Lippy's ERA #797 build log

[Dimis]

Woohoo!!!
Nice work lippy.
I'm flattering myself here, but in many ways I see you car as a sister car to my ride.
Particularly as the drive line has so many similarities.

Seeing you ride off into the sunset is inspiration and motivating me to finish all that sanding and polishin'

Well done man!

[frdfver]

Congrats on the first drive..Car looks real good.

[tkb289]

I stopped by lippy's this afternoon to take a look at his 427 ERA, and it is a real beauty. The car is very well planned out and everything fits well together, the FIA wheels are a nice touch.

Before starting the motor in the car for the first time, lippy went through a complete check list, primed the oiling system and gave everything a good once over. After a few cranks to get fuel into the carb, the motor fired right up. It has a deep lopey idle and when the throttle is blipped, the motor just roars … it sounds great and looks very impressive … not a lot of room left over with all that motor stuffed in there

After a few minor adjustments it was time for the first short drive up the street and back … then a quick check for leaks and off for another short drive. I followed lippy to the gas station, the car sits well and tracks nicely down the road, and it sounds fantastic, Brent did a wonderful job on the motor.

Here are a couple of photos, it's a deep non metallic blue that is stunning, looks even better in real life. The dash, seats and interior are first rate, all that hard work paid off.

From first start to first drive in about an hour, that's a testament to a well built car & well prepared motor. Your 'to do list' is pretty darn short … well done lippy!

tkb


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[DanEC]

Congratulations Lippy - that is amazingly quick progress to your first drive. It is surprising how well they ride and light the steering is (at least compared to my old Corvette). Good luck with the tach and speedo.

[1795]

Lippy,

I have been following your build for a while. Very nice job, the car looks great and your posts have been very descriptive and helpful to others. Can't wait to see the picture with license plates attached and a you tube link so that we can listen to the rumble. Enjoy.

Jim

[patrickt]

You've done a really nice job. You should be proud.

[kevins2]

Congrats on the first drive - car looks great. You're braver than I was driving to a gas station with no tag. I hauled gas in a 5 gal. can 4 times and drove around the back roads. Enjoy!

Kevin

[xb-60]

Looks great Lippy. You must be really happy to finally turn its wheels on the road. Non-metallic deep blue and no stripes....great choice!
Cheers,
Glen

[lippy]

Originally Posted by kevins2

Congrats on the first drive - car looks great. You're braver than I was driving to a gas station with no tag. I hauled gas in a 5 gal. can 4 times and drove around the back roads. Enjoy!

Kevin

I'm legal, man. I have a TOP = Temporary Operating Permit. That's how they do it here.

[lippy]

Sorted out what I hope are the last two non-operational items: (1) tach ground wasn't connected properly, and (2) minor bonehead move - the speedo didn't work and I didn't realize they didn't give me a gear with the cable. Found the right one with retainer clip at a local Ford dealer and the speedo is now working. Put about 75 miles on the car since the first start on Saturday and everything seems solid.

[buddyg]

Congrats great project, shoot some videos!

[Varmit]

Congrats Lippy, looks like you did an excellent job. If you are ever down San Diego way, give me a shout!!!

[Detroit Bill]

I read through this whole thread and it is like a book without an ending.

What is the status?

[lippy]

Funny to see this post resurrected. The car has about 2400 miles on it. Not bad for the first 9 months or so. I've taken the car on a couple of longer trips, but most of the mileage has been local tuning runs with a wideband O2 sensor attached.

Because it has a fairly radical cam, getting the car to run just right has proven to be a little tricky, but I think I'm finally there. First, I swapped out carbs and bought a Braswell. It is a top-notch piece, beautiful construction and tolerances. And it is not a modified Holley. It is manufactured 100% by Braswell. Not that the original QFT couldn't have been made to work well, but the Braswell comes with advice from Dave Braswell himself, and I can tell you first hand this guy is insanely knowledgable about carbs and engines (most of his carbs are on NHRA cars churning out 10k HP). One feature of this carb is that you set the floats precisely using a caliper instead of eyeballing the sight glass. For example, we settled on 0.825" for the primary, and 0.775" for the secondary (higher). You would think these small differences of less than a tenth wouldn't make a difference, but they really do. With these settings, my cruise is lean enough, and I don't starve the secondary under hard launch. After a couple of iterations of fiddling with idle air bleeds, jets, float levels, and squirters, I'm where I need to be on AFR during cruise, light acceleration, and WOT.

The second thing I did that really made a difference was to get a 10 degree advance bushing from FBO Ignition, Distributor tuning and Carburetion Professionals, FBO Ignition systems, Ford Ignition, Mopar Ignition, Ford Distributors, Mopar Distributors, Ford distributor curving, Mopar distributor curving, HEI Ignition, MSD ignition tuning,. The reason I needed it was that I was fouling plugs at idle. Dave Braswell and Don at 4secondsflat advised me that with my cam, I need a lot more idle advance (say 26 degrees) while keeping my full advance at 36. Since the cam has a lot of overlap, it has a hard time building cylinder pressure at low RPM and it doesn't atomize or burn fuel well at idle. The trade off many times is hard starting with that much initial advance, but it actually starts easier and runs much better. With the carb adjustments I made, that really did the trick and my plugs look great. In fact, I cut a few of them last week so I could see the color along the entire insulator.

Certainly I wish it would've been a bit easier to get this car running right, but the flip side is that I really learned a ton.

[Detroit Bill]

That is interesting. Do you feel you went over the top with the engine?
Would you do it differently if you had it to do again?

[patrickt]

Originally Posted by Detroit Bill

That is interesting. Do you feel you went over the top with the engine?
Would you do it differently if you had it to do again?

When building an FE for one of our Cobras, you have to perform a balancing act. As power goes up, engine life expectancy goes down, finickiness goes up, and street manners go down. There is a sweet spot, however, for most of us; but it is not the same, for all of us. Finding it, for you, is the tricky part. (And I won't even mention the closely guarded secret that, on the street, any engine putting out over 400 horses in a 2500 lb. car is pretty much for bragging rights only anyway.)

[lippy]

Originally Posted by Detroit Bill

That is interesting. Do you feel you went over the top with the engine?
Would you do it differently if you had it to do again?

Hard to say. It's always easy to look back and second guess yourself. What is good about the engine is that it's pretty tame below 4k RPM, even docile. Above 4k RPM the power really comes on, which is nice. If push came to shove I'd probably go with a slightly tamer cam but keep the solid rollers. I'm sure I'd be happy with a hydraulic/torquer as well, but that's a different feel altogether. But as I said before, I was forced to up my game pretty significantly, and I'm happy I gained that knowledge.

[Detroit Bill]

Jeff do you have any finished engine photos?

[lippy]

Update:

New:
- BT intake
- Cam. Still solid roller, but much more streetable
- Cylinder heads/valve guides fixed
- Custom spun air cleaner top with larger 9" x 3" air cleaner, which I really needed
- Oil pan rail, which I hope will stop persistent leaking
- MSD 6530 programmable ignition box plus MAP sensor
- Open PCV set up
- Cut ignition wires to length so they are neater
- Retuned carb. Probably a bit more to do, but it is *far* easier to tune with this cam

So far, I have about 100 miles on it. A few teething problems (e.g., leaks from Gates Power Grip hose clamps - don't use them!) but everything *seems* to be good and the car is driving well. No leaks so far, except the rear main seal, which drips a little bit. The car drives great. I hope everything stays good. Here is what it looks like.

[Bernica]

Just beautiful Lippy! Great job!
Love that custom air cleaner lid...very nice touch!