Well, maybe! I am just navigating the journey of importation, registration, insuring!

Having had a brief exchange with Andrew decided I would become a paid up member to share my story and journey with these two Cobra’s.

The back story:

November 2018, I had the pleasure of a track day which my now Wife’s father had purchased as a present, I was lucky enough to have the chance to drive 3 cars, a Mk1 RS Escort, a Ferrari 458 Italia and a Factory Five AC Cobra 427 Replica.

Whilst I really enjoyed all of the cars there was something about the Cobra, the low centre of gravity, the tight cockpit, the stench of fuel and the burble of the V8 that just sung to me.

Fast forward a few months and I had found myself handing some cash over for Dax 427’s. The story behind the sale was the guy, a car fanatic, and small time collector had suffered a stroke and could no longer drive manual cars. This meant the 1984 Dax Cobra he had was no longer something he could drive and he had a part built car which he intended to put an automatic gearbox. Well after some back and forth I somehow ended up buying both…

A bit about the cars:

The 1984 Dax is running a Rover P6 10:1 Compression 3.5L V8. Interestingly this car runs ford running gear which is not common on a Dax – Turns out this Chassis is before Dax mass produced them, and as such all sorts of flavours were built in the early 80’s. The car wasn’t starting very well or at all, he had put a new coil on and shown a video of the car firing but in my possession it was plagued with issues. I decided to investigate and noticed a few things. 1 the gasket were blown on both sides, so I decided to do some research and found out that the 1994> Rover V8 heads flowed better, so I purchased a clean second hand set from eBay, new shim gasket to maintain compression levels. Whilst this was a low cost upgrade there were still firing problems so I decided a new ignition system would do the trick. Purchased a PowerSpark Ignition setup and she fired right up – Delighted I was. Upon returning a few weeks later it wouldn’t fire again, but would if I used easy start or some fuel down the carb. After weeks of back and forth I came to learn that the fuel tank had rusted through, and all that petrol was being held in the fibre boot lining! The firing issues actually turned out to be lack of fuel, so despite checking the fuel line and having a successful fire, the next attempt meant there was no fuel in the tank! Amazing how little things can set you back and make you feel incredibly stupid for not noticing sooner.

Anyways, the car fired but the gearbox was jammed so next up was to remove the gearbox from the car and have a proper look around – It was full of sludge, the box had basically jammed up with water ingress. Taking the box apart all the gears were in top condition and after a clean up and refill of oil the box was operating as expected. Whilst I was doing this I ordered a new Alloy Fuel tank, made to fit tight in the boot. I decided a new inlet manifold to support a 4 barrel holley was more fitting with being a replica, all be it far from authentic. The car now looks and sounds more like an American V8.

All of this happened over a 2 year period believe it or not, with lots of tinkering and trial and error along the way. The cause for the length of time was the car was stored at a body shop, whose job was to strip the paint, make good the shell and respray – For one reason or another he kept the car on the back burner and eventually after 2 years he decided to exit the paint game, leaving me with a car with no paint – Frustrating doesn’t cut it, I had a quiet year in work that year, hence the projects, and now I’m full time (And the rest!) and challenged to find time for the car. To top it all off my Wife asked me to relocate to Ireland (I loved my time here in 2011 to 2015) so I happily obliged and now I’m on the journey to bringing the cars across!

My second car is a later factory produced chassis, Tojeiro, features a Jag running gear setup with inboard rear brakes. This car was part built, has a handbrake, steering assembly but missing the key items such as gearbox, engine and interior. This car has had a lot less happen to it, mostly sat in the state it is in whilst I rebuilt a 1995 Chevy V8. This engine dismantled by me and then shipped to a machine shop, who took the pleasure in cleaning all the parts, port and polishing the heads and setting up the spring platform to take high rated springs to support my newly purchased Comp Cam, 286HR – It’s a lairy cam capable of 400HP+ in the right configuration which I hope to have achieved.

I purchased a Muncie 4 Speed, which is more in tune with the car era, so whilst not a ‘Ford Top Loader with 427 Block’ it’s still an American 4 Speed V8. The Chevy engines are easier to come by and parts more readily available.

Both cars have hard top kits, as the track day experience just sold me on that idea, although a Cobra really should not be driven in the wet. 200BHP/400BHP cars weighing around a tonne with zero assistance are not exactly ideal in the rain – and now I’m in Ireland where it rains 220 days of the year! 😀

All the same, exciting projects and figured I would get involved in the scene over here – Looking forward to meeting with you all, sharing my journey and asking many questions.

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