Track our progress while we build our AC Cobra
Over the coming months we will be posting our progress until eventually we have a fully built car.
This is a picture of a Hawk Cobra 289 Le Man, who are the supplier for our kit. This is what we aspire to create as the finished article. I hope you enjoy seeing our progress as our build continues.
Jon & Mark Towers
Once the wheels are on, we were in a position to drop the engine in. We had previously built the engine up on an engine stand, so it was just a case of transfering engine from the stand to chassis. Obviously first thing was 2 bolts to attach the engine mounts. These are slightly offset on either side. Then we cranked it up on a metal bar running the width of the garage. All in very quickly.
The sump had be fitted with an adapter for the oil temperature gauge. This was wielded into the sum. To check the wield had no pin holes we filled the sump with petrol to check for leaks. We then painted it up and refitted it to the engine.
Originally we were told to fit the PCV valve just using high temperature silicon. when we did this we found it to be quite a loose fit, so Uncle Dave to the rescue again, who milled out the hole in the rocker cover and made a top hat piece that fitted the top of the rocker cover and allowed the rubber seal to fit perfectly.
Originally when we fitted the oil filler, it was quite long and we thought didn’t look as good as it could. So we modified it slightly, shortening the neck and making it look a lot better.
we weren’t so happy with the way the original spacers that came with the engine for the bottom pulley fitted. They used spacer between the pulley and the mass damper which didn’t look great. So we spoke to our uncle Dave, who has his own engineering shop, to see what he thought and whether he could do any better.
He came up will the idea to make a spacer which also incorporated the tool to centralise the pully. A better looking solution than the original spacers. He made this from a solid block of aluminium on his lathe.
Having taken receipt of the engine a few weeks ago we both put a weekend aside to start building the engine.
First job was to crank the engine block up and connect it to an engine stand to allow us to work on it. As all the bits are brand new, things went together fairly quickly.We started by fitting the inlet manifold using the correct gaskets and high temperature silicon and then also fitted the rocker covers using liquid gasket and cork gaskets.
Next came the water pump and alternator. Once we installed the alternator, we discovered a small problem. Firstly had we installed the alternator lower down on the near side of the engine using the bracket provided. I guess this would be ok on some other car models, but due to the position of steering rack on our cobra we realised that once the engine is bolted to the chassis that the alternator would be in the way of the steering rack. We were keen to use as many of the original brackets as possible so after a bit discussion came up with the solution. This would mean making a small aluminium bracket to enable us to mount the alternator up high on the near side.
We managed to get a piece of aluminium from our uncle Dave, (a very handy bloke to know). Mark then cut out the shape from a cardboard template we made, polished it up and mounted it to the engine.
We took receipt of the engine today. 5litre 302 Ford V8. It’s a really heavy beast, but is a popular choice of engine for this type of Cobra. We expect it to produce about 340 bhp, which should be more than enough grunt! Unfortunately, there has been a bit of a delay with the engine as parts have had to be sourced in the US and shipped over. Real steel originally sourced us an old 1973 engine block and they have done a great job with a fully recon and rebuild. We requested the block be painted blue as is the traditional colour for these engines. We now need to finish building up the engine using the auxiliary parts they have supplied. Unfortunately we’re still waiting for the carburettor from Real Steel, but that should arrive very soon. It shouldn’t stop us getting started though. Now things start getting interesting.
Pictures are:
1/ Engine 2/ cobra rocker covers 3/Inlet manifold 4/alternator
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