Cobras made in Poland

[S7MS427]

Now if I can only remember where I left my car keys?

Uh, right next to the toothpaste?

[98SVT - was 06GT]

The Mega Buck Pantera has a twin turbo SOHC Cammer. Last I heard it's in a private collection on the eastern seaboard. I forget what Shelby American it's in. The engine compartment was the back cover.

Nobody knows if the J Car broke up before or during the crash - only that the epoxy connections failed. The MKIV also had a steel roll cage added to it.

The YF12 was basically an armed 2 seat SR71. They still fly a SR71 modified with 2 seats (it was the trainer for pilots with an instructor) at Edwards as a chase plane for really fast experimental stuff. A guy I know had them fly a wing section he designed on it to watch the air flow. They have a pylon on the plane and mount a scale section of the wing to it. It's painted with some magic paint that changes color as the pressure on it changes. They film it at speed and watch the pressure wave flow along it. The A 12 was the prototype of the design and had an aluminum skin. The extreme heat that the friction of the air caused ruined the temper in the aluminum skin. They went to a titanium skin because it would take the heat. All the parts for those planes were tracked at each step by Lockheed. One of the forgings was cracking. They found the ones that cracked had been machined during the summer and traced it to the fact that Burbank water had more chlorine in it during the summer. They started using distilled water for their cutting tool coolant. There is an A12 and SR71 at Blackbird Park in Palmdale CA. The sole remaining YF12 is at Wright-Patterson. https://www.google.com/maps/search/spy+plane+park+palmdale+ca/@34.6030021,-118.08684,177m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en
BTW: The B2 was built in the Ford Pico Rivera, CA assembly plant. Northrop bought the place from Ford and built all the parts there then trucked the pieces to Palmdale for assembly. Today it's a shopping center.

Billet will never have the pound per pound strength of a forging. When you forge something you force the grain structure into alignment. When you cut something out of a block you end up cutting through the grain structure and building in weak points. Casting a part will help the grain structure align but still isn't as strong/dense as a forged part.

[shelbydoug]

When someone tells me the chassis is aluminum on a Cobra, I'm not thinking of suspension components like a-arms, forged or not. I'm thinking that the main tubes are aluminum.

Forged aluminum a-arms are nothing new. They've been around since the '60s.

I'd suspect that Kirkham sourced them from something like Porsche or Corvette and just built chassis uprights to accept them.

289 Cobras with their 3" mild steel tube frames were often tweaked or twisted by the torque of the engine. 4" tubes were ordered for the 427 coil spring chassis.

What alloy of aluminum would be needed to replace the steel tube frames?

Considering the Hall Pantera billet a-arms being heavier then the original steel, I can't help but extrapolate that to a Cobra chassis and if that is the case would wonder why anyone would bother?

[S7MS427]

Nobody knows if the J Car broke up before or during the crash - only that the epoxy connections failed.

Agreed.

The A 12 was the prototype of the design and had an aluminum skin. The extreme heat that the friction of the air caused ruined the temper in the aluminum skin. They went to a titanium skin because it would take the heat. All the parts for those planes were tracked at each step by Lockheed. One of the forgings was cracking. They found the ones that cracked had been machined during the summer and traced it to the fact that Burbank water had more chlorine in it during the summer. They started using distilled water for their cutting tool coolant. There is an A12 and SR71 at Blackbird Park in Palmdale CA. The sole remaining YF12 is at Wright-Patterson.

Actually, the A-12 was a single seat fully operational CIA spy plane, 13 were built.  It eventually evolved into the SR-71.  I believe that two A-12s were modified as two seat M-21 motherships for the D-21 spy drone.  They lost one testing the drone when it hit one of the vertical fins of the mothership during launch (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMyC2urCl_4).  The backseater died when he landed in the water after ejecting and opened his helmet face plate and his suit filled with water.  D-21 drones are on display at both Pima Air & Space (Tucson) and Museum of Flight (Seattle).  One additional item was that the major supplier of titanium was the Soviet Union.  The CIA set up several dummy companies in order to obtain sufficient quantities for the program.  Ironic isn't it that the Russians supplied the main material needed to spy on them...

Billet will never have the pound per pound strength of a forging. When you forge something you force the grain structure into alignment. When you cut something out of a block you end up cutting through the grain structure and building in weak points. Casting a part will help the grain structure align but still isn't as strong/dense as a forged part.

Yup, that's the secret, aligned gain structure.  Everybody is rowing in the same direction.

[Bill]

When someone tells me the chassis is aluminum on a Cobra, I'm not thinking of suspension components like a-arms, forged or not. I'm thinking that the main tubes are aluminum.

Forged aluminum a-arms are nothing new. They've been around since the '60s.

I'd suspect that Kirkham sourced them from something like Porsche or Corvette and just built chassis uprights to accept them.

289 Cobras with their 3" mild steel tube frames were often tweaked or twisted by the torque of the engine. 4" tubes were ordered for the 427 coil spring chassis.

What alloy of aluminum would be needed to replace the steel tube frames?

Considering the Hall Pantera billet a-arms being heavier then the original steel, I can't help but extrapolate that to a Cobra chassis and if that is the case would wonder why anyone would bother?

A Larry Ellison (CEO of Oracle)  commissioned the "billet cobra build"

[shelbydoug]

I'd love to know the weight of that chassis. That's billet aluminum alright.

[98SVT - was 06GT]

One of the Drones is also at Blackbird Park in Palmdale https://www.google.com/maps/@34.6029467,-118.0854763,3a,42.6y,267.86h,83.87t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1skPXL4B_qd7aSIfqUjg_eLw!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?hl=en

All the answers to the billet Cobra Chassis are here - it's well worth the read: http://www.kirkhammotorsports.com/book_aoe/

[Bob Gaines]

One of the Drones is also at Blackbird Park in Palmdale https://www.google.com/maps/@34.6029467,-118.0854763,3a,42.6y,267.86h,83.87t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1skPXL4B_qd7aSIfqUjg_eLw!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?hl=en

All the answers to the billet Cobra Chassis are here - it's well worth the read: http://www.kirkhammotorsports.com/book_aoe/

You weren't kidding.Who would have thought.