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Kirkham Motorsports

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  #241 (permalink)  
Old 06-26-2012, 12:16 PM
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That's wild Kevin! The paperwork was pretty basic. I got a package with instructions from the state which contained: a normal title/registration application, an affidavit describing the components used and how I build it, copies of bills of sales and other sheets like the Certificate of origin, and that was about it.
The guy at the state reviewed it (called me about a couple of things), then passed it to the State Police, who then called me to inspect the car, then the inspection. The officer actually finished the "paperwork" in his car, on his laptop, and sent the approval notice from my driveway, it was pretty neat.
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  #242 (permalink)  
Old 06-26-2012, 12:59 PM
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Originally Posted by RodKnock View Post
The police officer came to your house? Now that's service.
The inspector comes to your house in Virginia also. Mine spent more time gawking and drooling than inspecting. He offered to trade his cruiser for the Cobra.
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  #243 (permalink)  
Old 06-26-2012, 01:22 PM
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FUNFER2

That is strange. My Midstates was finished in 1992 and was easily titled in Nebraska back then. It was titled as an assembled vehicle (ASVE) and the process was really easy.

The title said 1966 Cobra for the model and the manufacturer was ASVE. No hassles at all. Strange to hear your troubles. Mine was titled in Lincoln at the DMV. What town were you in with this difficulty?
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  #244 (permalink)  
Old 06-26-2012, 03:29 PM
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FUNFER2

That is strange. My Midstates was finished in 1992 and was easily titled in Nebraska back then. It was titled as an assembled vehicle (ASVE) and the process was really easy.

The title said 1966 Cobra for the model and the manufacturer was ASVE. No hassles at all. Strange to hear your troubles. Mine was titled in Lincoln at the DMV. What town were you in with this difficulty?
I'm in Eagle, 10 miles east of Lincoln in Cass County. I know a established Hot Rod builder in Lincoln (Roger Nunn) said at the time that he's always had problems with the DMV for titles. He and his gang would go down to the legislator to have them listen to what we need to license home built custom cars, but said they did not have the time. Even the Lancaster Sheriff told me at the time, that I could not get a title without a previous title. I think,...it was around 2005 that they finally made provisions for Hot Rods, kit cars, home made trailers etc. The state lost a lot,......of money since the late 60's of not allowing people to license their cars.

I don't know what you did different back then, but all the power to you !
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  #245 (permalink)  
Old 07-03-2012, 12:03 PM
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Arnuad,

Hey this Cobra looks like mine but with brown interior did you copy my car..

Looks fantastic. Love the photos outside the garage. It is great that your partner there maintains all the grass and the garden whilst you play with the Cobra..

Good to hear the plates are on the way.

Bernie
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  #246 (permalink)  
Old 07-03-2012, 12:49 PM
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Originally Posted by fordracing65 View Post
Whats with those RED hornes, i like the idea of a horn but why show them off.
Yeah, . . and the cap on the inside of the radiator hose sleeve !!!!! Jeeze!!!!


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  #247 (permalink)  
Old 07-03-2012, 07:30 PM
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Arnuad,

Hey this Cobra looks like mine but with brown interior did you copy my car..

Looks fantastic. Love the photos outside the garage. It is great that your partner there maintains all the grass and the garden whilst you play with the Cobra..

Good to hear the plates are on the way.

Bernie

Better not copy our brown interior! I forgot to ask you, is yours right hand drive?
My cobra partner definitely does not do the yard, I don't know if he can use a screw driver! I'm being mean now, haha. That's my yard, and i have the honor of taking care of the yard...

I *might* take it out tomorrow to go fill up the tank, but I still don't have my plates and was thinking of using my other car's plates... But these cars get a lot of attention so I don't know if I want to risk it.

In any case, I'll be making noise tomorrow.

Arnaud
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  #248 (permalink)  
Old 07-09-2012, 10:17 AM
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Avmaviator

Arnuad,

I have purchased left hand drive. I wanted to keep the period correct look.
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  #249 (permalink)  
Old 08-17-2012, 01:55 PM
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Hey everybody,

It's been too long without an update for you guys do here it is

The car has been at my friend's shop, Perfect Power in Buffalo Grove IL (Perfect Power). He did the alignment, weight balance, and general look over the car to check my work. The main issue right now is a serious rich spot from 2000-2500 rpm... I have to look into deeper this week. It runs well at any rpm besides the ones I just mentioned. Weird stuff, but we're getting close.

It is all aligned. I'll post the alignment sheet when I get home next week. The car came in just shy of 2200 lbs. Not bad but I was hoping for a little less It has a balance of 51% front and 49% rear.

Otherwise I have to make a mounting bracket for the MAP sensor, get the speedo fixed (never worked..), adjust the pedals a bit (move them to the right more), and it should be "done" for now.

Lastly, the steering is pretty stiff, to the point where it is doesn't want to come back to center on it's own, which is kind of an important issue. What has you guys's experience with your steering? Does it loosen up after some driving? I'm sure all the components have to break in a bit but I'm not sure if there is something I can do to help the process.

Have a good one,

A
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  #250 (permalink)  
Old 08-17-2012, 02:13 PM
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Originally Posted by Avmaviator View Post
Lastly, the steering is pretty stiff, to the point where it is doesn't want to come back to center on it's own, which is kind of an important issue. What has you guys's experience with your steering? Does it loosen up after some driving? I'm sure all the components have to break in a bit but I'm not sure if there is something I can do to help the process.
That isn't something that I recall on mine. Maybe the rack adjustment has been tightened up too much.

Paul
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  #251 (permalink)  
Old 08-30-2012, 12:03 PM
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Is there a rear sway bar on your car?
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  #252 (permalink)  
Old 09-02-2013, 03:35 PM
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WOW, after just reading 17 pages of a very informative build thread and anticipating more news, it suddenly stops.
It's over a year since the last entry, which dealt with a stiff steering problem. Don't keep us in suspense and let us know if you're stuck on the side of the road between Rolling Meadows and Sleepy Hollow. It wouldn't be the first time I've used my trailer to haul a members Cobra back to his house.
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  #253 (permalink)  
Old 09-03-2013, 09:03 AM
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Ralph,

No need to get your trailer ready, cause that baby runs like a bat out of hell!

I'm very guilty of not updating this post. The only reason I can give is the large amount of other projects at home (between running around chasing my 1.5 year old, house projects, other car projects (building a csx for a friend) and other time sucking activities), and laziness....

In any case, I got some time this morning, and will be giving a big update post.

Arnaud
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  #254 (permalink)  
Old 09-03-2013, 10:53 AM
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Hey everybody!

After a year... here's a major update to this build. I do apologize to everybody who was following this thread, about the lack of updates. Like I mentioned to Ralph in the above post, things have been a little crazy in the last year, but it is a good crazy

KMS647 is...... finished! Well beside the ever ending tinkering and modifications that we car owners subject ourselves to, haha. It has been an absolute joy to drive, especially this spring/summer season. I "finished" it in April of this year. It has a couple thousand miles on it right now (the mileage on the gauge shows 19,000 but I'll get to that later). The only issues right now, knock on wood, are the cold starts, which I'll explain.

So, let's go back to a year ago. I had the car aligned, it responded well to the alignment and was driving great, except for the engine issues... A quick recap on the engine issues. We were using the FAST EZ-EFI system, with a set of TWM stacks. That system works great when using their carb style throttle bodies, with a typical intake. In that set up, there is enough length in the intake and runners that the air/fuel charge is uniform, and the sensors see a nice uniform charge (I put together an LS1 with that EZ set up, with 2 throttle bodies, for a buddy in France, and that thing runs very, very well). The issues we had were at low rpms. Off throttle, to about 1700-1800 rpms, the car surges a lot, missed, and ran very rough, to the point of being very hard (and annoying) to drive. That was very discouraging, and puzzling to us. The mixture would go rich then lean then rich, and keep going like that, producing that roughness. After playing with it for a couple of months, and talking to FAST (unfortunately who were not helpful), Barry, the engine builder who owns Survival Motorsports, suggested we bring the car to his shop in Detroit to trouble shoot it. He believed it was an issue with the engine needing a more steady load on a dyno, so it can learn and adjust it self....
So in Oct of last year we put the car in a trailer (Thanks Hal!) and put it on the dyno.



From 1900 rpm to redline it ran really well, and we could see the system "learn" and adjust itself, pretty neat. The lower end rpms were still causing issues. In these last few months of troubleshooting, I started to hypothesize (with the input of my "porsche engine genius" friend at Perfect Power) that the stacks were causing the issues, along with that system. Off throttle, when the butterflies open, it produces a lot of turbulent air into the cylinders. The EZ system reacted too quickly and not well to that massive amount of turbulent air that it could not keep up with the O2 readings. That brought on the rapid correction of lean to rich to lean and so on. These stacks are like 8 huge throttle bodies, so the amount of air coming in is massive. That is why the EZ system works well with a typical intake, but not well with stacks. After we confirmed that with Barry on the dyno, we decided to go to the FAST XFI system, so we could manually fix the low rpm issues.
Btw, the low rpm issues were not detected on the engine dyno because most dyno don't operate in that low range, so Barry could have not predicted that issue. I was there at the dyno and also thought it was very well tuned. Lesson learned.
It took a bit of time to get the XFI system. After that I proceeded to lighten up the complicated harness. There were a lot of features we weren't going to use so I too, them out to make the harness cleaner. I took my time with that because I really didn't want to screw something up on the harness!




After ripping out all of the EZ harness, I installed the XFI harness. It wasn't too hard but just took time, and by then it was winter, and cold. I made a special mounting plate for the larger ecu box, so I wouldn't have to drill another set of holes in the firewall! (pics will be posted later, there are on my camera)
While talking to some XFI owners, we decided to get a dual sync distributor from Fast, so we can get sequential firing from the more powerful XFI system. The EZ uses a bank to bank firing (all injectors on one bank fire at once). That makes for a more efficient engine. Here is the distributor. Very cool unit.



Installed. You can see some white moisture spots on the aluminum pieces. We had a freak warm day in Chicago this winter where the temp shot up to 60 degrees. My garage which was at 30 degrees, didn't like the warm humid air coming in and everything, I mean everything, was covered in condensation. I had never seen that before. I couldn't dry the Kirkham's engine in time to prevent these little corrosion spots. Took me a while to get rid of these later!


After installing everything, and waiting for the weather to warm up enough to drive, we tuned the car. I did a lot of it myself but it was pretty time consuming and a steep learning curve. I was making progress but still couldn't get everything right. I probably could have done the whole thing but it would have taking me a long time. I gave the car to my friend a Perfect Power, who, with the help of a very knowledgeable EFI guy, tuned the car very well. It runs great. We still need to put the car on a chassis dyno for the WOT tuning. It was mostly tuned for drivability. The only issue we have, and that we can't figure out, is cold starting. During a cold start, you have to crank the car over 6-8 revolutions before it coughs to life... Very annoying. I have cranked the fuel enrichment for cold starting but nothing.... Hot starting only needs one revolution. I wish that XFI system had a pre-squirt option when you turn the keep on, like the EZ system did. That is one thing I really want to fix.

It has been great to drive! The stiff steering issues are mostly due to the teflon bushings used in the Kirkham steering assembly, and are said to get better with a couple thousand miles. It has gotten better I'm happy to report. *There is an issue with the speedometer as it shows 180 mph (pegged) when you drive, and now shows 19,000 miles, haha. I'm going to send the gauge back this winter. Other winter projects are to move the pedals right a bit. I don't like the pedal position, and it is unsafe in my opinion. A tonneau cover will be installed hopefully too.

That's all I can remember for now... Now for the glamour shots below.....

Arnaud -
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  #255 (permalink)  
Old 09-03-2013, 10:55 AM
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  #256 (permalink)  
Old 09-03-2013, 11:03 AM
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That's a beauty!
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  #257 (permalink)  
Old 09-03-2013, 12:07 PM
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Great news to here she's finished and humming along nicely.
It looks fantastic. Super effort!

...and congrats on the 1.5 year old.

Cheers
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Old 09-03-2013, 01:31 PM
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WOW!
Beautiful build and nice pics.
Enjoy!
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  #259 (permalink)  
Old 09-03-2013, 03:11 PM
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Great photos, beautiful car. Congratulations!

Regards.
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Old 09-03-2013, 04:07 PM
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Arnaud, I am glad I hounded you, because the latest update was definitely very informative and worth it.
Great pictures and terrific narrative about your stack system problems.
See you at the Meadowdale Raceway car show September 14th.
Ralph
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