Cobra replica donors
 

Hi all,

Been thinking after the roadster, I'd like to build a Dax or Pilgrim Sumo. They suggest using a V6 Sierra donor, finding a 2wd V6 is abit hard. I was thinking about using a 4cyl Sierra for the IVA and then swap it for a beefy V8 after.

Does anyone know if this is possible?

Try asking robo, I know he's built one the past but I don't know which one but will probably know which route is best to take.

please please please dont use a sierra as a cobra donor! and deffinately not a 4cylinder engine in one, i assure you , you would be deeply disapointed :)

FMB that was 25+years ago and the only company up and running then was autokraft, dax were still messing with the demo car so I went with autokraft. I am not sure but I think I might of had one of the first or very nearly the first cobra kits on the road < chassis 003> Poxy things are everywhere now. Anyway they were all built on jag running gear with the biggest most powerfull yank engine you could find , dont put a four pot in there unless you kit the thing out with lightning conductors :eek: If you dont spend a fortune building it you will never sell it, I dont think you would get much change out of 20k if you build to a decent spec and thats without shed loads of time. If you got the calculator out you probably wont bother. Just my humble worthless opinion and thats special cos its worthless:p

Bob

Why wouldn't I want to use a sierra donor?

It's just for the iva, then I'd rip the 4cyl out and put my v8 in. Is the jag gear much better?

Not really concerned with the resale price as I'd hope not to sell it.

In my honest opinion yes the jag stuff is much better! are you planning on designing your own chassis or are you going with some one like ak sports cars or gd or dax etc ?

Michael

The jag rear end is designed to handle the power and torque out of the V12. The Sierra is not.

The Jag Independent suspension is superior to the Sierra.

TT

if i were to build a cobra i think it would have to be a hawk or a gd simply because they are not compromised by donor parts and look very genuine especially the hawk's.

I was thinking of using a dax, pilgrim etc chassis. Need to see a few in the flesh before I decide which one. It has to look right for the amount they cost to build.

Ash how are the others compromised?

Just need to find out which donor would be best. Jag is sounding best now. Oddly the websites for this replica don't tell you much!

Dont get sucked into "the body/chassis from" prices. These are quite a complex kit and something as simple a door or front suspension fit will normally be associated with a door fitting kit or a suspension fitting kit, It just goes on and on. My advice would be to join the cobra forum and plug them as they will be more aware of the rip offs and pitfalls. They are basically a road legal dragster and poser wagon. I miss the one I had <500hp>:cool: but thinking back to the times when fuel was a lot cheaper I once got through a gallon of squirt in less than a mile:eek: I only know that because I was having a tinker and it ran out of fuel so I tipped a gallon in and never made it to the garage a mile away. Mind it was fun:D

Bob

all the sierra base kits of the cobra are not realy ideal for bunging in a massive lumps in and as a side effect are not desired realy think of them as designd to be sheep in wolfs clothing not vise versa

also good cobra reps are well known to be time and money pits
im suprised no one has made somthing like a thruxton gt version of a cobra going down the old shape moden take rule of thinking

I am personally noy a fan of hawk, I would say Gd or mainly AK ring and book a factory tour /test drive with AK or Gd :) im sure youll be happily suprised ;)

I have experience of dealing with Hawk, Ram and Pilgrim back in the day.

I built a Hawk 6, basically Hawk's Cobra chassis but with AC ACE rather than AC Cobra bodywork (narrower arches) and used modified TR6 running gear. Like most kit manufacturers there wasnt much by way of printed build instructions but Gerry Hawkridge usually returned calls quickly. I built it as a joint project with a work colleague and got the mechanicals finished off by Adrian Cocking of Ram Automotive as they were well reccommended in cobra circles and were based near where i was working. Adrian was amazingly knowledgeable and helpful. It felt like an old British sports car to drive just a lot faster and with very secure handling.

I bought an already built Pilgrim Sumo Cobra replica. This car wasn't great, it didnt handle- Pilgrim said it needed harder, shorter springs which i fitted and made it rather worse. The prop shaft ran at an absurd angle due to the offset position of the diff on the IRS (Mk2 Granada; this caused it to keep breaking prop UJs and it ate a gearbox by putting too much sideways pressure on the output shaft. Pilgrim said it was unfortunate but hard to avoid, blaming the design of the donor IRS (so why did they use it). Having said that i drove it a year in all weathers for daily commuting and not much else broke. The 2.8 carb engine it came with gave average performance and the car handled so poorly that for once i didnt want any more power. The guy I sold it to unfortunately managed to roll it over within a week of buying it breaking several bones and leaving the car as a badly distorted chassis and a pile of fibreglass bits. The guys at Pilgrim were ok to deal with but didnt like any criticism of their design which i guess was understandable.
This was in the days before Internet forums so kit makers could often get away with major flaws so long as they kept on the right side of the magazine journalists and weren't blatantly selling downright death traps. From what i have heard the later Sierra based ones Sumos handled an awful lot better and kept on getting better in stages with plenty of people fitting small block Ford V8s.