Finding original build data?

[Dan Case]

Originally Posted by PDUB

Did they keep any engine date code info on the cars? I have raised this question in another thread in case you can provide any info. Thanks guys!

By "they" I suppose you mean Shelby American, not that I have ever heard of. Engine numbers were included in bills of sale. Engine numbers fit into the time line of manufacture at Ford.

I help original car owners quite a lot, almost daily. I have posted long narratives on couple of Ford related sites in the past few years to cover all the general bases. In short, Ford then just as now did constant changing. Vendors change, designs evolve to make them lower cost to produce or address field issues. Said another way there is not just “one” HP289 engine used in Cobras. There was not just “one” engine block. There was not just “one” cylinder head design. There was not just “one” 1-4V carburetor. So on and so forth.

Because Ford changed constantly and because the way Shelby’s crew detailed engines changed constantly the only way to estimate how any particular car’s engine might have been configured as it left in a new Cobra is to know the engine number and engine assembly date and chassis number. With the engine number it can be determined how the engine fit into Ford production. The engine assembly date and engine number are not directly related so you need that date to determine things like carburetor spacers. (Example: The engine on CSX2310 has an engine number in a group built up in a few day period. The exact date of assembly determined which carburetor spacer the engine got. My engine was assembled just before the production change from the 1963 design to the 1964 design. I would not have known which spacer was correct without knowing the day of assembly.) Knowing the car’s chassis number tells leads via the SAAC Registry to when the car was completed. Knowing when the car was completed gives me an idea of how the assembly team installed and detailed the engine.

It has taken decades (I started studying why this Cobra was different than that Cobra in 1972.) to build a comprehensive study of what might have been for anything on a particular car that it doesn’t currently have. It is getting harder in many ways. Most of what I have learned is from unrestored and substantially unmodified Cobras. Restortation has usually meant modification, especially engine modifications. The rush to make vintage racers or track day cars in the 1980s and 1990s made box stock Cobras scarce. Even some low mile cars stored for decades are not as original as you might think. I have seen cars that stayed intact in storage for as long as 40 years. Just before being sold they have gotten pulled out and usually made functional. So imagine a car intact for decades that in a week looses its original carburetor, spark plug wires, distributor, water pump, fuel pump, hose clamps, etcetera. Some of the parts that get gone are extremely hard to find replacements for.