The 427 in Kevin's Cobra

This is Kevin's story. A great story, I might add! " I have a original Shelby engine that I bought in 2001. It was raced in 66' then sold to a man with a street Cobra. He wrecked the car and Carroll bought it back. I have a Aunt that lives in Las Vegas. Her next door neighbor is a Top Gun pilot in the Navy. He is a buddy of Carroll Shelby and say's he does a lot of donuts in the parking lot at Carroll's shop. He gave me a tour and damn, was that a great time ! He asked if I needed any parts, I jokingly said, "yes, a engine" ! We walked over near the machine shop where 5 engines were sitting. I could not believe my eye's. Anyway, I borrowed some tools, checked the bores and other than some pitting in the cylinders, it looked great. I did have to replace the pistons. It was missing the carb's, sidewinder intake and the Cobra oil pan. We made a deal and I shipped it home. I had CompCams custom grind me a bump stick. No one had the specs I was after. Most of the cams were for heavy muscle cars. My Cobra weighs 2.400 lbs. With my fat butt in the seat and full of fuel so, I did not want all the HP down low rpm's. And, unlike the Pro-Street Camaro I built, I wanted more than to cruise down main street a couple of times, be out of gas and the engine hot. I wanted something that was streetable and could travel a bit. After talking with a tech guy, I decided on a solid flat tappet cam. 600- lift, 252/260 duration at .050. I believe,... It is now in their catalog as a Cobra Cam. It has all the goodies inside and kept all the LaMans parts. My best bud has a chassis dyno at his mechanic shop. (how nice is that) ! I locked down the timing, put in some racing fuel and after a final tune, the numbers are, 563 hp/580 lb.ft torque at the wheels. So, somewhere around 625 HP at the flywheel. Since I wanted to travel a bit and that I live outside the city in a small town and have a 10 mile trek to Lincoln, I needed a overdrive tranny. I bought a Tremec TKO. The rear end is a Ford 9" with a Currie pumpkin. I have two set's of gears, 331's are for the highway and 514's for at the drags. After trying to get a good launch at the track with street tires and no line lock, a guy in the pits offered his 10" slicks and my bud and his, they were able to hold me in the water box to get the tires hot. As I dumped the clutch at 4,500 rpm's, it was so hard, my helmet hit the roll bar and the front wheels came off the ground (I was told) two feet. I kept in the throttle because I was scared of a hard landing on the front end. It ran a 10.38 @ 134 mph. I was told by the owner of the track, "do not come back without a full cage",......then smiled saying, "that was cool" ! Traction was better but, I was still all over the lane until hooking up well into 3rd gear. Top speed was 163.4 mph at the Kansas Motor Speedway." Great story, Kevin! Thanks!