Not Ranked
I understand the nature of your question. You are absolutely right. Cobras are aerodynamic bricks, as you well know, and the launch is so important. That happened to be the best ET recorded for this car, in street dress, and on pump gas. I have other time slips with higher end speeds, but lower ET's.
In the same setup, it has a flying mile recorded of 149.
In the particular bracket this car ran in most of the time (all over the midwest, and as far south as Baton Rouge!). 12.000 was the best ET allowed. So the trick in bracket racing is to be super consistent, and be the "last starter", and run the other guy down and not break out. Obviously in this run, that happened. It may have been a "test and tune", I don't remember.
Yes it is an auto, interestingly, a B&M 700R4, a trans not usually favored for drag racing, but in this light car, a perfect combo. The car raced at 2600#, and sometimes had ballast. I am not familiar enough with current NHRA rules to determine if that was a class issue or if it makes any sense.
It sounds like you are lighter, and that would not surprise me, as the EM, especially older ones, are regarded as heavy. And of course, the replaica ladder tube frame is not much help, cause the motor really torques it about. It has a Ford 9' rear, well locked down, and has Mosler Engineering gears and axles (OEM axles were not allowed with spools at sub 12 sec times).
Even as a street car, today, and very much NOT tuned for racing, the car is a blast to launch, especially with an unsuspecting guest. The front end gets so light the steering is really marginal for about the first 50-75 feet.
Tell me some more about your car as well. You realise that so few Cobras are really raced in contemporary Drag racing. And by the way, when the original Shelby American DragonSnakes held the NHRA record, it was with an ET of 11.89 in 65.
So both you and I do better than the original.
If you like engine build ups, read that first link. By the way, I am convinced that if the car were preped today, it would be faster, because the one thing absent in the racing days was the MSD distributer and electronics. It had a crude (very nicely blueprinted, but crude) HEI before. Now we have both the full race MSD locked out distributer, which is essently unusable on the street, so we use an MSD vacuum advance distributer, and no timing computer on the street. I really wish someone would campaign the car again, with some of the later technology we added in 1996. It won't be me, because although I still love to drive, I stay out of competition, as I lost my left leg in winter, 1995. That's why, even though it was made ready in 1996, and with the improvements, it never raced again.
Let's see, you have a V6 Buick? (I am afaid of losing this message if I look back). I have heard really stunning performance numbers from that setup in a Cobra. Tell me more (and help pass the word about mine, please).
Regards,
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