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Originally Posted by Danr55

Sorry John.. Not really... I couldn't help myself. Do you have any word on what's up with your car? Is anything broken?

Hi Dan, preliminary diagnostics by Eric Voss were that a screw was loose in the distributor that caused a metal part to spin and thus the engine would not start. The screw was re-tightened and Erick drove the car off the transporter. He is still checking the tranny linkage for any latent damage due to the grabbing derivative of the high idle. Not sure what caused the transmission to surge between third and fourth and back again or to stick in first so all that needs to be sorted out by the Bowler transmission people. All things considered apart from meeting some of the Arizona Cobra Club guys, the trip was and always will be a scare on my memory. I drove the car for an aggregate of one hour and put 28 actual miles on it and then kaboom. I am thinking of talking to Guinness Book of World Records people to see if I have a shot of being the first schlepper to spend big bucks on an engine transmission combo only to have it malfunction in so short a time. Really a bummer.

That said, Roush, Bowler and Voss Performance will be sorting this out with the help of Lance Stander of Hillbank, whom I trust implicitly, he will test drive the car for as many miles as required to sort out all the unknowns associated with this "new" engine and tranny combo for the Cobra. A little bird told me maybe this was the first combo package set into a Cobra thus extensive testing will be required and should have been performed prior to promulgation at the source, on a car of this size if this is indeed the case. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't I'll never know.

What I do know these guys have comitted to fix whatever ails it and they will have six months to get it right. Otherwise I may be tempted to yank the engine and tranny install then in a coffin and plant a lemon tree in it and send it back to the vendors. Hopefully this will not be required since I really do like the looks of the 511 IRFE and it sounds good when it works. Can't say that for the Bowler transmission since I have not so far had the privilege of driving the car in a normal manner.

End of day the only thing that really got broke was my heart, sorta like wow, my car is ready, travel halfway around the world, see it, great excitement, send it to my home, see it parked in my garage, great feeling of pride of ownership and the following day all these emotions got slammed big time into the ground and I ask myself, why me?

I have confidence it will get fixed in the end, but so far the value for monies spent are not being realized. The Superformance Mark 111 roller was the only exception to this statement, it is awesome and well worth what I paid for it.

John,