Hi everyone,
I just thought that I would introduce myself and say thank you for all of the great posts in the forums - they were really helpful in making my decision to take the plunge and buy from FFR.
Like many I am fulfilling a life long dream of purchasing a C replica, but being on the other side of the world I approached the FFR with some trepidation. We do not have any of the standard donor models in New Zealand, the only T-Birds and Mustangs are private imports and so the additional parts for the kit seemed something of a problem, and frankly I don't have the time to chase obscure parts all over the place. This combined with the fact that I have to convert this car to right hand drive were issues for me in this decision. We have several excellent New Zealand built replicas that are very well engineered and perform well, but they are a collection of parts from all sorts of cars and so again it was all a bit difficult and surprisingly worked out significantly more expensive even taking account of shipping costs.
So I have purchased a FFR MkIV complete kit with pin drive IRS and a number of the optional extras selected as well. Joe Scott at FFR has been a huge help and very obliging. I have bought a package of parts from DiscBrakesRUs to complete the IRS, and a set of 17" rims and tires from Vintage Wheels to fit around the massive Wilwood optional brakes. Some goodies from Finish Line and PTP sidepipe sleeves (we are required to have heat protection in NZ) and I am starting to look pretty good. All of the extra items are being delivered to FFR and will be packed by them with the kit into a 20ft shipping container ready for the trip to NZ sometime after Sept 19th.
I have to say that to date my dealings with the US based suppliers has been nothing short of fabulous! Helpful, generous and very patient and polite. An enjoyable experience to date.
I have ordered an extra set of alloy panels for the cockpit from FFR. These are unfolded so hopefully we can mirror many of these to create the RHD version once we have made changes to the chassis/frame. There isn't a great deal of info about converting the kit on the forums so I intend to post some notes and pictures along the way so that future crazies from RHD countries might have some reference to at least one way of doing things. Luckily for me there is a New Zealand kitcar/hotrod manufacturer close by to me and they have converted both a MkIII and MkIV FFR so they have worked out a few of the wrinkles ahead of my project. Have got to find a suitable steering rack yet.
The major item left for me to purchase is of course the heart of the car, but it will have to wait for the wallet to regenerate and hopefully the exchange rate will not deteriorate to much in the meantime. I have my eyes on a 427 stroker coupled to a Tremec TKO600 from Keith Craft with an 8 stack EFI system.
Anyway, I just thought I would warn you that there is a crazy Kiwi boat designer on the pages, and to thank you all for your collective knowledge and your generosity of thought. Very much appreciated and acknowledged.
cheers,
Brett.