Reading Material

To better educate myself on the Modular Motor I just purchased these two books from Amazon. I eventually plan on rebuilding the motor with forged internals myself as much as I can.

Interior Pics

Here are some snapshots of the interior before I bought the car. Notice how new the seats look. Future plans for interior are MGW Shifter, Matching Glowshift "Elite 7" Gauges (A/F Wideband, Fuel Pressure, Water Temp, and Boost), Blue LED Lit Dash Bulbs, and Aftermarket Seats (maybe 03-04 seats). Trying to keep it clean, simple, and low profile inside.

Aftermarket Parts

My intent with this build is to find a balance between cost, performance, and looks. I have been searching used for sale sections finding good deals on used or new parts for much less then retail. Here are what I have accumulated thus far. Oh, and thanks to the Davis family for letting me send them to the house!

So far I have:

Procharger 2-Core Race Intercooler (used)
Intercooler Piping Kit Black Powder Coated (new)
Green Top Injectors, 42lb (used)
Pauls High Performance Short Runner Lower Intake Manifold Stage 2 (used)
Ported and Polished Upper Intake Manifold (use with single blade throttle body) used
Accufab Race Throttle Body 1697 CFM Single Blade (used)
BBK Long Tube Headers (new)
BBK Matching Off Road X-Pipe (new)
AFM PowerPipe (used)
XCal-3 Hand Held Tuner (used)
Greg Weld 15x10 Chrome DragStars-Rear (used)
Greg Weld 15x5 Chrome DragStars-Front (new)
Front Ford Racing Rotors and Hawk Performance Pads (installed by previous owner, bought new by me)
JVC CD Player (bought new had Shannon have Best Buy install)
and last but not least a new shorty antenna than Shannon installed all by herself!!!

Here are some pics of some of the parts:

The Beginning

This build starts off with the desire for more power and torque then can be achieved with my current project (2007 Civic SI). Fueled buy memories of my first car (1968 Mercury Cougar) I decided on the SN95 platform as my foundation. Powered by a relatively new at the time, 4.6 Liter (281 Cubic Inch) modular motor and accompanied by a eye catching front end, Cobra was a no-brainer.

I found an awesome forum for which to begin reading and searching for the right car at the right price. I only had a few limiting factors; the car had to have AC, under 100k miles, moderately priced, clean interior, and have a clean history.

I was willing to sacrifice exterior cosmetics for performance in order to stay in 3 paycheck price range.

What I found was a 1996 Cobra in Laser Red with a fresh Black leather interior. The car original had saddle (tan) leather interior but a previous owner had it converted to black and the seats redone in black leather that looked like new. The engine sported a Vortech S-Trim Supercharger (Centrifugal) with the stock 3.6 inch pulley making around 6-8 lbs of boost. An X-pipe and flowmaster exhaust added a nice muscular tone, while 4.10 gears get the engine in boost quicker. The transmission is the stock T-45 with an aftermarket clutch; it's a King Cobra I am guessing due to the stiff pedal feel and off and on engagement.

Also installed was a boost and fuel pressure gauge mounted in a pod on the dash where the clock used to be. I noticed that the fuel pressure gauge is mechanical so I will be replacing it with an electric unit since it is not safe to have a mechanical one inside the car.

The car came with lowering springs, not exactly sure what type but probably something equivalent to a pro kit or super sports.

I found the car in April and contacted the owner and sent a deposit then went to pick it up on R&R leave in May.

Funny story, and almost too familiar. After purchasing the car Shannon and I stopped at a gas station about 3 miles down the road to fill her up for the first time. I put the nozzle in and set the pump to automatically shut off when it was full and when inside for a snack. On my way out I see a truck pulled up next to the car and the guy talked to Shannon and pointing at the car. So I think to myself, "Cool, we are getting our first compliments on the car." But as I walk up I see what the man was pointing at. It was a huge puddle of gas underneath the rear of the car. So I get down there and see that it is leaking from the rubber grommet that seals the fill tube into the top side of the tank. The rubber grommet is dry rotted and when the tank filled past that point the gas started to leak out of it. So I call the guy we just got it from and he tells us to come back to see if we can fix it. We drive back to his house and he calls the local Ford dealer and luckily they have a new grommet in stock and he goes and picks it up. So we have to drop the tank to get the fill tube out to get the new grommet in which means we have to syphon out all of the gas I just filled it up with. Finally we get it all fixed and back together and I fill the tank back up with the gas we took out and everything works like it should. After that we drive the 6 hours up to PA, then the 12 down to GA with no more issues.

While in PA I did get the windows tinted to 35 percent, the darkest legal tint. They did a good job accept for the rear window where all of those little black dots are. I also had them install new headlight housing, HIDS, clear corners. Then I put in LEDs in all of the bulbs in the rear. Once down in GA I bought some Mobile 1 full synthetic and a new oil and fuel filter and Gene, Shannon's dad did the work shortly after I left for Iraq. Below are the pics of the car before I bought it. I will use these as a baseline as the project progresses.