nolastyankee
January 19th, 2005, 06:07 PM
The day after Christmas it was 55 degrees here in Northwest Arkansas and my dad, I, and the male contingent of the in-town relatives decided to get out of the house for a while and head to the local sporting clays course. Our goal for the day was to knock flying orange discs from the sky but we mostly succeeded in filling the woods with unmolested lead shot. On the way to Wal-Mart to pick up a trunk full of shells, we ended up travelling down main street in Rogers behind one of those cars that have a set of gold plated Dayton wire wheels sticking out 6 inches past the body...You know the kind. This beauty was complete with old english script in the rear window, a set of curb feelers, and the ubiquitous fart-tube muffler. I like to think of myself as being generally open minded, but I could barely stop laughing.
With this image fresh in my mind, dad and I set to mount up our new Trigo wheelset on New Years day. Mind you, Trigo's normally require a narrowed Jag rear end and adjustable coil over shocks. Undaunted by this detail, we mounted them anyway just to see how they looked and to determine how much we needed to change our suspension arm width to accomodate the wheels.
Much to my horror, upon getting our beautiful new aluminum wheels mounted up, our Cobra looked suspiciously like that lowrider that I laughed at a few days earlier.
http://www.uniquecobra.com/uploaded/nolastyankee/Side View.JPG
OK, so it's not quite that extreme, but a hypocrite I was. With measurements in hand, we then took two steps backward in our build by pulling the rear end and rear suspension out of the car. Since we were going to be narrowing the lower arms anyway, I figured that it was probably a good idea to have the differential rebuilt too. We sent the rear end to all-around-good-guy Butch Capps who called this week to say that the part arrived in beautiful condition in the bulletproof crate that we built. Ironically, despite our efforts to ship the piece in pristine condition, the rear end was trashed because it had spun a bearing some time before our ownership. Fortunately we had some help with a new casing (Thanks Alan) and our new differential will be done next week. Anyone need a 75 lb. door stop?
While our differential gets surgically corrected in Knoxville, the suspension arms and axles are being set up in North Carolina. With any luck, we'll have all the parts back in one state by the end of this month, and shortly thereafter we'll be rolling on real FIA knockoffs. Is it worth the expense and effort? Who knows, but to me those six-spoke beauties just make this car. Doesn't it give you goosebumps?
http://www.uniquecobra.com/uploaded/nolastyankee/Front Wheel.JPG
http://www.uniquecobra.com/uploaded/nolastyankee/Rear Wheel.JPG
Unique 9122 - 289 FIA Cobra - The Legendary "Spence" Car
With this image fresh in my mind, dad and I set to mount up our new Trigo wheelset on New Years day. Mind you, Trigo's normally require a narrowed Jag rear end and adjustable coil over shocks. Undaunted by this detail, we mounted them anyway just to see how they looked and to determine how much we needed to change our suspension arm width to accomodate the wheels.
Much to my horror, upon getting our beautiful new aluminum wheels mounted up, our Cobra looked suspiciously like that lowrider that I laughed at a few days earlier.
http://www.uniquecobra.com/uploaded/nolastyankee/Side View.JPG
OK, so it's not quite that extreme, but a hypocrite I was. With measurements in hand, we then took two steps backward in our build by pulling the rear end and rear suspension out of the car. Since we were going to be narrowing the lower arms anyway, I figured that it was probably a good idea to have the differential rebuilt too. We sent the rear end to all-around-good-guy Butch Capps who called this week to say that the part arrived in beautiful condition in the bulletproof crate that we built. Ironically, despite our efforts to ship the piece in pristine condition, the rear end was trashed because it had spun a bearing some time before our ownership. Fortunately we had some help with a new casing (Thanks Alan) and our new differential will be done next week. Anyone need a 75 lb. door stop?
While our differential gets surgically corrected in Knoxville, the suspension arms and axles are being set up in North Carolina. With any luck, we'll have all the parts back in one state by the end of this month, and shortly thereafter we'll be rolling on real FIA knockoffs. Is it worth the expense and effort? Who knows, but to me those six-spoke beauties just make this car. Doesn't it give you goosebumps?
http://www.uniquecobra.com/uploaded/nolastyankee/Front Wheel.JPG
http://www.uniquecobra.com/uploaded/nolastyankee/Rear Wheel.JPG
Unique 9122 - 289 FIA Cobra - The Legendary "Spence" Car