44-Year-old Cobra Wins Street Car Challenge

[ZOERA-SC7XX]

I saw the show too. It was nice to see an original being driven like there was no tomorrow. Great story about a forty five year-old car smoking everything else.

[Tommy]

I just watched the show. A mid-year Corvette won the styling award and the Cobra won the performance contests. Sounds about right to me.

[twobjshelbys]

Originally Posted by Tommy

I just watched the show. A mid-year Corvette won the styling award and the Cobra won the performance contests. Sounds about right to me.

Yep, exactly, although I still think the Cobra is better looking.

I watched it yesterday morning. It was well put together to give the maximum suspense. I doubt very many people knew the outcome in advance (most of them are here!) so the shock was "the ugly 44 year old car won?"

They did mention that the Cobra was 900HP, 800TQ or something like that but that the other cars were far from stock too.

It was a fair fight!

Congrats again.

[Jim Doak]

That was one cool program. Loved how they kept predicting how great the Bentley was going to do with AWD and ABS and kick-butt on the 0-60-0, but got blown away by the Cobra.

And as far as losing on styling...well I guess they couldn't let him win every event. Plus they probably had to throw a bone to their sponsors. (Optima, etc...) And that Nissan with the K&N livery was one UGLY car.

I wouldn't mind having a couple of those Gen1 and Gen2 Camaros or that old Mustang Trans Am clone.

Other than their F1 and roadracing programming, one of the only worthwhile programs on that channel since becomming FOX's NASCAR station.

What's that car got for an engine? Bored and stroked FE, I presume?

Congrats on dominating the Challenge.

[bulletbrown]

The most surprise for me was all these cars where built from the ground up with the best aftermarket parts available and 17 DID NOT FINISH , OUCH ,I bet anyone that reason that they played that down this fact was they where ask by the aftermarket reps to do so. Bet they where not to happy with the poor showing of the durability !

[Ron61]

They finally showed it here a couple of days ago and it was great to watch. In the Hot Rod Magazine article they said some people were complaining about the Cobra being to loud, not having enough after market parts, and about anything else they could think of. But I enjoyed seeing him drive it like that.

Ron

[Silverback51]

Originally Posted by bulletbrown

The most surprise for me was all these cars where built from the ground up with the best aftermarket parts available and 17 DID NOT FINISH , OUCH ,I bet anyone that reason that they played that down this fact was they where ask by the aftermarket reps to do so. Bet they where not to happy with the poor showing of the durability !

It's not surprising. The more you modifiy, the less reliable the vehicle becomes. It's the price we pay.

[Tommy]

I'll add that my car wasn't very reliable the first season I took it to the track. It took quite a while to work out the weak spots so it was reliable on the track.

[lovehamr]

Originally Posted by Ron61

In the Hot Rod Magazine article they said some people were complaining about the Cobra being to loud, not having enough after market parts, and about anything else they could think of.

P***ys!

[Snakebit]

Watched it on Sunday after the 24hr Daytona race. It was great to see a 44 year old car kick ass. He had some mean slicks to make that beast stick to the pavement!

[Wayne Maybury]

I watched the entire show and just loved the outcome. I was somewhat worried about the 0-60-0 as the car did not have ABS nor did it have traction control. It still obliterated everything else that was supposed to be competing with it.

Several people have mentioned that the Cobra was modified. This was part of SEMA and of course the Cobra was modified as only modified cars were allowed to compete. The reason it did not do better in the show competition is because the car's appearance has not really been changed. Every car in that competition was very heavily modified, engines, drive trains, suspensions, exterior and interior designs, etc.

I thought that the Can-Am Boss 302 would do better than it did.

Wayne

[twobjshelbys]

Originally Posted by Wayne Maybury

I watched the entire show and just loved the outcome. I was somewhat worried about the 0-60-0 as the car did not have ABS nor did it have traction control. It still obliterated everything else that was supposed to be competing with it.

Several people have mentioned that the Cobra was modified. This was part of SEMA and of course the Cobra was modified as only modified cars were allowed to compete. The reason it did not do better in the show competition is because the car's appearance has not really been changed. Every car in that competition was very heavily modified, engines, drive trains, suspensions, exterior and interior designs, etc.

I thought that the Can-Am Boss 302 would do better than it did.

Wayne

I did notice the benefit of ABS: Those with them finished going in a straight line. The Cobra and several others fishtailed, and the Cobra did so quite a bit. Still stopped pretty fast though!

[Cobra #3170]

Originally Posted by twobjshelbys

I did notice the benefit of ABS: Those with them finished going in a straight line. The Cobra and several others fishtailed, and the Cobra did so quite a bit. Still stopped pretty fast though!

The Cobra fish tailed because it had a touch too much rear Bias. I set it up like that because we use left foot braking on the autox course and with power on, if it didn't have rear bias it would lock the fronts too soon. During the 0-60-0 I kept increasing the front bias on each run so that the last one is almost a straight stop. I plan on putting 315x30x18's on the front which should improve the stop quite a bit. You are right though, we made all our time in accelerating 0-60.
The Boss Mustang had some pretty bad tires on it (bias ply race tires that were very hard) he would have been much faster on modern tires.

[csx4910]

I would love to know what suspension mods and what engine you are running? I saw a referrence to it not being the original engine but no details as to what is in there now. An absolutely gorgeous car!!

[LMH]

I finally got to see the entire show Sunday. Nice driving 3170! I had a smile on my face the whole show.
Larry

[Cobra #3170]

Originally Posted by csx4910

I would love to know what suspension mods and what engine you are running? I saw a referrence to it not being the original engine but no details as to what is in there now. An absolutely gorgeous car!!

Thanks,
I'll give you the short version, engine is Shelby FE block, Blue Thunder raised port heads (it only needs 29 D. advance at peak power), MSD, Carrillo rods, Victor jr. manifold- highly modified, Ti Valves, 14.7 to 1, 1650 cfm Throttle body, seq. EFI really big roller cam, peak power 7600 peak torque 5500, headers are 2 1/8 primary 3.5 collectors. This engine has a Daley dry sump and Stefs tank and never leaks oil as long as it is running (13" of vacuum) CID = 498 with a Moldex billet crank. Engine by Kinetics in Michigan

The suspension is really where the car shines, the roll centers move together, it has 70% ackerman and a .5" front scrub radius so that turn in is very good and predictable. Front wheels are 18x10.5, rears are 18x11.5. Tires are 335 rears and 295 fronts. There is virtually no bump steer and minimal front anti dive geometry. Camber angles are -3.0 front and -2.0 rear, rear toe is -.185" total, front is - .060 total, wheel rates are in the 300 #/ " range, rear bar is 1", front is 1.25". Brakes are 12" Wilwoods with 4 pot Dynalites, I built jigs and fabricated the suspension from 4130 and then heat treated it. I use NMB rod ends (the best in my opinion) the shocks are Penske three ways with appropriate valving for my unsprung weight and spring rates. Wheels are Jongbloed pin drives. The frame is sleeved for stiffness in bending and torsion. It took about 5 years of tuning and tweaking to get it to handle like it does now. We went through 15 pairs of springs getting it to this point along with three shock revalvings. I can honestly say the car is really easy to drive now; it never does anything unexpected, unlike past incarnations. I have a 12 to 1 power steering gear that I made from an Appleton short track rack and the throttle has a very slow cam and cable system to help with modulation. The car was undriveable with standard linkage because it would blow the tires off when you gassed it. This throttle is so slow now that it is very easy to hold on the threshold of wheel spin at any time. Weight with all the extra junk is about 2370 with all fluids, rear wheel HP in the 670 range not as much as some but just right for this car. It actually feels like a modern car with no evil habits only it weighs a lot less than most and has more power than most too. It has a good combination for low speed handling, acceleration and track handling. Not perfect for any one event but pretty good for all events taken together.

[Rick Parker]

Is the show going to be on again???

[Tommy]

Bruce,

As a guy who values performance over all else in a car, there's only one man I'd let sign my car - you. I'd write more, but after reading the description of what you've done to your car, I first have to clean all the drool off my keyboard.

[lovehamr]

Tommy, I don't think that's drool buddy..................

[Cobra #3170]

Originally Posted by Tommy

Bruce,

As a guy who values performance over all else in a car, there's only one man I'd let sign my car - you. I'd write more, but after reading the description of what you've done to your car, I first have to clean all the drool off my keyboard.

You guys are great for the ego, I must say my little 15 minutes of fame has been fun.

Rick, I heard they might show it again as a filler but not sure when. I made a DVD of it and can give it to Craig for you if you didn't see it.