My name is Jimmy. I'm 25, from Little Rock, AR but am currently staying in Milford, MA. I have a '98 CW Cobra, black interior (170,000 miles). I have a love/hate relationship with this car (keep reading). I'm the 4th owner I think and most of the mods were done by previous owners. Current mods that I know of are a CAI (I don't know the brand, its kinda ugly), a flowmaster dumped before axle exhaust (stock manifolds and h-pipe), pro 5.0 shifter, gears (either 3.73 or 4.10, dunno which), chrome cobra r's which I've plastidipped black, and I've put in a set of SVE lowering springs w/o isos, I tinted the tails, and it has some aftermarket headlights on it. I think that's it. It's pretty fast. I will take it to the track soon. PocketDyno gave me 13.28 @ 112 (for what its worth).
I dunno if I should even bother telling this or not. I will and if anyone wants to read it they can. It's long.
I bought the car in February 2011 from a guy in South Carolina. Drove from Arkansas (16hr drive) on mostly good faith. The guy was sincere to the best of my knowledge. It had a known cooling problem due to the fan not turning on. He replaced the fan and the CCRM and also added a pusher fan on the front of radiator for security. I got there and everything looked as expected. The body was in great condition for the mileage. No dings or dents anywhere. The paint was and still is peeling wherever it meets another panel or trim piece. Its safe to say it could use a new paint job. I test drove it for about 30 minutes without any problems. Everything checked out so I pulled the trigger. I paid $5600. I drove it back to Arkansas and even took it on the Dragon since it was kinda on the way (not really but it was worth it!). The day after I made it back home I was driving it around trying to get a feel for the car and BOOM! No engine. I was told the harmonic balancer failed, causing the crankshaft to move around. Keep in mind that I'm an idiot so bear with me. I decided to go with a remanufactured engine from the same company ford uses. It came with a 3 year warranty covered by any dealership. It took forever (2 months) to get the engine in and have it installed. It had a VIN # mistake. I dunno, wrong parts came in. Vin was corrected and noted with ford. I replaced everything that needed to be or would soon need to be replaced (spark plugs, a few oil soaked sensors, radiator hoses, removed add on fan too, also had the ac fixed and the cooling problem, went with a ford racing water pump and a new thermostat, ford racing king cobra clutch, think thats it). Okay so I finally picked it up and was driving home. I was babying the hell out of it. I made sure to take off and stop slowly and never took it over 3k rpms. I made it 21 miles and the engine locked up. At this point I'm pretty pissed. I had it towed back to the shop and checked out. The cause was said to be a wiring issue with the cooling fan that went unnoticed. The cooling fan never came on and it overheated instantly and cooked EVERYTHING. Thankfully it was under warranty. Warranty doesn't cover overheating. I convinced them to cover the engine and the mechanic covered half of the labor, but now all the sensors needed to be replaced and various other things. Long story short (lol southpark), I was out 16k for a car worth i dunno 6ish. It's done, I have a new engine, new parts, it runs like a champ, and it has a warranty. I'm content. A friend of mine convinced me to move to Boston for this job. I get there and get settled in and my transmission pretty much explodes. Well just the bell housing. I took it to Aamco, a TRANSMISSION specialty shop. I decided to get their rebuilt transmission that comes with a warranty. Same as the engine. It took them 3 months to get this job done. I also got a OEM clutch cable. It cost me 4k.
All in all I have spent Termi money for a stock cobra that I've had for a year and spent 6 months of that year in a shop. I know I know. It's done, I'm moving on. Love/hate relationship.
Pics from right after I installed the SVE springs. I'll take and share pictures of it now when the weather permits.
After wheels
I dunno if I should even bother telling this or not. I will and if anyone wants to read it they can. It's long.
I bought the car in February 2011 from a guy in South Carolina. Drove from Arkansas (16hr drive) on mostly good faith. The guy was sincere to the best of my knowledge. It had a known cooling problem due to the fan not turning on. He replaced the fan and the CCRM and also added a pusher fan on the front of radiator for security. I got there and everything looked as expected. The body was in great condition for the mileage. No dings or dents anywhere. The paint was and still is peeling wherever it meets another panel or trim piece. Its safe to say it could use a new paint job. I test drove it for about 30 minutes without any problems. Everything checked out so I pulled the trigger. I paid $5600. I drove it back to Arkansas and even took it on the Dragon since it was kinda on the way (not really but it was worth it!). The day after I made it back home I was driving it around trying to get a feel for the car and BOOM! No engine. I was told the harmonic balancer failed, causing the crankshaft to move around. Keep in mind that I'm an idiot so bear with me. I decided to go with a remanufactured engine from the same company ford uses. It came with a 3 year warranty covered by any dealership. It took forever (2 months) to get the engine in and have it installed. It had a VIN # mistake. I dunno, wrong parts came in. Vin was corrected and noted with ford. I replaced everything that needed to be or would soon need to be replaced (spark plugs, a few oil soaked sensors, radiator hoses, removed add on fan too, also had the ac fixed and the cooling problem, went with a ford racing water pump and a new thermostat, ford racing king cobra clutch, think thats it). Okay so I finally picked it up and was driving home. I was babying the hell out of it. I made sure to take off and stop slowly and never took it over 3k rpms. I made it 21 miles and the engine locked up. At this point I'm pretty pissed. I had it towed back to the shop and checked out. The cause was said to be a wiring issue with the cooling fan that went unnoticed. The cooling fan never came on and it overheated instantly and cooked EVERYTHING. Thankfully it was under warranty. Warranty doesn't cover overheating. I convinced them to cover the engine and the mechanic covered half of the labor, but now all the sensors needed to be replaced and various other things. Long story short (lol southpark), I was out 16k for a car worth i dunno 6ish. It's done, I have a new engine, new parts, it runs like a champ, and it has a warranty. I'm content. A friend of mine convinced me to move to Boston for this job. I get there and get settled in and my transmission pretty much explodes. Well just the bell housing. I took it to Aamco, a TRANSMISSION specialty shop. I decided to get their rebuilt transmission that comes with a warranty. Same as the engine. It took them 3 months to get this job done. I also got a OEM clutch cable. It cost me 4k.
All in all I have spent Termi money for a stock cobra that I've had for a year and spent 6 months of that year in a shop. I know I know. It's done, I'm moving on. Love/hate relationship.
Pics from right after I installed the SVE springs. I'll take and share pictures of it now when the weather permits.
After wheels