The demon cobra from hell

[stone4779]

OK so maybe you are thinking the title means Demon Cobra, as in it's a beast. Wrong OK Well it used to be, and will be again...but read onnnnnn...

Man, when I bought my Cobra all I heard is how cheap it is to go fast in a Cobra. Boy, it didnt work out that way at all.

Here s a rundown of my nightmare with this thing:

Bought car for $21900 + TTL + $1000 or so for a "warranty". 30k miles.

Came with a JLT Carbon Fiber CAI & dual flowmaster catback. Also it's dropped 2"

New Overflow tank cap - $15?

New belt - $47.95

Drove it a while like that. Mod bug bit.

shorter belt - $47.95

Reichard Racing 2.67 upper pulley - $149.99

Billetflow Aux Idler and bracket - $134.99

Hilton Boost overlay - $29.95

Diablosport Predator - $369.99

OK so the diablosport didnt want to tune my car because apparently it was already tuned and locked.

Retuned back to stock at dealer - $130

Diablosport still says its tuned...dealer ****ed me. Great.

Screw it, I order this..heard it tunes even over tuned computers.

SCT Livewire tuner with analog input cable, windshield suction cup, and 3 custom VMP tunes by Justin Starkey - $629.42

Finally got it on the road and working.

Redline Water Wetter x3 - $30

Changed supercharger oil - $16.99

Cobra chrome letters for rear bumper - $19.99

My mom's new boyfriend borrows my car and the next day when I go to get in it I hear the dreaded screeeecchhhh from the pilot bearing/throwout bearing. 36k miles.

Great. Now the transmission has to come out. ****ing fabulous.

May as well change the clutch now while it's out, right?

SPEC Stage 3 - $349.99

Ford Racing Head Duty Throwout Bearing - $53.95

Ford Racing Roller Pilot Bearing - $15.95

Need a clutch adjuster for the clutch

Fiore Firewall adjuster & Quadrant - $94.95

LDC Freeplay mod - $16.95 (Took this shit off...didnt like it)

Put all that shit in and now its back on the road. Its a beast.

41k miles. Nitto DRs - $200...got a deal on them.

Now Im leaking coolant out the overflow cap.

New overflow cap - $15?

Still losing coolant. Come to find out the fans had rubbed through the top of the shroud, and through the overflow tank, which had swelled and had cracks all over the bottom.

New Ford overflow tank from dealer - $80

Tank comes in, the nipple is broken off that you hook the small coolant line that goes to the radiator. Great. After paying for the shipping for another one (overnight btw - $35) I get that one on there.

New tank swells up but holds for a while.

Cap leaks a little again. New cap - $15.

42k miles. First trip to the track. VERY FIRST pass. 2500 rpms launch after smoky burnout. Wasnt even dogging it.

Rear end pops on the 1st to 2nd shift. I love this car.

Tow truck - $100

Tow truck guy is a dumbass and isnt careful and rips the front bumper off unloading it. Also rips off the heat exchanger. Tabs on bumper are ripped off so it's garbage. Bent bracket for heat exchanger back and put bent ass heat exchanger back on. Rigged front bumper to stay just until new one comes in.

Tow truck guy is an aquaintance so cant sue him. He is my brothers baby mama's dad. Awesome. Just bought a car from him for $500 but hadnt payed him for it yet so we call it even and he gives me the car to get around in and I dont sue him. Asshole.

New front bumper - $200 from a friend.

OK so now I need to put the car as close to stock as possible to see if the dealership will fix the rear end...by chance?

Stock Cobra pulley -$50 **** it, couldnt find one that wasnt bent.

Wheres the old belt? IDK. Stock belt - $47 something

Pulley tool - $125

Went to use my Livewire to flash it back to stock. ****er doesnt work. say something about memory. Wont even turn on. Great. Overnight shipping charges to and from SCT - $60

Got it tuned back to stock, took it to the dealer. They wont honor my EXTENDED warranty. Says something hit the rear end, so it isnt a defective part. OK so I call the insurance company since something hit it.

Insurance company says nothing hit it, it is a defective part. Im going to kill somebody. (jk)

At this point I am sick and tired of working 40-70 hours a week and working on this damn car in all the rest of my free time. Remember this WAS my daily driver.

Solid built Moser rear end. Installed, ready to go. - $4000

While the parts for the rear end come in I decide to take care of putting back the way it was and then some:

Billetflow hub and pulley - $149.95

Tighten pulley too far(1-2 mm)...cant back the hub off without destroying the pulley ring(aluminum)

New Billetflow pulley ring. They are out of red, the color I wanted, so I paid for overnight shipping and didnt get it the next day, they couldnt get ahold of me because I was at work. Great. still $95 + $42 for overnight shipping. Why show it on your damn website and charge me overnight if you dont ****ing have it?

Need to address the coolant issue:

Canton Aluminum Expansion tank - $169.95

May was well make both tank match:

Canton Intercooler fluid tank - $104.95

May as well get the billet tank caps:

$29.95 x 2 = $59

Drop car off at rear end guy to have the built solid read end swapped in. Pick the car up. rear end whines. Awesome..

Car keeps pushing coolant out. Great I think I have a blown head gasket. Wow.

Its at the shop right now getting tested. Im tired of working on it. To hell with it. Guy says $1200 for labor for both. Parts are like $300.

$1500 for head gaskets. crooks. Thats why I do my own work. all this guy does is blown & turbo 'Stangs and he will stand by his work if it screws up, so I guess the higher cost is better than paying some jackass to do it twice.

I hate this car. I would never buy one again. But I am so far into I cant really pack it up, you know?

Imagine if all that work I had paid someone to do it? Probalby would have been another, what? $2500? Probably more nowadays...

Ill keep yall updated.

 

[arodsvt]

I hear u....its part of owning a car with such high potential...trust me I've broken a lot too and replaced it and mine isn't even a daily driver lol imagine if it was I would end myself too

 

[ruthless]

"Car keeps pushing coolant out. Great I think I have a blown head gasket. Wow.
$1500 for head gaskets. crooks. . "

I am think that guy is making some $ just for properly burping your cooling system. :shrug: If your head gasket went you would know it.

 

[stone4779]

And I still have to have the front bumper painted. Also had the car raised back to stock with GT springs because it was wayy too low.. $200 for the springs and labor for swapping the front ones. Rear springs labor was free since it wasnt extra work while the SRA was being put in.

 

[ZYBORG]

Lol, oh dude I feel bad for you....

I feel your pain...

 

[stone4779]

"Car keeps pushing coolant out. Great I think I have a blown head gasket. Wow.
$1500 for head gaskets. crooks. . "

I am think that guy is making some $ just for properly burping your cooling system. :shrug: If your head gasket went you would know it.

Ive burped it a shitload of times. I know how to do it. It has bubble coming out of the coolant crossover like crazy. Replaced the thermostat too...

I burped it when I first bought it and never had any problems...

Ive been burping it every day for the last 2 weeks. It's just been on ramps with the front elevated like that for 2 weeks, bruping in the moring and after work and then letting it sit overnight every night. Its burped.

The guys doing a leakdown test on all cylinders today. After work Ill find out if it is leaking out pressure and which cylinders it is. I have my own leakdown tester and compression tester kit but I am just tired of messing with it so Im letting him do it.

If it fails, Ill go verify it and let him proceed to take my money. lol

 

[Sweet '96 Cobra]

That all really sucks! You do realize though, that this is all just part of vehicle ownership and sometimes with cars like ours somethings are just more costly. Another thing, why the hell spend $4000 on a solid rear axle? You could have fixed your IRS for a lot less and kept your Cobra the way it was meant to be.

I hope it all works out for you.

 

[cbr repsol]

Damn sorry to hear all of the problems you are having with the cobra. You should of bought a mistichrome like me , Everyone knows their built better. The only problems ive had with mine is a/c compressor 3 times(under warr). Other than that no issues and im at 68k now.

 

[black 10th vert]

sounds like an unfortunate combo of some bad luck, and poor decision making on your part, but I can certainly see why you'd want to drive it off a cliff, or something!

 

[black 10th vert]

That all really sucks! You do realize though, that this is all just part of vehicle ownership and sometimes with cars like ours somethings are just more costly. Another thing, why the hell spend $4000 on a solid rear axle? You could have fixed your IRS for a lot less and kept your Cobra the way it was meant to be.

I hope it all works out for you.

yeah, I was wondering about the solid axle thing myself... What broke on the IRS?

 

[fire_4_effect]

bottomline... you are going to have to pay to play.

 

[Jimmysidecarr]

Modded cars are rarely if ever a good choice for a daily driver.
Try this stuff with a Supra and add that list up.

When a car is hot rodded, it's reliability is compromised.

I am sorry to hear of your difficulty, but I am seeing a lot of red flags and mistakes, but the very worst one is not having a normal unmolested car available for daily driver usage or at least back up.

When I first started in this hobby all the guys who raced and built cars when I would ask them hot rodding questions... every single one of them, would tell me ...

The number one rule in Hot Rodding is:
DON'T **** WITH YOUR EVERY DAY TRANSPORTATION!

Your difficulties makes yet another case for this rule.

 

[black 10th vert]

Modded cars are rarely if ever a good choice for a daily driver.
Try this stuff with a Supra and add that list up.

When a car is hot rodded, it's reliability is compromised.

I am sorry to hear of your difficulty, but I am seeing a lot of red flags and mistakes, but the very worst one is not having a normal unmolested car available for daily driver usage or at least back up.

When I first started in this hobby all the guys who raced and built cars when I would ask them hot rodding questions... every single one of them, would tell me ...

The number one rule in Hot Rodding is:
DON'T **** WITH YOUR EVERY DAY TRANSPORTATION!

^Very well put, Jimmy! I would never dream of doing the things I have done to my Terminator if it had to be a DD, at most, maybe a pulley, tune, intake, and exhaust. With that combo, done correctly, you can have a quick, very reliable DD, but going beyond that , you just open a pandora's box of potential issues to reliability.

 

[Posi]

Sounds like my luck with all my other Mustangs and the reason I bought this car lol. I've dumped waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy to much money in it but it's only broke twice lol.

 

[stone4779]

Well IDK everyone brags about how reliable the engine is etc etc..thats why I bought it because of the stout short block. I didnt know about all the little quirks that have nothing to do with the shortblock.

When I had my H/C Z28 I used to run neck and neck with pullied cobras with full boltons no problem. I did all the work myself and never had a single problem with it. The worst thing I had was a slave cylinder went out. $162 and a days work. I used to work for H&R block and had to drive 150+ miles every single day in Houston traffic zippin all over town. Never ever ever let me down. I only had to put a few grand into that car, and I only paid $12500 for it with 12k miles. Cherry. But yeah the cobra sound wicked and looks way nice and the droptop Camaros look like ass I think lol.

Oh and I went with the solid axle because in the end it costs a lot to build up the IRS right and it still will never be as strong as a solid axle. After driving it its not even that rough at all. For what I would use it for the difference in ride is not even noticable. Now hit some high speed corners and Im sure the difference shows like a mofo...that thing could take some damn corners!

 

[BigBeez03]

Brutal story! Sorry to hear. These cars are expensive no doubt, however your misfortune is the exception i believe. My car is a toy, driven only on sunny days, I can't imagine driving it as a DD.

 

[stone4779]

Sounds like my luck with all my other Mustangs and the reason I bought this car lol. I've dumped waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy to much money in it but it's only broke twice lol.

Yeah this is why I put the ported blower on hold man Its me Chris Stone

 

[stone4779]

* I have since bought a new 2010 Chevy Colorado though for my DD. 5.3L

 

[03 COBRA SB]

Maybe you should of bought a GT. for 10 grand and saved yourself the money. lol

 

[stone4779]

Maybe you should of bought a GT. for 10 grand and saved yourself the money. lol

Yeah could just swapping in the motor lmao