another 427 Cobra on eBay

[Jim Maxwell]

Mike McCluskey's restorations are regarded by many as the best. It really is hard to fathom a restoration that would cost 200K, until you sit down in the engine compartment (sans engine) with a razor blade and scrape away 40 years of goop for an hour and find you have done about a square foot in that time. Then you can begin to see why it might cost a lot in labor, if they truly used the old parts rather than replacing everything.
The owner of this car has had two 289's in the past, 2334 and 2400, and likes Porsches and Ferraris ,too. I'm sure it is as described and a very nice car. However, I don't care for restored cars, myself. A new Kirkham would be a better choice for me.

[Blue66]

"Jack Z" I had an early car...427 with 2-4's...


Dan

[Jim Maxwell]

The original Shelby brochures I have list the S/C cars as having a single Holley 4 barrel with center pivot float bowls. The brochure for the "Cobra 427" with the 428 engine listed "one Ford 4-bbl". The books I have are inconsistent regarding the 2-4 barrel setup, but one states that the "roadgoing 427's", which I take to mean the street cars with 427 engines, had 2 carbs. So I'm glad I could clear that up! (Every original 428 car I have seen actually has a single Holley four barrel on it.

[Cal Metal]

Regarding the 2X4bbl. issue, to wit:

Looks like Ken Miles had been relegated to sales duty that day....

[Jamo]

Damn--I keep forgetting how nice a "clean" street version looks--no sidepipes, scoop or rollbar. Takes on a bit of Italian flare to the flanks.

What happened to Sahl's car?

[Tom Kirkham]

The comp cars had single 4V MR and possibly but doubtfull HR, the SC had 427 MR with both dual four and single four carbs, the early street (CSX 3101 to 3199) cars had 427 Low Risers with 2 x 4V, the 3200 cars had 428 with single four barrells, and the CSX3300+ cars had 427 MR with single four. As you can see most of the 427 Cobras came with 427s and not 428. I don't know how this rumor got started and I sure wish it would die.

As for $200K restorations, easy. Before we started making parts prices for parts were way way expensive. Remember their were only 348 + a few cars built. AC cars charged a fortune for parts. If the car has comp brakes the parts to convert to comp brakes (steering arms, rear uprights) were extremly rare and $$$$. Do you remember the orginal NOS mirror that was sold last year on e-bay for a small fortune? How much are a set of original Blue dots worth? How much to date code the engine. Someone has to pay for the time to find these parts. It is things like this that drive up the costs dramatically.

In engineering there is something called the 80/20 rule. It is 20% of the effort will get you 80% of the results. It is the last 20% that takes 80% of the effort. We have found that the rule is closer to 90/10

Sorry to ramble

[prveqty]

The owner claims the car has a 428 engine - the dual quads, however, in my opinion were not as delivered. As far as cost of restoration, $200k is too high, although it does take much more time to salvage/restore every original piece as opposed to just bolting together new parts (more than a new Kirkham), if it is restored correctly. The problem is, most of them do just have new parts bolted on - you can see, however, why since the restoration guys have to make a living and it can take forever (and cost a fortune) to fix and replate every original piece of chrome, hunt down all the correct hose clamps, etc. Jim Maxwell, I'm sure you can appreciate this aspect with what you are going through on your "joint" small block restoration!

[prveqty]

Tom - Just to add that the general consensus among the "long-time" Cobra owners (including the Cobra registrar) is that ALL SC's came with 2x4 medium rise engines. This makes sense in that the 2x4 low rise engines for the first street 427 cars came off the Galaxie assembly line, and the Galaxie's switched to medium rise engines (most or many with 2x4) when they became available in production around mid year '65 (before the SC's were outfitted).

There is also talk in the Shelby American staff meeting minutes in 10/65, when just 25 street 427 cars had been delivered, of placing an order for another 125 Nascar engines with a running
change from 8V to 4V carburetors. It talks of ordering the engines with the 8V set-up, but "upon availability of the 4V a decision will be made concerning the change so that we will have a consistent number of cars with the same engine." So their main emphasis early on was dual quads, with the idea at hand to switch to
the single 4V, which is believed to have happened with the 428 (and later MR 427's)......

[Cal Metal]

Regarding the 2X4bbl. set up on the Le Mans GT-40, Remington told me that the OEM carbs were of such poor quality from Holley that they (he and Stu Hilborn) had to totally remake the throttle bodies because of such poor tolerances in the bores and slop in the throttle shafts.

[Excaliber]

Tom, or anybody, what is the approximate number of 428 Cobras? Did they have a 428 or a 427 badge on the fender?

I know what you mean about the 80/20 (more like 90/10) rule! I see that in my contracts (software\mechanical interface) a lot. When the guys tell me the job is 90% complete, I KNOW we have 30 to 40% more to do in terms of "man hours time".

Ernie

[computerworks]

Originally posted by Jamo

What happened to Sahl's car?

The Registry has it as CSX3185. He actually leased it in 1/66 and it was stolen before the year was out.
They say that "...nothing has been heard about the car since 1966"... so, consider it chopped up....
...or buried somewhere.

[Jack Zupan]

This sure has been an enlightening thread. The 2 X 4 questions and 427 vs. 428 questions come up now and again.

That is a nice picture that Cal posted, it clearly shows the back carburetor higher than the front. A question I had a few months ago.

Jack Z.