The Forums - Wealth of Knowledge

I haven't written much since I ordered the kit. It is supposed to ship 2 weeks from today! I haven't been idle during the dead time between planning and the GTM's arrival. If you plan to build a GTM, then become a member of the forums. There are two of them:

• www.ffcars.com
• www.thefactoryfiveforum.com

There is a wealth of knowledge and experience. There are people who will answer your dumb questions. There are ideas about improving the design. There are 3 items that I discovered on the forums.

1. Setting up the chassis is really important. Do it wrong and you have beast fighting you on straight aways and something totally unmanageable in the turns. Do it right and you have a car that will keep that dopey grin plastered on your face. The chassis set up thread is a gold mine. There are so many things that a marginal guy (like me) never considered: spring rates, shock recovery, tow in values, suspension issues. I want to build a safe car, and paying attention to the information presented here will make that possible. Yes, I will end up replacing the kit shocks, and using the sway bars that I upgraded on my Corvette, but the end product will be something that will have extraordinary handling. The replacement components can be ordered to accommodate the Ram Pro Lift I plan to add to the build for the front end.
2. Everybody has a handle on the forums. Mine is DocGlock (for those who know me, they understand). Another guy goes by the handle Fastthings. He approached his build starting with the body. There are over 25 YouTube videos that go into great detail on how to fix things on the body. Fastthings shows how to measure the symmetry of your chassis using a laser level. He offers advice about working on the doors and the windows. He shows how to mount the fender louvers (without pop rivets). He points out where he grinds down things on the chassis, welds new things to make it stronger and better. 
3. Another guy goes by the handle Crash. He has a site called My Race Shop. One of the design issues that has caused problems is the location of the coolant overflow tank. This is the standard tank located on the right side of the engine bay for the Corvette C5. In this configuration it works fine. However, in the GTM configuration it is still mounted on the right hand side of the forward bay and the tubing is routed through the tunnel to the engine behind the cockpit. The problem is the coolant tank ends up below and too far away from the engine. This can cause steam meltdown (not a good thing). Crash's solution replaces the coolant overflow tank with a header tank deployed above the engine and behind the cockpit.

These are three items I have found on the forums. There are plenty more examples. So if you plan to build one of these exotic cars, join the forums. They are free. They are informative. They are a valuable tool for the GTM builder.

Ram Lift - Front end Clearance

Clearance is something that I have been puzzling over for almost a year. One of the first things I learned after I got my C5 for my 52nd birthday (I have a fabulous wife) is that the front frame scraped on the driveway. This was solved when I installed Elite Engineering's Frame Guards. These are basically a couple of training wheels drilled into the lowest point of the frame. They really work!

I want to make the GTM as stable as possible, but I don't want the stability to come at the price of ripping up the front end of the body. I am already adding the standard sway bars from my c5 to stiffen the suspension (I replaced the C5 sway bar set with a C6 Z51 set.), and I am thinking more and more seriously about the racing wing. However, I still need to address clearance issues for the GTM.

Next, I discovered that after I replaced the Boxster's front end with Fiberwerk's Dayton II kit, I faced similar problems. I am really careful about going up and down my driveway.

Now we come to the GTM and front end clearance. Both the Northern and Southern Man caves have these nasty driveway lips that are just waiting to nail my GTM (kind of like the tree that keeps gobbling Charlie Brown's kite). I approached Elite Engineering, but I'm not sure they want to leap into the GTM aftermarket. Then I found a series of posts on the Factory Five forums. There are two of them: ffcars.com and TheFactoryFiveForum.com. For any potential builders, use the forums. They are a gold mine of knowledge and experience.

The solution is to install a ram lift under the Koni shocks. A company called RamLiftPro manufactures these units. As you can see from the above videos, they really work. Since I am going with the carbon fiber splitter, I am going to install ram lift the system that raises the front end up to 5 inches. The kit includes the following:

• 12v. Pump
• 2 - Rams
• 10' Aeroquip TFE hydraulic hose
• 4 - 4AN Aeroquip hose ends
• Hydraulic fluid reservoir & hose
• 10' - 12 gage wire (red)
• 10' - 12 gage wire (black)
• 1 - Momentary (on) off (on) switch
• Wire connectors

More changes required to the ISIS wiring diagrams, but I gain peace of mind that I have a solution for all those nasty curbs and lousy parking lots. The budget also takes another hit. Oh well, I did save money on the donor parts!