#20 - HOW MUCH IT COST To Build My 818

one of the most common questions I get is how much did you spend building your 818 and that's a difficult question when you spent two years spending money however I've been keeping track of my receipts and I'm about to share with you what I spent my money on for those of you that don't know the 818 is Factory 5 cheapest kit car and they claim you can build the cheapest version a convertible for under $115,000 to keep the cost low they use as many parts as they can from an early 2000s Subaru WX as a donor car this is a car they CL you can build in your garage with basic hand tools and that'll have Supercar performance without even needing to paint the body that's an ambitious sales pitch but I set out to build the hard top with a $30,000 budget in mind after all if I'm going to hand build an exotic car some old Subaru parts might not look right in certain areas so I broke my cost into four categories based on my best judgment things that are required for every build things I strongly recommend things that I just wanted and optional or not applicable to every build here is everything I spent my money on building this car my biggest purchase was the 18 kit itself this includes the chassis the body the glass headlights tail lights about a dozen boxes of things that go on the car my second biggest purchase was the donor pallet this includes items like the engine transmission steering Rex earing column hubs alternatively you can buy a wrex and tear it down yourself that leaves you with an empty shell of a car and extra work the 818 shifter is very tall and because it runs cables to the front of the car down the side all the way to the back it's very sloppy and it's hard to tell if you're in gear yes the car can move with it but it's going to ruin the driving experience you're going to want an aftermarket shifter like the 0 D Motorsport shifter that's made for a mid engine car and runs the cable straight back I also needed shorter cables to go with my new shifter the suspension is half Subaru and half new racing parts and they're not really designed to work well together this kit will improve the geometry of the suspension and help the steering wheel not fight you over bumps if you want your car to be street legal you most likely need a windshield wiper but this Subaru unit is huge it's very hard to fit under the hood and make it work properly buying a smaller Marine wiper was an easy way to reduce the size and prevent cutting the hood Windows get installed with the specialized glue so it's best left to the professionals you've handbuilt a race car so make sure everything is working together properly maximize your traction allow the car to drive straight and make the Driving Experience overall better when it's time to get a title and plate you'll pay a percentage of the value of your build in taxes $500 is conservative but you'll buy a million little things along the way like Hardware adhesive and gaskets I'm already at $25,000 for things I think every build should require now let's look at things I strongly recommend depending on the year of your donor WX you will have skinny 6 and 1/2 or 7in wide rims they will not be up to the task of getting power to the ground even my wider 8 and 1/2 in rims have trouble you're in a race car made of thin aluminum panels and an engine 1 foot behind your head anything to reduce rattles heat or noise to you will be appreciated to make working on the wiring easier it's best to remove all of the ovm sheathing but when you're done building the car you're going to want to protect your wires and a black sheathing is nice to hide everything and protect it soldering and heat shrinking hundreds of connections can be time-consuming solder seals save time by doing three things at once just a few seconds with a heat gun solders two wires together shrink wraps them and glues them in so they don't get pulled apart it's a good idea to do the timing belt while the engine's out of the car when the engine's back in the car things get pretty tight against the back firewall the oil pickup is known to crack in these Eng engines causing the engine to lose oil pressure so upgrading to a killer B1 is a good idea replacing the thermostat while the engine's out of the car is much easier this is for a cheap peace of mind that your car will continue to cool as optimally as possible the factory 5 fuel tank has been known to fit poorly leak and sometimes rust buying a highquality aluminum fuel tank is a good idea for added safety and years of trouble-free use the improved fuel tank did require me to buy a few special fittings to make it work even with my upgraded shifter and shorter cables it took a lot of fine tuning to get my shifter to feel just right and catch all the gears perfectly the Z dbel Motorsports bellcrank allow me to make lots of small adjustments to get the shifter just right the insides of the fiberglass panels don't look great covering it in something like bedliner makes a major Improvement I use pretty expensive bedliner but I don't think I had to it's amazing how much potential is still hiding in these engines my car picked up 17 wheel horsepower power and 37 wheel torque those are decent improvements but the real Improvement is the drivability and area under the curve there is so much more power on tap at all times and all this power comes on and a lower RPM the stock Subaru seats are thick and sit really high installing racing seats will allow you to sit lower and they'll hold you in place better engine compartments are hard to keep cool especially when they're in the back of the car and don't see a lot of fresh air using a heat rep on the exhaust Can greatly reduce the amount of heat transferred into the bay and we're already at $330,000 these next items aren't required to build an 818 but they're things I liked or improved things I didn't like so much I got my 818 kit delivered but you don't have to factory 5 also allows you to come pick up the kit yourself if you prefer you could also pick up your own donor pette or if you bought a WX to tear down avoid this cost altogether your donor will come with a steering wheel but it's large doesn't look good and gets in the way while working on the car my smaller quick relase steering wheel also gives me more leg room my donor pallette was missing mirrors but I was going to buy these anyways they just look cool the factory 5 screen mesh was too fine for my taste so I found a plastic honeycomb that I liked more the Subaru handbrake is so big it's hard to mount so I bought a lowprofile low car handbrake that I can mount traditionally Factory 5 gives you large Chrome Hood pins for a lot of the body panels which I don't like the look of so I bought some lowprofile quick latches to hold the body panels down the hood has a hinge at the front so I only used two at the back to hold it down I used four more at the back to hold the hard top down my Subaru engine mounts were in decent shape but I took this chance to go to stiffer group N engine mounts to hold the engine in place better A lot of my Subaru parts needed some refreshing so a lot of things got painted Parts in the engine bay needed a high heat primer paint and clear coat I bought another primer and some Aluma blast to renew aluminum parts like my transmission and high temp caliper paint for my calipers and Brake rotters and black chassis paint for many other parts Factory 5 gives you plenty of silver rivets but I don't like how they look on black panels by using black rivets I think they hide better and make the car look more finished since my 818 is a street car I spent a lot of time sitting at red lights listening to music instead of sitting in silence is really nice by using this Hood Hinge kit I was able to use two quick latches is at the back of the hood rather than four bulky Hood pins it not only looks cleaner but now I don't have to find a place to set my hood if I want to work under it the turbo can get very hot especially if you're tracking the car so covering it in a blanket can help heat from being transferred into your engine bay and it matches the exhaust wrap pretty well we're up to $345,000 all these next items are optional or may not apply to every build you can use your old pads and rotors but there's a good chance you want to replace them my suspension was old and stubborn so I tore both of the boots on the ball joints trying to get the suspension apart my wheels aren't Chrome so Chrome lug nuts didn't look right black lug nuts definitely look better to me the Subaru fuel system has a filter in the tank but my aftermarket fuel tank didn't have one so I had to add a fuel filter in the engine Bank I bought the cob tuner to check diagnostic codes turn off engine lights and tune the car but a few years ago cob started limiting the things you can do yourself so it no longer does all the things I need I've been using ROM Raider instead ever since you can use the seat belt from your donor but my pallet was missing them my donor pallet was also missing an interior mirror my engine came with an aftermarket air intake so I needed an extra elbow to make it work since when 818 doesn't have analog brakes you don't need the ABS sensors you can leave the old sensors in the spot or remove them and cover the hole with these plates Factory 5 instructs you to hack up the OEM radiator mounts but these look better to me have you ever tried to get your phone out of your pocket while sitting in racing seats it's not pretty cup holders can hold your phone a bottle of water or you have somewhere to put your drink when you go pick up lunch vinyl wrap was a cheap easy way to finish my interior I found one that has a leather grain to it to make it look more finished because I used an aftermarket shifter I had to find a smaller shift boot so I found this cheap Corolla one on Amazon my donor palette was missing a battery but if you have a donor car you can likely reuse yours the was out of the car so why not replace spk plugs while it's easy my final cost was $36,000 which is a lot of money sure you can buy a lot of fun cars that much money but this has been a very long and rewarding project for me it's probably why so many people refer to these as project cars not kit cars it's already given me two years of entertainment just by building it a lot of the things I learn to building this car can be applied to Future projects too plus you won't see an entire row of 818s at any car shows I trust me but for now I'm just going to enjoy my hard work and drive the unique race car that I built myself thank you so much for watching and please check out my other [Music] videos

Channel: Mike Camera

Views: 238,087

Keywords: Factory five 818

Id: wEYhdYk6MfQ

Length: 11min 17sec (677 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 01 2022