Vijay and Remy's LS3 Mk4 Build

[VKannan]

Hello all,

I'm a little late in starting my build thread. This will be a father-son build, and we are a bit on the younger side. I'm in my late 30's and my son is 6 and 1/2 (the 1/2 is very important at this age). We both love cars and also love to build things, so a FFR Mk4 makes a lot of sense. I want this to be something that we build together and then spend his childhood driving around in together. I've got a map of my 10 favorite choices for driving roads in the US and the same for Europe, and I'd like to tick both of them off before he graduates. We used to live in France and Switzerland, so a return to Europe for a couple of months road trip sounds great.

With that being said, I've taken an atypical approach to my drivetrain. I don't have any particular desire to make this car a tribute, and with road trips being the objective I want the most reliable platform possible. I've always been a big fan of LS swaps, and there have been so many of these engines built that if something were to go wrong it would be fairly easy to find a mechanic to fix it. Plus, they are relatively cheap (my engine/transmission/ecu/clutch/flywheel/bellhousing/etc. combo was $14k delivered).

5. LS3 unboxing.jpg6. Transmission delivery.jpg7. Transmission unboxing.jpg8. Clutch and flywheel.jpg9. Bellhousing indexing.jpg10. Bellhousing install.jpg

I took delivery of my Mk4 complete kit on March 31, 2023, but decided not to start building until after I attended the Mott Build School, which was April 14-16. I cannot say enough good things about the course and its instructors Jim Jennings and Todd Baumann. I have very little automotive experience. I'm in medicine, but my son and I built a small bass fishing boat before this, so I know how to rivet and how to make a basic wiring harness, but that's it. When I was doing inventory in the two weeks before the course, I continually had to google image search for the pieces to know what I was holding. After the course, I know what everything is and where it goes and how to put it there. I feel like I can do this.

1. Delivery day 2.jpg2. Delivery day 1.jpg3. Delivery day 3.jpg4. Body stand.jpg

[VKannan]

The first week I installed the rear end (which came with assembled brakes), shocks, upper link and Panhard bar. This is the second week and I've installed the front shocks, control arms, and steering rack (brake install kit on POL). I also installed my Aeromotive in-tank fuel pump, sending unit, and then mounted up the gas tank.

11. Rear end install.jpg12. Rear end install 2.jpg13. Remy shock assembly.jpg14. Front suspension 1.jpg

And in case anyone is curious, here are my top drives (the European list got cut short by 1 or 2 pins)

Attachment 183659Attachment 183660

That's all for my first posts. To be continued.

[Blitzboy54]

This is great. Very excited for you and your son. As much fun as they are to build they are 100x more fun to drive.


Welcome

[Mike.Bray]

Welcome to the fun!

I really like that LS engine. My wife has one in her Camaro SS and boy does it run. And as you mentioned it's very reliable. Excellent choice!

What you're doing with your son is so cool. When I was about his age or maybe a little older my father built a rail dragster in his garage. It was kind of a kit car, I think he ordered it from Honest Charlie's (who remembers that catalog?). 50+ years later I still remember being in the garage "helping" him build it and later sitting in it making lightening fast starts and outrunning everyone lol I promise 50 years from now your son will remember this adventure like it was yesterday the same as I do.

[460.465USMC]

Welcome! Great to see a father and son team. And, very cool you're going with LS. Thanks for starting a build thread. Looks like you're off to a good start.

[VKannan]

Update:

Today I installed the electronic pedal that comes with the LS3 Connect and Cruise kits in GM crate engines. For anyone interested in knowing how the install is for one of these units in a roadster - it was relatively easy. The unit comes with an attached mounting bracket. I trimmed a tab for clearance around the steering column, as well as a couple of tabs that would have protruded into the inner aspect of the footbox sheet metal. I mounted it with 4 total points, shown in the photo below:

20. Pedal box 1.jpgLS3 pedal mount.jpg

Secondly, I am continuing to work at solving the rear brake line attachment. I bought a rear end from MPS Auto Salvage which came complete with mustang rear brakes, with hard lines already plumbed into a T-union that joins them into a short portion of flexible tube with a square banjo bolt receiver. I found that this is common on the older mustangs, and that the flexible line is there to allow for vertical travel of the rear end, and in order to hook it up to the hard lines that one normally runs on these kits I needed a special bracket that I got from LMR:

https://lmr.com/item/LRS-2073BRKT/mu...-bracket-86-93

The issue I ran into is figuring out where to mount that bracket. The hose coming from the T union is relatively short, but I think I found a good spot today after I cut the rim off of the bracket to allow the hose to attach from any orientation:

19. Rear brake line connect.jpg

I do have one question for the hive, am I supposed to line up the hole in the shaft of the banjo bolt with the hole in the black flexible brake line, or should I just tighten it down and the hole won't matter? I made a paint mark to show where the hole is and I lined them up, and while I can tighten it down a bit more, I can't do another 360 degrees from the current alignment. What should I do?

18. Banjo Bolt 2.jpg

Thank you!

[VKannan]

Well I failed horribly at maintaining a build thread, but the good news is the cobra is done! It took me just about eight months from start to finish, a process which I think was greatly expedited by attending the build school.

I’ve driven it a few hundred miles so far and it’s absolutely wonderful. Everything I was hoping for in terms of driving experience. I’ll start to take it out on longer trips after the paint has cured and I have been able to put a protective film on the front and wheel arches.

So far the LS3 crate engine is doing exactly what I wanted it to do – it starts up reliably every time without hesitation, it is incredibly aggressive when I want it to be, and incredibly tame when I want it to be. The tune from the connect and cruise package is so good out of the box that I haven’t bothered taking it to a tuner to get it customized yet, but eventually I will. For any prospective LS3 builders out there, don’t hesitate to reach out to me with questions, I’ve learned a lot from this process that may be of use before getting started. I would absolutely do it again though, no regrets whatsoever.

I’ve taken it out to several car shows already, and hope to see members from this forum when I bring it to the London Cobra Show in June.

There are lots of little aesthetic touches to this car that I haven’t taken proper pictures of yet, so I’ll update this thread when I get around to doing that, but until then a few photos:

original-68C59560-9988-4403-8C66-40F4145707CA.jpegoriginal-CD149F62-DEC7-47FC-A956-B1E2C16C1648.jpegIMG_7031.jpgIMG_7008.jpgIMG_6988.jpg

[JimStone]

Wow what an accomplishment! All that in 8 months? Your son must be one heck of a car builder, haha

Looks amazing!

[VKannan]

Yep he’s pretty great at it!

IMG_6974.jpgIMG_5336.jpegIMG_0263.jpgIMG_1072.jpg

[VKannan]

A few quick updates to a long dormant thread -

LS3/TKX build continues to perform flawlessly. I haven't had anything break yet and we've put over 3,000 miles on the car. My wife and I took it on a 300 mile road trip around Arizona for our 10 year anniversary, then my son and I drove it 800 miles round trip to the London Cobra Show from our new home in Maryland. Aside from big road trips, I also take him to school in it once or twice a week, I take it to pick up groceries and take-out, I've even taken it to Home Depot to get gardening supplies.

Screenshot 2024-12-01 at 8.48.27 AM.jpgScreenshot 2024-12-01 at 8.48.44 AM.jpgScreenshot 2024-12-01 at 8.49.31 AM.jpg

This is exactly the experience I wanted to have with this car!

And also update-worthy, the build process gave me both the itch to build another the confidence to tackle something different. So I recently bought a 1976 Corvette Stingray with only 23,000 original miles that I'm going to LS swap to hopefully make into the perfect hard-topped complement to the Mk4. It runs and drives fine as-is, but I really love the modern reliability in a vintage package. So thanks very much to Factory Five to launching me into this hobby by making it user friendly enough for a beginner like me to do.

Screenshot 2024-12-01 at 9.05.51 AM.jpg

[microbionic]

Saw your car at the London Cobra show, love the car, could you tell us what the color is?

[VKannan]

It’s a Bentley silver from a limited run of cars but it’s almost indistinguishable from Lamborghini Titanium on a spray card. I had them both sprayed out, this one is just a smaller flake. I’ll see if I can dig up the name.