New Guy in Town

[bobinyelm]

Thanks, guys!

Sounds like a pretty well-represented group of folks and cars! Next Saturday sounds like a winner, and I look forward to making it up there to meet some of the group. That might dovetail well since I am supposed to go to a car race in Ft Worth with a very old friend later in the day. Heck, until he proposed it, I didn't even realize there was a track over there! I've got a lot to learn and catch up on!

As far as expertise, it will be I who will likely be learning from you all, since I've never done the "kit car" experience (though in reality I wimped out by buying a 98% turn-key deal with the 'lazy-man's' example I chose). Heck, I don't even know how the register the car here in Texas when I get it done!

Having had buddies in the very early 70's with "real" CSX cars (they were well under $10k back then, of course), I have for a long time intended to actually build a car from a basic kit when they became available (and I finally became able to afford one), but never got around to it (a case of the shoemaker's kids having no shoes), but then another good friend in Olympia, WA near where I lived got me hot on the Cobra idea again when he became first a Hurricane and then Backdraft dealer. Thankfully, he finally "twisted my arm" until I bought one from him. It must have been a very easy twist, because I didn't even have any decent bruises to show my wife, though I told her how insistent he was, giving me literally no choice in the matter.

While I have the engine work done, I've yet to pick out the transmission I will install. After driving my friend's car (3.46 differential) in which he has a T-5, I was unhappy driving around town given the big gap between 4th and 5th/O.D., especially for driving at intermediate speeds 38-58mph). He has since switched to a 3.91 differential, which he likes far more, but I haven't driven it to see for myself. Five gears ought to be plenty with the light weight of the car and the adequate torque of the engine, though I am not sure whether to go with something like a T-56 with two overdrive gears (one a lot closer to 4th, then one like the T-5), or just get a T-5 or TKO-500/600 and have O.D. regeared to something like .75-.82. I'll be relying a lot on the opinions you all have formed based on your cars to make up my mind, I suspect.

I am really looking forward to meeting some like-minded gearheads because so far in my travels down here, I haven't seen much sporting iron on the roads. As you correctly point out, it's about the people, and not just about the cars, but the cars are a marvelous way to find common ground from which to forge associations that can maybe take root and grow.

Bob