Late last summer, I received a call from Jason at Hurricane that my Cobra was ready. As part of the purchase agreement I wanted to go to Lake City and help Jason (the head builder at Hurricane) build my car out to a roller. Steve and Jason kindly agreed and opened up the shop to me and my family, which included my two boys (Levi and Chase) and my dad (Rick). So, on a Friday, we made the trek to Iowa (4.5 hours), got a hotel in Fort Dodge, IA and arrived at Hurricane Motorsports in Lake City, IA to begin building our car to a roller. Jason said it could be done in a day and we were out to prove that was the case.
First of all, the hospitality provided by the Hurricane guys was second to none. If you are seriously interested in a Cobra replica...do not overlook Hurricane.
First order of business was to run a tap through the lower control arms and make sure they would screw smoothly onto the Heim joints.
Second order of business was to assemble the rear end. The Hurricane 427 comes STANDARD with a brand new Ford 9" rear end with Trac-Loc from Johns Industries. I chose 3.50 to 1 gear ratio. Do not forget to install the friction modifier or your sweet new rear end will be toast.
As I said, these are brand new center sections, gears, clutches, and housings. Top notch and top quality...
Installing the gasket. This unit uses copper crush washers and I opted to only use the gasket and the crush washers so in lieu of RTV (as recommended by the 9" shop) for easy disassembly.
Using mini-popeye style forearms install the center section on the housing.
