power? 14” front and 12.88” rear with very different calipers means you have a big difference in brake bias towards the front of your car. Are you happy with the FFR Wilwood rear brakes?

3. Did floating rotors solve pad your pad knock back issues?

4. On your KRC PS pump, it comes stock with a 2.22 GPM valve (no ID Mark), and the smallest valve they make is a 1.18 GPM valve (ID Mark #4). You posted that yours came with a 2.8 and you switched to a 1.4, but neither of those numbers align with any of the offerings from KRC on their chart. Just curious if you truly had the smallest valve they make, and it was still too much assist? If you didn’t, I wonder what your impressions would have been with the actual smallest 1.18 GPM valve installed.

I ordered the KRC setup a few weeks ago, and plan to try the smallest valve out. I hope it’s not over-assisted...

5. How is the air jack system working out??
 
#404 ·
Since the last few posts, I’ve now received my Gen 3 Coupe-R and I have freshly renewed motivation! Aaaaaand more questions...





1. Front brakes: are you happy with the front FNSL6 (Forged Narrow Super Lite) calipers? Do you wish you had gone with the non-narrow version, the FSL6 (Forged Super Lite) so you could run 20mm/0.80” pads?



2. Rear brakes: do you find the staggered size acceptable for brake bias/power? 14” front and 12.88” rear with very different calipers means you have a big difference in brake bias towards the front of your car. Are you happy with the FFR Wilwood rear brakes?



3. Did floating rotors solve pad your pad knock back issues?



4. On your KRC PS pump, it comes stock with a 2.22 GPM valve (no ID Mark), and the smallest valve they make is a 1.18 GPM valve (ID Mark #4). You posted that yours came with a 2.8 and you switched to a 1.4, but neither of those numbers align with any of the offerings from KRC on their chart. Just curious if you truly had the smallest valve they make, and it was still too much assist? If you didn’t, I wonder what your impressions would have been with the actual smallest 1.18 GPM valve installed.



I ordered the KRC setup a few weeks ago, and plan to try the smallest valve out. I hope it’s not over-assisted...



5. How is the air jack system working out??


1. Get bigger calipers if you plan enduro. My pads wear down pretty quickly.

2. Bias is good. Bear in mind, biasing was done quite a bit with willwood bias adjustment and master size.

3. Still sorting this. I have been working a lot and haven’t been to the track to test the floating setup yet. Street results are fine so far but inconclusive.

4. I’m very happy with my manual rack for a number of reasons. For a street setup I might run KRC. For a track setup I recommend you go manual first (you can always retrofit the rack) unless you plan to shorten the steering arm and need help with the increased leverage. Unboosted steering forces are good and feedback much improved on the manual rack. (The car is pretty light and the only real issue is the big contact patch giving a lot of feedback).

5. AIRJACKS are super fun to play with and will surely help endurance race pit times but I haven’t raced them yet so the jury is technically out. It was a bit tricky getting 430 psi air out from my nitrogen bottle to the pneumatic jack fitting (Hoses and fittings are a bit hard to source). Aside from that, they work exactly as expected.

I’ll post brake progress as I get some track time in.
 
#405 · (Edited)
Brake update:

Floating rotors did the trick!

Knock back problem is gone.

I have enough brakes now to know I need to move my bias a bit forward (rears are locking up a bit before fronts which is not ideal)

I did a lot of hard over braking to bed in the pads and then get feel for this compound on my setup. They feel great.

https://youtu.be/7ONlBQsPYpQ

Unassisted steering is s bit heavy so I might tweak caster a bit to get the forces a bit down.

edit: i mistakenly rasn dt70s in the rear and dt60s up front so maybe my bias is closer than i thought. another test day will tell.
 
#407 ·
Light McLeod racing clutch, Tremec T56, and that shortened shifter make for pretty quick shifts. (My clutch throw is VERY short maybe one inch. Tricky in traffic. Very fast on track.)

It’s pretty too! Too bad it’s hidden in the bell housing.
What clutch was installed originally? Did it have an issue, or what is your reason for upgrading to the McLeod Mag Force clutch? Also, why jump all the way to the Mag Force instead of the McLeod RXT? You're using the QuickTime RM-8080 bellhousing I assume?

Glad to hear the pad knockback issues have been solved by using floating rotors. Now just play with the bias adjuster to fine tune things. Any details you can provide on the StopTech AeroRotor hats and iron rings you used to make this happen? How was the hat offset as far as alignment in/out, how many spacers (if any) were necessary to get them to work, and did your wheel clearance get better or worse or no change? How well do they float? Easily moveable by hand, or only under a bit of force? Do they rattle like full-floating motorcycle rotors do?

On the steering subject: More caster will increase straight line stability, but it will also resist the willingness to turn-in quickly. More caster = less twitchy. Hence the need for power steering to overcome that natural heavy-trailing feel and get desired/quicker response. Now with your manual steering, you typically don't want to run as much caster as a power steering car (for reasons just mentioned), so backing the caster down from 6+ degrees down to 2-4 degrees will make the car turn in quicker with less effort, especially at lower speeds. If you go too far here (too little of caster/low in numerical degrees) it will be a handful to keep it pointed straight at higher speeds since it will want to dart every which way readily. Now....this could be good or bad, depending on the driver >:)

I know I'm asking 100 questions... but I have 100 more it seems like! Lol. Thanks for your patience, and for posting your progress in general!
 
#413 ·
Your car and the others make for a couple great pictures to go along with the movie and the heritage of the cars. Too bad there wasn't more of a focus on the Coupes in the movie but even so they looked pretty sitting beside the rest of the Cobras and GT40s
 
#415 ·
Good company
Assuming that P4 is a replica? What a gorgeous car that is!

John
Yes replica. “Fauxrarri”.

Except, legit v12 Farrari race motor. I’m not an expert on the car, but know it’s a replica frame, fiberglass (replica) body, bespoke interior, I believe a Porsche transaxle with remote manual shifter setup. Willwood brakes, Very cool car. Set up for doing track days and a side modeling gig. lol.

It’s owner has a coffee company and the car is a bit of a brand building thing for the business as well as a track toy.

Here’s some random shots of it around the shop over the last few months getting prepped for Farrari vs ford movie premier the other day.
 
#416 ·
That's an RCR P4. Fran Hall makes some amazing replica cars. All CNC bent aluminum sheet and TIG welded together to make a very strong and very beautiful Monocoque frame. All CNC machined suspension components.
I actually was looking at building one of his GT40's before I ended up order my FFR Coupe. Really nice guy to talk to and fun to look at all the projects in his shop. I felt like the base price of the kit was a little out of my reach at the time, worth every penny, but out of my reach :)

Thank you for share all of those great pictures. It's really cool that you got to be a part of this!
 
#419 · (Edited)
She is sitting in the shop waiting for the world to thaw out.

I replaced a broken mirror and installed some front dtc70s last week and fired her up to maintain battery etc.

She waiting to run!!!!

All my known issues are solved. This year is track trim testing and probably some late season racing!!
 
#420 ·
SurfDog - Can you give us any track impressions? I've been looking at building an R for HPDE instructing, and some general track days. I'm in a NASA NP01 during the season (when there was one...). Would you build another w/ the same drivetrain? How about some in-car track vids or data?

Thanks in advance!

-Barry
 
#421 · (Edited)
She’s great on the track. (Bear in mind I did a LOT of non factory five mods)

Here is an old video of YouTube.



As you can see this was early testing and I was having to break very early and gently due to the pad knockback issues. Heat has never been a big problem but track pads (of course) are an absolute must even with those big rotors. With brakes now sorted I’m about 5 seconds faster now.

In order to track her seriously you definitely need to upgrade the cooling and brakes. (I run the 12.88 wilwood rears (floating) but have 1.25 thick 14s with floating hardware up front). The spindles flex under load and make pretty bad knock back without floating rotors. Springs did not solve the issue.

Edit. I forgot to mention that willwood makes a plug and play floating rotor setup for the 12.88 rotor setup. The main 2 reasons I changed my front rotors are:
1. The front 12.88 caliper has to be pulled off in order to swap brake pads in the pits which is time consuming for endurance racing and kind of a pain. (The rears are setup better)

My front rotors (14s) are now much thicker (1.25 inch) giving me a lot more heat capacity and reducing the very high heat cycling of the thinner 12.88 FFR setup. Both need brake ducts for the hard track use I put them through but the thicker rotors I’m running now don’t heat nearly as much on hard braking due to about 2x the mass. This obviously comes at a weight penalty but I consider it good weight for my application. It’s safer in terms of brake fluid heating as well as helps longevity.

You can see here the front caliper bridge (the 12.88 original setup) which necessitated removing the caliper to change pads. The other pic shows my upgraded “removable bridge” and brake cooling duct setup. I had to have the front floating rotor custom made, and run the off the shelf willwood floating setup in the rear. We run pad knockback springs all around though they do not help as much as I had hoped. Floating rotors are a must all the way around for hard track use (and are not included with the FFR upgrade kit)


 
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