General vendor comparison

All,

I'm deep into the research stage on a replica selection, and I could use some information about Speedster manufacturers. The ones that I know of are:

Thunder Ranch - any build level of kit through turnkey
Beck - turnkey-minus or turnkey
Vintage - turnkey-minus or turnkey
Streetbeasts - kit
Specialty Autoworks - turnkey only (Subaru power)

Who else is out there? Are there any that you recommend that I avoid (you can email me privately if you wish)?

I would like to do some of the build myself, but have no welding skills and don't want to have to shorten a frame. This makes Thunder Ranch sound like a good fit, but some of the turnkey-minus choices might work as well.

Full disclosure: I am also still considering a 550 Spyder or 718 RSK. I am more than willing to listen to opinions (biased is ok :-) as to why a Speedster is better.

Thanks and I hope to see some of you in Carlisle!

Lane Anderson

Lane,

You also have JPS that builds turnkey or a roller, in CA near Vintage, IM in Vancouver, B,C. that will do a turnkey or their coach, a roller.

Bruce

Lane; Vintage will also sell you the unassembled kit.....

Most people will say that when you build it yourself it will take more time and money than a turnkey will. Not to say that the fit and finish may suffer. Than again nothing like building your own. You will know every bolt and most of them will have a special 4 letter name but thats OK. One thing is for sure that when the car is on the road the miles of smiles are endless.
MRDS

FYI - Street Beasts uses a custom tubular frame. Even if you pick one that requires a shorten VW chassis (i.e. welding) you can farm that out since NO other welding is required. You can even substitute a tubular or VW repro frame that is already welded. Another alternative would be to find a partially completed kit - you'll often save 50% plus over even the original kit cost. Building your own has advantages if you enjoy it as a hobby plus you can greatly increase the quality like using stainless steel bolts, using real Porsche accessories vice Brazil/Mexico/CHINA/TIWAN pieces. Still have to laugh at the CMC ads of year ago which said you could build one in 40 hours. (CMC did come in finished color gel coat which eliminated many hours of sanding and prep for paininting). In reality 200 hours proved to be bare realistic minimum. Buy a marginally running used one in need of upgrade or completion is another alternative to new.

Thanks, guys. Don't know why I left JPS out as I have a hotlink to their site. Seems like a well regarded company. I didn't realize that Intemechanicca (sp?) was still in business.

I would appreciate feedback on the vendors, as I know that can make or break the whole experience. As I said in the original posting - private emails are fine if you don't want to post criticism on a public forum.

Thanks again for all the help.

Just did a web search for IM's site and cannot seem to find it. Can someone provide me with the URL?

IM? Just click on makers and follow links -
www.intermeccanica.com/

....Still have to laugh at the CMC ads of years ago which said you could build one in 40 hours.... What REALLY happened here was a typical CMC typo as the remaining 0 was omitted hence 400 hours is a more realistic "guestimate."

Street Beasts, having build a good number of Speedsters, I'm in the beginning stages of a Street Beasts speedster.
Without doubt this particular build is Not for a first time builder it is labor intensive with some fabrication to say the least.
For me, I am finding it to be a fun challenge. I'll be posting pics as I get seriously into the assembly.

I suggest you read the thread about Jim Ward's trip to IM and the cars involved. If I were you I would forget the Spyder - they're very cute but impractical and uncomfortable.

In addition to the recent Jim Ward report of his trip to IM, there's another good thread on here somewhere about various people's experiences with Vintage Speedsters, and John Hallstrand has reported on his latest upgrades from SAW on his Subaru-powered Speedster. Besides Alan's current StreatBeast build, Jerome Smith built a Street Beast a couple of years ago, and MANY of us have had experience with most of the same StreetBeast folks when they were doing business as Classic Motor Carriages (CMC), which subsequently went bankrupt and emerged from Chapt. 11 as StreetBeasts a few years back.

If you're really serious about getting a car (either Speedster or Spyder) and want to learn a LOT in a couple of fun-filled days, try to get to Knott's Farm in Los Angeles in mid-April, OR the Carlisle, Pa., kit car show on May 21 - 22. You'll get to talk with a bunch of us, see most of the vendors (and ALL vendor cars) and get a real feel for what's out there and who's good.

Gordon

I definitely plan to be at Carlisle. I can't imagine a more fun car weekend and place to learn about these things first-hand. I've already been told in another thread that the Speedsters East club will have a beer waiting for me. How can I miss that? Hope to see you all there.

And you got a t-shirt asking for beer. Look for Lane he's the beer begger....

:)

If you're going to Carlisle, NEVER buy gas anywhere near the grounds, always wear a hat (no matter HOW much hair you have on your head), bring (don't buy) lots of water, and pack tons of cash 'cause you're gonna want everything that you see. Just keep it close to your chest because the pick pocket types are catching on that there cash to be had.

Oh, and save me a beer. I'm going down with the TR8 crowd to raise a little H#LL ourselves . . .

TC

Sorry to disagree with you Alan, but in my opinion, the speedster is the ideal first build. There is only a bit of simple fabrication, and the hardest part is shortening the pan, which sounds a lot harder than it actually is. When you compare this with the ultimate insanity of building something like a Diablo...But basically, with proper instruction, there is nothing the average guy with some tools and time can't do on these kits. And if you do a lot of shopping around for bits and peices and get a abandoned kit, you can save a lot of money. I myself, actually prefer the build process to the driving part, I am a few weeks away from completing a speedster, and already have the next project waiting in the wings, it is highly addictive.

Fred:
Maybe we can get Alan to ellaborate a bit more on his current StreatBeast build. As I undedrstand it, they now come with some sort of a tube frame or something to which the builder has to attach the suspension, and it's a LOT different from the old pan-based kits of days gone by that many of us have built. We chatted about it on the phone and I was surprised at how involved it had become and didn't sound like something a newbie might want to tackle unless he/she was comfortable with frame alignment and solid welding.

The pan mods of the old days were daunting when you looked at the manual, but after you took your time and went step-by-step, you found that it wasn't all that bad after all (in fact, I'm hoping to help Mark Hall do just that, this week!)

Alan: Any details you can share?

Gordon

Thunder Ranch also has a proprietary frame design for their kit. Assuming that I don't wimp out and buy a turnkey or turnkey minus, I would like to avoid fabrication as much as possible. I'm pretty good with a wrench, having restored a couple of MGs, but have no fabrication experience, tools, or facilities. I expect to be pestering lots of vendors with questions as well as climbing all over (and under) their cars. Do you know if they allow test drives? Probably not would be my guess, but it would be nice to try a couple out.

Oh, and Mike, I haven't found a place here yet to make that T-shirt you designed, but I really want to. I may just have to come up and announce myself by beer-begging.

As an aside - If owning one of these is as fun as corresponding with the owners, I'm gonna love this.

Lane,
Alot of your questions can be answered by clicking "Makers" on the menu above and "Registry"
-=theron

Gordon, you are right, that old CMC manual is a peice of poop. I have been working on cars a long time and still spent hours trying to figure out what they were talking about in that book. But with the vast wealth of knowlege available on this board, there is always someone willing to help, Alan being one of the best.

As for the Street Beast kit, I to am also confused. I talked to them about how the rear suspension would be grafted to the frame, but they were unable to tell me. That was a sign for me to end my reashearch with their kit. I assume you just remove the whole rear assembly with the torsion bar and it somehow clamps onto the frame they supply? Perhaps Alan could clarify. On Street Beasts defense, I have heard that their optional body prep is really good, but I have not seen it personally.

I too enjoy the "build" as I drive well over 165,0000 miles a year also will agree that on a shortened VW chassis build, it's the pan shortening that is the "grinch" of the build ..unless the builder has extensive fabrication skills, this needs to be subed out to a confident shop hence labor charges add to the total cost of the build.
Second build ? You must have contacted the same illness that I suffer from!

Street Beasts:

Body:

Fit and finish is a 9! Very well done with maybe an hours worth of "this and that"
On this particular body, somehow the body left the SB factory with the firewall and cowl not fiber glassed together $55 worth of glassing materials and 5 hours solved that.

Manual:

The SB manual is the exact manual as the CMC.. with a Street Beasts screen print on the cover....... surprised?
The "kit" comes with less items that were standard on the CMC kits ...stay tuned on the is subject as Al Shapiro the speedster's owner, has twisted arm and pressured SB to ante up ... now awaiting the brown truck to see what else has been included in this kit.

Chassis:

I too got nothing from SB "Tech Support" they were nothing short of clueless ...
Jerome Smith (SOC member here)is a Street Beasts Speedster owner and builder .Jerome was kind enough to explain details which shed much light ........THANK YOU !
SB uses a 2x4 box frame as the CMC did...
On the front of the chassis there is heavy frame work similar in design to the VW frame head that accepts the VW axle beam. The rear box frame terminates at the rearward portion of the rear seat area of the body. There is a saddle with heavy gauge clamps that receives the VW donor torsion bar section (cut off just forward of the torsion bar tube) there are two additional welded support plates that bolt up to the stock body bolt location on the torsion section. Interesting that with this set up there can be some ride height adjustment at the four mounting bolts. After the speedster is completed and the rear ride is correct, I plan on welding the torsion section and the four mounting areas for additional structual support.

This is currently where I am at now, I am doing a casual build timeline over the next 14 months and will post pics as I go.

Alan, this has a familiar ring to it. I was a long time member of EAA and thought that I would build myself an airplane. Talk about putting you life on the line! If I have learned anything in my life it's that I should look at a kit manufacturer's advertising with a very jaundiced eye. Joe six packs may not be the right guy to enter into a build project in spite of what the sellers say in terms of degree of difficluty.
my 2 kroner
John H

John, a Stelio Fratti Falcone would be nice...

John, did you ever build anything that flies?

Not to throw cold water on your build if you are still in process, but everyone I have known that have died (outide the military) in aviation have died either in a Helicopter or an Experimental Aircraft.

Bill:
Well, there was this V.P. at a company I used to work at, who had troubles with his EAA ultra-light and ended up landing it (in rather a hurry, I might add) on I-495 North in Massachusetts one night, just after Rush Hour.
I heard he ran two cars off the road (they were unhurt/undamaged but more than surprised when this flying chaise lounge tried to land on their roof) and he managed to taxi (?) off onto the central median and walked away from it (rather shakily, I assume) but the Massachusetts State Police ended up taking him to court and fining him $250 for being a traffic hazard. (He wasn't especially well liked at our company, and several of us thought of trying to get him jail time, but thought better of it..........)

Friend of mine in Fla has had the forces of gravity overtake his experimental flying craft...Twice over a 5 years period.

First was a dunking into the Indian River moments after the motor let out a mechanical Ca-Ching! Nearby fishermen were at his side within a minute. He says "wind shear" lol I say swooping down for a close look of a scantly clad boat babe....

Second offense was a hard landing in an Rockledge Fla. orange grove where the property owner was more concerned with his damaged trees than the pilots "fair" condition. He says all he could think was "what 'da & # > *...
A-GAIN ?! ...as that motor gave up the ghost

Epilog: ME don't fly with him No more!

GN & AM,

The number of stories I have on Experimental aircraft mishaps would fill a small book. Beyond the obvious, things not put together exactly right, the unforgiving nature of flight thing, you also have the issue John H. referred to earlier with regard to the "Design/Promoter" element. How many Bede 5 aircaft kits were sold? How many actually completed?

Finally, you have the fact that in all but the most professional/successful kits, the builder is also the test pilot. Few of these guys would make the cut at Pax River.

All in all, a pretty hairy brew.

And then there are Helicopters....Jim you have my highest esteem. And don't start on that Jet Ranger safety record thing, night auto-rotations? You heard the old joke, "Know how to survive a night auto-rotation? Don't".

Bill, your reference to the Bede-5s is a good one. Last time I checked, I knew of three unbuilt ones in the mid-cities area of Dallas-Ft. Worth alone.

Your second reference to Auto-Rotations, and so called "running landings" is also noted as being 100% valid! I think a Loach had the glide ratio of a rock after taking a hit in the transmission... I take that back, I know that the glide ratio was like a rock, especially when the struts impact on the fuel cell on a hard landing. Autorotations at low level were only slightly more cushioned.

Jim

Jim, as far as I am concerned, all you rotary wing guys were craz....er, heros.

I knew a kid 18 that was going to school at a local 141 school. He owned an experimental and used it to fly to home and back. One day while I was out flying in the KingAir I was thrashed around as bad as I have ever been, (without weather being the reason). I decided to call the flight service station and give them a pilot report. My report was "severe turbulence all altitudes below 8000", "in fact the worst turbulence I had seen in 15 years of flying".

Two hours later he was killed in that little airplane. The reason? They say inflight control failure...it was a tube linkage design and it literally collapsed under the stresses.

The dissappointing part was he received a weather briefing and was given my pilot report, including the part that I said it was the worst I had seen in 15 years. He was a good kid, but a little too bold to become old.

Steve.

As far as ultra-lights. I made it a personal choice to never fly anything that folded up like a lawn chair for transport, or that has quick disconnect pins holding the wings when you unfold that chair.

Your post is understood with emphasis.

Jim

Steven,

There are so many of those type of stories concerning experimental aircraft. That is not to say all experimental planes are unsafe at all, it's just the rigorous testing the FAA puts certificated planes through make them a much safer bet when things start to go a little wrong.

That's the good news about a home built car, when something stops working you can pull over and call AAA. Cars or planes, anyone that builds there own still have my admiration, it's not as easy as many on these threads so humbly convey.

Bill:

Is a BeDe-5 a small, jet powered, single seat, sports-car-with-wings??

Many years ago, I worked for Hamilton Standard, (yes, the propeller maker, but I was with the Electronics and Space Systems Division, or ESD). One of the engineers on the Apollo program with us had this tiny little plane with a small Pratt and Whitney jet in it. I'm now reminded of that tiny little plane Roger Moore was flying in one of the James Bond movies.

Anyway, the guy lived in Danbury, CT, and worked in either East Hartford (at Pratt) or up in Windsor Locks (BDL, I think, for Jim) and flew that thing to work. I've watched him fly at about 10 feet the length of the main runway, hang a tight left over the SE taxi strip (when it was open of traffic), drop it onto the taxi strip and gently swing it into the Hamilton hanger and pull to a stop, all within about 300 yards from the turn off the main. Made everyone's jaw drop whenever he did that.......

gn

These small aircraft that utlize Honda VW etc. engines........ What supports the crank / main bearings with the increased centrifical load of a prop ?

Alan,

While there are many mods out there for these kit planes and their various systems, I do not believe anything specific is always done to any of the automotive based engines that are employed in kit planes.

Although in recent years more and more people are paying attention to prop balancing, you would be amazed at how out of balance some props are, even on FAA Certificated planes. If anyone (other than the builders and the FAA) knew what the FAA means when they say "Experimental", they would not only not get in one, they would not even stand in the general vicinity when the prop was turning.

I sure hope I don't piss off any of the EAA guys out there too much, as I am a card carrying member (strictly for my IAC membership as I sure don't have the skill to build my own Speedster, let alone an airplane).

Gordon,

The BD5 originally came as a kit to be built as a single place piston engined pusher prop plane. A few made it in the air (of many hundreds of kits sold), usually with a Honda engine out of a Gullwing M/C.

The plane you saw was most likely a BD5J. There were a few of those built for various people (most were professionally built). I think Bud or one of the major beer companies bought one (maybe even a few) for airshow promotions. I think the Bud plane's career at airshows ended when the pilot did an energetic pull up (a little too energetic) and added a bunch more Dihedral to the wing roots. He landed safely but I think the plane's flying days came to a close.

Jim Bede (I think his name was Jim, my memory is not so good anymore) was a designer of many General Aviation aircraft before he started work on his BD4 Kit. A friend of mine built a beautiful BD-4 (4 place high wing kit) and actually won Runner-up for Best in Show at the annual EAA flyin at Oshkosh, WI one year. It was a terrific airplane. With the modest success of the BD4, Bede launched the BD5 kit, which captured the imagination of every wanna-be airplane builder. Unfortunately, the details of cooling, weight and balance, etc. in a rear engine pusher prop configuration proved a little too much for all but the most resourceful builders. Bede got a pretty big black eye due to the BD5 fiasco and to my knowledge really never recovered as a major player in kit planes again.

Gordon,

BTW, it probably wasn't a Pratt in your friends BD5J (or any other small single place jet). The smallest Turbojet engine Pratt makes would be far too big for that application. The engine's guys used in that application were engines like the Cougar Micro Jet(making something like 250 Lbs of max thrust) and converted Allison turbines. P&W is currently in development of a turbojet engine for Eclipse Aviation in NM which I believe is their smallest engine to date and it still would be 2-3 times the maximum size, weight and thrust a BD5 airframe could accept.

Bill:

Nope.....I remember listening to him tell someone that it was a Pratt jet prototype that was intended for use as an APU (probably for the DC-10/L1011 around that time) and it put out something like 400-450 lbs of thrust. I don't believe (because I know what the guy did for a living) that it was a production unit, but both he and the plane were a little off the wall, anyway. I was told, but never saw him do it, that it could do a vertical climb for over 7,500 feet.

Speaking of off the wall, United Technologies (parent of both Pratt and Hamilton) had a JT9D test bed up at Bradley Field for testing all sorts of engine full authority fuel controls and such. It was a surplus B52 that had one of the two inboard engine nacelles replaced with a single mount for a JT9D (those moosey engines used on 747's, for those who don't know the models). Used to be quite a sight watching that thing either take off or land with that huge engine tucked in under the wing. Bradley's main runway was elevated something like 6 feet, and when the '52 landed, the wing tips hung down on either side until the wing tip skids made contact. Then they just taxied over to the hanger.

I wasn't involved with any of that stuff, though. My stuff only got used at an altitude of 238,000 miles or so.

Gordon

Gordon,

Oh, that makes sense, an APU, I kept thinking about their turbojet airframe engines, the pictures in my mind of what that would have looked like were pretty funny.

Given what the plane weighed, I don't doubt he could go straight up to that altitude.

A good friend of mine flew the SR71. It had 2 P&W J58 monster engines. The stories he had to tell, really fun stuff.

Bill:

LOTS of Sr-61/71 stories in the East Hartford area....mostly about how much thrust those monster engines had at various altitudes and how much fuel that thing leaked before it got up to speed and everything expanded to stop the leaks. Pratt used to bring one in now and again for their company (employee) air shows and they would draw a BIG crowd to see them take off just after dusk - 150 foot long flames from the after-burners with compressor pulse rings every 10 feet. Made "Gas Path" engineers weep!!

A friend of mine was doing fuel control data collection on them down at Tyndall AFB in Florida and he was surprised at how much air time those things were putting in - like they hardly stopped during the height of the Cold War. and the distances they were hopping (not to mention their working altitudes) were amazing at that time....

Ah well, bed time for us duffers.......hasta manana!

gn
(and sorry for hijacking the thread........)