Cobra 427 Build

[Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman]

I thought you’d put your lad to the grind stone on the decorating. (I used to love helping my own dad decorating, at that age. He was just so good at it.)

[KugaWestie]

4 hours ago, Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Secretary said:

I thought you’d put your lad to the grind stone on the decorating. (I used to love helping my own dad decorating, at that age. He was just so good at it.)

He certainly helped, but I am in charge 

[KugaWestie]

So just for @Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Secretary I popped out into the garage tonight for an hour.

I dug out my modified propshaft 

 

I jacked the rear end up and put the weight onto some axle stands to allow me to rotate the rear wheels/diff, and fitted the prop

 

Gearbox end

[Thrustyjust]

Hurrah for big drive line bits joining the front to back together . Great stuff Gary.  

 

Cue mods................ we need a cobra emoticon please in faded red ......... thanks 

[corsechris]

Passenger seat looks comfy....  

Nice to see big bits going on.

[CL290005]

On 30/12/2018 at 21:40, corsechris said:

Passenger seat looks comfy....  

 

[KugaWestie]

The valley gasket clamps arrived today so they are now fitted

[KugaWestie]

I have been starting to think about cooling the engine and working out how the Pipework routes/coolant will flow around the engine.

Here is my sketch layout

 

There are a couple of minor revisions to it.

Firstly I think the heater will be fed by warm coolant from the rear of the inlet manifold and will then return to the water pump, so the opposite flow/heat to what I have drawn.

Secondly a bleed tee will be added in somewhere in a high spot of heater hose.

The thermostat is the X drawn in the housing at the front of the inlet manifold.

 

[KugaWestie]

Little bit of pottering around this afternoon and not much to show for it.

I have decided on my fuel pump position so I welded a mounting bracket onto the chassis and sprayed it, no photos though as hard to see it! I will photo the fuel pump once fitted.

I had also read about a cooling problem that sometimes occurs with the Edelbrock inlet manifold. The manifold has a number of water channels in it that bring the hot coolant up from the engine to flow out into the radiator. What can sometimes happen is this very hot coolant can get to the temperature sender and give a very hot gauge reading but not get to the thermostat so it initially stays shut. So basically before the engine and coolant have got up to temperature the gauge goes off the scale.

The way to overcome this is to drill a couple of small holes in the water channels directly behind the thermostat to allow coolant to circulate better to even out the temperature around the thermostat and sender.

So I did that mod this afternoon. You can see the holes just inside the manifold, one for each bank of the engine.

 

Back to the rear of the car, in preparation for fitting the fuel tank I fitted some self adhesive waterproof foam tape to sit the tank on

 

The final job of the day was to make up an oil pump priming tool. This allowed me to position the oil pump drive in the correct position for when the 123 ignition dizzy gets fitted (the dizzy drives the oil pump). It will also allow me to spin the oil pump to make sure oil has been circulated around all the components prior to starting the engine

 

[KugaWestie]

I need to decide on a thermostat, it is either an 82C or an 88C.

Anyone able to offer any guidance on that?

[corsechris]

I’d go with the cooler option. The RV8 doesn’t like getting hot.

[AdamR]

Yep, cooler the better. Optimum temp for performance on your engine is high 60s IIRC.

[KugaWestie]

11 minutes ago, AdamR said:

Yep, cooler the better. Optimum temp for performance on your engine is high 60s IIRC.

Really? I was thinking somewhere around 85c from what I have been reading

[AdamR]

I may have got wires crossed  Is it a Rover V8?

[KugaWestie]

Just now, AdamR said:

I may have got wires crossed  Is it a Rover V8?

Yes, 1978 SD1 engine