1997 Pacific Green Cobra build

DKblue98GT

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I hope the new balancer makes a difference for you. Mine came apart on my old GT and cracked the front cover...

20 year old plastic gets pretty brittle. I call my car the bottomless pit but I love it.

After you replace almost everything your car will be sweet!
 
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ForcFed93

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Should have my new door panel insert in today as well as my saddle interior paint for it. Also, I should have my new balancer and ARP bolt. That'll wait until this weekend though.

On a side note, I did a bad bad thing today. While perusing for wheels, like I do frequently, I noticed American Muscle had 17" Forgestar F14's on sale today. So I ordered.

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If you look closely, you'll see I ordered two 17x9 fronts and just ONE 17x10.5 rear. Well, that's because what spurred me to make this purchase was that I found an open box piano black 17x10.5 single on eBay with only one hour left on the auction and no bids.

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So, I got a full set of Forgestar F14's for just a shade over $800 after my AM discount code.

In case you're wondering, I did specifically want 17's due to weight/handling purposes. Although I did want 17x9's squared, I couldn't pass up the savings by buying that open box wheel on eBay. So now I'll just have to let my bank account recuperate for a while before I order tires (Continental ExtremeContact Sport F275/40/17 and R285/40/17). Unless someone wants to buy my 97 wheels with nearly new stock sized tires...
 
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ForcFed93

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New wheels are scheduled to be here tomorrow. Pretty excited about that. Thanks AM for the quick shipping.

Also, I went ahead and did a few more updates. Got my new door panel insert painted and installed. Pretty impressed with the saddle interior paint from LMR. Took about 3-4 coats to get good coverage.

Old piece, which is why I wanted to replace it.

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New.

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Also got new trunk bump stops as my old one had the rubber pieces completely gone.

From this.

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To this.

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I have the new harmonic dampner in and I'll be installing it this weekend hopefully. It's not quite 25% underdrive, which by my calculations would be a diameter of slightly under 5" (stock pulley diameter 6.615" * .75 = ~4.96"). The March P1158 measured to be approximately 5.125" which would be about 22.5% underdrive.

I have not yet purchased a belt, but I plan on getting one about 3" shorter. Here's my math:

With a diameter of 6.615 muliplied by π equals a circumference of 20.78" Multiply that by a the surface area the belt touches (about 75%) equals a belt surface of 15.59". With the new pulley, it's 5.125 x π = 16.10" diameter * .75 = 12.08".

So it's about 3.5" shorter on the belt contact. Now, my belt surface contact area isn't exact so I may be off.

Just in case anyone is wondering, March does not publish measurements of their pulley or provide any information on belt sizing needed. Nor do any vendors that I asked. So hopefully if someone else buys one this information can be useful.
 
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ForcFed93

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Yesterday I got quite the March P1158 damper pulley on. Not terribly difficult.

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Also got a 96" belt (about 2.1" shorter to start) and it seemed to fit good EDIT: I noticed some perceived belt slip at high RPM (6500+). Switched to a 95.25" belt and it's better. I didn't want to go too short to start.

The damper seems to have smoothed the engine out some. I would say it's about 50% better for the vibrations than before. I'll just have to live with the rest of the vibes. Hopefully the prothane mounts soften up slightly over time. They seem to have softened up some already.

Aaaaaaaand the wheels have arrived.

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I decided I should try to test fit the rears since they're a 10.5 with +31mm offset.

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Quad shock clearance:

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Exhaust clearance:

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I think I should be OK with the clearance since I plan on running a 285 section tire instead of 315.

Now it's just going to be painful waiting to order tires.
 

evilcw311

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So I think the wheels look awesome but are you sure about running 285's out back? 10.5 is wide for such a narrow tire. My 295's fit square on my 10's.

I'd just be afraid they'll have that euro stretch look, unless that's what your going for.


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ForcFed93

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So I think the wheels look awesome but are you sure about running 285's out back? 10.5 is wide for such a narrow tire. My 295's fit square on my 10's.

I'd just be afraid they'll have that euro stretch look, unless that's what your going for.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I'm going for handling, not looks. Going with a wide rear tire would just induce more understeer. My 1LE had 285's squared on 20x10 and 20x11 wheels.

If I were running a narrow tire like a Nitto, it would probably look worse, but continentals I believe run truer to size.
 

evilcw311

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I'm going for handling, not looks. Going with a wide rear tire would just induce more understeer. My 1LE had 285's squared on 20x10 and 20x11 wheels.

If I were running a narrow tire like a Nitto, it would probably look worse, but continentals I believe run truer to size.

I've also heard continentals run wider. Post pics of the tire when you get them mounted so we can see how they look. I'm curious to see how they fit myself.


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ForcFed93

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Still haven't sprung for the tires. At this point, I may just wait until early spring as the Cobra will be in hibernation starting mid-November pending weather forecasts. I've been battling a medical issue for the past 3-4 weeks and that has consumed my efforts with doctors appointments, prescriptions, and bills. Nothing serious, more of a nuisance but it's still hindered my progress on the car.

On a side note, I did go ahead and pick something up in anticipation of the new wheels....

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Probably going to start with the rears tonight.
 
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ForcFed93

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So this is a much more tedious job than I anticipated.

Since I'll be doing the new wheels before long, I decided the rusty rear rotors and boring dirty calipers weren't going to work since they'll be much more visible under the new wheels.

I decided to be lazy and not take everything apart for this job, though I'd recommend anyone doing this to take it all apart.

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Front isn't complete yet. I'll be doing a second coat on it tonight as well as doing the Cobra lettering in black.
 
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ForcFed93

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And the final product. Don't mind the smudge on the rotor, those will get replaced before too long. This is not a job I ever want to do again.

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ForcFed93

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Looks good, how did you get the lettering so well?

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Fine point brush and a steady hand. Good thing I had some black touch up paint on hand. Hopefully that paint holds up as well to the heat as the red.
 
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ForcFed93

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So I splurged on myself a bit the other day. Got a set of VLEDS LED headlights. It's the 45W hi/low beam kit. It is fantastic quality. Got it installed today...

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How I mounted the controller boxes. They have a sticky pad underneath that is pretty strong. I put a single screw just in case:

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And the final product:

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Yes, I know I'm going to have to get LED fog light bulbs. Since I got a high end head light kit, I decided I could go with an inexpensive LED bulb. I don't rely on the fog lights for illumination, so as long as the color matches, I'm happy. They're on the way and should arrive before the end of the week.
 
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ForcFed93

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Got the fogs in. Looks great IMO. I didn't take a shot with both done, just with half done to see the difference.

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Also, not sure if anyone has looked at Braum seats for the saddle interior. I got some color swatches from them.

Left to right is Beige, Brown, British Tan.

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As you can see, there aren't any that are anywhere near close enough to consider a match.

When it comes time to do the interior I'll have options of doing used seats custom covered, new seats in black, or get TMI custom seats.
 

OEFVETSN95LOVER

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Got the fogs in. Looks great IMO. I didn't take a shot with both done, just with half done to see the difference.

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Also, not sure if anyone has looked at Braum seats for the saddle interior. I got some color swatches from them.

Left to right is Beige, Brown, British Tan.

DPkmax9.jpg


As you can see, there aren't any that are anywhere near close enough to consider a match.

When it comes time to do the interior I'll have options of doing used seats custom covered, new seats in black, or get TMI custom seats.
what tire size are you running?
 
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ForcFed93

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Over the past weekend, I finally got time to install the SFC's. Not actually that bad of a job.

If you recall, the SFC's are a new, tubular, offering from BMR. They're made to to wrap around the front frame rail, but on 96-98 Cobra's the trans cross member mounts are further back and interfere. So what we did is first cut the rear webbing from the cross member mount and then welded it solid to the frame rail. Then we had to cut the front mounting point on the SFC to fit butted up to the front webbing in the cross member mount, welded it to the cross member mount and the frame rail. Kind of hard to explain. Anywhere, here are pictures. My welder (also my brother) only has a TIG machine at home so we had it on ramps to get it tigged most of the way in, then I drove it over to a friends and put it on his lift to MIG the parts that couldn't be reached easily with the TIG.

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Since they needed to be painted up to prevent rust, I decided to use some of my pacific green paint to just paint the whole thing.

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