Kiwi Living the dream -about to start the build an 818
On Thursday I committed to buy a full 818 kit plus majority of donor parts collected over 4 years. A project which the owner had decided not to start. It was a hard decision for him to make but he has gone all electric and needed the garage space for other projects. His loss, my gain.
I will build the car with my 16 year old son who is big into cars and currently owns a Morris minor which he is bringing up to original spec. I’m not sure who is the project manager on this build, but he certainly has lots of ideas on how to upgrade the car!
Looking forward to sharing our experience and learning from all you others.
We live in New Zealand and I understand this is only the 7th 818 kit in the country.
Congratulations! Your going to have a great time. I am currently in the throws of an 818C build with my 14yo son. We are going slowly but having a lot of fun. Hopefully will finish it by the time he turns 30, LOL. I am actually enjoying disassembling the donor and prepping the used parts much more than I thought I would. Good luck!
Congrats! My 17 year old son and I just got received our kit and will be start building an 818S here in Jupiter Florida. (Palm Beach area) Great way to spend time together! He has a 2005 SAAB 9.2x Turbo 2.0 (Subaru 05 WRX). Love to see pics once you're underway with the project. We will be posting to our progress soon. There are lots of great people here to help.
Have just transferred all the components from the previous owner back to my place. The garage was pretty full so we moved some stuff into the loft and around the garage and can now work on the car whilst still housing my son’s Morris Minor...
It has been active in the garage. Building a kit car like this can be all encompassing!
A list of the issues we have had along the way...
1. Bought new CV joints for the rear. Installed them. All looked good. Put to one side until I was ready for them. Then later found they didn’t fit the hubs. Couldn’t take them off and had to get someone to do it for me. The spline set up for the hubs were pretty unique (not sure where the hubs came from) luckily I could source some replacements, but at a cost
2. When the new CV joints on axels were to be installed (got same firm to do it). They identified that the axels were not straight. This would have been as is out of the FFR factory. A little dissappointing. Of course got sorted, but at a cost
3. Went to put the petrol tank in. Opened the box. FFR had sent the wrong tank. Didn’t event fit in the car! Not much I could do given I purchased the kit secondhand from someone who brought it 4 years ago. Have decided to get a new petrol tank fabricated - refer to point 4
4. Put the race seats in (chose Sparco EvoQRT ). Look great. BUT once put in there is no room to drive the car. Wilwood brakes are too far forward and the petrol tank and rear firewall take up too much space. Hence a new petrol tank is needed with half the width on the drivers side
5. I inherited super looking wheels and tyres. The biggest the previous owner could find that should fit (215/45r17 on the front and 255/35r18 on the rear). Trouble is the front ones can’t fully turn without rubbing on the chassis. Haven’t decided on best way forward here yet - spacers and replacement studs or cut out part of the aluminium or replace the wheels/tyres.TBC
6. Lots of work deciding which way to go on the throttle body - cable or fly by wire. Also whether to change the inlet manifold from plastic to alloy. Originally was going to go cable with alloy. Both were non standard for the engine. would have looked awesome but created too many complications so stuck with the standard set up. Make look to change the inlet manifold once the car is up and running
7. Not sure if anyone else had done this, but was so excited to get the brake and clutch lines in, and looking good, that I didn’t check and double check - ended up putting the clutch line into the proportioning valve! Luckily it was only an hours fix.
My son and I are having a ball. We are fortunate there are two other builders in New Zealand so we are working together on problems.
We did get a shock when we put the car down on its own wheels. Wow, it is low!
I guess it make sense some of your pictures are upside down since I'm viewing them in California. Are our North America pictures upside down to you?
I suppose you do have the wrong petrol tank. But, it made me think about something I've learned along the way - I'm no longer too quick to think something doesn't fit. Now I go into it with the attitude that if it (what ever "it" might be) doesn't fit, the part is right and I'm doing something wrong and most of the time, after a bit more fussing, it fits after all.
Be very carful with the Factory Five supplied throttle cable. It takes almost no torque on the nut to break the cable end threads clean off. On my second one, I dripped on some thread lock, got it snug and called it good.
I had (guess I still do) tire rub too with the steering wheel at full lock and in a bit of impatience, I corrected the problem with a big hammer. A couple of weeks later, I spent a few hours fabricating a repair to my hammer based adjustment. I haven't done it just yet, but I think a better solution to prevent tire rub is to install rack travel limiting spacers. In the mean time, I just know how far I can turn the wheel before rubbing.
Enjoy working with your son! My 15 and 18 year old can careless. We need a support group for builders with children that don't care. But, my daughter did draw that wonderful picture of me posing on the hood of my car that is my avatar.
Yes hadn’t s-otter the upside down photos. Tried to change them but all too hard.
Thanks for the advice on the throttle cable. Will definately use threadlocker
The challenge with working with my son is that he wants to up spec everything before making sure the car runs. I Must be getting old and becoming risk adverse!
Front Tires. My rule of thumb:
818 Front <17x9 +40 max backspace, no spacer <23.9” Diameter as possible, >24” will rub footwells. 24.4” is max and rubs at 1.25 turns lock.
The biggest tires that are road legal I've found are Toyo R1R 245/35/17, 200 treadware. 8.9" tread width and 23.8" diameter. They require at a min an 8" wide wheel.
Also other high performance 200TW street tires will fit:
Falken Azenis RT660 215/40/17, 23.8" Diameter
Yokohama Advan A052 215/40/17, 23.7" Diameter
All those tires work well on the track too.
And dedicated track tires: Hoosier R7 225/40/17 23.8".
There's loads more tire options in 15" wheels but that's another can of worms trying to find wheels that are 5 x 100 bolt pattern, more than 7" wide, AND will fit over your front brake package.
Just got the 818 back from the engineers. It has been at their workshop for probably 6 weeks, but definitely worth the wait.
So what has been done:
- mountings for seats and harnesses
- rear firewall
- complete petrol tank
- intercooler pipes
- mounting for air to water cooler
- mounting and fit to size exhaust - 4 inch tip, will certainly give a drivers sound
- fittings for hand brake
- replace roll bar with a NZ race certified roll bar
- meth tank fabrication and mountings
- gear shifter install
I’ve attached some photos for reference.
I’m really happy with where the build has got to. And pleased that I brought in experts for the specialist areas. This is going to be a car that I love to drive. My son reckons that it might do 0-100kph in less than 3 seconds. Let’s see.
In the next week, need to finish off the electrical work, fill up with liquids, then start it up. Hoping there are no problems!
Next week booked in for Dyno tune. We have a fuel mix sensor so will be able to run on petrol and ethanol.
This project started as a road car but soon turned into a race car - that what we get when you build a car with your 18 year old son.
Thanks: 
Likes: 
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by Kiwi Dave
My home town.
