ETMC's LS1 Twin Turbo powered 1966 AC COBRA

[Firefly9r68]

East Texas Muscle Cars Kit car build: This will take a while as i am building this myself and not really in the shop so this is a 9pm to 12AM project but in 4 months i has got quite a bit done!

Car will be a LS powered car

Since i was 11 years old and saw the first AC cobra and actually knew what it was i have wanted one. Well i finally had the chance to build me one. I had to sell my 1100+ HP 2010 camaro I built But i got it.

Kit was delivered about 4 months ago:








Super excited about right now!!!! Got the car out then had to unload all the boxes






First things first, found the instructions:bang::bang::bang:







i bought a basic kit with all FFR a arms and wilwood brakes, and a moser 8.8.

the car didnt come with the Brakes or the Moser 8.8 so more boxes soon to come!


First off the car comes with the body set on the frame and the alum panels just set in place. You have to take the whole car apart, and label all the panels.








Then the fun begins. I started a little out of order but o well. here is the front end and brakes on.





rear end came in about 3 weeks later so in it went!

[Firefly9r68]

I will have to apologize now for he crappy pictures :-( they are all from my I phone

now to start on the ALUM. starting with the front:












and moving to the REAR









man that last pictures turned out really bad :-(

anyways at that point i have the gas tank installed already, all the alum is in and sealed. now that was the easy part now to start the brake lines,pedal box,dash, eng, trans......





Brake MC. o what fun, i still dont have them adjusted right may have to rear the instructions for these..LOL..








now it is getting time to move it down to the main shop so i can use the welder and get to going on the motor





so far no real complaints that i have found except the rear brakes i had to have machined to fit the 8.8




MOTOR TIME NOW

for the motor i went with a block i had sitting around the shop. a old ls3 crank. some Eagle rods and wiesco pistons. to top it off some PRC 317 2.5 heads with a ls2 intake.

Went with a fresh t56 and a ACT twin disk clutch





for the mounts i had to cut the ford ones off and make my own mounts. I got some HSC rubber mounts and use the FFR trans mount in the rear with a F body rubber mount. The mounts in the picture are just when i was mocking it up. They are now boxed all in.





THE CUT OFF MOUNT AND WELDED BACK ON






now for the fun stuff. Mocking up the Turbo kit, and putting the March front drive kit on the car

[Firefly9r68]

there isnt alot of room in the front of the car so i decided to go with a air to water setup :
if you look down you will see the two innercoolers









NOW TO THE DASH





Ill go take some nice pictures of the car today!!

-----------------------------------------------------------------

here is how she sits today















now the body is another story. Me and our painter are not to happy with there( 40hrs and ready) body. after taking off the seams they leave you there is alot of voids in the fiberglass under the gel coat which is a big NONO. i am a little worried about the rest of the body and heat and those air bubbles we dont find coming back to haunt us down the road. there is a TON of high and low spots also. this car we want 100% perfect so there will be were guessing 80-100hrs of body work and all to get it right and painted. Not 40 like they claim.








o here is a sneak peak at what it will look like. it will be a black but it will have pearl in it, and some red peal stripes, ditch the big snorkel and the pass side roll bar. but there is my wheels photoshop on it also.

[Firefly9r68]

Rear rims were sent off and widened to 13" and now hold a 335 or 345 tire.

we have fit the body and with a wheel spacer and the wheel made just right we were able to fit this and it doesnt rub or hit anything!!!!!

[G_Edmonds]

Love it! I'm in Longview and would sure like to come take a look some time.
-Greg

[Firefly9r68]

After this one FFR will be setting us up as a builder for the cars, our next one we will be getting is a GTM. i already have a customer that is wanting one, and i think i have 2 cobras sold also! :-)

[Firefly9r68]

Originally Posted by G_Edmonds

Love it! I'm in Longview and would sure like to come take a look some time.
-Greg

o anytime. we open M-F 9-6 look us up

East Texas Muscle Cars | Performance Shop | Longview Texas

we do full paint and body and anything you could dream up

[twin turbo]

Looks like that should be fun to drive. I'm curious why your not using solid mounts? What turbos are you using? Are you going to leave that turbo support like it is or was that just for mock up?
It's nice to see another twin turbo Cobra coming together. Cheers.

[Firefly9r68]

Yea i hope so

those mount are pretty much solid. There hard as a rock
yes that will be the hanger that will support the turbo.


How much HP is your car? What powerplant?

[twin turbo]

I'm running a Dart block 331 with 4340 internals. I set my electronic boost control to run 550-600 rwhp on the street, which seems to be the sweet spot for reasonable traction, at least on my car. I've put about 20k miles on it and have loved every minute of driving it. Cheers.

[ItBites]

Firefly,

Like the build - always wanted to do turbos, but went with a EFI 540 cid Dart BigM instead. Maybe later I'll do turbos on it...

Anyhow, you probably already know, but in some of the first pics above, your directional front rotors are on the wrong side of the car and spin the wrong direction.

Second, where are you intaking air to the turbos? Looks like you'll have to put filters under the headers? Any issues with space for that?

Good luck and keep us posted. I really want to see how this turns out; the LS series really puts huge numbers out. Should be fun.


BTW, my wife has a 2010 Challenger RT 5.7. How much can the auto trans and rear take in those? I'd like to add some form of forced induction, but am leery of reliability.

[ERA Chas]

Originally Posted by twin turbo

I'm running a Dart block 331 with 4340 internals. I set my electronic boost control to run 550-600 rwhp on the street, which seems to be the sweet spot for reasonable traction, at least on my car. I've put about 20k miles on it and have loved every minute of driving it. Cheers.

Pretty cool having a 10.0 street car.

[Firefly9r68]

Originally Posted by ItBites

Firefly,

Like the build - always wanted to do turbos, but went with a EFI 540 cid Dart BigM instead. Maybe later I'll do turbos on it...

Anyhow, you probably already know, but in some of the first pics above, your directional front rotors are on the wrong side of the car and spin the wrong direction.

Second, where are you intaking air to the turbos? Looks like you'll have to put filters under the headers? Any issues with space for that?

Good luck and keep us posted. I really want to see how this turns out; the LS series really puts huge numbers out. Should be fun.


BTW, my wife has a 2010 Challenger RT 5.7. How much can the auto trans and rear take in those? I'd like to add some form of forced induction, but am leery of reliability.

yea they were just slapped on there, actually i think my GF 12year old son put th em on at that time..LOL..

yea the air intakes are infront of the motor by the Balancer. ill get some pics up so you can see. This weekend i got the fuel system done, and the heat exchanger installed and all the lines ran to it.

as for he challenger they can take 5-7 PSI with headers on a good tune and live

[Kevin]

Lookin good....Nothing wrong with a little boost action. I'm a big fan as well.

Keep up with the photos and let us see a few videos of the test drives.

Talk to ya later,

Kevin

[bwcobra15]

I am starting a Hurricane Cobra build -- I also work in Longview 2-3 days each week and would like to come by and see your shop.

Bob


.

[Firefly9r68]

yea swing by anytime! just had another cobra owner come by last week.

[Firefly9r68]

little teaser vid

TWIN TURBO TERROR!! - YouTube

[Firefly9r68]

Got the sound/heat mat down and laid in the carpet and got the shifter and my lil custom AC box made and installed











I have since sat the body back on the car to test fit a few things, and get the doors/hood/and trunk ready. Honestly this car hant been a nig PITA just finding time to do all the work is what has taken so long. i only h ve after work and weekends to work on it and its just me so im pretty happy with how far i have gotten





Also have installed and taken off all the lights, and everything that mounts to the body on teh outside to make all the holes needed for mounting and such,

[brettco]

That car looks great. I choose to go original but what could be cooler and scarier than 700-1100 or more rwhp and twin turbos in a (go-cart). I wouldn't go for a ride with you/ that's the biggest compliment I can give!! Haha.

[Firefly9r68]

LMAO! thanks for that!