Projects DRAG SNAKE "Vintage Terror!"

Well I was shopping today for that iconic reversed Cobra Shifter that will bolt on the Tremec, and guess what I discovered????

Only the 427 cars had the reversed Mustang Shifter, all the 289 FIA Units all had straight up and down shifters.
Oh well, I was wondering how that goofy thing would effect shifting, I guess nothing to worry about after all. LOL

 

Oh brother here we go! Where the hell is my slide ruler?



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Now looking for just the right knob?

 

I am a pretty big fan of old school white shift knobs. But I have looked at a few matte black ones as well. I don't want to advertise it is a 6 speed with the pattern on the knob etc. but I wouldn't mind giving a subtle nod to the trans. How about this one?

 

Meat and potatoes man, looking at that crossmember makes me think rectangular tube chassis?

 

I know, it is coming, it is coming. Sitting here at work all day though lends my mind (and wallet) to wander on the small things....LOL!

 

Well that will be better than being behind the 8 ball all the time.

 

So I just got off the phone with Roger Hurst, my cam designer. He is awesome! He blue printed the entire upper end of the Austin minus a set of bare heads from Brodix. And its performance pretty much spoke for itself. Roger is tied with Competition Products up there in Oshkosh. He had a list of questions for me to ask the AFR guys so he could design the cam etc. After the second phone call he said you know next time just tell me what you want and I will get all of it rolling. I said that is what I want right now, I don't want to be the middle man that is how things will get screwed up. So he took it over and is going to do the same blue print job, heads, lifters, cam and springs. He already made the change to the 205 head good to flow 750 on the upper end (not that we will max it out with the 363) but at least it is there and they are good through 8000 plus RPM...again not that we are pushing that hard either. I am really excited to scratch that whole thing off my list.

 

I also ordered a pretty cool set of ladder bars today from S&W Race Car Parts. You know I hand built the set on the Austin and decided it was not worth all the work (no reason to reinvent the wheel you know). I have been looking for a set for a while now that I liked the profile on etc. These really tripped my trigger so I snagged them today. They are 42".

 

AND Jackson you will be happy to hear I ordered this handy dandy little item today as well!

For those of you that do not recognize it, it is the rotating part of a Watts Link system.
Since I have no idea where we are headed with the chassis back there yet, I ordered this little beauty to go ahead and get the brackets and mounts fabricated on the rear end housing for it and then we will figure the lengths of the bars etc.

 

I'm sure that had to do with the transmission choice; the 289 cars could use the 'small' toploader which could be had with multiple shifter locations. It appears they used the Falcon/Comet version which had the shifter located as far forward as they could get it. The 427 needed the 'big' toploader and at the time was only available (as a production item) in the full-size cars with the shifter located further back, hence the reversed Mustang shift lever.

 

Exactly. I am hoping the forward shift position on the Tremec will be perfect....

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First I love the build,that said you need to get a idea of the distance from the rear axle and the seat. I've built a couple cobra kits and don't know how your gonna fit those ladder bars. Like said I love the whole concept, it just seems like your picking out curtains before basements dug.

 

I have a plan trust me. I have had quite a bit of experience stuffing high performance parts in places where sane people might not think they would fit. LMAO!

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The shift boot and ring is from a Falcon with no console. I snagged them today as well...

 

where did you order the watts link part from looks like something i could use

 

Summit Racing (it is a Dorman product)
https://www.summitracing.com/parts/rnb-523-026

 

cool thank you

 

PT Cruiser

 

Well I started day one of actual fabrication as usual, sitting in the car and making engine noises! LOL!



After that we headed to the steel yard to snag the material for the frame. On the way I made an executive decision. As you know I have been planning and sketching the design all a long with a 3" tube ladder chassis just like the originals. But who am I trying to fool, we are running a 9" ford rear end and fat man fab built us a killer IFS. Those are about as far from the original 289 Cobras as you can get. So why worry about the chassis rails that no one will see anyway.

That being said since the front end is already set up for a 24" wide rectangular chassis why not just go with the flow.


So that is the new direction....2x3 inch rectangular for main frame rails and 24" outside to outside. So now when we know the ride height we install the Fat Man stuff just as it was designed....easy breasy...so scratch that whole illustrator presentation a few post back and stay tuned.


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Also we fabbed up some plate steel today to secure the two body halves together.



For you sharp eyed HAMBers you may have noticed the nice original brackets above are not thge ones we installed below.



That is because when I made the cardboard template for them I did not take into consideration the fiberglass in that area had not been trimmed back yet.

There is a lot of trimming and clean up to be done around any opening or end surface from the mold over lay etc. What I really need is cut on the dotted line instructions all over the car... LOL!



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Anyway it was a fun job trying to get all the lines correct and surfaces flush but we managed it. Now she is one nice solid piece and straight as a string.

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So, how did she sound?

 

COOL Progress! Did you record the motor noises?

 

Strangely enough it sounded a lot like the supercharged BBC Austin I built a while back! Kind of weird if you ask me.

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Your way or the easy way have one delivered LOL Your order is here Sir.

 

Well we got kicked off this morning by cutting a match set of frame rails. As I mentioned earlier, our front end is set up for 24" frame rails.


Yesterday after getting the body sections put together we were able to get some really good measurements in there and a good idea of how to mount the body, at least across the lower area between the wheel wells.


But there are a ton questions that we are not going to be able to answer unless we actually get stuff together. At this point I am reasonable sure our chassis will have to be "Z"ed at both ends. I am not too worried about the rear but up front we have to be pretty close since the upper "A" brackets sit on the frame rails. But no idea how to even guess how much of a drop to put in the "Z" .... so here is what we did.

I know how long the frame rails need to be (overall) because I know the wheel base is 90 inches. I confirmed that with a tape measure and plumb bob on the body sitting on the rack. So to start with I cut two 96" long rails and the
squared them in ladder chassis frame 24" outside to outside and tacked them together.

To install the cross member we flipped it over and sat it on the chassis (this officially means our new squared frame is upside down at this point). We carefully placed the cross member on the front end center line I had marked and squared it with the chassis. After several checks with the tape measure we were satisfied it was true and I tacked it to the frame and then we flipped the whole thing over and measured up the Shock mount/Upper "A" arm brackets.


After measuring off the center line and marking both sides of the frame rails for the width of the brackets we were ready to tack them in place. However before we did, we double checked the lines we marked for square. Then it was simply a matter of holding the brackets in place and tacking them down.


When we were done we double checked several measure points including from the ground to the upper shock mount and they were both dead nuts perfect.


So then it was time for some fun, as we started opening boxes and loosely installing one side of the front suspension.


We played around testing the geometry before installing the coil over and it all looks good. This was our goal for the day, get the spindle on so we could estimate how much frame drop we will need to keep the Cobra from looking more like a four wheel drive than a drag car! LOL

At this point it is all a bit of speculation but that is really the best we can do. Here is how I figured it. I know the Coker Front Runners have a diameter of 25.88". So in a perfect world the spindle height as shown above could be figured at half the diameter of the tires or 12.94" (rounded up to 13"). However there is no weight on the suspension at this point and of course the tire will not stay completely round etc. when the weight is added. So we took an educated guess (knowing the spring weight on the coil over and looking at the geometry of the lower "A" arm we subtracted 2 inches). This allows us to estimate the frame height in comparison with the spindle. What we decide to do was with the above estimates was "Z" that chassis enough to keep the lower section 6" off the ground which gives us the opportunity to keep the body at least 8" up (if not higher) which from looking at photos is about where I estimate the originals sat.


Plus I think it is pretty clever in that we pushed the "Z" Drop area all the way back where the foot wells start. This means when you are looking down through the hood you likely will never even see the drop. AND it may help us a bit with engine mounts (unlike the originals the mounts may not have to be so tall) but we will cross that bridge when we get there.


We unpacked the rear end stuff this afternoon as well. I about never got that stupid third member out of the plastic 5 gallon bucket it was shipped in. It was crammed so hard in there after bouncing around during shipping that I actually had to cut the stupid bucket off of it!


We are also about to start cleaning up the mold lines etc. AND I am going to build and aluminum egg crate grill for it...stay tuned.

 

Looking Great in the progress department! Your are hauling the mail already!