FFR Cobra Project

[longnights]

I told some people I would be posting the Cobra from my signature soon, so here it is:

Factory Five Racing Mk III '65 Cobra replica

Driveline and related:
Coast High Performance 351 Windsor bored and stroked to 427cid (7.0 liters) 525hp/525lb.ft. at the crank
Ford Crate block 4.060 bore by 4.170 stroke
Cast steel crank
Probe Machined beam con rods
Probe SRS dish top forged pistons
AFR 205cc heads
Edelbrock RPM air gap intake manifold
Holley 850cfm double pumper carb
Milodon high flow oil pump
Remote oil filter
Edelbrock high flow water pump
Fluidyne high performance alum. radiator
MSD 6AL ignition
MSD Blaster 2 coil ~45,000volts
MSD mech. advance distributor
Hooker 4 to 4 headers 1.75" primaries
Factory Five glasspack sidepipes (3" pipes)
King Cobra clutch
Ford Racing flywheel
SFI blowproof bellhousing
Tremec TKO-600 aftermarket 5 speed
Ford 8.8" rear with 3.55 gears and Auburn Posi-Trak
Aeromotive electric fuel pump and filter

Rolling Stock, Suspension and related
17" chrome bullet style wheels
Nitto NT555 drag radials 245/40/17 front, 275/35/17 rear
Baer Brakes 13.3" front rotors, 13" rear rotors
Ford Cobra R 2 piston calipers up front, Baer 1 pot calipers in the rear
Goodridge SS brake lines
Wilwood pedal assembly
Dual wilwood master cylinders w/ remote reservoirs (and clutch too)
Bilstein shocks with coil springs (450lb/in front, 250lb/in rear)
Factory Five 3-link rear
Flaming River steering rack
Tubular lower control arms all around
Adjustable front upper control arms

Interior:
Autometer classic gauges (8k RPM tach, 180mph reverse sweep speedo, oil press., oil temp, water temp, voltmeter, fuel level)
Black vinyl dash pad
Black leather classic seats
Black leather door liners
Simpson H style race harnesses

Other:
Powder-coated tube frame
All aluminum panels anodized
Chrome roll-bar
Chrome quick-jack bumpers
Lexus Spectra Blue Mica (4 coats)
GM Arctic White stripes (3 coats)
6 coats of clear
~2300lbs with me in the driver seat
Wiring is a b!tch

Now for the pictures:






The lower hole in the front is for an oil cooler, we have one but haven't decided to put it in, it may or may not really be necessary.

[gbb357]

WOW! Damn that's nice. Congrats on your new baby and GL with her.

[WRXtranceformed]

Nice ride! That thing must move out with that power to weight =)

[longnights]

Car and driver managed 3.6 sec. 0-60, 9.0 seconds to 100 and 12.3@113 in the 1/4 with a 325 horse 5.0 liter from an 88 mustang. 1g even on the skidpad. With the bigger motor, we've got a bit more weight but the distribution is further to the back than the front 47/53 or so.

Already blew a fuse and fuel pump relay on the road and ended up jumping the relay with a 3" wire

One of the best parts is that those speed limit signs that radar you and show your speed too don't pick it up (at least the two I've driven past). Fiberglass body and slanted radiator scatter the radar.

[WRXtranceformed]

Oh yeah man, I'd be surprised if that car wasn't in the mid to low 10s with a good driver.

[NMOne]

That thing just gave me wood. It must sound insane!

[texis_300]

Are you happy with the Factory Five kit? I have looked into the Superformance kits. I am not sure which route I will go. I need to build the new house with garage space ( next year), first before I really consider another car.....Beautifully executed.

[longnights]

My dad and I also looked at both Factory Five and Superformance. As it turns out, building the car was more fun than driving the car is now. Its now kind of a post-build boredom, while we were building it, I could spend all weekend out in the garage doing wiring or riveting panels, and seeing the car progress, now its just, take it out for a couple hours when its nice outside. I think the superformance kit would have been a let down since we would only have dropped in the engine and transmission. The Factory Five kit allows you to build the car how you want and make it your own car rather than a short list of options on a superformance. We made the original decision mostly because of the cost however, the local dealer quoted over $50k for the superformance kit and we would still have to find an engine and transmission. Granted, in the end we spent as much, if not more than completing a superformance would have cost, but we are probably far happier than we would have been with the Superformance, though we spent as much, ours probably out-performs it in every category because of the equipment we were able to choose such as the massive brakes and 17" wheels we have on there. We also got to choose exactly what color we wanted on the car. If you haven't checked out ffcobra.com, you should do that as well, many of the members there have built multiple factory fives, merely because they get bored after building one, a lot of them just keep building them in their free time and sell them to people who do not have the time, patience, or skills to build one themselves.

As far as the company, Factory Five has been great. We had a couple parts on backorder at first but they all got sent out quickly. We also had the wrong headers and the wrong front lower control arms, the headers we noticed right away and called about, FFR sent a box overnight and we shipped them back and had the new headers in under a week. Toward the end of the build, we were doing the alignment and couldn't get the camber right, called up factory five and they had me measure the length of the LCAs, turned out they sent us the shorter pin-drive width LCAs, they sent us a box and got them switched out in about a week, and this was 1.5 years after we bought the kit.

Also, if you haven't seen it yet, FFR jut started selling (sept. 4) what they call the "complete kit" for $19,990 instead of the regular kit's $12,990. It includes everything except engine, transmission, wheels and tires but you still get to assemble everything. This option eliminates the difficult process of finding the parts yourself, and includes all new parts.

If you do go with Factory Five, there is a niche market of vendors with damn near everything you need, just don't use AMP Performance in Phoenix, Arizona, we had some problems with them.

[texis_300]

Some of my friends that own a shop have a Factory Five kit Cobra and they have won numerous shows with the car here in the Houston area. They are getting me to lean towards the Factory Five kit. I just have to pull the trigger. And unfortunately another home is taking precidence.......It is okay I will have one in the next few years.....

[Blue99Altezza]

That thing is awesome! You can tell you took your time and did things right. I love those wheels too.

[magoo]

That is just amazing!

+rep!

[KillaLexusIS300]

Nice cobra!

[bgwillyIS300]

Your DADS cobra is nice.

[twin]

Despite it's age this car never gets old.

[2001 is300]

Thats nice, that motor with the AFR's must sound extremely mean. Factory Five is not too far from where I live, they've got the most complete kits as far as cobra kit cars are concerned. I'd like to do something like that. Ive got almost an entire driveline from my 87GT sitting in my basement. Ive got a built 306 with AFR's, 1:6 DSS Rockers, a COMP Xtreme energy cam and a rebuilt 8.8 with a World Class T-5. When I go to the Mustangs Unlimited show every year there are usually at least a dozen of them.