I am excited to share my gen 3 build. I have always enjoyed reading your great tips, tricks, and builds, but I never found the time to post on my project. I am just about over the line and thought I might finally take a minute to share. I was an early gen 3 coupe with delivery in March 2017. The car is back from paint and registered in Texas. I can’t say thanks enough to all of the great resources you have all created walking through the registration process in Texas. I have had a great deal of fun adding some custom touches to the car and found some great partners for the build. The car has a gen 2 5.0L Coyote aluminator engine, power brakes, and power steering. I will post a full list of non-kit components a bit later for anyone who is interest.
Most importantly, I need to thank the Traveling Builder. Mark, Matt, Brendan, and Wanda are fantastic. I truly cannot say enough great things about them or working with. Prior to this build my automotive experience consisted entirely of changing several tires. I spoke at length with Mark prior to even placing an order to gain a better understanding of the car and process. After receiving the car, I spoke to Mark several more times before I ever had them down. He was always extremely helpful and unbelievably knowledgeable. Over the course of 2017 and 2018 combinations of Mark, Matt, and Brendan came down 5 (maybe 6, I stopped counting) times for 5-8 days. It was a great arrangement for me. I could work on the car independently have fun and learn as I went with a fantastic safety net knowing they would double check my work, teach me new things, and leave me with homework. It was also great to take certain parts of the project that needed to be done right and honestly did not sound that fun to me or had too steep of a learning curve and ask them to work on it. To say that I could not have completed the project without them is a gross understatement. I would never have even begun the project without having spoken with them and gained comfort in their skills and process in advance. In addition to their skills and knowledge, they are just great people and I had a great time working with them in the garage. My 4 year old loved having them around each trip and she has asked me several times already when Mr. Mark and Mr. Matt are coming back. I am extremely grateful for their time, efforts, and friendship. I will move on, but for anyone thinking about working with them, make the call you will be happy you did!
So back to the car. I worked with Jeff Miller on the paint and he did an extraordinary job (also an awesome guy). It is Viking blue with white and yellow stripes. Jeff did some amazing fiberglass work and recessed some hood louvers from the GTM (tip from Mark) as well as a number of custom billet badges I had made for the car. I love how they turned out and I am fairly certain Jeff will eventually speak with me again for making him do it. I went with white HRE wheels and Ring Brothers carbon fiber side mirrors. I had a great time designing the car and always intended it to be more of a GT street car build style. I have attached some pictures below and I will post a full list of parts I used a bit later in case anyone is looking for solutions to similar problems.
Thanks again to everyone on the forum for your help. Even if you did not know you were helping me out!
Cool! Looks very nice. The shortest build thread in history. Will be anxious to see/hear more details, including the interior, under the cowl, parts used, etc. But in the meantime, congratulations.
Build 1: Mk3 Roadster #5125. Sold 11/08/2014. Build 2: Mk4 Roadster #7750. Sold 04/10/2017. Build Thread Build 3: Mk4 Roadster 20th Anniversary #8674. Sold 09/07/2020. Build Thread and Video. Build 4: Gen 3 Type 65 Coupe #59. Gen 3 Coyote. Legal 03/04/2020. Build Thread and Video Build 5: 35 Hot Rod Truck #138. LS3 and 4L65E auto. Rcvd 01/05/2021. Legal 04/20/2023. Build Thread. Sold 11/9/2023.
Car looks very nice. Can I ask how tall you are and how the car fits you? I’m 6’1” and have been asking others about the fit in the car. Which seats did you go with?
I am 6'1" and fit just fine in the car. Actually once you are in there is a ton of room and it is very comfortable. The entry/exit is fine, but a bit tight swinging your feet in. I changed the dash design on the corners and that frankly did not help on that aspect. It did create some extra room for my A/C vent though. I made some modifications to the interior that helped a good deal on fit. The seats are Corbeau Sprint FIA seats in wide. I mounted them to the Corbeau side mount seat brackets as low as possible and bolted them to the floor. I also cut off the Factory five seat belt attach points and asked Mark and Matt to weld new attach points further back in the seat area (I am happy to weld brackets, but nothing safety related). They did a great job and it added a few inches of leg room.
The biggest modification was I cut off the frame tubes on the outside top of the cockpit. There are ~2" round tubes on the top outside corners of the cockpit. I could not get the seat low enough to feel comfortable that my head would clear under the bars. In fact it was easy to rest my head against the bars while in the seats. I am sure these would add structure in supporting the windshield in the case of a big wreck, but was not comfortable they would not make a minor accident much worse without a helmet at my height. Once removed it opened up a ton of interior space and head room. I have attached a picture below with the bars removed.
The door window frames are adapted from Factory Five's design for the gen 3s. The rear quarter window frames are custom. I plan to clean up the welds get them powder coated and glue in permanently fixed windows. I have uploaded a picture of the driver's side frames.
I have also attached a few pictures under the hood and of the interior. I went with a restomod air A/C system and had them color match part of the vents to my shift ball (from ring brothers). I also anodized the switches on the dash to match (panel and buttons are from Watson's street works, really great company to work with). The A/C system is mounted above the passenger foot well. I worked with Billet Badges on all the billet aluminum parts. They made and painted the shields on the outside of the car as well as the insert on the center of the steering wheel. I also had them make some shields as a key chain and some other billet parts for the car that I can post pictures of later. They were great to work with and did all of the design work in house. I wish the shield design had some deep family meaning, but truthfully I just combined elements that I thought looked cool with a few personal touches. The steering wheel is a Nardi product on a sparco quick release. The steering wheel size, feel, and look is fantastic. I could not be happier with it. I am pretty sure it is actually the same wheel used on the Pagani Zondas which is where I got the idea for the center shield piece.
I am still finishing up a number of items on the interior and plan on enjoying the car for a little while and then I will send it off to have a full interior put in and the seats re-covered.
Love the color combination. Your car was in prime when I was picking mine up from Miller. I asked him about the fiberglass work and the badges. He just growled and said “walk away”. He might have called you a few names too. The badges turned out great and make his paint look even better so I imagine he’ll forgive you. Really nice work. Love the gauges and A/C vents.
-Steve
Can you give details on the rocker switches on the center of the dash (where you got them, who makes them, etc), the buttons below them, and the A/C vents?
They're giving me ideas for my interior and I'd like to explore more.
Jeff was great to work with and did a fantastic job. He was not shy about telling how happy he was about recessing the badges and painting the yellow stripe over the louver. It was not great planning on his part though because he did such a great job! I wish I could have made it out there in person to meet him for drop off or pick up. Maybe next time! He told me the garage was pretty split on liking/ hating the yellow stripe idea, but I think I won them over in the end. I was very happy with how it turned out.
I have attached some more pictures of the fog lights. I decided I wanted to do something a little different on those and had already gone with LED headlights. I really wanted to make them air intakes like the headlights on the dodge challenger hellcats. I found some polished funnels that fit the space perfectly and added some weatherproof LED rings that are adhesive backed. I even bought the tubing and some in line fans. Unfortunately, I did not realize that was the attach point for the hood mechanism and ultimately could not find a good way to make it a functional intake. I spent a good amount of time playing with it, but the gains always felt marginal and it just ended up not feeling like a fun project to re-engineer the hood mechanism. End result the LEDs are setup as day time running lights and I used some of the same mesh I added to the hood opening to create a nice backing. I am really happy with how they turned out even if they ended up just being for show.
The switches and buttons are all from Watson's Streetworks. They were fantastic to work with and will do all of the custom engraving for you. I really can't say enough good things about them (Fortunately this was a running theme. With two and a half exceptions, every supplier on this project was absolutely awesome and really into the project. There ended up being a bunch of suppliers). I had the switches on the panel anodized myself to match the gold and billet theme of the interior. The only issue with the switch gear is it required a switch to an infinity box wiring that was a bit more complicated. However, it lead to a great result and it was really Matt who had to suffer (and my maybe my checkbook).
The A/C vents and system are from RestoMod Air. They are fantastic (shocking I would say that I know). They color matched the gold anodized parts to the shift knob that I mailed to them. They have some very cool looking stuff and are great at customizing. They actually matched the gold rings on the A/C controls as well. One great story about them, I originally went with a bigger A/C system that would not fit. I called them Monday at 4 to get the smaller system and they had it to my door by 9AM Tuesday. I live about 5 hours from them but was amazed they worked so hard to get it out on time.
I also had some other billet pieces (badges, plaques, etc.) made for the interior I have not installed yet. I had a lot of fun thinking of ideas I liked and then calling around until I found someone who agreed to do it.