Best way to proceed with improving up 427 Windsor street setup

[Ace23]

Originally Posted by NewYorkGuy

ace
it's a rabbit hole. congrats on your 1st cobra.
drive it for a year or so and then sell it and get the Cobra you really want.
use your motorcycle experience, start small like 250cc, learn to ride, sell it for 600cc, ride more, sell it for 1 liter.
same as cobras.. until you get a CSX and be done chasing.

Thanks for the advice. I've owned the car since February and I've put about 1500 miles on it.....not a ton of miles but enough to get a good feel for what you do and don't like about it. The cobra was introduced about 20 year before I was born so the authenticity and everything that comes with that has eluded me. I am perfectly fine with the SPF and quite honestly would probably be fine with a BDR or a professionally built FFR. The car I purchased has everything I want in a cobra from an appearance point. The thought crossed my mind of just finding a big block car down the road but the chances of finding exactly what I would be looking for would be slim pickings. I intend to keep this car so I think personally the best move is to make it what I want it to be. I can't explain how much I enjoy driving the car.....it just makes you wonder why in the world people buy new age sports cars. Then again I think you have to be a real gear head to get pumped up about these cars. I have taken a friend or two for a spin and one of their first questions was "where is the radio?"!

[Ace23]

So i am back from cloud 9 and the love affair with a big block is over. It may be in my future but for now I'm going to bite the bullet and use the quality Windsor platform I have. I can be fairly certain that I will be forking out the $3,500 to have my setup freshened up and gone through. Depending on the cost I would like to "splurge" a bit and I am considering taking the 427 a bit larger. The two options that come to mind are the 445 and the 460. I see that Ford Racing offers a 460 351w package but I don't see many threads or talk about a 460 based windsor. Is there a reason or reasons more people don't run a 460 windsor? I got the shop cleaned out this past weekend so its getting real close to kicking this off! Below is what I'm leaning towards.

*I want a seat of the pants motor. While horsepower is important I do not want to chase horsepower numbers. I know that displacement is the name of the game so I'm betting the slightly larger bore Windsors only produce more overall power and torque through their rev range.

*6000rpm limit to keep it a hydraulic setup and functional. I hope I can really wake up the bottom and mid but still pull to 6k. I have shifted my current 427w setup at 6000rpm and can't really see pulling any higher on the street. I've driven Pmans 445 and pulled it to 6500rpm.....it was awesome. If I could get away with 6500rpm it would be sweet but I woudn't want to give up streetability or move the RPM range up to do it.

*Based on some past threads I came across it looks like a ported RPM Air Gap can flow as much as a Victor Jr. out of the box. If this is the case it seems like a ported dual plane like the RPM Air Gap would be a great option

*Going to be opening up my 2.5 exhaust to 3"


*I want the most cam I can get away with and I want it to sound nasty........I want the cake and I want to eat it too! I'm going to enlist Brents help in getting together a plan and I will probably hire Keith to do the work as I think he can get to it sooner.

*Depending on the budget I may go ahead and bite the EFI bullet. I know that this would effect the camshaft selection and would need to be considered

*Last but not least I'm going to dress up the engine a bit. I would like to take it to more of a polished look but add a more performance tone to it. I really like the aluminum looking valve covers with the exposed welds, black fittings ect...

[Ace23]

I drove the car over to a friends shop and it is time for the dirty work to begin. Popped the hood last night and within 10 minutes we found that the electric choke was getting 0 volts and essentially staying closed....pretty sure this is a contributing factor! We pulled a random spark plug wire off and tested resistance and it was dead as a nail.....the second wire tested out. Not a bad start for 10 minutes of work. New plug wires are in order and we will start chasing down why we are seeing zero volts at the choke....alternator will probably be coming off as well.