kind of new guy from texas

[soroush]

Hi guys,, Im sort of new here even though it seems like I joined only 10 years ago.. always wanted a cobra but somehow other cars got in the way. That changed a few months ago when I somehow ended up with an early superformance cobra from BAT even though I lost the auction... long story short the car had lot of issues and i went through pretty much most of it we pulled the motor and went through it and changed pretty much everything that was not the long block, new dual disk clutch bell housing, added a new 8 stack injection system and a new efi computer with all associated wiring including completely redoing all the battery cables getting rid of the starter solenoid adding a new custom fuse box (there was a lot of wiring).

I wanted to thank the forum as I was able to find a lot of helpful information that guided me along the way. I found out about the troublesome hand brakes these cars are cursed with and so I came up with a system using a linear actuator to pull the emergency cables and we even retained the hand brake and used it to activate the switch to the actuator. also found out about the brake light pressure switch having trouble and so I changed it to a pedal activated switch by fabricating a bracket and mounting a regular type brake light switch to it, now both the brake light and emergency brakes work like a charm... Ill be happy to share what I learned along the way if anyone is interested..

and hope to meet you guys at the upcoming meets...

[spdbrake]

Congratz on the SPF. Sounds like you are making some great improvements. The forum threads either thru Google or the site itself have a wealth of priceless information. Typically its how I get all my info I need thru simple searches, which sounds like the path you use as well,

[bwcobra15]

Where abouts in Texas? We have a pretty large group in the Dallas/FtWorth area, as well as Houston, Austin/SanAntonio. Our annual gathering in San Marcos is coming up, 21st year. Texas Cobra Club Spring Meet

[soroush]

Im in Houston and have already been in touch with some of the guys from the cobra club down here and am aware of the big meet in san marcos. There was always a little overlap amongst the group, being involved in other forums and sharing other cars so I have known about the big meet for some time but never attended. i dont know if i can attend this year but looking forward to getting this car out and stretching out her legs a little. it has been a blast to drive every time so far...

[bcrumpley]

What part of Houston?

[ERA 626]

I want to hear about the FI system ECU you are using... I am building a 482 FE using a cross ram manifold. Every thing on a megasquirt.

[BigGuy]

Welcome back!

Your project sounds very interesting..... especially the brake lever issue
(need to hear more about the fix around this issue).

[Gaz64]

So you now have a "digital" park brake, not an analogue emergency brake.

I would like to see how you use an "on off" in an emergency.

The rear wheels should still be rolling otherwise loss of steering.

[soroush]

Im near the heights area sort of close to the galleria in Houston..

i suppose I should mention the motor is 408W running a speedmaster 8 stack injection using a fast EZ efi 2.0, a short msd crank trigger distributor and a innovators west crank trigger to signal the computer along with their ignition box. so no wires coming off the distributor and on the intake itself I went to great length chopping and reconnecting the harness so that you dont see too many wires, even installed a 30 pin bulkhead connector to be able to disconnect the wiring all in one shot. At glance, the engine looks like a carb set up due to the absence of wiring.

the brake lever I modified to receive a simple on off switch and mounted a linear actuator opposite the parking brake cables to pull the cables once activated the whole thing is wired through the custom fuse box I installed in the engine compartment which also houses all the relays for the electric fans, fuel pump the main efi power relay and the dpdt hand brake relay. all with their own fuses for each circuit of course.

once the hand brake lever is pulled the circuit is activated and the linear actuator starts to pull the E cables.. the actuator is able to pull the cables a little harder than I could with just pulling on the lever ( i found out that my lever had been pulled so hard before that it was bent at some point and someone had tried to straighten it... so I knew the system was never working properly . when I got the car the hand brake was not able to hold the car at all.. of course there is also adjustment on the little brake pads the puck style E caliper that also helps and I replaced the pads on one side and will do the other side soon but for now the car is being held pretty good with the current system..

as for using the E brakes for an emergency per say... well i dont think even on a brand new car with brand new E brakes you could even slow the car down if anyone has seen the puck style E brake caliper you can easily see that it is far too small and weak to slow the car down and I suspect if you use it a few times when the car is moving to slow the car down the small brake pads in the puck style E caliper will be done.... so there will be no loss of steering if the e brakes is activated as the system is just not strong enough to stop the back wheels in the first place whether with regular hand operation or with an electric actuator.

I will post a vid and some pictures of the build if you guys are interested

[soroush]

pic of the motor after completion

[soroush]

fuse box, flush mount, so you cant see any wiring. all under the dash or actually passengers foot well but also covered up with a custom panel under there as well.

[soroush]

bulkhead connector for the entire engine efi harness you can disconnect this one connector and the whole harness can be removed along with the engine.

the distribution block next to it replaces the old starter solenoid and has dedicated and fused legs for each the main power inside the car, the starter and the alternator connections.

[soroush]

industrial circuit breaker on the battery, it can also act as a cut off switch if you wanted to work on the car and needed to disconnect the battery beats taking the terminals off and on..

[soroush]

well the club doesnt seem to allow me to post anymore pics .... they keep failing to upload,,, I may have reached a limit ??

[soroush]

here is the actuator...

[soroush]

hand brake with switch

[spdbrake]

Great work, almost Mil-Spec in areas. Whats the J-box for on the left side of the belly photo. Has a Cobra sticker on it?

[soroush]

thanks spdbrake,

that box is a basic "ground bus" I ran all new battery cables (2 size larger than what was on the car) and I didnt want to leave any of the wiring connection to chance since we were installing an efi system, especially the ground circuits, so in addition to running a short ground cable from the battery to the frame in the back(like what was on the car originally) I ran another large size ground cable all the way to the front of the car and that box is the junction point for all its different legs... it basically grounds all the circuits inside the car for everything in the dash another leg for grounding the engine and a couple of empty spots for later if something should come up. I also used these buses under the dash as well to supply key on and constant power and ground to everything that needed to be wired under the dash ie computer. I changed the amp meter to a volt meter because I installed a 1 wire high output alternator so there were some new gauge wiring that used those buses under the dash as well. the 1 wire alternator allowed me to remove pretty much all of the old wiring that came with the car for the voltage regulator and clean up the engine bay quite a bit.. really other than the electric fan wiring in the front there are no other visible wiring in the engine compartment besides the battery cables going to the fused junction box, and that was the look I was going for. second pic is of the buses I used for power and ground and you can see the new efi computer mounted on the side, it is mounted on a hinged base so that once you are done with service or testing you can just flip it up under the dash and out of the way.

[spdbrake]

Very nice! I had added Pos and Neg bus bars in the trunk awhile back as I had added EFI.

On the J-box though as I saw the Black - wire zip-tied to the pos cable. Couldn't tell if it was a fuel line. I thought not since you obviously have skills and common sense but still had to ask.

[soroush]

haha ya I can see how that could be mistaken for a fuel line it certainly as big as a fuel line... but in keeping with the quality of this build of course I redid the whole fuel system from tank to engine.. all the old lines went away the inline pump as well also that cheezy metal line that superformance installs on the frame rail too. I installed a holley in tank pump capable of more hp than ill ever make installed the fuel pressure sensor on the frame rail for the computer and ran all new stainless lines with AN fittings from the tank to the engine and back for a return set up, and of course the fuel lines are on the opposite side of the frame from the battery cables