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Episode Transcript
[ Pat ] You're watching Powernation!
[ Frankie ] Today on Engine Power we head north to Factory Five Racing to check out their updated high tech facilities and help assemble a brand new one of one prototype. [ Music ] [ Pat ] Hey everyone, welcome to Factory Five Racing. Yes you're still watching Engine Power but every now and then Frankie and I get to get out of the shop and go out and do something cool. So we have traveled up to Wareham, Massachusetts, to Factory Five's beautiful facility. A lot has changed since the last time we were here and we'll get to that later. We have a history of some epic builds with Factory Five. We have done their Mark-4, their 818 Couple, their '33 Hot Rod. We even built the very first '35 hot rod truck but we are here today for something truly special and we are honored and excited to be a part of it. [ Frankie ] The Mark-4 Roadster is one of Factory Five's greatest creation. It's an amazing car with a timeless design but today we're actually gonna be working on something brand new and updated with modern technology and that is the Mark-5. Now this is a great opportunity and we're honored to be a part of the very first one built here at Factory Five Racing, and it has a really cool power plant but I've actually never been here. So before we get to any of that we're gonna do a quick tour and look at some of these new facilities, and then we'll get to work. Since 1995 Factory Five Racing has been the leader in manufacturing build it yourself component replicas that perform as good as they look. Located in Wareham, Massachusetts, they have consistently pushed the boundaries of what a person can build in their garage by developing kits that are built with high quality parts and easy to assemble. Factory Five has spent a lot of time trying to make their cars as user friendly as possible. And not only do they come with detailed instructions but an awesome customer support system from the Factory Five team itself. Constant innovation has been the driving force behind Factory Five's growth and has culminated in a state of the art facility with almost every process performed in house and constantly advanced vehicles like the Mark-5. [ Dave ] When you were here last time to now the company has gone through huge changes, and we had an opportunity during covid. We couldn't go on the road, couldn't go to shows, and so we had a bowl of some money that would normally go to marketing and sales that we didn't use. I thought this is a great opportunity to vertically integrate. To bring more processes in house. [ Music ] So we brought more laser cutting in house, more c-n-c bending in house. Really built a building next door, invested in manufacturing in the United States. That's what we did and we spent about three and a half million dollars. It took about two, two and a half years to integrate all the technologies, but showing you guys around it's like wow, looking back we did a lot. As the company gets older your legacy costs go up. So we had to bring more processes in house to keep our costs down but one of the advantages of bringing the costs down and bringing the technology in house is now you can do it better yourself. The c-n-c tube steel cutting, just the tube steel laser and the c-n-c bender our roll bars are perfect. Our foot boxes, our cages, our race cage is perfect. Now my welders are like prima donnas. If it's not perfect they're like, I can't work with this. Where were you 10 years ago, making it work. Band saw to laser cutting is stone ages to atomic age. It started with the truck. Jim and Jesper in engineering were saying if we had this cutting technology we could manufacture a tube frame pre-runner truck. And the Mark-5 was hinged off of the Gen-3 Coupe technology. That was all enabled by the laser cutting and the c-n-c we brought in house. So one, two, three seconds worth of a cut and it's a perfect cut like butter. No grinding, no deburring, no fitting, no hammering here, no filling with weld. It changes everything. All the engineering work in the world, you stack it all up together it doesn't mean anything until you drive the car. Until you put your foot down on the floor and you see how it drifts. how it handles. How your steering input, braking, throttle can change the attitude of the car. The Mark-4 when I drove it the first time I remember saying this car delivers perfect car control, which is the opposite of the original Cobras. We did an original Cobra with you guys and I spun out in the first turn. It's oversteering monster, nose heavy, tons of throttle, and our Mark-4 is really well balanced easy to drive. Kind of like a Golden Retriever of race cars right. When I drive the Mark-5 I can tell you either we did or we didn't do it. All the other things will make it easier to build. It'll make it perform better but I want to see it firsthand. Let's get the car finished, drop the hammer, and we'll let the car be the judge of that. I'm excited about the Mark-5 because I remember I got the first prototype that my brother and I did and it was 1995. I took it in the back woods of Dartmouth and I was out for about 20 minutes, and I remember pulling in and saying we're gonna kill. This is a good car. I feel like this car has delivered that same feeling to me. It has to say this is so much better than the Mark-4. That's a tough hurdle to clear. The Mark-4's a great car. It's our best selling car and has been for 30 years. We'll see. Let's finish it up and put it through its paces. [ Pat ] Behind this door is some top secret stuff they've been working on for a long time and I finally got permission to go in but you can't! Not yet!
[ Music ]
[ Dave ] A guy I used to work for always told me Smith, do something better every day. And with the Cobra that was probably the biggest leap because I said to Jim and Jesper in engineering guys, pretend Factory Five is your competitor and look at the Mark-4. It's the best selling, best engineered, best performance Cobra replica kit in the world. Make it better! I mean make it better by a lot. Design a new Factory Five Cobra that harkens back to 30 years ago. So the Mark-5 really is our best work. I think it's gonna light the world on fire and I can't wait to see the hard top with some of the features like the carbon body, the forged arms of the suspension, more space in the cockpit. Trying to get more space out of the Cobra is almost impossible. It's a short wheelbase car and you can't mess with the dimensions. [ Pat ] Jim Skenk and Jesper Ingerslip are the lead engineers on the Mark-5 and have been working towards this project for several years. [ Jim ] The biggest thing on the Mark-5 is the chassis, which is all new. Basically what we did is when we designed our Gen-3 Couple a few years back we had this in the plan that we were going to eventually update the Mark-5 chassis with that style of chassis. So that was in the beginning stages of that chassis being drawn. [ Pat ] With the new chassis being a complete departure from the Mark-4 there is a lot of development that went into creating a better version. [ Jesper ] With the Mark-5 we changed from a twin tube chassis to a space frame as well. Very, very similar to the Coupe. So that's been able to stiffen the frame substantially. [ Jim ] That's really what sets the entire project is that chassis. [ Frankie ] Jesper and Jim have already gone through and assembled most of the chassis, and we are thrilled to jump in and lend a hand to help finish the very first Mark-5. [ Music ] The next step is installing the body which is the same body as the Mark-4 and goes on pretty much the same as well. [ Jesper ] Looks good! Body goes right on. [ Frankie ] This one is unfinished and still in gel coat since this is a pre-production model. The hood and doors can be fitted since we are planning to drive this bullet on the street and many hands make light work. One of the exciting and brand new features that is available with the Mark-5 is a fiberglass hard top specific to the car. This is the very first one out of the mold and is getting test fit on a Cobra for the very first time. [ Jim ] I'm not too worried about the fit but really the most important thing is the look of the top and how it's gonna look on a finished body, finished car. We have never seen that. Top just came out of the mold yesterday. We've seen the shape of the top itself and kinda mocked up on a plug but nothing on a car. So that's a big moment for us because really the looks of the top are everything. [ Frankie ] This is insane because it looks like a different car. Everybody kinda knows what the Cobra looks like. You have that image in your head and with one piece you can totally change the look of the car and it's super functional too. [ Jim ] Wanna put the glass in it? Just give us an idea of what it's gonna look like even though it's not real glass. You've gotta step back and see it cause it's the overall shape that we're looking. I'm happy. I think it looks good. I think it gives a whole different look to the car. [ Frankie ] In the past there have only been less appealing aftermarket options and Factory Five wanted to create a sleeker and more eloquent piece reminiscent of old Italian designs. [ Jim ] Still vintage looking but like a top that was designed with the body and not after the fact. [ Frankie ] This is designed for the car. It's shaped to the car, and it looks killer. And you can literally put one piece on it and totally changes the car. That's amazing! [ Pat ] Now the top can come off. The mockup went great and everybody loves the way it looks. Back to the work. We have to get the stuff back on the car that has to go on before it hits the highway. And it's the little things like the windshield, the rearview mirror, and all the things that have to happen so it can be an actual legal street car. [ Dave ] It's going to be a fantastic race car. We've got our challenge car that we built with Lagano last time. That's on a Mark-4 chassis. We're gonna have to follow this up with a Mark-5-R, which is gonna be the race chassis with a full cage. But yeah, it's got to be a race car and performance car first. A race car's an efficient design, and we do a good job on the race car side. Soften up the springs and the shocks and all of a sudden you've got the best road car in the world. So it's gotta be both. [ Frankie ] Coming up, we take our one of one top off our one of one prototype and get it ready for the road.
[ Pat ] With the sweet new hardtop back off the car from mockup we can continue with the assembly of Factory Five's newest creation the very first Mark-5 Cobra. Being engine builders we were happy to lend a hand when needed but the Factory Five crew also had massive help from the experienced members of the build school at Mott Community College. [ James ] So we're here to look at the Mark-5 and see all the changes and everything. We've been doing the build school for a very long time. So this is just part of the relationship that we have with Factory Five. Actually the college started a build school about 24 years ago. So I started as a helper early on and been teaching the class for quite a while now. [ Renee ] So I'm in charge of the build school at Mott and I brought three instructors down here to learn about the new MK-5. How to build it so that we can bring that back to our students and teach them how to build them. I have a world map on our wall. So every time a student comes in we have them put a pin from where they're from, and there are very few if any countries that we haven't had somebody from. So they come from all over the world for this school. This partnership's just been great for Mott. [ James ] This is a completely different frame. So everything from the stiffness, the rigidity of the frame, how some of the components are bolting on. Just the amount of extra cockpit space. The fact that you're gonna get more leg room, more head room. For somebody who's taller or bigger they're gonna fit in the car a whole lot easier than they did before. That's always the trouble with a small car like this is getting everybody to fit. So this car's really answering a lot of those questions for people or gonna fix a lot of problems for people. [ Jesper ] To begin with on the Mark-2 we started using the 460, which is now mostly gone away. The Godzilla is brand new as of now, and we've heard some interest from customers in using it. Ford's got the control pack. So it's an e-f-i engine, it's plug n play. So we wanted to make sure we could fit it in the car. We primarily have designed the car around the Coyote engine because of its width with the overhead cams, but we also needed to make sure that the length will fit this as well because it is a huge engine. It's tight in the engine bay but it fits. We have headers for it. We know what we used and we can tell customers what we suggest compared to the Coyote which is five inches forward of that. It's a huge difference. I think it's an almost 200 pound difference compared to a Coyote. We'll deal with that with spring rates. We used the 460 before. So it's not a departure, it's an improvement. [ Pat ] There are only a few small details that need to be finished on the car to make it road legal and safe to hit the streets. Things like installing the windshield, final adjustment of the hood, and latch installation, driver roll bar, wiring for the vehicle lights, door adjustment and latches, side exhaust, and the wheels and tires. It's a lot of little things but with the help from the build school it only took about an hour and a half to get wrapped up, which is a testament to the ease of assembly on these cars. [ Jim ] It's a very unique business where the customer of ours builds the car. We talk them through the process a lot of times from beginning to end, and we get tons of feedback in buildability, and unique things that they added or changed. All of that over time we're documenting it. [ Frankie ] Prototype stuff is really interesting and also fun because it's one of those things where sometimes you can run into challenges you weren't really expecting, and that's the difference between people who just engineer stuff and people who build stuff. These guys build these cars. So the idea is they're gonna put this together as many times as they can and test it so that when it gets to a consumer level everything as scienced out as possible. They're not only just engineering it. They're actually the ones building it. That way they can iron out these details and make it easier for whoever's gonna be building it. [ Dave] I think about the Mark-5 it's kinda the story of the whole company. You've got Jesper and Jim, 28 and 29 years they've worked here, and this is their career. I think the Mark-5's their opus. They have put their heart and soul into it. I think when people see it they'll realize. My goal is to blow people's minds. Why do we have to do that? We don't. We're doing great with the Mark-4. We have to do it because that's the nature of Factory Five. We want to get better every day, want to do something better. This is my legacy and this is how I've decided to make my noise, and I don't want to do it half baked. I want to do it full throttle. [ engine revving ] [ Frankie ] Coming up, we take this one of one prototype out of the shop and put some power down on the street.
[ Frankie ] You see us filing piston rings a lot here in Engine Power but in today's Summit Racing Tech Tip we wanted to go over piston ring end gap and how to know how much you need. When we're talking about piston ring end gap what we are describing is the air gap between the ends of the piston ring as it gets compressed into the cylinder bore, and we measure this in thousandths of an inch. It's very important that we get this right because if it is too tight when everything is up to temperature and the engine is under full load you can potentially butt the ends of the rings together, which can cause damage to the piston ring, the cylinder wall, and even the piston. Now there's two types of piston rings you can get. You can get a pre-gapped set like a stock replacement like this one. Usually these are gapped for a stock replacement application at that bore size. So usually that's four and a half thousandths per inch bore, which would be 18 thousandths on a four inch bore. When talking about the high performance world the ring gap depends on the application because different cylinder pressures and different power levels have different heat ranges. Again, we need to make sure that gap is correct. So when you buy a file fit piston ring set, which means we are going to set the ring gap on our own, it usually comes with a spec sheet and has different power levels or different applications that you can base your ring gap off of. So say for a four inch bore with this ring set we wanted to do mild boost up to 15 p-s-i that's five and a half thousandths per inch of bore on both the top and second ring, which would be 22 thousandths on our four inch bore. So this is how we determine what our ring end gap should be based off the application. And remember, it's always a little better to have it a little bit than a little tight. If you have any questions about what ring set would be right for you or what ring end gap you need you can talk to the experts at Summit Racing Equipment. [ engine rumbling ] [ Pat ] Always fun when a new project sees the light of day. We've got a Godzilla in a new chassis. A lot of things that need to be sorted out. We're out and driving. I think it's awesome. How does this feel compared to the Mark-4 to you? [ Jim ] You can actually feel how much more rigid it is. It's much more direct. It's actually sprung softer, or the shocks are softer. [ Pat ] I'm impressed with how good the ride is. [ Jim ] Because the chassis is stiff we were able to soften it up but it doesn't feel any less responsive. [ Pat ] I would call that a success because we've still got all four wheels on it, nothing fell off. Actually I was very impressed with the ride quality and all that stuff. You guys did a nice job. [ Jim ] Thank you! It's always a good first drive when you drive all the way home right. [ Frankie ] How was it? [ Pat ] It was really cool! [ Dave ] How's the throttle response? [ Jim ] It's a little snappy. I think it needs to go to the dyno and get tuned but it's drivable. [ Dave ] This is plug and play from Ford? [ Jim ] Just the way it is yeah. [ Dave ] Let's take it for a run. [ Frankie ] Let's go. [ Dave ] Oh Jim these are new harnesses, I forgot. [ Jim ] That seat's on track also if you want to move it at all. [ engine revving ] [ Dave ] We'll just warm up the tires. [ engine revving ] [ tires screeching ] [ Music ] [ engine revving ] [ tires screeching ] [ Frankie ] It's stable. It's not laying in. [ Dave ] Nice and easy throttle, easy steering. Let's go for a little drive. [ engine revving ] [ Dave ] That Godzilla motor is a truck motor. It feels like a truck motor. [ Frankie ] You can feel all the torque coming in. [ Dave ] I like getting to know a machine. How does it turn, how does feel? I'm getting to know this car. It just feels a certain way. [ Frankie ] You I know have a ton of experience with that. So once you get in the car, within five minutes you know. [ Dave ] It just likes certain things. [ Frankie ] Is the chassis kinda everything you thought it would be? [ Dave ] I didn't know what to expect but it's three times as stiff. The whole battle is steering, throttle, brake, gears. All these things that you can use to change and add to the car, but you don't want any of those variables going like this. You want it to be all linear. That was a good time man, fun. [ engine rumbling ] Jesper ] Sounds great! [ Frankie ] It's a solid car, and this is the first one. That's what's crazy. [ Pat ] You've always got to figure them out right? Being part of the first one, the one of one if you will. That's a neat feeling. We're super pumped to be here and experience all of this. This doesn't happen for us. [ Dave ] Jim, Jesper, you guys' great job! That's a great car. I think it's got a lot of room for improvement. It's a fantastic platform. I feel like it is starting 10 times ahead of where the Mark-4 leaves off. Thanks guys, that was a lot of fun. Glad you guys were out here!
Show Full Transcript
[ Frankie ] Today on Engine Power we head north to Factory Five Racing to check out their updated high tech facilities and help assemble a brand new one of one prototype. [ Music ] [ Pat ] Hey everyone, welcome to Factory Five Racing. Yes you're still watching Engine Power but every now and then Frankie and I get to get out of the shop and go out and do something cool. So we have traveled up to Wareham, Massachusetts, to Factory Five's beautiful facility. A lot has changed since the last time we were here and we'll get to that later. We have a history of some epic builds with Factory Five. We have done their Mark-4, their 818 Couple, their '33 Hot Rod. We even built the very first '35 hot rod truck but we are here today for something truly special and we are honored and excited to be a part of it. [ Frankie ] The Mark-4 Roadster is one of Factory Five's greatest creation. It's an amazing car with a timeless design but today we're actually gonna be working on something brand new and updated with modern technology and that is the Mark-5. Now this is a great opportunity and we're honored to be a part of the very first one built here at Factory Five Racing, and it has a really cool power plant but I've actually never been here. So before we get to any of that we're gonna do a quick tour and look at some of these new facilities, and then we'll get to work. Since 1995 Factory Five Racing has been the leader in manufacturing build it yourself component replicas that perform as good as they look. Located in Wareham, Massachusetts, they have consistently pushed the boundaries of what a person can build in their garage by developing kits that are built with high quality parts and easy to assemble. Factory Five has spent a lot of time trying to make their cars as user friendly as possible. And not only do they come with detailed instructions but an awesome customer support system from the Factory Five team itself. Constant innovation has been the driving force behind Factory Five's growth and has culminated in a state of the art facility with almost every process performed in house and constantly advanced vehicles like the Mark-5. [ Dave ] When you were here last time to now the company has gone through huge changes, and we had an opportunity during covid. We couldn't go on the road, couldn't go to shows, and so we had a bowl of some money that would normally go to marketing and sales that we didn't use. I thought this is a great opportunity to vertically integrate. To bring more processes in house. [ Music ] So we brought more laser cutting in house, more c-n-c bending in house. Really built a building next door, invested in manufacturing in the United States. That's what we did and we spent about three and a half million dollars. It took about two, two and a half years to integrate all the technologies, but showing you guys around it's like wow, looking back we did a lot. As the company gets older your legacy costs go up. So we had to bring more processes in house to keep our costs down but one of the advantages of bringing the costs down and bringing the technology in house is now you can do it better yourself. The c-n-c tube steel cutting, just the tube steel laser and the c-n-c bender our roll bars are perfect. Our foot boxes, our cages, our race cage is perfect. Now my welders are like prima donnas. If it's not perfect they're like, I can't work with this. Where were you 10 years ago, making it work. Band saw to laser cutting is stone ages to atomic age. It started with the truck. Jim and Jesper in engineering were saying if we had this cutting technology we could manufacture a tube frame pre-runner truck. And the Mark-5 was hinged off of the Gen-3 Coupe technology. That was all enabled by the laser cutting and the c-n-c we brought in house. So one, two, three seconds worth of a cut and it's a perfect cut like butter. No grinding, no deburring, no fitting, no hammering here, no filling with weld. It changes everything. All the engineering work in the world, you stack it all up together it doesn't mean anything until you drive the car. Until you put your foot down on the floor and you see how it drifts. how it handles. How your steering input, braking, throttle can change the attitude of the car. The Mark-4 when I drove it the first time I remember saying this car delivers perfect car control, which is the opposite of the original Cobras. We did an original Cobra with you guys and I spun out in the first turn. It's oversteering monster, nose heavy, tons of throttle, and our Mark-4 is really well balanced easy to drive. Kind of like a Golden Retriever of race cars right. When I drive the Mark-5 I can tell you either we did or we didn't do it. All the other things will make it easier to build. It'll make it perform better but I want to see it firsthand. Let's get the car finished, drop the hammer, and we'll let the car be the judge of that. I'm excited about the Mark-5 because I remember I got the first prototype that my brother and I did and it was 1995. I took it in the back woods of Dartmouth and I was out for about 20 minutes, and I remember pulling in and saying we're gonna kill. This is a good car. I feel like this car has delivered that same feeling to me. It has to say this is so much better than the Mark-4. That's a tough hurdle to clear. The Mark-4's a great car. It's our best selling car and has been for 30 years. We'll see. Let's finish it up and put it through its paces. [ Pat ] Behind this door is some top secret stuff they've been working on for a long time and I finally got permission to go in but you can't! Not yet!
[ Music ]
[ Dave ] A guy I used to work for always told me Smith, do something better every day. And with the Cobra that was probably the biggest leap because I said to Jim and Jesper in engineering guys, pretend Factory Five is your competitor and look at the Mark-4. It's the best selling, best engineered, best performance Cobra replica kit in the world. Make it better! I mean make it better by a lot. Design a new Factory Five Cobra that harkens back to 30 years ago. So the Mark-5 really is our best work. I think it's gonna light the world on fire and I can't wait to see the hard top with some of the features like the carbon body, the forged arms of the suspension, more space in the cockpit. Trying to get more space out of the Cobra is almost impossible. It's a short wheelbase car and you can't mess with the dimensions. [ Pat ] Jim Skenk and Jesper Ingerslip are the lead engineers on the Mark-5 and have been working towards this project for several years. [ Jim ] The biggest thing on the Mark-5 is the chassis, which is all new. Basically what we did is when we designed our Gen-3 Couple a few years back we had this in the plan that we were going to eventually update the Mark-5 chassis with that style of chassis. So that was in the beginning stages of that chassis being drawn. [ Pat ] With the new chassis being a complete departure from the Mark-4 there is a lot of development that went into creating a better version. [ Jesper ] With the Mark-5 we changed from a twin tube chassis to a space frame as well. Very, very similar to the Coupe. So that's been able to stiffen the frame substantially. [ Jim ] That's really what sets the entire project is that chassis. [ Frankie ] Jesper and Jim have already gone through and assembled most of the chassis, and we are thrilled to jump in and lend a hand to help finish the very first Mark-5. [ Music ] The next step is installing the body which is the same body as the Mark-4 and goes on pretty much the same as well. [ Jesper ] Looks good! Body goes right on. [ Frankie ] This one is unfinished and still in gel coat since this is a pre-production model. The hood and doors can be fitted since we are planning to drive this bullet on the street and many hands make light work. One of the exciting and brand new features that is available with the Mark-5 is a fiberglass hard top specific to the car. This is the very first one out of the mold and is getting test fit on a Cobra for the very first time. [ Jim ] I'm not too worried about the fit but really the most important thing is the look of the top and how it's gonna look on a finished body, finished car. We have never seen that. Top just came out of the mold yesterday. We've seen the shape of the top itself and kinda mocked up on a plug but nothing on a car. So that's a big moment for us because really the looks of the top are everything. [ Frankie ] This is insane because it looks like a different car. Everybody kinda knows what the Cobra looks like. You have that image in your head and with one piece you can totally change the look of the car and it's super functional too. [ Jim ] Wanna put the glass in it? Just give us an idea of what it's gonna look like even though it's not real glass. You've gotta step back and see it cause it's the overall shape that we're looking. I'm happy. I think it looks good. I think it gives a whole different look to the car. [ Frankie ] In the past there have only been less appealing aftermarket options and Factory Five wanted to create a sleeker and more eloquent piece reminiscent of old Italian designs. [ Jim ] Still vintage looking but like a top that was designed with the body and not after the fact. [ Frankie ] This is designed for the car. It's shaped to the car, and it looks killer. And you can literally put one piece on it and totally changes the car. That's amazing! [ Pat ] Now the top can come off. The mockup went great and everybody loves the way it looks. Back to the work. We have to get the stuff back on the car that has to go on before it hits the highway. And it's the little things like the windshield, the rearview mirror, and all the things that have to happen so it can be an actual legal street car. [ Dave ] It's going to be a fantastic race car. We've got our challenge car that we built with Lagano last time. That's on a Mark-4 chassis. We're gonna have to follow this up with a Mark-5-R, which is gonna be the race chassis with a full cage. But yeah, it's got to be a race car and performance car first. A race car's an efficient design, and we do a good job on the race car side. Soften up the springs and the shocks and all of a sudden you've got the best road car in the world. So it's gotta be both. [ Frankie ] Coming up, we take our one of one top off our one of one prototype and get it ready for the road.
[ Pat ] With the sweet new hardtop back off the car from mockup we can continue with the assembly of Factory Five's newest creation the very first Mark-5 Cobra. Being engine builders we were happy to lend a hand when needed but the Factory Five crew also had massive help from the experienced members of the build school at Mott Community College. [ James ] So we're here to look at the Mark-5 and see all the changes and everything. We've been doing the build school for a very long time. So this is just part of the relationship that we have with Factory Five. Actually the college started a build school about 24 years ago. So I started as a helper early on and been teaching the class for quite a while now. [ Renee ] So I'm in charge of the build school at Mott and I brought three instructors down here to learn about the new MK-5. How to build it so that we can bring that back to our students and teach them how to build them. I have a world map on our wall. So every time a student comes in we have them put a pin from where they're from, and there are very few if any countries that we haven't had somebody from. So they come from all over the world for this school. This partnership's just been great for Mott. [ James ] This is a completely different frame. So everything from the stiffness, the rigidity of the frame, how some of the components are bolting on. Just the amount of extra cockpit space. The fact that you're gonna get more leg room, more head room. For somebody who's taller or bigger they're gonna fit in the car a whole lot easier than they did before. That's always the trouble with a small car like this is getting everybody to fit. So this car's really answering a lot of those questions for people or gonna fix a lot of problems for people. [ Jesper ] To begin with on the Mark-2 we started using the 460, which is now mostly gone away. The Godzilla is brand new as of now, and we've heard some interest from customers in using it. Ford's got the control pack. So it's an e-f-i engine, it's plug n play. So we wanted to make sure we could fit it in the car. We primarily have designed the car around the Coyote engine because of its width with the overhead cams, but we also needed to make sure that the length will fit this as well because it is a huge engine. It's tight in the engine bay but it fits. We have headers for it. We know what we used and we can tell customers what we suggest compared to the Coyote which is five inches forward of that. It's a huge difference. I think it's an almost 200 pound difference compared to a Coyote. We'll deal with that with spring rates. We used the 460 before. So it's not a departure, it's an improvement. [ Pat ] There are only a few small details that need to be finished on the car to make it road legal and safe to hit the streets. Things like installing the windshield, final adjustment of the hood, and latch installation, driver roll bar, wiring for the vehicle lights, door adjustment and latches, side exhaust, and the wheels and tires. It's a lot of little things but with the help from the build school it only took about an hour and a half to get wrapped up, which is a testament to the ease of assembly on these cars. [ Jim ] It's a very unique business where the customer of ours builds the car. We talk them through the process a lot of times from beginning to end, and we get tons of feedback in buildability, and unique things that they added or changed. All of that over time we're documenting it. [ Frankie ] Prototype stuff is really interesting and also fun because it's one of those things where sometimes you can run into challenges you weren't really expecting, and that's the difference between people who just engineer stuff and people who build stuff. These guys build these cars. So the idea is they're gonna put this together as many times as they can and test it so that when it gets to a consumer level everything as scienced out as possible. They're not only just engineering it. They're actually the ones building it. That way they can iron out these details and make it easier for whoever's gonna be building it. [ Dave] I think about the Mark-5 it's kinda the story of the whole company. You've got Jesper and Jim, 28 and 29 years they've worked here, and this is their career. I think the Mark-5's their opus. They have put their heart and soul into it. I think when people see it they'll realize. My goal is to blow people's minds. Why do we have to do that? We don't. We're doing great with the Mark-4. We have to do it because that's the nature of Factory Five. We want to get better every day, want to do something better. This is my legacy and this is how I've decided to make my noise, and I don't want to do it half baked. I want to do it full throttle. [ engine revving ] [ Frankie ] Coming up, we take this one of one prototype out of the shop and put some power down on the street.
[ Frankie ] You see us filing piston rings a lot here in Engine Power but in today's Summit Racing Tech Tip we wanted to go over piston ring end gap and how to know how much you need. When we're talking about piston ring end gap what we are describing is the air gap between the ends of the piston ring as it gets compressed into the cylinder bore, and we measure this in thousandths of an inch. It's very important that we get this right because if it is too tight when everything is up to temperature and the engine is under full load you can potentially butt the ends of the rings together, which can cause damage to the piston ring, the cylinder wall, and even the piston. Now there's two types of piston rings you can get. You can get a pre-gapped set like a stock replacement like this one. Usually these are gapped for a stock replacement application at that bore size. So usually that's four and a half thousandths per inch bore, which would be 18 thousandths on a four inch bore. When talking about the high performance world the ring gap depends on the application because different cylinder pressures and different power levels have different heat ranges. Again, we need to make sure that gap is correct. So when you buy a file fit piston ring set, which means we are going to set the ring gap on our own, it usually comes with a spec sheet and has different power levels or different applications that you can base your ring gap off of. So say for a four inch bore with this ring set we wanted to do mild boost up to 15 p-s-i that's five and a half thousandths per inch of bore on both the top and second ring, which would be 22 thousandths on our four inch bore. So this is how we determine what our ring end gap should be based off the application. And remember, it's always a little better to have it a little bit than a little tight. If you have any questions about what ring set would be right for you or what ring end gap you need you can talk to the experts at Summit Racing Equipment. [ engine rumbling ] [ Pat ] Always fun when a new project sees the light of day. We've got a Godzilla in a new chassis. A lot of things that need to be sorted out. We're out and driving. I think it's awesome. How does this feel compared to the Mark-4 to you? [ Jim ] You can actually feel how much more rigid it is. It's much more direct. It's actually sprung softer, or the shocks are softer. [ Pat ] I'm impressed with how good the ride is. [ Jim ] Because the chassis is stiff we were able to soften it up but it doesn't feel any less responsive. [ Pat ] I would call that a success because we've still got all four wheels on it, nothing fell off. Actually I was very impressed with the ride quality and all that stuff. You guys did a nice job. [ Jim ] Thank you! It's always a good first drive when you drive all the way home right. [ Frankie ] How was it? [ Pat ] It was really cool! [ Dave ] How's the throttle response? [ Jim ] It's a little snappy. I think it needs to go to the dyno and get tuned but it's drivable. [ Dave ] This is plug and play from Ford? [ Jim ] Just the way it is yeah. [ Dave ] Let's take it for a run. [ Frankie ] Let's go. [ Dave ] Oh Jim these are new harnesses, I forgot. [ Jim ] That seat's on track also if you want to move it at all. [ engine revving ] [ Dave ] We'll just warm up the tires. [ engine revving ] [ tires screeching ] [ Music ] [ engine revving ] [ tires screeching ] [ Frankie ] It's stable. It's not laying in. [ Dave ] Nice and easy throttle, easy steering. Let's go for a little drive. [ engine revving ] [ Dave ] That Godzilla motor is a truck motor. It feels like a truck motor. [ Frankie ] You can feel all the torque coming in. [ Dave ] I like getting to know a machine. How does it turn, how does feel? I'm getting to know this car. It just feels a certain way. [ Frankie ] You I know have a ton of experience with that. So once you get in the car, within five minutes you know. [ Dave ] It just likes certain things. [ Frankie ] Is the chassis kinda everything you thought it would be? [ Dave ] I didn't know what to expect but it's three times as stiff. The whole battle is steering, throttle, brake, gears. All these things that you can use to change and add to the car, but you don't want any of those variables going like this. You want it to be all linear. That was a good time man, fun. [ engine rumbling ] Jesper ] Sounds great! [ Frankie ] It's a solid car, and this is the first one. That's what's crazy. [ Pat ] You've always got to figure them out right? Being part of the first one, the one of one if you will. That's a neat feeling. We're super pumped to be here and experience all of this. This doesn't happen for us. [ Dave ] Jim, Jesper, you guys' great job! That's a great car. I think it's got a lot of room for improvement. It's a fantastic platform. I feel like it is starting 10 times ahead of where the Mark-4 leaves off. Thanks guys, that was a lot of fun. Glad you guys were out here!
