4/8/09 Cobra Update - Dad, Party, Suspension & Body
Here he is last year at about this time:
Boy the car has come a long way since then (old man looks the same) - I'll be sure to post pics of this year's visit once we have them.
A while back I was visiting my friend Arch's FFR build, and a couple of the other guys started asking about our car. How did we do certain things, how long did this or that take, and more importantly, when would we be having everyone over to take a look? Well, that got me thinking and - once we finalized Sam's trip - we decided to have a shindig.
So, if you're in, or around Seattle this Saturday, April 11th, between 1:00 PM and 4:00 PM, stop by Joe's Garage 1st Annual Open House:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=12105+12th+Ave+NW,+Seattle,+WA+98177&sll=47.717493,-122.372065&sspn=0.00654,0.016115&ie=UTF8&ll=47.718626,-122.372074&spn=0.00654,0.016115&z=16&iwloc=A
Bonus points if you brave the 20% chance of rain and bring your cool car.
Getting back to the Cobra...we've been working on the front suspension. See, there are a couple of (somewhat) optional things that can be done to the car to improve the handling. Since the "mission" for this car is not being a period correct reproduction, but a modern interpretation, capable of day touring, track days, and autocrossing (with old school looks), we've been interested in these suspension tweaks all along.
Included are Whitby Motorcars Steering Axis Inclination (SAI) mod, which "...lowers the Steering Axis Inclination from 18+ degrees to approximately 9 degrees...reducing camber loss during turn-in increasing front end grip and reducing the need for negative static camber." So there.
It's basically a couple of brackets that relocate the upper control arm a bit. Here it is installed:
Totally awesome, eh? (It's the spindle mount, and the upper a-arm mount.)
Next up, Mike Forte's new 1" front anti-sway bar. I figure this one's pretty self-explanatory - it prevents sway (body roll) under cornering. Mike's bar mounts on the front tow brackets welded to the front of the 4" main frame tubes and connects to the lower front shock mount. Once it's installed, it looks like this:
The last bit of front suspension work involves the power steering. FFR Cobra's used only on the road can make due with a de-powered rack, which in a car this light, gives a nice heavy steering effort. Too heavy it turns out for the quick turns and corrections required on the track (especially autocross). The solution? An adjustable valve made by hot rodders Heidt's that let's you dial in the amount of steering boost sent to the rack.
Fully closed it operates at full boost, just like the stock Mustang did. Open it up, and it starts bleeding the pressure side of things back to the pump, without circulating through the rack. It took a while to figure out the routing of all the hoses, including the donor Mustant cooling loop (gotta keep that hydraulic fluid cool or you fry the pump), but here's the result:
Finally, the body is getting better all the time. As you may recall, this involves filling, and sanding, and filling, and sanding. Then you repeat the whole process. Over. And Over. And Over. It looks kinda like this right now:
I don't think my dad knows what he's in for...
Anyway, stop by if you're out running around on Saturday. We'll have beer & snacks, and a Cobra to look at.
As always, thanks for reading.
--Joe
All Photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/caropepe/tags/mybuild/
Anyway, stop by if you're out running around on Saturday. We'll have beer & snacks, and a Cobra to look at.
As always, thanks for reading.
--Joe
All Photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/caropepe/tags/mybuild/
