[Jack21]

I don't think you'll regret going with a CR over an FFR once you have the car finished and on the street. I have a CR. I've seen FFR's being built, and finished, and I wouldn't swap. FFR builders have seen my CR and have called it the Caddilac of Cobras.

Pros & cons. First time I looked at the IRS setup in the FFR, I about creamed my jeans in envy. First time I saw the late Mustang front suspension and brake setup on the FFR using all Cobra R 17" parts, (13" cross drilled rotors, 4 piston calipers)same thing. FFR has put some engineering into their kits to use more up to date components in the suspension and brake departments.

But. You can't put power brakes in an FFR. You can't put power steering in an FFR. The battery location. I'll leave that one alone. And FFR, like CR, describes, in detail, what donor to build it from. More on the "Donor" issue in a moment.

CR hasn't done any engineering upgrades at all since introducing the car in '90. It's a cash cow, period. Many of the components that were current when the car was designed are now obsolete, impossible to find, or just a bad idea to start with.

It will likely cost you more money, take you more time, and require more custom fabrication for a CR. But, you'll have a better car when you're through.

Rule #1. You don't build a $40,000 - $50,000 sports car with junkyard parts! CR, FFR, doesn't matter. If you do, you have a junk Mustang with all the reliability and maintenance headaches of your "Donor" when you're through.

Rule #2. Use the CR component shopping guide as a cross reference only. Don't buy any of it to put on your car without checking back here first. At least here, you have the benefit of folks who've been there, done that, some of whom are making a living at it.

Examples: Engine selection for street use consensus seems to be the 351W or 393W stroker. Nowhere in the documentation supplied by CR is this described, and there are peculiarities with the 351. What fits? What doesn't? And the T5 is a pretty decent trans to use if you use the T5Z. Z's weren't installed in production cars, so you have to get them new.

Front suspension & brakes. The Pinto & Mustang II was a piece of junk when it rolled off the assembly line 25 - 30 years ago. Do you really want to put this in your car??? There are better ways of doing this. Don & DV, has anyone found a way to graft the late Mustang spindle with appropriate upper & lower control arms to the CR? I could write a book on this part alone. You folks could (or have) too.

DV, you're about to introduce an IRS for the CR Cobra. Keep us posted, OK.

Chevette steering column. See Pinto comments above. Ididit makes a nice paintable steel, tilt column for CR Cobras. Looks nice in rattle can wrinkle black. Perfectly matches Lecarra steering wheel. Get the Borgeson (or Flaming River) shaft & joints. The shaft is collapsable so it, and not your rib cage, collapses if you hit something. And you need a 2" muffler clamp around the column near where it exits the firewall to keep it from moving around. The downside is you have to put the stalk mounted controls of the Chevette back on the dash.

And the list goes on, but you can get there from here.