Hi All,
Thought I'd jump in here as this is a subject close to my heart. For you guys in the US who are wailing that it's got to be powered by FORD we have a whole different set of circumstances down here.
Just think if you lived in California and had to build your car to meet
ALL of the current US and California design rules. That includes Emissions, noise, lighting, chassis rigidity, crash protection etc etc... That's pretty much what we have down here. The authorities consider a hand built Cobra to be a new car and must comply with all of the current Australian Design Rules for a new car. With the way the bar keeps rising it's a wonder any Cobras get registered down here.
So the choices for engines are now cut back significantly to units that meet current emissions rules. Sure you can engineer an older motor to pass the current emissions but it can be very expensive to do. the testing alone is prohibitively expensive and then the results are usually just a pass/fail.
Ford have just withdrawn the 5.0 Windsor from production because it can't meet the strict new emissions regs coming in. It's been replaced with a locally developed 5.4 litre quad cam V8. This would be an awesome motor in a Cobra except that it's probably about the widest V8 Ford have ever made at about 36" accross the beam. I haven't seen one of these shoe horned into a Cobra yet but it'll require a lot of foot box surgery. To date I haven't seen any of these motors for sale without a Ford Falcon still wrapped around it. I have seen a US sourced 5.4 motor being wedged into the front of a Python Cobra and by the looks of the foot box mods I don't think 3 pedals will fit. I think this was the SOHC version too.
The other readily available emissions legal V8 that has respectable performance is the GM LS1. This is an all aluminium 5.7 litre push rod motor with 6 bolt main bearing caps and is a compact light weight power plant. Guys down here are getting 250KW (330HP) at the rear wheels out of a stock unopened LS1. This is with a set of headers, free flow exhaust, cold air intake and careful tuning of the ECU. With ported heads and a change of cam figures of 300KW (400HP) at the rear wheels are readily achievable.
I'm not biased either way on Ford vs Chev, I like both. Given a free hand with building my car and I would probably have used a carburetored BB Ford motor. It would have been a lot cheaper than the LS1 route too.
I would love for the government to give us to an exemption like you California guys have with SB100 as it would make life much easier. On the flip side though I like the idea of building a more environmentally friendly Cobra.
There are some pics of an LS1 in my gallery if you are interested.
LS1 Pic 1
LS1 Pic 2
LS1 Pic 3
LS1 Pic 4
Cheers
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