SC 540 Build Photos

[albanycobra]

No insult intended, I was just surmising to how much alloy content was in an RCR.....

[AC-460]

Wodahs
you may be able to just buy the yella terra manifold.... you may be able to make a scoop to go over the blower but the inlet pipe would make the scoop wide and ugly unless you could tuck the inlet down behind By the way it's DRB not DRP
Cheers Mark

[AC-460]

Iv'e ordered a 540 from DRB can anyone tell me did copy cat cars build these first before drb ..... warren had his floor lowered 50mm by copycat cars DRB don't offer this, can you still buy these from copycat cars... whats the go!!! just curious to know

[wodahs]

cant explain that ac-460
mixing up my B's and P's like that i havent been drinking , my screen is quite large and i had their web page open at the same time

now for the yella terra unit as far as i was aware only did a charger unit for the 4 valve boss motors and also used a different head unit and not the whipple , i have previously discussed supercharges with them before and after getting mine

but as for plumbing up the inlet pipes the inlet on the charger i have shown has been removed already to have a mounting for a twin 65 mill throttle body to come out alittle lower and at right angles like the boss motor instead of running up the length of the motor and we can have it angled down towards the rocker cover when re welding the t/b mount plate , throttle body has not arrived yet from state side yet to finish this

by the way i am at this stage under the belief that my 3valve motor with the charger on it isnt all that much higher that the 4valve with the plenum

[Beejay]

From what I understand Copycat Cars made the kit, produced the first few then sold the lot to DRB.

Ben

[WKB]

Copycat cars developed the kit and made a number of kits(mine is chassis 007)before DRB took over the production of the kits.

It was my suggestion to lower the floor. I cut out the area I wanted to be lowered and copycat cars welded in the new floor section. This had the flow on effect of reducing the room under the car for the mufflers.

The air bag sensors are removed, but the air bags and air bag computer are still in the car. The air bag computer needs to wired into the harness as it communicates to the other computers in the car. If there is no communication from any of the 5 or so computers the signal to start is inhibited.
The air bags needs to have voltage to start the chemical reaction that produces the gas to inflate the airbags. At this stage I am going to short the positive and negative wires to together to stop any chance of them going off. I would rather remove the device that makes the gas, but I can't find any one that works on air bags.


Warren

[AC-460]

Warren
What is the problem with leaving the air bags operational!! I was flicking through a old Just Cars Mag last night and found an advert from copycat cars for the SC540 dated january 08.. when were these cars first started....is copycat cars still in business... did Denis Beresford have copycat cars after selling DRB to Peter Hanson. The story I heard was denis broke his legs in a ski-ing accident and was forced to sell DRB... Don't know if this is true

[WKB]

Mark,

I think I would be nervous with the airbag sensor hooked up. I would be worried that a good bump would set the airbags off. I would like to see some testing done on the car before I would hook the sensor up.
Denis Bedford did own Copycatcat Cars, but I think he has retired now.
If you want to know about the sale of DRB the best person to talk to would be Peter Ransom.

Warren

[AC-460]

Warren
I'd like to do some more homework on the airbags, to me it makes sense to have them operational.... You dont hear of to many airbags going off for no reason!! do you? My donor car had the airbags deployed, I have ones to replace them. Where in the car are the airbag sensors for the dash and steering wheel? I sold the gt-p seats they had the seat airbag sensors hanging of the seatbelt stork mount they must only activate from side impact because they hadn't gone off. Warren you might like to start a thread on airbags to find out some info.
Cheers Mark

[boxhead]

Mark,
I would be very sceptical that you would be able to fit a working airbag system and be confident that it will not go off on its own.
The sensor (how I understand it) genereally is mounted to the transmission tunnel, it has a spring loaded ball bearing in it, when the rate of deceleration reaches a pre determined level, the G forces on the ball bearing compress the spring, allowing the ball bearing to slide forward, when it does this it comes into contact with the end of the sensor and completes a circuit.
This is what triggers the airbags.
When they where first released into Australia I remember that some where going off due to the harsh bump when you hit some train lines.
With a 540 being a lighter vehicle than the Falcon that donated its brakes etc, then maybe under hard braking or hard braking combined with hitting a ripple strip or curving on a race track could be enough to trigger the air bags.
I am not saying it cant be done, but you would want to be pretty sure before you tried, also is the seating position the same in relation to the steering wheel/dash facia between the Falcon and the 540?

[wodahs]

dont know about the bf but the ba air bag sensors are across the front of the vehicle

i have been told that ford supply a blank to fit in both the steering wheel and passanger dash and when i inquired about this was never told that i have to run anything for the computers to read - yes there are three computers that talk to each other and the motor and box will run with only the ecu (engine bay comp) but it has to have the internal switches turned off as its not looking for the other two

now i dont know about other states but as i said in an earlier post here in w.a. the licensing group (dept planning and infrastructure) will not let me license a modified or kit car with working airbags (even if they seem to be set up correctly) unless i have the certificates and what ever (this means that the manufacturer or other needs to setup and crash an amount of vehicles at a.d.r standards) that under the proper situations they are going to work 100% correctly

maybe drb sportscars have already done this

[WKB]

The BA/BF sensor is inbetween the radiator and the grill for the front airbags and in the pillar between the doors and behind the trim for the side airbags.

There are 5 computers in the car and all need to comunnicate with each other to allow the car to start. They are
1. Main ECU
2. Body computer(BEM)
3. ABS
4. Climate Control(air con)
5. Air bags
There is no way that any of these can be turned of.

Wodas,

If you disable the airbags would this satisfy the dept of planning and infrastructure?

Warren

[fox123]

Originally Posted by wodahs

dont know about the bf but the ba air bag sensors are across the front of the vehicle

i have been told that ford supply a blank to fit in both the steering wheel and passanger dash and when i inquired about this was never told that i have to run anything for the computers to read - yes there are three computers that talk to each other and the motor and box will run with only the ecu (engine bay comp) but it has to have the internal switches turned off as its not looking for the other two

now i dont know about other states but as i said in an earlier post here in w.a. the licensing group (dept planning and infrastructure) will not let me license a modified or kit car with working airbags (even if they seem to be set up correctly) unless i have the certificates and what ever (this means that the manufacturer or other needs to setup and crash an amount of vehicles at a.d.r standards) that under the proper situations they are going to work 100% correctly

maybe drb sportscars have already done this

I am in Country WA, Have ordered my DRB and have the Donar car sitting in the shed. Can someone please help with who I need to contact to start the build and get it registered etc.

[Rob. Smith]

Daisy had a V10 sham you can't get one of those...maybe a 2nd hand viper motor although that's a truck motor. hahahaha.

[AC-460]

Check out these wheels ROH do them in 19 x 13

[IanG]

Hi WKB,
I and another tappet head up here would like to attempt a build such as yours.
Could we get more info on kit supplies from you?

Kindest Regards
SilverFox (Rockhampton)

[AC-460]

Talk to peter at DRB 0738072480
Cheers Mark

[WKB]

IanG

As Mark wrote, Peter Ransom from DRB is the man to talk to. Here is his web site.

http://www.drbsportscars.com/

Warren

[martrogers]

As I understand it the airbag systems in a modern car are complex, the computer monitors various parameters to stop false triggering and has circuitry which still fires them if power leads are cut during the crash. On my airbag computer a label implies that it has been calibrated for the particular model of car.

Also the airbag deploys with a lot of force, my mate had a number of scratches and abrasions to his face when his deployed. I am thinking it could injure your neck if the airbag shape is not well suited to your cobra.

I have decided to disconnect mine and replace each terminal (2 airbags and 2 seat pretensioners) with a capacitor and resistor to fool the computer that it is all installed, at present it is constantly informing me of a SRS fault...

Be careful when taking out the airbags, they store charge as mentioned above and I think they can still deploy with no apparent power applied.

[WKB]

Air bag's inflate as a result of a reaction of sodium azide (NaN3) with potassium nitrate (KNO3) to produce nitrogen gas which inflates the air bag.
The chemical reaction causes a extremely large volume of gas to inflate the bag up 322kph and inflation is achieved in about 1/25 second.

The airbags in the steering wheel and dash are a real concern(to me) as electrically they are still hooked up to SRS computer with only the sensors disconnected. The SRS computer needs to hooked up to the wiring, if not the car won't start.

I was going to connect the positive and negative wires of the air bags together to stop any spurious voltage spikes, but I am unsure if this would be 100% failsafe method. I was told by a company that sells airbags that if left diconnected that there is virtually no chance of it going off.

What I would like to do is to remove the inflation module completly, but finding anyone that works on airbags is not that easy.

Warren