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Cobra
Carroll Shelby's living legacy.
Last Updated 6 / 28 / 2003
at 11:26 A.M.
A road racer that got retired too early in life and still wanted to be in the race car game. That was Carroll Shelby. A bad heart had put him on the side lines, but never killed the urge to compete.
The Shelby-Ford-AC was a partnership of unlikely members.
One of the world largest auto makers, Ford. AC , a
almost defunk English automobile maker that had a car, but no
engines and a Texan with a scream. A match made in heaven for the
Ford racers. If you owned or raced a Chevrolet Corvette or one
of Enzo's Red Ferrari's you were sure it was a match made in
hell!
Here we will first talk about the little known Cobra Acceleration Package, AKA the "Dragon Snake".
Chevrolet got a surprise in 1963, when their sacred cow, the Corvette got blown off the race tracks of the world. The cause of this was a little cross breed Ford/AC roadster called the "Cobra". The Cobra drag cars were called "Dragon Snakes", they were very bad little snakes.
This was the only 427 Cobra raced by the Shelby factory team.
The Cobra pictures on this page were barrowed from Dennis Begley. Dennis has a nice Cobra site. Click Here to go visit!
The Dragon Snakes were available with four
different stages of engine tune:
All Dragon Snakes had engines that were fully balanced and
"blue printed". Belanger built the special headers that
exited from under the doors. The Dragon Snakes came standard with
other goodies such as a "COBRA"
scatter shield, "COBRA" valve
covers and a "COBRA" upside down
"T" shaped aluminum oil pan. Shelby chose the Borg-Warner T-10 four speed as the transmission and this one used the
aluminum case. The standard rear gear ratio was 4.89 to 1,
although any of the available gear ratios could be had. The
"Dragon Snake" could use what ever wheels the buyer
chose.
The front and rear geometry was modified by dearching and
lengthening the front spring 5/17 inch and reforming it 2 1/2
inches down. The rear was just lengthened .350 of and inch. The purpose was to make the rear axles sit square and not go to
negative camber no acceleration. When a stock (?, Imagine that, a
hand built race car being called "stock". ) the body
will shift backwards on launch and cause the rear end to squat
and the rear tires will lean in at the top. When this happens the
tire runs on it's edge and will lose traction. The reason for
these modifications is to allow the rear tires to remain flat on
the road surface allowing good traction. Cure Ride shocks were
also added with 50/50 up lock and down lock shocks in front and
90/10 down lock shocks in the rear.
Click any of these for more Ford Factory Race Car pages!
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