News

Here is the car at the factory as of a few weeks ago. We should have it in our possession by mid august.

Here is the car As of July 30th… almost ready to ship.

 

 

 

Just a few more bits and details going into this car….

 

 

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Below is one of our T10 main cases next to our T10 Tailshaft. The difference is the case on top was masked off, bead blasted and then tumbled.

 

Here are the original Italian Webers. Thanks to Weber specialist Jim Inglese for the once over and set-up.

 

Block and Heads

So, you want to build a hot period correct smallblock with a few unseen modern updates? Well here is how we are doing it. We are starting with a very interesting complete long block that came from SoCal. We are not quite sure what it is, but we know its pretty damn cool.

First up is the C4OE 5 bolt HiPo block dated 4F17. It is marked PB 5991. We have checked this with Bob Mannel and Lynn Park. This means there is a small chance it may be an original Cobra block from a car in the 2076-2190 range for which the engine documentation is incomplete. Or, it could be from a Fairlane. Who knows, but lets see where this goes…

The crank is grooved which seems a bit odd for a Fairlane unless the owner was a very serious dragracer.

Then we come to the 3C6 and 3H15 heads which feature a very nice porting job and happen to be stamped “Rogers Porting Service, Hollywood, Calif.” Interestingly, this is the company that Shelby American used for porting all of their early team race heads. Again, a bit extreme for a Fairlane.

What this boils down to is pretty simple. If this isn’t an original Cobra Comp motor, it was at least built at the same time as the comp motors and right alongside of them. If we could prove it belonged to a particular car, that is where it should go. But that is not the case, so what we have is a great motor for this build.

 

[slidepress gallery=’7073-block-and-heads’]

We recently discussed the fabrication of an exact replica dash with with very knowledgeable member of the cobra community.  Before we had time to cut our deal this beautiful piece showed up with a note demanding an inordinate amount of  Green Bay’s world famous “Chili John’s Chili”  (est 1913) to be packed in dry ice and shipped immediately.  We had no choice but to comply.

 

 

 

One of the most important parts of doing the drivetrain correctly on this car was the use of an aluminum T10. Original have become hard to find, very expensive and have a tendency to pop out of gear. A few years ago we decided it was time to do something about this and took on the task of casting our own T10 cases in partnership with Cobra racer/mechanic/historian/mad scientist  Bill Murray of The Shelby American Collection and Larry Miller Racing.  This project took some time and effort, but the results have been excellent. We now have T10L and M cases and tailshafts that are externally exact reproductions, and internally “beefed up” in all of the critical areas.  Also worth noting is the fact that they are 100%  cast, machined and Made in the USA.

Lucky for us Phil Remington was visiting when we were inspecting the castings and pressing the tailshaft bushings. Phil, on top of his game as usual, jumped right in to give us a hand. Phil recently celebrated his 90th and there are some great articles about his life and accomplishments over at Dany Gurneys All American Racers, where he still goes to work every day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here are the completed castings. The transmissions will be built with blueprinted using an original high nickel close ratio gearset that has been treated to the isotropic micro finishing process. More on this later!

The quest is to build a somewhat authentic replication of CSX2323 which raced at Targa Florio in 1964. Utilizing the newest generation CSX7000 from Shelby American we chose the fiberglass version recently developed by Ross Henry. (www.riversideracers.com).

 

An authentic drivetrain was the most important aspect as we try to replicate this historic car. We are utilizing an original 5 bolt hi-po block, original cobra scattershield, vintage italian weber carbs, and all aluminum t10L transmission. This blog will catalog our progress.