First time to track with the Cobra

[JPB]

This is old now but it was the first time I raced my Cobra. It was 94 degrees or something and the DA was a little over 3300ft. I was pretty disappointed with how the car performed. It had a hard time spinnng the 28" tires. The track techs weren't putting any water down. I know there have been a couple of guys on here running 28" tires with stock gearing but I think they were too much tire for it. It appears to bog down pretty bad. This is with one of the True Forged ported blowers, 2.76" pulley, JLT low boost CAI, Steeda catback, sub-frame connectors, billet flow IRS brace, and a canned tune SCT xcal. The tune was way off.

[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDnyz0fZ51Y"]YouTube - Cobra run 1 at Kennedale 8 8 09[/nomedia]


Here I didn't care about cutting the best light or the race as my actual reason for going was to get a base line with the eaton I had before I swapped to my KB 2.2 which I might add I sold since I broke the car.
[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44ZuhXeXyJI"]YouTube - Cobra run 2 at kenndale 8 8 09[/nomedia]

 

[IronTerp]

Yeah, looked like you were having a hard time getting them heated up. Been there, done that, believe me! Line Lock would probably be a big help here. What kind of 60' times were you hitting?

There's tons of fellas that have been successful with 28" slicks and 3.55's with the 03/04's. I've actually run my best times with this combo and have a bunch of high 1.5 60' times with it. I don't believe this is a problem for you.

Keep at it....takes some practice to get these cars to run at the track.

 

[JPB]

Yeah, looked like you were having a hard time getting them heated up. Been there, done that, believe me! Line Lock would probably be a big help here. What kind of 60' times were you hitting?

There's tons of fellas that have been successful with 28" slicks and 3.55's with the 03/04's. I've actually run my best times with this combo and have a bunch of high 1.5 60' times with it. I don't believe this is a problem for you.

Keep at it....takes some practice to get these cars to run at the track.

Thanks man. I've read where lots of guys have done it. Maybe my stock springs and shocks are the problem. I cut a 1.7 60' both runs. First run I launched it at 5k second run I launched it at 6k. Motor broke on pit road after the second run. The car has been sitting in the garage until a week ago. Just had other priorites at th time. My wife was pregnant with our son when the car broke and I just couldn't justify spending the money on it.

 

[Bufgt281]

Motor??

Hey Bro sorry about your motor but what happened to it if you don't mind me asking,I own a 03 and am concerned,I thought these motors were strong and could take the abuse did you run it lean or is it just one of those freak accidents?

Curious TonyG

 

[JPB]

Hey Bro sorry about your motor but what happened to it if you don't mind me asking,I own a 03 and am concerned,I thought these motors were strong and could take the abuse did you run it lean or is it just one of those freak accidents?

Curious TonyG

Tony,

Don't be worried. I have been really disgusted for over a year now. However, the other night when I pulled the eaton off and set it on my table. I noticed that it was missing all five inter-cooler mount screws on the left side. Sunday after I pulled the engine; I removed the lower manifold and dumped all the coolant out of it. I found 4 out of the 5 screws in the lower manifold. The 5th well...I don't know where it is or where it went yet. Almost a year ago I pulled number 8 spark plug to do a compression test and it had a bent electrode. I assumed the piston hit the head. Sunday I looked down through the spark plug hole and from what I can see; the piston looks beat up. So now I'm thinking the bottom end actually might still be ok which makes me feel better about these engines. It also makes me sick because I had buddies telling me to tear it down to see what went wrong. I was convinced it spun a rod bearing or something the way it sounded. I had a buddy that said he'd give me a set of stock take out pistons for free and worst case...I would have to purchase a new head at $1000.00. So I could've possibly fixed it way back when for ~$1500.00 and been driving it all this time. I'll keep you updated on what I find with the engine but I have a sneaky suspicion that bottom end is fine after finding the loose hardware in the intake manifold.

 

[JPB]

Hey Bro sorry about your motor but what happened to it if you don't mind me asking,I own a 03 and am concerned,I thought these motors were strong and could take the abuse did you run it lean or is it just one of those freak accidents?

Curious TonyG

Tony,

Rest easy. Well, I have the l/h head off the block and have confirmed that the engine did in fact ingest a screw. That means the bottom end is/should still be good. I'm going to check everything; but the engine didn't let go like I originally thought.

Here are the pics:

Piston

Close up. You can see the screw threads indented in the piston

Head

Close up. Again, you can see the screw threads imprint.

 

[IronTerp]

That is some craziness there. Probably scatched up that one cylinder wall, but looks like you got away lucky!

 

[dan03mach]

Man that sucks but good thing is that head can be fixed and shouldn't cost more the 500 bucks to fix it. I'd check the valves too and replace them with new stainless valves and good springs while you have the heads off. If the wall is scored you're going to have to bore it out and put new pistons in it which I would do anyways. What caused those bolts to come loose?

 

[da2k17]

had a screw come lose on my v6 and do the same thing except it took out the piston, which then got chewed up by the crank and circulated through out the motor. the whole motor had bits of metal everywhere, it destroyed the whole thing. i wish i knew how to post pics.

you got lucky, it could have been worse. :beer: heres to a solid rebuild :beer:

 

[Bufgt281]

Tony,

Rest easy. Well, I have the l/h head off the block and have confirmed that the engine did in fact ingest a screw. That means the bottom end is/should still be good. I'm going to check everything; but the engine didn't let go like I originally thought.
That's great news for us cobra owners who like me are startin to think that the quality control got a lil laxed somewhere but obviously the motor itself wasnot the culprit in this mishap, Hey man wish you all the luck getting it back on the road and thanks for your responce.:rockon:

 

[Bufgt281]

deleted[

 

[JPB]

What caused those bolts to come loose?

Anti-seize on the bolts