44-Year-old Cobra Wins Street Car Challenge

[Cobra #3170]

In the 1970's I bought a spare set of spindles, steering arms, and uprights from Shelby American. I used those as my starting point and modified the uprights and steering arms to get the right package. I actually used a mechanical drawing program to articulate the suspension for roll center location and movement, tie rod end points and length to achieve minimal bump steer. I have used a Ford Motor program in the past that was on the main frame called "Hfronts" that showed me all the weak points of the original design in the early 1980's. I knew pretty much what I wanted in terms of camber gain, toe change, Ackerman, caster, roll center height, antidive, etc. and also how much freedom I had in terms of inboard points so a lot of the input was a given because I couldn't cut or weld on the chassis. I just used the lower inboard pick ups and the tire patch location with respect to the frame and optimized everything else from there. If I were starting with a clean sheet of paper and did not have to preserve the original parts and just bolt stuff on it would have been a lot different. I have a poor motion ratio and that makes it tough to get proper shock control (like the originals). My Ford GT is close to .9 front and 1 in the rear which really helps the shocks do their job vs motion ratios around .6 or .7 especially when you square them.

Originally Posted by D-CEL

I figured the A arms and geometry were yours.
Are the “upright” forgings and steering arm factory Cobra pieces?
Do you use a suspension design program?

Jason