Chapter 8 - Turning the Corner
With a fresh coating of white stuff on the ground and blowing ice in the air, the scene outside my window sure looked like Christmas. The anticipation in my mind and a giddy lack of sleep reminded me of waiting for Santa Claus as a child. Despite these images, the calendar refuses to read a date any other than March 5th. While the holiday season was not upon us, the excitement was present in spades as my Dad and I were planning to start reassembly of the rescue Cobra.
Earlier in the day we made a trip to the powder coater to pick up our chassis and 26 other parts which had been cleaned and freshened up. Those of you in the Midwest should consider Spence Industries in Green Bay, WI for all of your powder coat needs. They do beautiful work and only charged a shade over $600 for sandblasting, prep, and coating of our chassis and a big box of parts.
With these items in the garage, we had everything on hand to begin moving the Spence car toward a reliable road vehicle. Man, what a great sight!
http://www.uniquecobra.com/uploaded/...ee/Chassis.jpg
The parts we had planned to add to the frame were not the MGB pieces that came off just a short month ago. As we tore down the front end, the weakness of the aged design became apparent. Bearings were seized, damping was poor, and adjustability was non-existent. Searches on Club Cobra did not reveal much about the available options, so I began my own search for some new options.
All you owners out there of newer Unique cars know about the now standard custom suspension. With Carrera coil overs, a new powder coated cross member, a fresh steering rack, and vented Wilwood discs, this is by far the most complete package available. This setup uses MGB geometry, but all similarities end there. The detail is second to none and there is plenty of information on how to set them up. For us, the $3000 price tag was a bit steep and we didn't want to just toss out our rack and pinion and brakes. While they are not as good as the new pieces from Unique, the Spence car has never been on the road and our parts are still new. Oddly, this route just seemed too easy. As you all know, the Spence car is not an exercise in taking the most travelled route to a Cobra replica. With these factors in mind, I kept looking.
Next I found an MGB coil over conversion from Moss Motors. There are varying stories on the availability of this unit, but I was able to get a guaranteed delivery from Moss of 6 weeks from the date of my call. While the coil over provided improved damping control and new upper suspension arms, the rest of the MGB suspension was used as-is. At $900, this kit seemed a bit steep for what amounted to a pair of shocks and suspension arms. Hell, the shock adjusting wrench and bushings weren't even included.
Finally I found an upgraded MGB suspension designed by Hoyle Engineering which comes standard on Hawk Cars in the UK. Hawk builds a nice Cobra replica using their modified front and rear suspension units. The kit comes with beefy, powder coated upper and lower suspension arms, awesome damping and spring adjustable coil over shocks, and a nice hardware kit. This kit retains the MGB crossmember as a mounting point, although the outer end is modified to allow clearance for the new shock. If this weren't impressive enough, British Automotive in Novato, CA facilitates the purchase process and offers an upgraded hardware package for the kit. Doug Jackson at BA has worked with the manufacturer of the kit to delete much of the installation bits which he upgrades and includes with his deluxe fastener group. This comes with all grade 8 hardware, polyurethane bushings, a shock wrench, and a beam modification template and weld-in gussets. The remainder of the parts are sourced from MGOC in the UK. The only parts used from the standard MGB front end are the beam, lower suspension arm pivots, kingpin assembly, and rack. When all the bills rolled in (including a really weird importing fee from the importer) we spent about $1500.
If you are interested in ordering th
