Motor choice

Naumoff · #1 (**permalink**) 08-22-2006, 03:24 AM

Ken,

How is it going? It's been a while.
Why don't you put sidepipes on the Beemer and some Cobra emblems for right now until you feel you can chop it up?

Don't let that V8 get away.

Did you already purchase the Cobra body?

Steve R · #2 (**permalink**) 08-22-2006, 06:21 AM

Ken,
Tell me more about your car.

Building a hot rod in Jakarta......Now that's the true essence of being a gearhead.
Steve

RallySnake · #3 (**permalink**) 08-23-2006, 05:30 PM

Ken,

Glad to hear you changed your mind on tearing apart the BMW. That's a nice car and much more practical than a Cobra in your hot climate. Can't you find a wreaking yard where you can pick up a rolled car with a good engine and transmission? Maybe you remove the whole AC system intact, too.

Unlike my firends here who have no idea of the difficulty of building a car there, I have been to S.E. Asia a few times. When the humidity is 95% and the low temperature is 90 degrees at night, just being outside is tough. You have done extremely well to get your car running at all. If it's running well, I'd leave the 6 cylinder engine alone and just put all my energy into the bodywork to make it look as good as possible. I doubt that you'll run into many Cobra snobs in Jakarta!

The problem with the V8 in a small engine bay is that the heat from the exhaust headers or manifolds gets sucked into the air intake and causes runaway overheating. It takes a very powerful radiator fan to keep mine under control when creeping along in California traffic in hot weater. The six has more open area around it for airflow and generates less heat.

From the pictures of your car, I would suggest using styrofoam and fiberglass to reshape the body to more closely represent the shape of the longer and lower Cobra body.

Paul

fastraxsg · #4 (**permalink**) 08-23-2006, 11:04 PM

Thanks Paul, I've been trying to get things figured out on how to bring in a complete Hurricane Motorsports kit but you can't get a straight answer anywhere other than "you will need to pay a lot of coffee money" to get things done. Anywhere up to 80%. Originally I had tried to find info about a UK car called a Pyhton that advertised using all of a Beemer 5 series but either they have gone out of business or they are hiding. Heard a lot of negative comments about that too. I have been talking to another expat here who also wants to build a Cobra and we have been thinking of going back to the guy who built mine and see if he can do a more accurate body from all the photos and drawings we could produce. The major problem with mine is in the wheel well area with the space from lip to the top of the fenders, this was primarily due to the way they did the suspension. I had a darkside motor with complete front and rear suspension lined up but there are some issues with the wiring for some vechicle theft setup. Looks like I will keep the six for now but will change to a 3 row radiator to help out with the cooling. We are still trying every which way and trying to do it the legal way but no one seems to want to let us do that. Even though I have one of only two such cars in Indonesia, there are still guys that will criticise it cause its not right but who cares....ya only see them once and they get back in their closed in cars and drive away frowning, I get in my open top roadster and laugh all the way to the next stop....

fastraxsg · #5 (**permalink**) 08-23-2006, 11:10 PM

Paul, is that your blue Cobra that got rolled? ouch !!

RallySnake · #6 (**permalink**) 08-24-2006, 10:18 AM

Ken,

No, the pictures in my gallery are of a the salvage car in Canada that I posted for someone to buy very cheaply. I never did get any feedback on the sale of that car. But, bidding was only $3,000, what a deal!

I have been looking for an article about how to use styrofoam to shape a car body for you. But, I haven't found it yet. I agree that lowering the body is the primary issue with the shape and that's very difficult. It's easier than paying 80% tax on everything you import though!

Paul

fastraxsg · #7 (**permalink**) 08-24-2006, 09:23 PM

If that car was still for sale, even it would be better than mine....

I've seen photos of guys using the green foam that florist shops use for shaping parts, some even leave it in as long as its sealed. The guys used cardboard and newspaper when they made mine, still have bits up under the fender and inside the door. I've been thinking about redoing parts, just afraid I may never finish. As for lowering the car, I have lowered springs in front and a new set of proper lowered springs for the back on order(from Australia), the last set I got was second hand and sacked already. One of the major areas that would need to be addressed is laying down the radiator, I'm looking at a new one, and then dropping the the nose down and make the front intake smaller, right now its huge. Not sure if I could do that myself and end up with something resasonable to look at. If I drop the height of the fender down the whole trunk area has to come down too and then the dash would have to go down and whew....is that really worth it with this car? In our converstations here, we have thought about getting an old Toyota DX or something with a simple frame, and then work a ladder frame from there, have been told we could get Lexus rear end, second hand motor Chevy, no one is bringing in Ford's that we have found but might wrangle self import, and then see if we can get a local body made. All this is dependent on whether we deadend on getting a kit in. If we get a kit in, think the best is do finish up my Holden and flog it off. Then start clean. Too many decisions here and too many things up in the air, not like home, everything is just a phone call away...