ERA 753 - Final Assembly in Progress

[fkemmerer]

Originally Posted by RAO-3

I was lucky enough to be able to see your car first hand at the shop over the weekend. It really is a great looking car, and I could see the great care they were taking to put it together. I did get a few pics of it; here's a teaser!



Here's a link to my album of shots from the visit.

http://s29.photobucket.com/albums/c2...20June%202008/

Ray

Ray,

Thanks so much for taking the pictures of my car at ERA and posting them. I really appreciate it!

- Fred

[fkemmerer]

Originally Posted by RAO-3

I was lucky enough to be able to see your car first hand at the shop over the weekend. It really is a great looking car, and I could see the great care they were taking to put it together. I did get a few pics of it; here's a teaser!



Here's a link to my album of shots from the visit.

http://s29.photobucket.com/albums/c2...20June%202008/

Ray

Originally Posted by Metal-morphous

Fred shes looking good----- Looks like I might be making a trip to ERA soon to drop off your hood!!!!!

Ron

Thanks Ron, I'm hoping that trip will be early in July. I can't wait to see the car completed to the rolling chassis stage. It reallhy looks great in the pictures.

- Fred

[RAO-3]

Originally Posted by fkemmerer

Ray,

Thanks so much for taking the pictures of my car at ERA and posting them. I really appreciate it!

- Fred

Glad to do it Fred. It really is impressive, each car there is a work of art. I would imagine that you must be bursting with anticipation by now.

Ray

[fkemmerer]

ERA is making great progress on asembling #753 and we are almost ready for delivery! Attached are some more in-progress pictures that I thought folks here might be interested in. Thanks to John at ERA for taking them!!

The first is a picture of the completed electrical system inside the tunk including the battery, a remore cutoff relay, the fuel pump controller, and a filter capacitor (barely visible above the fuel pump controller).



The next shot shows this same area with the cover that ERA made for my car installed. This piece will be polished when I get the car home.



The next picture shows the rear suspension and fuel system at the back of the car. The rear axle is an ERA unit with outboard brakes and extra strength axle stubs installed (the motor puts out over 625 ft-lbs of torque). Note the polished fuel tank and the great job that ERA did mounting the fuel pump and filters for the EFI system in the car.



The next shot shows he completed front suspension including competition brakes.



This shot shows the completed nose of the car. Again, we've polished all of the aluminum pieces inside the nose including the fans. This car also has Lucas Tripode style headlights.



The next couple of pictures show some of the details in the engine bay. All of the plumbing is installed including the custom stainless steel brake lines that I had made for the car. The wiring harness and all of the electrical components have been installed on the firewall also. This harness is a custom piece the Bob at ERA did for my car. In includes some extra goodies for the EFI system on the car.



And here's a pciture of the firewall electrical components.



I am installing an Electronnic Traction Control (ETC) system on my ERA. The system uses a driveshaft speed sensor to allow the FAST XFI Electronnic Fuel Injection (EFI) computer to detect when the rear wheels are spinning. The computer then retards the timing to reduce the power output of the motor and stop the wheel spin. This picture shows the custom made driveshaft sensor that ERA and I came up with. You can see the custom flying magnet collar that I had made along with the pickup sensor installed. This arrangement requires a slightly shortened version of ERA's standard driveshaft. Again, ERA did a really nice job with the custom work on this piece.



The next picture shows the Smith Gauges installed in the dash. I am using a voltmeter instead of the original ampmeter due to the high output alternator installed on the motor to support the electronnics on the car.



Finally, we wanted to hide all of the electronnics on the car so Doug came up with a really neat custom bracket to mount all of this stuff under the dash. The entire assembly can be removed with a couple of screws for service and wiring. Shown in the picture is the FAST XFI EFI controller with ETC, the MSD Digital 6 Plus Ignition box (top right), an auxillary fuse block to accomodate the added electrical systems, and a flash enable switch to allow re-flashing of the software in the FAST XFI computer to installed future software upgrades.



ERA is almost finished with the car and I'm hoping to take delivery in the next week or two. Then the ball will be in my court to install the engine, final plumbing, and complete all of the wiring for the EFI and traction control systems. Stay tuned for more pictures as we continue to make progress.

- Fred

[patrickt]

Absolutely gorgeous ... but you might want to check your clutch arm set-screw.

[fkemmerer]

Originally Posted by patrickt

Absolutely gorgeous ... but you might want to check your clutch arm set-screw.

Thanks Patrick, I will check the set screw and locktite it!

[patrickt]

Originally Posted by fkemmerer

Thanks Patrick, I will check the set screw and locktite it!

One other thing that you might consider doing since it looks like you are going with the ERA outboard rear with the handbrake. The brass looking cable brace that sits on the frame really gets in the way of servicing the front U-joint. If you're going with greasable units (and Jerry & I were debating that on another thread) then you might want to cut a little trap door on the passenger side of the tunnel that would give you easy access to it. Just unbolt the seat and open the trap door and you're right there. That's my next project. But as you're putting it all together, ask yourself "Am I going to be able to get to this U-joint once I'm done?"

[CobraMike]

Hello,

One word. 'WOW' !!

Cheers,
Mike

[Chaplin]

Wow is right. That really looks great. Must be one of this most hi-tech ERAs ever built. Can't wait to hear how the traction control works. One question though, why does it already have 2 miles on the odometer? Doug must have been pushing it around the shop quite a bit.

[fkemmerer]

Originally Posted by Chaplin

Wow is right. That really looks great. Must be one of this most hi-tech ERAs ever built. Can't wait to hear how the traction control works. One question though, why does it already have 2 miles on the odometer? Doug must have been pushing it around the shop quite a bit.

Thank you guys for the nice comments, I appreciate it. I guess that John, Peter, and Doug must have done 2 mi worth of burnouts in the parking lot as they wore the tires right down to the spindles.

Seriously, alot of the credit for my car goes to the guys at ERA who have been really great to work with in terms of all of the custom items. This is especially true for Doug - he is a real craftsman.

The other person who gets alot of credit is Ron Randall (Metalmorphous) who did the body and paint work on my car and gave me tons of great advise on how to approach building my Cobra. Ron is an ERA owner also and he steered me in ERA's direction. That was obviously great advise.

- Fred

[fkemmerer]

Well, we are almost there with ERA #753. The car will be delivered to me next Friday. I can hardly wait! As you can see from the pictures, the interior is complete at this point.





ERA is putting other finishing touches on the car as well. The throttle linkage has been modified to connect to a stainless steel braided cable which will connect to the TWM stack throttle body linkage.



Finally, here's a nice shot of the back of the nearly completed car:



All we are waiting for at this point is a set of rims to mount the Goodyear Billboard tires and our car will be ready to deliver! Thanks to John at ERA for taking these photos.

- Fred

[xracerbob]

Fred-

Its coming together just beautifully. Can't wait to see it on wheels. BTW, is mine being worked on or is everybody just standing around drooling over yours?

[fkemmerer]

Originally Posted by xracerbob

Fred-

Its coming together just beautifully. Can't wait to see it on wheels. BTW, is mine being worked on or is everybody just standing around drooling over yours?

Thanks Bob, I'm sure the ERA guys will be happy to get mine out of the shop so things can progress back to normal.

- Fred

[fkemmerer]

Spent some time getting the engine ready to install in the car this weekend. Added the expansion tank, all of the connections for water and fuel lines, and adjust the IAC motor so that it would not hit the firewall. Also disasembled and re-polished the stack injection system. Here's a couple of pictures of the engine - ready to drop in the hole. One of the oil filter lines will be removed to allow connection to the oil cooler on the car. I fabed up the second line so I could pre-oil the motor and check oil pressure and for leaks.



Here's a picture of the repositioned IAC motor and polished cover plate.



Finally, I took a shot of the IAC air block and plumbing while the cover plate and IAC motor were off the engine. The lines under the intake that you see in the picture run to each port on the intake manifold. This allows the FAST XFI computer to regulate the motor's idle my using the IAC to control the amount of air going into the motor when its running at idle.

[fkemmerer]

Spent some time getting the engine ready to install in ERA #753 this weekend. Added the coolant expansion tank, all of the connections for water, oil, gauge, and fuel lines, and adjusted the IAC motor so that it would not hit the firewall. Also disassembled and re-polished the stack injection system. Here's a couple of pictures of the finished engine - ready to drop in the hole. One of the oil filter lines will be removed to allow connection to the oil cooler on the car. I fab-ed up the second line so I could pre-oil the motor and check oil pressure and for leaks.



Here's a picture of the repositioned IAC motor and polished cover plate.



Finally, I took a shot of the IAC air block and plumbing while the cover plate and IAC motor were off the engine. The lines under the intake that you see in the picture run to each port on the intake manifold. This allows the FAST XFI computer to regulate the motor's idle my using the IAC to control the amount of air going into the motor when its running at idle.



My car is going to be delivered Friday - I can hardly wait to get the motor into the car!

[fkemmerer]

Well the day has finally come! ERA is done with my car and it will be delivered tomorrow. I can hardly wait! Here are some pictures of the completed car (less engine and transmission) taken at ERA's shop. The car has the treaded version of the Goodyear Racing tires.







I am going to take the next week off from work and try to get the car finished. In addition to installing the engine and transmission, I will do all of the electrical and plumbing work for the EFI system. Can't wait!

- Fred

[marcalan]

Fantastic! Please keep the pictures coming as you finish it off.

Marc-Alan

[ZOERA-SC7XX]

Nice car! Congrats, you made the right choice. Please describe the EFI setup.

[fkemmerer]

Originally Posted by ZOERA-SC7XX

Nice car! Congrats, you made the right choice. Please describe the EFI setup.

Sure. The EFI setup is a FAST XFI system coupled with a TWM intake manifold. The TWM uses 58mm throttle bodies and as been modified to add IAC motor plumbing under the intake (see previous pictures in this thread). The FAST system also has electronic traction control. The car has a driveshaft speed sensor that allow the FAST system to detect when the rear wheels are spinning. The computer then retards the timing in the motor to cut its power output and keep the spin under control. I have web page on the car with lots of details on the EFI system and the car in general. Check out the following link.

http://www.anita-fred.net/Cobra.htm

[patrickt]

Fred, was there any way to kind of test it out a little bit there at ERA? It sounds fantastic (I'm tempted to have one put on myself when my car heads back up there)