The SN65 project car

SN65 · Aug 12, 2005

1320stang said:
Bob, I get red X's on your home front page.

Also, on here you might do like Reen has done and add the link to your website to your signature for new people that come on and don't know you have a site.

Hi Larry,

My computer locked up dusring the download this AM. I am currently re-downloading the entire site.

Thanks for the heads up on the sig.

65myway · Aug 12, 2005

The dash panel looks really good, but while I was looking at the pictures, something hit me. Are you going to be able to use the heater defrost with that panel installed? It looks like it wll cover up the vent locations. Are you going to cut holes in the panel for these? Just wondering. It is lookng good!

SN65 · Aug 12, 2005

65myway said:
The dash panel looks really good, but while I was looking at the pictures, something hit me. Are you going to be able to use the heater defrost with that panel installed? It looks like it wll cover up the vent locations. Are you going to cut holes in the panel for these? Just wondering. It is lookng good!

Hi 65,

Yes weare going to open up the dash panel for the defroster vents. The ductwork already comes within about 1/2" of the panel. We just have to locate the holes and add a gasket.

SN65 · Aug 15, 2005

Hi All,

AAAUUUGGGHHHHH!!!!!!

This weekend SUCKED.

All we had to do to get the car fired up was to complete two tasks. First, complete the remote oil filter / cooler plumbing and configure and install the intercooler heat exchanger. No Problem. How hard could those two items be?

First we got all the oil system configured and mounted. We then started to install the hose end fittings. No problem at the engine. Everything is good at the oil cooler. Now, moving on to the remote filter housing. !@#$%^&*() SOAB!!!! The fittings don't fit!!!!

The fittings thread in, but the NPT fitting just does not tighten up. What the???? We look at the housing and can't figure out why. The other housing is NPT, but this housing looks like a straight thread.

A quick call to Maximum Motorsports solves the riddle. Between the time that we received the original kit and the second remote housing (we modified the first housing to fit up to the engine) they had altered the design. The original kit came with a NPT fitting. The newer remote housing came with straight threads designed for use with "O" rings.

The solution??? They are sending me the new fittings ASAP.

With that resolved, we figured we could at least get the heat exchanger fit up and mounted.

WRONG!!!!

We picked up a real slick tubing bender for the project. There are a number of complex bends in the exchanger plumbing and we wanted them all to be just right. Well, we set up the bending station, got the tube ready inserted it in the bender and.... IT DIDN'T FIT!!! The manufacturer had sent us the wrong set of dies and the tube did not fit.

I know what the problem is. It is a giant government conspiracy designed to drive me insane. That’s what it is. The government has decided that our project should be classified. Classified as what, we don't know, but that has to be the answer. What else can it be? I haven’t pissed off any mafia kingpin, well, at least not lately.

Back to the drawing board. We shifted gears and proceeded to mount the fenders and the hood. The hood looks totally killer on the car. It is much nicer than I envisioned with my minds eye. The view from the cockpit is perfect.

I will try to post photos latter today.

Catch ya'll l8r

race-rodz · Aug 16, 2005

its great to see the huge responce this car has over here... been fallowing it at lat-g and pt.com. allready started on my own clone useing a 64 1/2 coupe, 416" windsor/g-force T5.

for anybody interested....i MIGHT have a spare roof skin off my "SN65 coupe" doner for anybody wanting to clone the hood "buldge"... i ended up getting another sn95 shell that had bad qtrs instead of cutting up the "good" cobra shell i originally was going to use. should have the shell this week... and if the skin is good.... i will let everyone know

forgive me for not reading through the 29 pages, but where did the rear flairs
come from?

thanks.

SN65 · Aug 16, 2005

race-rodz said:
its great to see the huge responce this car has over here... been fallowing it at lat-g and pt.com. allready started on my own clone useing a 64 1/2 coupe, 416" windsor/g-force T5.

for anybody interested....i MIGHT have a spare roof skin off my "SN65 coupe" doner for anybody wanting to clone the hood "buldge"... i ended up getting another sn95 shell that had bad qtrs instead of cutting up the "good" cobra shell i originally was going to use. should have the shell this week... and if the skin is good.... i will let everyone know

forgive me for not reading through the 29 pages, but where did the rear flairs
come from?

thanks.

Hi RR,

The rear flares came from Miajer racing <check spelling>. They are the flares that they sell in their Eleanor kit.

Good luck in your project. Let me know if you have any questions along the way. I can let you know where to start and stop cutting on the two bodies (should save you a bunch of time).

I am looking forward to watching someone else attempt this conversion. Not only will it be fun to watch how someone else resolves some of the fab and mechanical issues, but watching someone else attempt this will make me feel a bit less of a lunatic.

SN65 · Aug 16, 2005

Hi All,

Yesterday things went pretty slow. We didn't receive the fittings for the oil cooler / filter relocation kit until the afternoon. That only gave me enough time to mount the oil cooler. I now have to mount the filter relocation housing. I can easily mount the housing, but running the lines is going to be a bit problematic in that the fittings I have to use take up quite a bit of real-estate. I think I have things figured out, but I thought I would review the installation with Wayne and the guys in the shop before I drilled the mounting holes.

Here is a photo of the installed cooler. We were trying to decide if we need a shield to protect it from rocks thrown off the front wheel. We are going to debate this one a bit before we

Wayne got the fenders and hood mounted. And, as with everything else, he had to do some fine tuning for fit and clearance. The passenger side fender will need some modification to achieve the proper gap at the hood. We also had to modify the caster camber plate setup to gain a little bit more clearance between the strut shaft and hood. Here are some photos of the hood from a couple different angles

We are still waiting for the correct tube bending dies so that we can fab up the heat exchanger plumbing. Maybe they will come in today. I can only hope.

Catch ya'll l8r

1320stang · Aug 16, 2005

I kinda like how the front air ducts mimic the shape of the '03 Cobra fog lights. You might look at some more pics and tweak that some more as well.

I like the hood, but my personal preference would still have been to put the '03 Cobra hood fake "cheesegrater" air extractor in the center of it.

Are the windshield wipers going to stick waaayyyy out off the cowl?

reenmachine · Aug 16, 2005

SN65 said:
Here is a photo of the installed cooler. We were trying to decide if we need a shield to protect it from rocks thrown off the front wheel. We are going to debate this one a bit before we

IMO, it's not a good idea to mount the oil cooler there. Besides the road debris damage issue, it won't get much airflow through it. You want that puppy where it can get plenty of cool airflow so it can do its job. One piece of gravel thrown up from the tire and you could very easily puncture a tube, and then you're taking a tow truck home. Adding a shield would restrict the airflow even more.

68rustang · Aug 16, 2005

I agree that it probably isn't the best place to mount the cooler, however a piece of screen or expanded metal would be able to sufficiently protect it.

Edbert · Aug 16, 2005

I'm with Reen about the location,while a wheel well may in fact have a lot of "wind" in it...for the cooler to work well you need to have air flow THROUGH it not just OVER it.

70vert · Aug 16, 2005

debris shield as scoop?

I can't tell if that is on top of the wheel, but it looks forward or back of the wheel. If it is forward or on top, you *might* be able to make a piece of aluminum or other material work as a duct to catch air and direct it to flow over the oil cooler. If it's behind the wheel I don't know how you'd do that without also catching debris and sending it shooting up and around your wheelwell like some crazy pinball machine . . .

SN65 · Aug 17, 2005

reenmachine said:
IMO, it's not a good idea to mount the oil cooler there. Besides the road debris damage issue, it won't get much airflow through it. You want that puppy where it can get plenty of cool airflow so it can do its job. One piece of gravel thrown up from the tire and you could very easily puncture a tube, and then you're taking a tow truck home. Adding a shield would restrict the airflow even more.

Hi Reen,

We struggled long and hard over this one. After some conversations with "cooling specialists" we decided not to locate the oil cooler in front of the radiator as you would normally expect. A number of factors impacted our decision, but they all added up to one issue. We did not want to put any additional strain on the cooling system.

The "specialists" said that it would even be better to locate this cooler horizontally under the car than to locate it in front of the radiator. They said that the typical in front of the radiator installation would be adequate if we kept the drive-train "stock" 03 Cobra, but if we are looking at upping the HP, we should find an alternate location.

We are thinking of adding a heavy mesh screen (spaced at about 1/2") to keep debris away from the cooler without restricting air flow to much. If (after initial testing) we feel we are not getting enough air flow, we can always add a small fan.

We can test our theory with two temp sensors (one before the cooler and one after). We can measure the temp drop across the cooler in a number of different driving situations. If we are not getting good results, we can then add a fan.

This all kind of makes sense to me, but then again, I may be missing something. Do you think our plan valid???

SN65 · Aug 17, 2005

70vert said:
SNIP.... without also catching debris and sending it shooting up and around your wheelwell like some crazy pinball machine . . .

Hi 70,

Thanks for cheering me up.

Edbert · Aug 17, 2005

SN65 said:
This all kind of makes sense to me, but then again, I may be missing something. Do you think our plan valid???

I know you weren't asking me, but that's never stopped me before...LOL.

I think that the cooler WILL cool no matter where you put it, even if there is almost no airflow. They can act as a simple heat-sink in dead air.

I think your plan for the screen should prevent normal road debris from puncturing it. It is not like they are safe out in front of or under a car either ya know

I think the fan may help, but adding a little spacer (say one inch or so) to get it away from the sheet metal would help a great deal too.

Keep up the good work and of course the updates

reenmachine · Aug 17, 2005

SN65 said:
Hi Reen,

This all kind of makes sense to me, but then again, I may be missing something. Do you think our plan valid???

Bob-
I certainly understand trying to fit 10 lb. of "stuff" into a 5 lb. bag and the packaging challenges this brings. I tend to be conservative about reliability issues, and something inside me just wouldn't put the oil cooler inside the "pinball machine" like that. Even if it doesn't get damaged, it's not going to get good flow.

I'd sooner put it in front of the radiator and condenser and if there's a problem get one of the many upgraded radiators out there.

krash kendall · Aug 17, 2005

1/2" - 3/4" airspace between it and the rad should be sufficient to minimize heat exchanging from one to the next, if that is your concern. Besides, if you believe the 1/3 quart of oil in the cooler will overheat the rad then just think what the other 5 or 6 quarts are doing to the motor!

On the other hand, how well do you think the car will stop from 60 MPH with oil soaked tires on one side of the car after a lug nut picked up off the road goes sailing through the cooler?

BullittFB · Aug 18, 2005

Didn´t you mount that cooler in the area where you had thought about putting the extractor vents on the fender? I´m with Edbert and Reen, how much of a strain can that oil cooler put on the cooling system? Are you using the stock radiator?

skywalker · Aug 18, 2005

I'm not a mechanical engineer. But I do know a little bit about heat and from what I know, I can't see placing that behind or infront of the radiator as losing efficiency of cooling as much as the lack of airflow in the location you selected will lose cooling efficiency. Remember, air is striking the radiator very quickly, the length of time which air is contacting the fins is fleeting. It shouldn't hurt it to much, especially with electric fans.

Even if the efficiency did go down the toilet (it won't), it would still be better than the high risk of a good rock strike taking out that oil cooler. And to give you an idea, of what I'm talking about, the oil coolers on a Cobra (the helicopter, not the car) are protected by a farely sturdy wire mesh which is perpendicular to the plane of the oil cooler and a fair distance away, because if a rock or anything hits that mesh at a speed high enough to damage the cooler it'll probably poke a hole in that wire mesh too. So that's a small criticism of your wiremesh plan.

SN65 said:
Hi Reen,

We struggled long and hard over this one. After some conversations with "cooling specialists" we decided not to locate the oil cooler in front of the radiator as you would normally expect. A number of factors impacted our decision, but they all added up to one issue. We did not want to put any additional strain on the cooling system.

The "specialists" said that it would even be better to locate this cooler horizontally under the car than to locate it in front of the radiator. They said that the typical in front of the radiator installation would be adequate if we kept the drive-train "stock" 03 Cobra, but if we are looking at upping the HP, we should find an alternate location.

We are thinking of adding a heavy mesh screen (spaced at about 1/2") to keep debris away from the cooler without restricting air flow to much. If (after initial testing) we feel we are not getting enough air flow, we can always add a small fan.

We can test our theory with two temp sensors (one before the cooler and one after). We can measure the temp drop across the cooler in a number of different driving situations. If we are not getting good results, we can then add a fan.

This all kind of makes sense to me, but then again, I may be missing something. Do you think our plan valid???

65up2d8 · Aug 18, 2005

reenmachine said:
Bob-
I certainly understand trying to fit 10 lb. of "stuff" into a 5 lb. bag and the packaging challenges this brings. I tend to be conservative about reliability issues, and something inside me just wouldn't put the oil cooler inside the "pinball machine" like that. Even if it doesn't get damaged, it's not going to get good flow.

I'd sooner put it in front of the radiator and condenser and if there's a problem get one of the many upgraded radiators out there.

I think you've made very, very good judgment calls up until now regarding this project, but can you really argue with the points being made in the last few posts? I thought the same thing as Reen when I initially saw where you intended to place the oil cooler, but I said nothing in deference to you and your team, who are obviously more skilled than I. That being said, I have now seen a pretty solid consensus of knowledgable people give good arguments as to why you should steer you away from where you want to mount the oil-cooler. I know you want to be done with this car in a bad way, and I can understand that. Please, though, keep an open mind and an open ear to suggestions like this. As pointed out already, this could be a very detrimental mistake.
With all that's gone into this ride, I'm sure you can upgrade the radiator.

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