Quote:
Originally Posted by ERA Chas
Nor did I. Thanks for weighing-in here Bruce, your car was discussed earlier.
So I can ask-why did you paint your car silver? (Besides the fact that it looks beautiful) I though that a 'take-no-prisoners' guy like you would save 50 pounds with bare skin.
I know, I know-800HP, what's 50 pounds?...  |
Good question,
When I first put in an aluminum engine I went all out on weight, I even had a magnesium water pump, 25 pound clutch and flywheel, a standard bell housing because my Lakewood was heavier, magnesium Jerrico trans, small battery, etc. etc. The car weighed 2180 with 10 gal of gas and 10 qts of
oil. The handling was not good and the car was very unpredictable although fast in a straight line. I then decided to stiffen the frame with an insert using a round tube with a vertical blade rosette welded in the tube. The car then went to 2270 ponds but handled much better, after that I added the dry sump system, fuel injection and supporting electronics. Car weight is now 2350 but very drivable even in the wet, just illustrating that structure trumps weight but weight is still king if you can get it. A bare original Cobra is pretty ugly and needs lots of filler for acceptable paint. A polished Kirkham is a 1000 times nicer than any original and I am not sure you could ever get an original that nice even with a ton of body work so I stayed with paint to cover the many flaws of a hand hammered body. If I were to build another Cobra today I would start with a Kirkham and use my suspension, modify the frame and use carbon fiber brake rotors and a high horsepower Windsor based small block of about 650 HP that would rev to 10,000. I'll bet you could bring that in at about 1900 lbs, it would be killer fast and handle better than just about anything out there until aero took over, of course you could do a Daytona coupe in Carbon to solve the aero issues.