Old member, returning

[ForcFed93]

Long post, sorry.

Back in 2006 (I think) I joined this site. I mainly stayed on SVTP. I bought my 1997 Cobra in March of 2005. Loved the car, spent a lot of time and money on it. I was young and dumb and since all of my car friends got out of the car scene, I ended up selling my Cobra to a buddy of mine back in 2007. Since then I've had a LOT of different vehicles, some of which I'll show in this post.

Here's a shot of the Cobra before I sold it:

Since then I've had an F-250 diesel, then a BMW 325i, then a 2007 Silverado. After that, I bought a 1970 El Camino and started to LS/turbo swap it. Lost interest. Unfortunately, I didn't take many pictures up to that point:

After that I got a TBSS:

After that I got an M3:

After that I got a CTS-V (new house at this point too):

Then I got a 2014 Camaro SS/RS 1LE. Loved this car, it was amazing in every way. I sold it in October with hopes of saving cash and ordering a brand new 2017 1LE in the spring. The Mustang was my brothers (and has since been sold). The SN95 Cobra has always been my favorite Ford:

Anyway, that brings me to current. I was talking with my buddy (the one I sold my Cobra to) about buying a new Camaro and he told me that he sold it to his father not long after I sold it to him (I knew this) and that I could probably buy it back pretty cheap if I wanted to. So, now with the thought of possibly buying my old Cobra and not spending $45k on a new Camaro, I am entertaining the idea seriously.

I won't do anything until probably April or so as I don't want to buy a car just to take up space in my garage for the winter so I have some time to think about it. I know for sure that the Cobra will need some paint work to get it to where I want to be (bumpers mainly) and it needs valve seals.

So I'll just be lurking over the next few months and learning about what has happened with the SN95 modding scene in the past 10.5 years since I was last on this site. Cheers.

 

[Orange 94]

Welcome back!
Damn, OG with only 36 pots lol


Hope you get it back!

 

[ForcFed93]

Welcome back!
Damn, OG with only 36 pots lol


Hope you get it back!

We'll see. I'm getting serious car withdrawals as this is as long as I've ever went without a fast car or sport bike in probably 8 years. Funny note, if you look on the wall in my garage in the CTS-V picture, you can see that I still have my vanity plate from my Cobra. "VNMOUS".

Edit: Also, I realize I'm probably going to be severely disappointed in the performance of the Cobra coming from the 1LE, so I'll have to make some performance changes too.

 

[white95]

Welcome back! Things haven't changed too much but we've benefited from 10.5 years of newer Mustangs to rob parts from

 

[g36 monkey]

Welcome back! I think people are getting a lot more creative these days!

 

[ttocs]

welcome back

 

[DeepList]

Welcome! It's always nice to see any OG come back.

 

[ForcFed93]

Update. I got the itch a little early to get back into a car. After considering my old Cobra and realizing it would take a lot of work to get it where I wanted (paint work, valve seals, seat recovering, and lots of maintenance) only to still be a 140k mile car, I decided to spend a little bit more and get something nicer.

I just pulled the trigger on a clean 1997 Pacific Green Cobra with 68k miles. All stock unmolested. Buying it sight unseen and having it shipped. I've bought lots of cars out of state before, but this is the first time I'm having one shipped. It's a Chicago car so I was worried about rust and corrosion but the dealer took undercarriage photos and it looked good. Hopefully I'll have it in a week or two.

 

[g36 monkey]

Congrats!!

 

[Burninriverdiver]

That looks like a clean, unmolested slate to start with! Keep us posted

 

[Tally_4.6]

Damn.

 

[ElrodKTPQ_89]

Already got black carpet that's a plus

 

[ForcFed93]

Got the car in from the shipper on Tuesday. I must admit, I was nervous since I had never seen the car in person.

Initially when I first saw the car, I had thought it had been in an accident at some point. I thought this because the top rear of the drivers door wasn't flush with the rear quarter panel. I'm not sure if it's a common thing, but it's almost like the door seam at that part is separating slightly.

After looking it over thoroughly and seeing all of the original factory VIN stickers on all of the panels, seeing the original Ford glass and even seeing the Ford stamped body panels, I realized it wasn't likely in an accident. Not to mention checking all of the panel gaps for over spray finding none.

I honestly think it was just the nerves making me look for something. The more time I spend looking it over, the more I appreciate how well kept it really was. It does have a few nicks and scratches, which I expected due to it being 20 years old with almost 70k miles, but it is in really good shape. The passenger seat looks like it's never been sat in.

It is completely bone stock. Paper air filter, 1997 date coded spark plug wires, etc. It does have a bit of corrosion, which I expected since it was always an Indiana/Illinois car, but it's mainly limited to bolt heads and things like that.

I'll admit, when I first drove it, I forgot how crappy a cable clutch feels since I've been used to hydraulic clutch cars. But after getting the feel for that down, it drives great. Brand new tires, smooth on the highway and pulls hard to redline. I thought I was going to be sorely disappointed in the performance given my past history, but since I've been driving my 2500HD for the last 4 months, it felt plenty fast.

My biggest gripe is that it felt like a floaty Cadillac compared to my old 1LE.

So far I've bought plugs/wires, fuel filter, air filter, PCV valve, oil/filter, and a drivers side power window regulator that the dealer didn't tell me was going out.

Also got a Steeda Tri-ax to replace the factory shifter.

Future plans:

Bilstein HD's
MM springs
Eibach Sways
MM Panhard bar
18" Forgestar F14's (still debating color thinking Bronze)

That should take care of the floaty feeling.

Then I'll start thinking about horsepower mods. Once I start piling up parts, I'll start a new buildup thread.

I haven't had a ton of time to mess with it yet, but once I do I'll take some pictures.