ERA 753 - Final Assembly in Progress

[Chaplin]

Fred-
Once you drive it, the fronts will settle down a little more. I just swapped out an iron block 428 for an all aluminum FE and I did have to drop the front springs a little bit- maybe 1/4" inch or so- to compensate for the difference in weight between the 2 motors. But the stock ERA springs are fine for an aluminum FE. And the car looks great by the way.

Can you do me a favor? Can you measure the height from the the floor to the middle of the fender lip on both your front and rear fenders- I'm still screwing around with my ride height trying to get it where I want it and yours looks pretty good.

[fkemmerer]

Originally Posted by Chaplin

Fred-
Once you drive it, the fronts will settle down a little more. I just swapped out an iron block 428 for an all aluminum FE and I did have to drop the front springs a little bit- maybe 1/4" inch or so- to compensate for the difference in weight between the 2 motors. But the stock ERA springs are fine for an aluminum FE. And the car looks great by the way.

Can you do me a favor? Can you measure the height from the the floor to the middle of the fender lip on both your front and rear fenders- I'm still screwing around with my ride height trying to get it where I want it and yours looks pretty good.

Unfortunately, I am away traveling so I won't be able to make the measurements for a week or so. To give you a reference, the distance from the bottom of the frame rail at the rear to the ground is 5 3/4". The distance from the front of the frame rail to the ground is 5 1/4".

[Roger Cormier]

Hi Fred,
your car with those Rear Billboards mounted (finally) will make Sal G.cry
I'm sure that all that polishing alone sets your car apart from others, but what you've incorporated with the FAST system definately puts it on a higher level.

[fkemmerer]

Originally Posted by Roger Cormier

Hi Fred,
your car with those Rear Billboards mounted (finally) will make Sal G.cry
I'm sure that all that polishing alone sets your car apart from others, but what you've incorporated with the FAST system definately puts it on a higher level.

Thanks Roger. I'm getting pretty close to the end at this point. Just decided to add a accelerometer to the FAST computer setup. This will involve a little extra work but I will be able to record acceleration, braking, and cornering G's with the FAST computer. This should be a helpful tuning aid. Especially when I get to the stage for setting up the electronic traction control. Only downside to this - more wiring....

[RedBarchetta]

Originally Posted by Chaplin

And the car looks great by the way.

X2...no doubt. Can't wait to read about performance/handling with all the electronics on this car. Definitely one of the better (and certainly far more sophisticated) builds on this forum for any replica. Nice work!

-Dean

[Metal-morphous]

Fred,
It looks fantastic!!! You just made up my mind on what the next set of tires are going to be for my ERA

Ron

[fkemmerer]

Originally Posted by Metal-morphous

Fred,
It looks fantastic!!! You just made up my mind on what the next set of tires are going to be for my ERA

Ron

Hi Ron,

Thanks! I'm going to try to get stencils made as you suggested to help me to paint the white letters on the tires. Are you still thinking about EFI?

- Fred

[fkemmerer]

We installed an accelerometer in our Cobra today. This device allows the FAST XFI computer in the car to record G forces for acceleration/braking, lateral G's, and vertical G's while the car is in operation. The accelerometer should be useful in tuning the Electronic Traction Control and other suspension elements of our Cobra.

The G-force measuring sensor is a small device which is mounted directly to the frame near the center of the car (its the small red device in the lower part of the following picture).



We also upgraded our FAST XFI to add the cabling for the Controller Area Network (CAN) which FAST supports. The CAN is a sort of network that allows all sorts of additional controllers and intelligent sensors and output devices to be added to the FAST system. The accelerometer uses the CAN to communicate with our FAST XFI computer.

Now its on to the electrical connections between the computer and the engine.

- Fred

[fkemmerer]

Well we completed the last of the EFI wiring harness construction and we got our cobra running today! It really runs sweat and sounds great! I need to do a little fine tuning on the cold warmup part of the program yet but other than that we're set. We also got the hole cut for the shifter and the interior back in also. We have a number of little things to fix and adjust but I expect to take a short ride tomorrow and will post some pictures when the car is out in the sun.

- Fred

[fkemmerer]

After some tuning and cleanup on a few details, we rolled our Cobra out of the garage from the first time today and took it for a few short rides in our development (no plates or registration yet).





The car runs great and it really handles well with the Goodyear Racing tires! Could not really get too carried away inside the development roads but I can tell the car will be great!

Here's a video of a the car running - it sounds awesome (thanks to my friend Jim for reving the car while I shot the video).

http://www.anitafred.net/Video/Cobra/Roll Out Video.wmv

Now its on to registration!

- Fred

[fkemmerer]

Originally Posted by RedBarchetta

X2...no doubt. Can't wait to read about performance/handling with all the electronics on this car. Definitely one of the better (and certainly far more sophisticated) builds on this forum for any replica. Nice work!

-Dean

Thanks Dean. I will post information on how the final car performs when I get it on the road. I appreciate the nice comments.