[Clois Harlan]

Let's face it guys our cars are not daily drivers with very few exceptions. If the engines we bought to put in our cars were all tamed down to daily driver standards we probably wouldn't want them. Some of us go with a little cam and some go for a lot more. In some cases we are at the edge trying to decide between performance and reliabilty.

In my eleven or so years of Cobra ownership I have had my issues too. Dean Lampe and I had two 427 S.O. built by a guy with a long history of building performance FE engines and an excellent reputation (not Keith Craft or George Anderson). We spent a lot more than a good amount of money on these engines. Each was dyno'd and properly broken in. Our first miles were put on the engines at a race track and not a full out thrashing, in fact we put in RPM limiters to prevent us from going past 5000 RPMs. The bottom line....in 3 easy laps Deans engine was toast (full of bearing material) mine lasted another 15 mins. No warrenty at all. As fate would have it the builder was at the track when all this happened, he agreed to provide free labor and that is it. Dean accepted and I didn't. That was five years ago. My engine is still being thrashed around at open track events and ocassionaly on the street and I have no problems. Yep it leaks a little and runs a little rich but I know it will break sometime and when it does I will fix it. These engines receive more abuse from being seldom driven than if they were daily drivers.

I think it all comes down to the fact that $hit Happens sometimes and when it does we want someone to blame...by the way, I am just as guilty when it comes to wanting to hold someone accountable regardless of the amount of time since the warrenty. But, I do believe most of our suppliers try and provide a good product but there will always be some weak spots here or there. Sorry for your mis-fortune with your engine.

Just some thoughts from another Cobra owner.

Clois Harlan