Herman's Factory Five Racing 65' Roadster Build Site

NOVEMBER 2006

11/4/2006 - Oh I'm feeling old. Today is actually my birthday and if it were not for the fact my temporary operating permit had expired last month, I might of drove to another Cobar get-together for breakfast and celebrated! Instead, I'm taking stock in what turns out to be an anniversary of srots. It was one year ago from 11/2/2005, when I took delivery of F5R1004883RD from Stewart Transport. It has been an incredible 365 days of hitting the ground running! There hasn't been a month when something wasn't done. In some ways, I am experincing somewhat of a post-partum depression from "not" building. All of the childhood-like excitement has given way new excitement (and tension sometimes) just driving the beast, and to work on just a few minor things each week, as opposed to the daily and hourly toil of drilling holes and riveting in panels, routing wires, hoses, lines througout the frame. I sort of miss that now! I miss the planning of each phase and determing what I might compromise in the build (or not,) finding new things to buy after seeing some new idea on the FFCobra forum.

As most have told me, it's never really "done". Just last week Finishline started a holiday sale and I just plopped down $400 for the chrome overriders, and a number of other goodies. And coming soon, my snapless toneau and SS polished roll bars. Next year, SS side pipes (maybe even headers) to complete the exterior "bling".

11/12/2006 - This past week, I took a trip to another brake and lamp inspection station in San Jose (Cartex) and the person thta normall does the "Cobra" kits was on vacation until 11/21. But when talking to another employee, he had made reference that the part tha tusually trips up the certificate is either the 3rd brake lamp or the backup lamp(s) but wasn't quite sure which.

Since then, I made the decision to add at least 2 more backup lamps on either side of the rear. Based on the Greenslip B&L station, I only needed the lamps plus resolving the high-beam issues. All of these have now been implemented so I'm planning on going back to Greenslip to get the lamp certificate. I'm hoping they don't bring up anything about the 3rd brake lamp. Here's a picture (blurry) of the auxiliary backup lamps:

11/14/2006 - Today is yet another, and by some standards, the last major milestone of FFR 4883. As of today, the car has been registered in the state of California, insured, and running like a champ. To be honest, there is much still to do but they are all details and I have been putting them off until this day came. The car as pictured previously, was all for registration purposes. To be legal. Over the course of next year, the following items will slowly but surely make their way onto the car - they include: front and rear overriders, front rubber grommets for the tubes the overriders attach through, the nose aluminum, a permenant wiring system for the license plate illumination (jamb tac), SS roll bars, door weather stripping on both sides, plugging up all the recesses near the firewall, and much further in the futrue, new side pipes, possibly new headers. But today, I guess you could say I graduated! Here are some of the graduation pictures I'm planning on using, enjoy and pat yourselves on the back because everybody on FFCobra.com has had a hand in this build one way or another, whether it were with words, email, Private Message, or actually showing up at my door!

11/18/2006 - Carburator tuning. It is as much a science as it is an art. I will be the first to admit it's a black art in my mind. I know enough to screw it up and possibly get it back to it's out of the box settings but the subtleties of tuning a carb to the point where your engine is running at it's most efficient from idle to wide open throttle (WOT) is something best understood by people that do it for a living since before CAFE, CARB and unfortunately, global warming. In today's automotive world, I have to believe there's a dwindling supply of people that really know how to listen to and properly diagnose a motor and pin point a problem right away. But I do believe I found someone that truely understands what is probably a lost art.

Today, I had a full day tuning session with, in retrospect, one of the best carburator tuners in the SF Bay Area. Henry Olsen has been around cars nearly his entire life. He has chatted with the biggest names in the industry: Roush, Holley, Barry Grant, and Edelbrock just to name a few. His complete understanding on how an engine behaves to minute and subtle changes in tuning parameters.

But before I met Henry, a little background on how I decided to come see Henry. A gentleman by the name of Randy Rosenberg has been corresponding with me via both forum messages, and personal meeting at a local gathering joint in Dublin, CA (Athens Burgers). We talked at some length about registering my car, and in the course of the conversation, I hit upon the B.A.R. testing in which a Smog Referee will test my Cobra based on SPCN rules which allow me to specify smog testing based on the car's body style it most closely resembles. In this case, a 1965 Shelby Cobra. The carburator I had selected is an out of the box Holly Street Avenger 670CFM w/vac. secondaries and electric choke, not knowing fully what I was actually getting. Randy suggested I get it tuned as I was complaining of what I presumed to be an overly rich mixture. Off throttle, the motor stumbles a bit and then seems to work fine. But the car runs a little rougher than I "think" it should. He recommended Henry Olsen / John Bishop in Burlingame, CA. I set an appointment for today and had him review my engine specifcations online in advance. His first response was that my Holly 670 isn't a "true" 670CFM carburator, but a carburator that is "capable" of possibly this flow requirement. In his words, the venturi sizes are identical to their 600CFM carburators. I was taken aback to this. How can Holly claim a higher flow number than what the venturi's are actually capable of or why don't they simply tell us the truth!? Regardless, we talked a bit more before today and he indicated he can see if they have something more inline with my engines requirement and my general needs/use for the car.

So today was the big day; I drove over to Burlingame with my best friend Chris and arrived just before 10:00AM. Already present was a 69' Corvette Stingray with a 427 bored 0.020 over. Next to it a 60's Pontiac Ventura that has been spruced up for the Hot Rod circuit with an estimated 600lbs. of audio equipment throughout the rear trunk. It's unknown what size engine but appears to be a big block so perhaps a 400? Then threre's my FFR. The Vette' owner, Jason, was already being worked on when I arrived but soon moved out and was guided into the shop.

Both John and Henry appear to have worked out a system and tackled all 3 cars in a rotating fashion. The first phase of all 3 cars visits appears to be gauging what/how the car's behaving. In my case, getting an initial read on the A/F and other parameters that can give Henry a good idea what our starting points are. After going over everyone's options and really, giving us a great education on how and why the carbs we have may be either tweaked or possibly replaced. In my case, the recommendation came down to putting in a BG Might Demon. The feeling here is my component composition up to the intake, is one that seems to want a bit more flow than the 670 Street Avenger. Again, citing the fact it's really more a 600CFM, the BG Mighty Demon of choice is a 650 which Henry flat out indicates, is actually smaller than what it's really capable of; sort of a reverse of how Holly advertises. In truth, his impressions is the carb is more towards a 700CFM carburator. And his explanation about vacuume secondaries convinced me that having a double pumper is quite beneficial and just seemed logical given my setup.

Henry then takes off with 3 distributors and arrives back about 2 hours later with some carbs and recurved distributors and a bunch of carb and distributor tuning parts in the back of his truck, as well as a set of small sized drill bits. Just as in the morning, they rotate from one car to the other. As it turns out, since the Mighty Demon is spaced different for the fuel inlets, I needed to purchae a new fuel inlet setup but everything went in just fine. He then proceeds to set timing and here is where we wasted probably a good hour. I never did tell Henry where my timing pointer was and he had presumed something he saw, was the poninter. To shorten up the story a bit, since he used the wrong reference point, he was a bit confused as to if I had set TDC correctly or not. I tried to impress upon him, it was my 2nd motor and did everything by the book; cam installed straight up, degreed, double checked the timing chain/gears (dot's pointing at each other) but just as a precaution, they checked anyway and eventually discovered where the real pointer was! Once that was figured out, everything fell into place. I now have timing set at an initial of 18 deg. with a total of 36 deg. after the recurve of my mechanical advance MSD. From the time the engine fired up with the Mighty Demon, the tone of the engine had completely changed at idle. From off idle, the engine would rev more smoothly with only a small hint of hesitation but now response appeared to be seamless since vacume secondaries are no longer a factor. When I told him of the small bit of off throttle hesitation, Henry removes both squirters and drills them out very slightly ( I believe it was about .020"). Another test drive and the stumble is now completely gone. I also noted the black carbon spark plugs have given way to a nice tan/ash colored tip.

What I did enjoy is the fact I no longer require a choke and all of the additional kickdown linkages you would normally see on my Street Avenger are now gone, leaving a much cleaner looking caburator. Also, without the choke assembly, a nice open area to the venturi's are now exposed. It just looks gorgeous when the air cleaner is removed. The contours into the venturi's seem natrual compared to Holly's design. Another nice feature that you can clearly see on the first photo is the site-window. Much larger and clearer and replaceable. In fact, the Street Avengers literally fell off when we removed the carb. It doesn't appear to be replaceable or if it is, it's not as easy.

Now none of this comes cheap. I won't go into cost here but I will say that for all the work done from 10AM-3PM, the cost in my opinion was well worth it. Cold starting is somewhat more difficult but once it get's going and the car warms up for about 2 - 3 minutes, the Demon takes a set and remains good.

A couple of final notes. First, the fumes are no longer as bad. With a complete burn, I'm not as naseous as before. Second, Henry did point out one advantage of my carb mounted in reverse - the primary bowl sits ahead of the power jet. The advantage here is during acceleartion, the fuel will push towards the acceleartor valve so literally no chance of getting an air pocket.

My next stop will be a Dyno Tune. Not sure when since we're now in the middle of the rainy season but I won't be in much of a hurry. I'm just enjoying the car now! Still ton's to do.