cwh
SuperDork
6/14/10 4:19 p.m.
A friend of our lives in the Keys and builds cars for a hobby. He's pretty good at it from what I've seen. He recently bought somebodies incomplete Factory Five kit, basicall complete but not fully assembled. 16,000.00, basically what the price is for a kit. Today he went to Steeda for some dyno time and stopped by our place on the way back. It's not finished yet, but very road worthy. I'm drooling all over it. Dyno'd at 525hp, 600fp, a 351 with good heads and twin turbos at 6# boost. Very conservative tune. Jokingly, I asked for the keys. No hesitation, he sat me down and showed me how to start it. OMG, what now. Tranny is a Tremek 600, stiff as hell. Clutch was stiff but OK. Headed out for I 95 and the rain starts. I get on 95, and the skies let loose. Noooo! So, here goes Pops, at 2000rom, getting soaked, in the King of all street cars. Turned around, headed back, still raining hard. Did I mention no top of any kind? Well, didn't hit anything,,never broke the rearend loose, made very pleasant noises, but did not get to enjoy 1/10th of what that car is. The grin will probably go away soon.
Well at least you didn't crash it!
When I drove my Stalker in the rain, people would take pictures. I'm sure that they were thinking "What a bloody idiot! Especially as I didn't have wipers either.
cwh
SuperDork
6/14/10 6:59 p.m.
Yeah, no wipers, no top, nothing but a ferocious beast of a car, and no way to enjoy it. We're going to go down to Key Largo for another try. My wife wants one. There is no way she could drive this beast, but she wants to try it. I smell a problem. She absolutely loved that car.
lewbud
Reader
6/14/10 8:53 p.m.
In reply to cwh:
The only problem I see is that you will have to build two. Otherwise I don't think you'll get to drive it.
I had a FFR for about 5 years. I got caught in the rain a few times with it. No top, no windows, worthless wipers, very light rear end, big horsepower, wide tires. What a white knuckle ride. I was coming home from an HPDE day with it and got caught in a thunderstorm on the highway. I slowed to 35mph and was still holding on for all I could to keep it straight. Good thing is that if you keep it over about 30mph, you don't get too wet.... 
My wife wants one too. Ever since we saw the display at Lime Rock and the salesman told he how easy they are to assemble she's been saving her pennies for one. She even put together a model of what it should look like.
If you're going to build an FFR, head over to ffcobra.com. Easily the most helpful forum community I've ever seen...
Ian F
Dork
6/15/10 3:01 p.m.
I'm jealous... my g/f hates Cobras... No way in hell she'd want to build one.
Will
HalfDork
6/15/10 5:08 p.m.
I expected something with a pirate in a Mustang Cobra.
Will
HalfDork
6/15/10 7:22 p.m.
It'd be better with a salty wench, too. Just sayin'.
Nice Cobra.
'fraid I'm lacking in the wench department right now.
Thanks, the car needs to have a LSD rebuild right now, but shes a good fighter in the local ESP crowd.
In regards to OP, I autocrossed a friends FFR with a supercharged SBF with similar power levels (and bias ply slicks!). Blast does not begin to describe it, but I had trouble getting used to the manual brakes he was running.
One thing to keep in mind if you are going to build one is that the single hoop roll bar isnt kosher for all racing orgs (or HPDE, especially that you cant have an instructor). I know some guys who get caught out by that frequently. I looked at building one for quite awhile and would start with the "Spec racer" chassis FFR has if you want to take it to the track frequently. The doors dont open, but then you just have less risk of burning your legs on the pipes! (several of the local cobra crowd have scars on the backs of their legs from getting careless).
Happy now? 
