This site will detail my dad and my progress of building a Factory Five Racing 65 Cobra Roadster replica.

Stats for the FFR MKIII build are:
- Ford Mustang 5.0L V8 engine
- T5 5-Speed Transmission
- 4 Wheel Disc brakes (SN95)
- 3.55 Rear Gear Ratio
- Power Steering & Power Brakes
- 3 Link Rear Suspension with coilovers
- Original Halibrand Style Rims
- Vintage Gauge set with Reverse Speedometer
- Dark grey body with light grey stripes
- Dual Chrome Driver and Passenger Rollbars

Saturday, September 30, 2006

Fuel Lines, Rear brake calipers, Start of engine prep.

Dad and my brother Taylor came down for the weekend as we worked on the car. We started with pulling the axels out of the rear to install new brake caliper mounting brackets. These brackets were needed because we had the shorter axels installed into the rear to allow us to run deep dish rims in the rear. Each side was shortened .75”. So that made made the brake rotor sit in .75”, which requires the brake calipers to be mounted back .75” also. In order to install the brackets which wrap around the rear axel tubes, the axels had to be removed.

Picture of the rear gears. We had to remove the pinion shaft bolt and pin in order to remove the axels.

Picture of axels removed. You can see the old stock mounting bracket that wraps around the tube. We had to remove these and bolt up new offset brackets.

Picture showing the a rear caliper mounted to the new bracket with the axels reinstalled. Everything seems to line up good.

Updated roller picture. This shows the fuel tank installed.

Picture showing the routing of the fuel lines.

The next step was to pull the donor motor out of the crate and get it on the engine stand. Many thanks again to Todd for helping us with the motor. See below:

Picture showing the donor motor straight from the crate. Lots of cleanup to do!

This picture was taken after all the stuff was stripped off the block. Here is Dad working on cleaning up the block.

Dad was working hard on cleaning up the motor. It’s looking cleaner for sure. Almost ready for paint!

Sunday, September 10, 2006

Suspension Done!

Finally the rear lower control arms arrived from FFR. I now had all the parts needed to install the rear suspension. The installation took about a half a day doing it myself, most of which was maneuvering the heavy rear up and through the frame. After the rear suspension was done I finally was able to see the car off the jack stands and on it’s own wheels for the first time! The pictures didn’t turn out very good because of the sun/shade contrast. See below for pictures:

Picture of rear suspension installed before putting on wheels.

We have a roller! This is the back of the car.

Front of car showing front suspension.

This picture didn’t turn out too good. Side shot of car in driveway.

Another shot that didn’t turn out too good.

The car back in the garage. After this photo was taken I installed the fuel tank.