I'm going to have to disagree with you there. Check out FFR a little closer. Yes, you use Mustang parts, but that is what keeps the cost down. Lower if you use donor parts. In fact, using production car parts is a staple of the kit/replicar business. Even ERA uses a Subaru steering rack, so what, it works. Don't re-invent the wheel if you need to.

BTW, speedometers have been known to give false readings, especially at the extremes. Look at some of the speed contests in Road & Track or Car & Driver. Highly modified Vettes, Vipers, and Porsches have a hard time making it over 180-185. Its doubtful the M-5 brick will do 190.

And for what its worth, Dreamer, I couldnt agree with you more.

Furthermore, look at the pic of the car at 185 and 190..... Supposedly they were blurry because of shake in the car. Hmmmm....that would be a function of shutter speed which had to be quite slow for the pics to be so blurry or focus. But since they are so blurry inside....please explain to me why the green foliage outside the windshield is blurry from depth of field and not from motion or focus.

The landscape tends to move by at 265 fps at 185MPH. Assuming a 1/30 shutter speed necessary to produce an interior gauge blur - that would be 8 feet of movement during the exposure. Look at the pic and see if you see ANY lateral movement. That's an interesting observation isn't it?

And one other thing. I do believe Avanti 176's text book was dead nuts correct in the ratios of power increases with regard to drag and thrust. Physical laws are just that....laws. Please be so kind as to plot the speed and RPM points of the M5 depicted in the various pics on a graph. I think you will find them virtually linear. And that 'taint possible, McGee. Remember that "asymptotic" word? I guess atmospheric pressure, horsepower, rev limits, gearing, and drag coefficients don't apply to German sedans on the Internet. Pi anyone?

Up to 150 I'm with you.... At 170 I'm getting really dubious. At "185 and 190".....sorry but my laptop screen is getting blurry as I can't see it thought the tears I'm laughing so hard. Bwaahhhhhhhh Hawwwwwwww Hawwwwwwwww. Snerk, Snerk.....

If this car was going 190 it was either going down one steep incline or it fell out of the C-130 and they photographed the rate of descent gauge.

I really don't think they would lie about it. Then again since you're an aerospace engineer, I guess you must be right.

Not an aerospace engineer.... nuclear physics and an MBA. Former Naval aviator so I've been exposed some to going throught the atmosphere at speed and have been in naval intelligence for quite a while....used to looking at photographs to see whats missing or not obvious.

But I've never been in any sort of machine rolling on the ground at 190MPH ... by then you had best be airborne as something real bad is getting ready to happen.

For what its worth department... We've been working on a new concept for almost 3 years. 289 body on a 427 frame (Hybrid) powered by a 4.6 DOHC 32V. A Cobras weight is 2500 +/- 300 or so. You dont need torque so much as a high winding RPM powerplant with respectable horsepower to get from here to there real quick. Check out a used 4.6L engine at 330 HP or so.....then put a blower ( a Blowzilla or a ProCharger ) at 12+ lbs of boost on it. Now you are near 500 HP with mid 400 ft lbs. of goround ( as they call it back home). Red line is around 7,000. Gear it with a 308 or a 3.27 coupled to a TKO II ( .68 - 5th ). Yowsah!! No one in their right mind should want more for the street.

You now have a low to mid 11 street car. It's really, really quick. Stick some drag radials on it and you're in the mid to upper 10s to 11 flat depending on pavement and ambient air temp. Juice it with some 110 octane and you've got an outside crack at the high 9s @ 150 something once you rework the bottom half of the engine, new rods and pistons, and pop the HP up to 600.

Unfortuantely, here is where the party for this bodystyle ends.... it will take WELL over 700 horses at the wheels and some very sneaky hooking up to push the ET's much lower. That brick for a front end just isnt very slippery any longer when getting through the air. Its that delta Y thing divided by that delta X thing. And it doesnt matter if you are at the local quarter mile track or Bonneville. You cant get there from here.

And now we have the issue of tire loading caused by the lift component. Cobras tend to want to get real light footed about this point as well. It's just not designed to go that fast on the top end.

Didnt mean to be argumentative in all of this.....and its soooooooo easy to get starry eyes about the car, but this is still a 1951 design. An F-80 shooting star at 550 MPH was then the hot dog setup. We now have bombers than are almost Mach 2 airframes. Cobras just don't often go above 160MPH. I'll grant that the BMW is much newer and has the latest engineering gee whizes....but it isnt going to go any faster than a Cobra with 10:1 LBS/HP, a moderate tendency to lift as there arent any airflow controls, and a drag coefficient only slightly better that the AC of 1951.

The members have been very discrete in saying that the AC Cobra won't do 190 and certainly not 200. IMHO, neither will the M5. Didnt mean to "bust your chops" as someone else said...

You will find that the there is NO CONTEST however to the excitement that a Cobra generates on the street. There is not a car on the planet that creates more spectator interest or excitement. Doesnt matter which replica/reproduction you get.....come join us and join the fun. We're glad you're one of us!!

Well even if it only does 160, if the car is built right it will do it all day long!! Thanks for all the input ! (I didn't take any offense).

Did someone mention BMW and Cobra ?

Cheers,

Tony:D :D

Toni, now that you have lived with your new Coupe for a while, how did it turn out? Last time I saw it the body was on the buck being prepped for paint. DV sure did spend a LOT of time on that car.
Rick

And if that isn't enough....we have a dealer in Germany - Cobra Sud. You may visit them at www.Cobra-Sued.info. Now those guys know how to wring out a big block! Engines going there have ported heads, BIG valves so they can breathe and keep the cyl head temp down, high pressure oil pumps for the top end, peened and drilled cranks, and a healthy dose of respect as they do indeed RUN these cars HARD on the Autobahn.

160 all day long? No....at speed they can drive about 1 hour with a standard gas tank before its anchor time. But it sure is fun.

Hi Rick,

Thanks for asking but, the Daytona is sitting in my brothers garage in Nashville all pretty and perfect waiting for Intercity to pick it up and deliver it here to me.

My brother has driven it and all of my other cobras and his feedback is that this one is the top of the heap....the sampling is SPF w/460, Unique Stroked 427 and Shelby w/427 SO.

I really enjoyed this thread a great deal of serious detail, I just took a look at the September 2002 Car and Driver article "10,000 - HP SHOOTOUT " 15 supercars $1,900,000 dollars worth of Supercars Last-Man Standing Performance Test. Everything from SPF Cobra (7th place) Porche 996 twin Turbo(2nd) to the tuner cars from Lingenfelter Corvette(1st) with stops at Viper ACS, Beck Lister etc. etc. Top speeds were in the 160 + range and some of the exotica broke getting there. HP ranges from 425 - 800......Going 150+ takes serious hardware , space and Cojones when you have access to a track and the precise measuring gear to determine how fast you are really going.

I think to Daytona will top 150, we'll see after I get it here , put some miles on it to break it in properly and then start the tuning process. Jay and DV are planning to come here and help with that last bit of tuning to get it to the edge of its perfomance envelope.

Also spent some time in high operformance aircraft for the USMC....going from standing start to 180 MPH in 4.0 seconds during a carrier CAT launch...you get the feel for acceleration and from there speed.

Best Regards,

Tony R.