Resolved Nick's '94 Cobra

Got out and fixed the charging wire. All good again.




We have one more tuning session left to work out some drivability. Then it needs the A/C charged and an alignment. Beyond that, it will be improvement mods. Tighter shifter (stock TKX shifter is sloppy), decent stereo, IRS upgrades, and maybe some CCWs down the road.

My Cobra R hood is painted and back on the car. Never did get an exterior pic as the car is filthy, but I snapped a pic of the underside that I painted myself. It's raw fiberglass finish, so not smooth, but good enough for me. I also painted my intake tube to match. I routed it in a way that get the filter into the fenderwell, as well as hopefully allows me to run a strut tower brace. Still plan to build a heat shield to isolate the filter better, but baby steps.

WhiteCobra95 said:

How do you like the hood? Did you get the cowl vent cut open or the screens added? Been wanting one for years. Would love to see more pictures of how it looks on your car. (Most of the people I know with Cobra R hoods went with the Cervini's Hood, but I can't get past their name embossed in the center of the underside.)

I think it was a good call to paint the underside. It doesn't have to be perfect or polished glossy, but the color match looks better than bare tan fiberglass. It's hard to tell from the picture, but it almost looks like a flat or dull black - sort of like a factory hood blanket, so it just blends in and looks right. Love how your car is coming together!

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Well, I had two small issues with the HO Fibretrends hood order. His shipping company only has 1 single terminal in Iowa, which was two hours away from me. So after paying $180 for truck shipping, I still had to drive two hours each way to get it.. HO did refund $100 of the shipping cost to offset my gas and time, so it worked out fine and fairly.

The only other issue was that I had to do quite a bit more work getting the hood to fit than I have with any Cervini hood. I had to remove my cowl panel and remove my hood hinge from the car and shim under it to get the back corner of the hood even with the fender on one side. I had to move my hood latch about 3/4" toward the passenger side for the hood to even attempt to close. I also had to unbolt my fenders, remove the factory shims from a couple spots, and add them to others to get it line up pretty well. Maybe I was just lucky with my two previous Cevini hoods, but they took no effort to bolt on and fit.

To answer your question, yes I had the vents cut out and the screens installed. There is one spot where too much glue was applied, and you can see a glob stuck in the mesh when sitting in the car.

As for the finish, I've always liked a particular spray can truck bedliner spray. I've used it on three hoods now. It dries nice and evenly on a non porous surface, and has a flat finish. You can touch up a spot, and it blends right in. It holds up to heat as well, and you can't scape if off if you try. It's good stuff.



At the end of the day, I do really like the hood. It's VERY light, compared to Cervini hoods. The construction and lack of underside support allows for the weight savings, but also allows for the hood to flex. It stays shut fine with the metal reinforced latch area, but I may end up installing aero hood latches to be on the safe side. I'll wash the car and get you pictures tomorrow.

WhiteCobra95 said:

How do you like the hood? Did you get the cowl vent cut open or the screens added? Been wanting one for years. Would love to see more pictures of how it looks on your car.

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Here are some pics I grabbed to show the fit.

A couple beauty shots, although the car has not yet seen a detailer, so don't zoom in too closely.

WhiteCobra95 said:

Thanks a million for taking and posting the pictures. That looks great! Between the exhaust note and it's looks, your car is going to be turning heads everywhere.

I also really appreciate the info on the prep and installation. It really helps to get a heads-up on what to expect in terms of labor, time, and cost for jobs like a glass hood. It definitely seems to be more involved than what you hope for or expect.

Ford really missed an opportunity not offering that hood in production - or at least as an option on something more than just Cobra Rs. It looks really good with paint colors besides crystal white.

P.S. I'm probably seeing things, but the close up of the driver's side looks like the wiper arm motor is capped off by a 12 gauge primer.

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No problem on the pics. Funny you mention the wipers. I took them off when removing the cowl to adjust the hood hinge, and simply forgot to put them back on. That's the bare mount, nothing over it. I need to paint the arms and reinstall them!

Mustang5L5 said:

4ga is too small for 200A. You really want something more like 2/0 if you are actually pulling that much current.


4 is borderline for even a 130A alt. Really the fact is most guys aren't pulling that many amps, so it's rarely an issue. If you stick with the 4ga wire, fuse it for 120-125 amps.

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AeroCoupe said:

Pretty nice calculator for determining wire size:

Wire Size Calculator

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Appreciate the info boys! I plan to run a decent stereo, so that was the thought behind the 200 amp alternator. I'll rerun that as a 2ga wire.

New development. My tuner has put a good amount of time into drivability for me, but we still have more bucking around 1700-2000 in all gears than I can live with. He says it's because of my high lobe separation angle in the cam, combined with a manual transmission. The second aspect is the intake set up. I feel I'm lacking low end, but it screams up high. That's all fun and well, but I prefer stoplight to stoplight torque, so I'm not very satisfied with how it currently feels. I considered 3.73 gears, but I kind of like the 1750 rpm at 60 mph feature of the current gears.

I won't drag my custom cam guy under the bus, but my combo did not net me the results I had asked for. That being said, I am already doing a cam and intake swap. I can't stand the way it drives, which completely defeats the purpose of owning it. Hopefully I can sell the current cam/intake setup to someone who drag races.