New Superformance Owner in St. Louis

vatdevil · #1 (**permalink**) 04-12-2011, 04:33 PM

Avon tires....will drastically improve acceleration, cornering, and braking. Best money you can spend if running 15 wheels. You will not want for more traction.

CBattaglia · #2 (**permalink**) 04-13-2011, 02:50 PM

Poly motor mounts. The rubber ones dont last. Mine made it 3K miles. I got my mounts from Olthoff. I second the shock mount upgrade, I still have to do that.

kschoenefeld · #3 (**permalink**) 04-13-2011, 03:39 PM

You need to check with Olthoff about roll bar options. They make and sell a taller full-width bar that would definitely be more protective for anyone over, say, 5 and a half feet with a helmet on, and there probably will be a time when you will want to track the car. It sounds like you have some pretty good cars in your past, and the Cobra will be much different than anything you have driven, so be careful, careful, careful. They are very difficult to drift, unlike other cars with longer wheelbases. It is a race car that just happens to be streetable.

JDwithSC · #4 (**permalink**) 04-14-2011, 11:14 PM

Thanks for the advice from everyone. I discussed all of this with Dennis Olthoff. In the interest of sharing information (which this site is all about I think), while the rear shock mount made perfect sense to me, he actually counseled against it as unnecessary for this chassis number.

Again, thanks for the input, and Karl, you are so right about needing to be careful. Particularly with the AMG and a prior GTR, you begin to think you're a better driver than you really are (the GTR makes you think your last name is Andretti). I went to a BMW performance school (a buddy invited me so everyone could boo me) and one of the instructors was also an instructor for the AMG challenge. He showed me how to disable all the electronic nannies by putting it into "shop" mode. Let me tell you, even with all that weight and the long wheel base, that much horsepower (it is modified to right at 615 at the crank) it was an absolute handfull. And this thing has greater horsepower, much shorter wheelbase, and slightly less than half the weight. Looking back, I'm glad I didn't have a Cobra in my twenties because I wouldn't have made it to my thirties.

Thanks again. Hope to see many of you at events in the future.

kschoenefeld · #5 (**permalink**) 04-15-2011, 10:58 AM

Wait a minute... You have more than 615 HP? Holy cow!

Blas · #6 (**permalink**) 04-15-2011, 11:39 AM

When I purchased my car, the previous owner suggested that I not go overboard with too many changes to the car initially. Drive it and enjoy it and fix what’s broken. Safety issues aside, there are lots of ways to spend money on these cars: be they “upgrades” or “website fees"…your gasoline costs alone will amaze you this summer…

JDwithSC · #7 (**permalink**) 04-15-2011, 07:34 PM

I misspoke, Karl. It has less horsepower (600), but more torque (618).

The main reason for the upgrades now is that I shipped it to Olthoff, and it likely won't be back there for some time. Given the shipping costs, I'd just as soon get major things done now.

For the St. Louis guys, is there an FE and/or Cobra guru in this neck of the woods? (I probably should make that a separate post--sorry if that's a breach in board etiquette). I know the Fast Lane guys have a lot of experience with cobras but haven't heard any customer feedback or FE-specific feedback.