Newbie from Ely Area
Posted: Mon Nov 06, 2006 1:08 pm
Picked up my Cobra on Saturday after a horrendous wait of two months. Bought from Pistonheads classifieds & the sale could not have gone better - apart from the long wait which was mainly down to me scraping the cash together! 
It's an AC Cobra replica - a Pilgrim Sumo with a Rover V8, Holley carbs & 15" Halibrand wheels. Tremendous noise! Cleared a space in the garage to house its beautiful curves & my cat has already taken up residence in the passenger seat..hmm.
Well, the best thing about it is definitely the noise & shape but there is a lot of work that needs doing to improve upon it & make it an even better machine.
The list of things to change is getting longer by the day....
Drove it back from Essex on Saturday along the M25 & M11 at a safe 65mph - what an absolute joy! Thumbs-up from bikers, widened my already enormous grin! Not much fun going past lorries though! Boyfriend (Scott) was frozen through on the 90 minute journey, think we will invest in thermals & hats pretty sharpish.
Found myself sneaking down in the night to check it was still in the garage! Oh wow, it's so gorgeous.
On Sunday we found an industrial estate in Huntingdon and I got a little bit better used to the car as it's my first RWD car - although my b/f did have a VX220 Turbo which I drove regularly (and nearly wrote off in March 06). The car is incredibly light and tail-happy & is quite a challenging drive in this weather - although roads round here haven't been too bad. Handling-wise it's pretty much spot-on, it just needs a bit more power to really push it round the corners at speed (but I'm working up to that).
The V8 engine (Rover) & two stainless steel sidepipes are incredibly noisy. There's lots of "tidying" up that needs doing with the engine & interior - the engine runs like a dog, think it might be running v rich - when you put your foot on the accelerator it coughs then goes. Not really a major problem as I'm going the fuel injection route but it would be nice to sort it in the meantime (it's got a Holley 4 barrel carb) and the oil temp seems a little high when on the motorway. I don't think it has ever been properly set up, geo'ed or rolling roaded as it tramlines all over the place & keeping to a "safe" 60-70mph on the M25 & M11 was quite fun.
I have noticed that the engine temperature seems to be all over the place. if you are cruising on the motorway, it will run at about 100-110C as soon as the revs go above 4000, ie when your up and down the gears on the A roads, the temperature goes back down to about 80. I'm assuming its not the electrics playing up, and the guage is near enough correct, my first thoughts are that the water pump is not spinning fast enough or is knackered? Need to investigate it.
Also its using a rather large amount of fuel,
It's an AC Cobra replica - a Pilgrim Sumo with a Rover V8, Holley carbs & 15" Halibrand wheels. Tremendous noise! Cleared a space in the garage to house its beautiful curves & my cat has already taken up residence in the passenger seat..hmm.
Well, the best thing about it is definitely the noise & shape but there is a lot of work that needs doing to improve upon it & make it an even better machine.
The list of things to change is getting longer by the day....
Drove it back from Essex on Saturday along the M25 & M11 at a safe 65mph - what an absolute joy! Thumbs-up from bikers, widened my already enormous grin! Not much fun going past lorries though! Boyfriend (Scott) was frozen through on the 90 minute journey, think we will invest in thermals & hats pretty sharpish.
Found myself sneaking down in the night to check it was still in the garage! Oh wow, it's so gorgeous.
On Sunday we found an industrial estate in Huntingdon and I got a little bit better used to the car as it's my first RWD car - although my b/f did have a VX220 Turbo which I drove regularly (and nearly wrote off in March 06). The car is incredibly light and tail-happy & is quite a challenging drive in this weather - although roads round here haven't been too bad. Handling-wise it's pretty much spot-on, it just needs a bit more power to really push it round the corners at speed (but I'm working up to that).
The V8 engine (Rover) & two stainless steel sidepipes are incredibly noisy. There's lots of "tidying" up that needs doing with the engine & interior - the engine runs like a dog, think it might be running v rich - when you put your foot on the accelerator it coughs then goes. Not really a major problem as I'm going the fuel injection route but it would be nice to sort it in the meantime (it's got a Holley 4 barrel carb) and the oil temp seems a little high when on the motorway. I don't think it has ever been properly set up, geo'ed or rolling roaded as it tramlines all over the place & keeping to a "safe" 60-70mph on the M25 & M11 was quite fun.
I have noticed that the engine temperature seems to be all over the place. if you are cruising on the motorway, it will run at about 100-110C as soon as the revs go above 4000, ie when your up and down the gears on the A roads, the temperature goes back down to about 80. I'm assuming its not the electrics playing up, and the guage is near enough correct, my first thoughts are that the water pump is not spinning fast enough or is knackered? Need to investigate it.
Also its using a rather large amount of fuel,
I've only been in one a few years back, an old chevy engined Dax and that was a monster too.
.