Ownership Log – ERA#2124

[Fullchat289]

Kurt..Thanks!

Yep...I run them with the tea strainers on for that very reason..lol.



- Allen.

[*13*]

Well, that better than them calling it a "Stang"

[LightNFast]

Originally Posted by Fullchat289

Kurt..Thanks!

Yep...I run them with the tea strainers on for that very reason..lol.



- Allen.

Allen,

I should have known you had it covered. Wow! Even your kitchen islands running Webers – Amazing!

[Fullchat289]

Kurt: LOL!! That's the requisite webers-on-the-kitchen-counter-top pic. You have to do that after the UPS guy delivers them.

- Allen.

[Fullchat289]

So this morning I got a few jobs completed. Took off the wheels and gave them a good wash forward, backwards, and upside down. After reinstalling, I safety-wired them in advance of the trip up to the Glen....I also gave the underside of the spare tire tray a couple coats of Krylon Satin Black, and replaced my 2" wide shoulder harnesses with nice plyable 3" wide replacements from Crow Enterprises. These shoulder harness straps are very good quality and great value for money. I ordered mine from Wesco Performance and experience great service and fast shipping:

Crow Seat Belts | Crow Harness Restraints

Here's a shot of the belts:



The under side of the spare tire tray in Krylon Satin Black:



Here's a shot of the car up on jack stands....cause racecar :



I also purchased the ERA FIA brake ducts that were in the classifieds section recently and had the fiberglass smoothed out on the interior and had them painted body color. I didn't really get a good shot of them on the car, so I'll update later when I get some better pictures of that.

- Allen.

[tkb289]

Allen,

Your Cobra is impressive, lots of wow factor and cool stuff !

You are doing wonderful work there ... any more big changes / projects on the horizon for 2124 or just putting some miles on the car and setting things up?

[Fullchat289]

Yesterday, Jacky Morel, Editor/Publisher of the French publication “427 Racing Magazine” swung by to do a photo shoot / feature article on the car. I met up with Jacky, his son, and a family friend who had arrived to the States in time for the Carlisle Events All Ford Nationals last weekend. I suggested the Mercersburg Academy campus as a location and it proved to be a nice quite venue for the shoot. Jacky, an ERA FIA owner himself, and his son, Steve, took many detail shots of the car for the article to be published sometime later this year…maybe September time. They will be traveling next up to Watkins Glen for the SAAC 37 event, then heading further North to CT with a plan to visit Peter and the gang at ERA. If you’ve never seen Jacky’s publication, here is the interwebs link:

427 Racing, magazine de voitures Shelby Cobra - GT40 - Ford

Just click on one of the two magazine covers and then you can flip through page by page and at least look at the photos if you can’t read French. You will see in “No. 1” a feature article on Jacky’s ERA FIA.

Here are a couple pics I took during the shoot using my cell phone camera:











Next up, SAAC 37.

- Allen.

[*13*]

Looks like fun! Needs just a touch of sepia.

[wolf k]

Allen, how did your tuning go with Inglese at the SAAC 37 event?

[Fullchat289]

Hi, Wolf!

It was great meeting Jim there and after driving my car and putting it through it's paces, the only thing that it needed was a slight drill size adjustment to the idle jet holders and a complimentary idle circuit trimming. This was to correct a relatively negligible transition stumble that Jim thought could be improved upon. In the end, he and I both were very happy with the results of his work. He thought the installation I did of my system was very well done, and I was amazed with how well he could pre-set every thing from the engine specs I gave him and have an "out of the box" package run as well as it did initally.

Couple pictures from SAAC 37 with "The Weber Man", Jim Inglese:

Jim standing over my car:



Jim doing a few small idle holder adjustments:





Jim enjoying the car:



Here are the results of my short fuel economy study from the SAAC trip:



- Allen.

[*13*]

Lost a little economy to performance. Looks interesting & fun

[ceslaw]

Very nice! Glad to hear those webers are doing so well.

[Fullchat289]

It’s been a good six months since I’ve updated this thread….and I guess I just didn’t feel much like updating…but now that the diving season has pretty well ended here in the NE, I guess it’s time to play catch-up…

Last I posted, I believe Dad and I were getting set to head up to Watkins Glen for SAAC 37. That was a great few days and some good father/son time, near perfect weather, and great meeting people in person I’ve only chatted with here on the forum. There’s threads on CC regarding the happenings, so I’ll just offer up a few pic selections and a link to my photobucket albumn:

SAAC 37 at Watkins Glen Photos by Fullchat289 | Photobucket



















After coming back from SAAC, I then attended the Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix. This past year, total contributions to The Autism Society of Pittsburgh, and the Allegheny Valley School surpassed the $3.2Million mark since the event began 30yrs ago! It’s always a pleasure to take part in the International Car Show held on the final Saturday/Sunday during the Grand Prix at Schenley Park.

Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix | Presented by Shop 'n Save

2012 PVGP Photos by Fullchat289 | Photobucket

















So after dad endured the 560mi trip on that dreadfully hard FIA Comp seat, I contacted Dave Wagner and asked that he make a 289 street seat for me…I think it was late August when this showed up.. Very comfy, authentic, and smells lovely:




I posted this photo taken during a misty Summer morning in September in the “Coolest Picture of your car” thread, but many people have given it the thumbs up…I enjoy taking the car out and driving to work on my 45mi commute…experiencing the sunrise and soaking in the sounds of the weber-topped 347..



OK…so fast forward to the 6th of October..beautiful Saturday afternoon and a Volvo Powertrain sponsored Drag Racing event at Mason Dixon Dragway in Maryland. I entered the car along with a bunch of other suspicious characters from the Capital Area Cobra Club. Knowing that my Mickey Thompson radials would do nothing on the strip, I put my Hoosier A-6 autocross tires on the back and proceeded to steadily lower my time over the course of the afternoon…..My goal was to see how the 48IDA’s compared to the 44IDF’s that were on the car. As I recall, the lowest time I could achieve with the IDF’s was in the 12.5 range @ 105mph….I’m happy to say that the 48IDA’s were a huge improvement….the breathing was tremendously improved, and my butt dyno was proven correct with the times….11.9X @ 115mph. So yeah….quite an improvement.

Now for the not-so-good news….after about my 5th run, I lined up again….hit the tree just right, but the launch was sloppy with induced wheel-hop, and then something went flat….all I could do was coast under practically no power…barely made it off the track at the 1/8th mile.. My first thought was that it was the clutch, but later found that the clutch was fine…it was a stub axle failure on the LH side of the diff. So I called a friend, had the car loaded and delivered to my basement and submitted to a bit of a truncated driving season.. Here are the pictures:











So, that pretty much brings us up-to-date. I’m in talks with a few places that my buddy Nick Acton has placed me in touch with for replacement stub axles…supposedly I’ve made a good contact and it’s just down to the waiting…we shall see.

Have a great Christmas Holiday, everyone!

- Allen.

[ERA Chas]

Allen
Sad that you suffered pain in your rear.
But also somewhat surprised. I did not think the ERA rear to be fragile. Now Hoosier A-6's are good but not exactly drag radials or cheater slicks. The cause may turn out to be bad metallurgy.
I say this because I've seen a friend's FIA with 580HP Windsor make numerous hard passes and not hurt the rear. This on BB's-not great but a lot of contact area.That's about 130 more HP than you hit it with. Did you clutch-drop above 2500 or drive it out?
Please report what the post mortem reveals.

[Fullchat289]

Haha....thanks, Chas.

Well....no, I wasn't exactly easing out on my launches....I would be somewhere north of 2500. There was another CSX4XXX owner with a NOS 427 there that had the same thing happen to him...also on BB's as your friend has used. So, at the end of the day, there were around three out of the 6 or so of us there with Cobras that had some sort of clutch or diff issue. I know for a fact that I was getting a degree of wheel hop, and my thought is that the breaking and re-establishing of traction is what did the stub-axle in. I'm likely not going through the trouble of getting a material analysis done on the shaft...I guess I could get a material hardness measurement but not sure what I would compare it to unless I was able to come upon a stub-axle drawing with some sort of hardness specification on it. I guess I'm just not that curious..lol....just looking to get the thing back on the ground and under it's own power.

- Allen.

[ERA Chas]

Originally Posted by Fullchat289

Haha....thanks, Chas.
There was another CSX4XXX owner with a NOS 427 there that had the same thing happen to him...also on BB's as your friend has used.

To be clear Allen-I spoke of a 9.5 deck, 400 CI Windsor-580HP. On BB's it did not hurt the rear.
Yes, it's apparent that leaving hard with IRS cars (either type), with anything even slightly sticky, will hurt the rear sooner or later. Your 430 - 450 HP is certainly enough to break parts. Hop may have contributed as you say. But I've the impression that the ERA rear is better in that regard than the Jag-unless modified.
I still say that the best money I spent on my entire car was Mike's bulletproof stubs, R & P and L-19 bolts. Too bad he's done now. I couldn't hurt them and like a dope, I always left above 2500. Driving it out would have produced much better 60' times.
I hear you-just want to close it up and drive. Sadder but definitely wiser I'm sure.

[Fullchat289]

…a quick update to post the happenings over the past two weeks. I was working with a couple of contacts on a replacement for my broken stub axle and came upon “Amy” at Welsh Enterprises out in Ohio. After explaining to her what I was after, she sent me down to Coventry West in Lithonia Georgia. I gave them a call and sent down my broken parts, and about a week and a half later, I received a rebuilt Stub axle unit:



This past Saturday morning was really productive. I was able to spend about 3.5hrs fitting things back up….got the stub axle installed and the halfshafts hooked up, filled the diff with some Redline Gear Oil, installed the rear end back in the car, hooked up the driveshaft and e-brake cables, bled the rear brakes, and got the trans tunnel installed before having to call it quits. Just need to button up the rear bulkhead, and install the seats and shifter, and I should be under my own power once again.

- Allen.

[Fullchat289]

Car is all buttoned up now and back on the ground....



I won't be doing much at all to the car over the Winter outside of this stub axle repair. I just have a few minor aesthetic updates that I'm making in the engine compartment...namely:

- cloth braided fuel line of the correct length for the fuel pressure gauge replacing the spliced together steel braided brake lines I was using temporarily
- replacing the shiney chrome velocity stacks on the IDA's with an original set to add a little period "patina" to the carbs..
- Still thinking about making another set of sidepipes...something a bit louder, perhaps

Further down the road, I'd like to make another drop-centered dash to increase the size of the glovebox per the original cars, and slightly reposition the center cluster of gauges for the same reason... I would also like to replace the Triumph steering column in the car with that of ERA's original-style steering column. I'll lose the "detachable" feature of my Sweet Engineering setup as I won't be putting down the coin to ERA for that option, but I found I never "detached" the steering wheel much anyway....

.....oh, and did I mention possibly changing the color of the car? Hmmmm..yeah, about that....

- Allen.

[xb-60]

C'mon Allen...more details on the colour!
Cheers,
Glen

[Fullchat289]

Having not gone the route of a period set of Italian webers for the engine, I’ve never quite achieved the “look” I’ve been striving for atop the engine….I’ve blamed this largely on the chromed velocity stacks that come standard on the newer Spanish carbs. To help with this, I contacted Jim Inglese and asked him if he might have an old set of what we termed as “crappy stacks” lying around. Turned out, he was able to find a set for me and sent them on to me in support of my desire to give my engine bay a more “patina’d” appearance. So after a little elbow grease, I was quite pleased with the result:

“Crappy Stacks” as received:



After a little clean-up using a mild scotch brite pad and some brake fluid:



Engine as it looked with the chromed velocity stacks:



Engine after replacing the chrome stacks:



Haven’t taken the car out yet after doing this switch, but I’m guessing this change will add at least 5hp, aside from the fact that it’s just more “pleasing” to my eye.

-Allen.