Club Cobra - SmallSoldier Backdraft

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SmallSoldier Backdraft

Gents,

I believe I have finally figured out how to upload pictures and since I know that I will have tons of questions and will be seeking for advice in the future, I thought the best would be to consolidate it all on one thread... That way I'm not clogging the forum :)

Let me introduce myself... My name is Jesus and I'm 37 years old, my wife Monica and I are the proud parents of a beautiful 3 year old girl (Nicole) and live in SLC, UT... I always wanted a Cobra and was on top of the list of cars that I had to have in my life.

The BDR Cobra came into my life by luck... A good friend of mine with whom we have spent countless hours talking about cars, happened to meet a guy in VA that owned the Cobra and was thinking about selling it... It didn't took long before the car was been shipped from VA to its new home in SLC... Unluckily, all of this happened very early in the year and weather didn't allowed me to drive it, but I had to fire it up to get an smile on my face very often.

I don't have a clue on which BDR number is it and would love if someone could point me at where to find the information in the car (I hope it's somewhere!)... It is silver with black stripes and has a 351W with a Tremec 5 Speed transmission... According to the owner, the engine was build and I can tell that it has some aftermarket parts such as an Edelbrock intake, High RPM heads and CAMS; it also has 750 Holley Carburator... No idea how much power it makes, but my best guess is that it is between 375hp and 425hp... I will get it on a dyno one of these days just to kill my curiosity.

So far, it has been an awesome experience, although I have had some issues which are to be expected... I had issues with the clutch, which thanks to the forum I was able to fix by bleeding it and lately it has been dying on me because of faulty spark plug wires and distributor cap, which I hope to get resolved soon... I can also tell that I have some minor oil leak coming from the differential, as well as from the head gasket... I also changed the air filter with the Oval type ones (which looks pretty nice).

Anyway... I just wanted to introduce myself to the forum, post some pictures and start a thread where I can seek for knowledge and advice on this journey

Regards,
SS

Your VIN is on the crossmember right in front of the coolant expansion tank for the radiator. Once you get this number call Brian Dott at Backdraft and he can give you the history on your vehicle. His number is (561)*327-4943. I own #206 and he has been very helpful in getting it back into true high performance form.

Based on the 15" wheels, rollbar-attached seatbelt, & amber turn signals, I'd assume it's a pretty early build number. I take it there's no plaque on the driver's side footbox under the hood? There should be a Backdraft plaque there with the chassis number on it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Slick61 (Post 1354280)

My understanding is that the car was build in 2002, so I guess it might be an early version... So far, aside of some maintenance issues, I haven't had any major problems with it :)

Must be a low number if built in 2002. I had #98 built in early 2004.

My 226 was built in 2005. The VIN plate is located on the driver's side engine compartment riveted on top of the fender well close to the steering column. This has the build number. If yours was built in 2002 it must be one of the first cars. The Backdraft website said the company was formed in 2002. Looks nice regardless of when it was built. Congrats!

I'll bet since the car was located in VA, it came out of PA from a dealer whose name was/is (don't know if he's still in business) Tri-State Motorsports. ChuckG and me got our cars from him. Mike Mack was his name, may still be around and may be able to shed some light on it for you. Bought mine in 2003 and no you won't have the VIN plate riveted on unless the original owner did it. They sent that to me about a year after I had the car which I had to put on myself.
I'll bet yours is very close to mine (same color scheme too) if you want to give me the last 4 digits of your VIN, I'll compare it to mine and maybe that will give you an idea of how early a car it is. It looks like a second generation though, 1st gen had a narrower body where the tires stick out past the body.

Make sure you check the main bolt that attaches the rear diff to the chassis (there's only 1) It needs to be made out of hardened steel, mine wasn't and snapped off. It was a known weak link that they replaced for me.
Noticed your daughter in the car, check the passenger seat belt mounting point. Mine was bolted to the rear (fiberglass) fire wall, made sure that I changed that quick and mounted it to the frame. One other thing is the seats were drilled and mounted to the fiberglass floor with just small washers. I bought some thin steel plate (1/8") and connected the 2 front and back mounting points through it so now if I'm getting thrown out of the car, quite a bit of the floor is going to have to come with me.

Pre #250 cars also had a weakness in the rear trailing arms mounting brackets. With too much HP they could break. BDR supplied gussets that had to be welded to reinforce the brackets. There was no charge for the gussets-just have to find a welder. A big safety issue as well as what was mentioned by True.

True007 and GLS-BDR226

Thanks for all the advice and information... I review the paperwork again, but if memory doesn't fail me, the car was originally registered in Maryland as a 2002 Cobra Kit Car (I have the title at home and will check it out when I get home)... There is one plate riveted to the car (in the driver door frame), but I believe it is the VIN number that Maryland assigned to the car

I will check the bolt attached to the rear differential for any issues, as well as the seat situation and rear trailing arms brackets

The car has 36k miles which, even when it may sound counter intuitive, is what I was looking for in a Cobra kit car... The high mileage gave me some certainty that most bugs were already worked out and since I have no intention whatsoever of selling it... It doesn't make a difference on resale value for me :)