I was running late to my friend Kelly's house last night, so I was doing a tad over the speed limit, around 65 mph. I seem to be hitting every stop light on this road. I hit another light and look in my rear view, I see the cobra healight/fog lamps. I'm thinking, this could be fun. I take off a little quicker than normal from the light to see if he's interested in playing. The road is wide open. 3 lanes both directions, straight for miles. Beautiful.

The silver cobra pulls up next to me and the guy looks familiar. He says "Hey! You raced my WR-X a few weeks ago." That's where I know him from! I previously posted the story a month or so ago. We start yelling back and forth at the next stop light, I ask him what year the car was. 2003 he says, and I ask what's done to it. He's got full exhaust, headers, x-pipe, and flowmasters. K&N, and the 3.10" pulley, and the diablosport chip. Should be a good run. Light turns green, we go at normal speeds, Finally he asks "Wanna run for the hell of it?" I smile and downshift without saying a word. He gives a thumbs up. At first he just guns it and goes with no countdown.

This thing is quick, I nailed in in 2nd gear at about 45-50mph, and slowly start reeling him in. He shuts down around 70mph. He's grinning like he just whooped me. I tell him let's try again, I wasn't ready. He says okay, and downshifts. I tell him go on 3rd honk, and he nods, and rolls his windows up. We're cruising around 30mph now, and I honk, he blips the throttle, honk again, look at my tach, 3rd honk GO! Tires spin like crazy, cobra takes off like a bat out of hell. I nail 2nd gear, feather the clutch, and start reeling him in again. Powershift 3rd, lay a nice patch of rubber, and we're dead even. Powershift 4th, Jump out a 1/2 car or so, and sloooooooooowly start creeping away. By the top of 4th I was about 1 1/2 cars ahead. We give the thumbs up to each other, he says "That thing runs pretty good!" I say "what, you already forgot??" he laughs and we both take a different exit from the highway. Not a bad run for a clutch that's been shot for a while.

 

Fast cars ! Good Kill

 

Yeah, totally caught me off guard how quickly he leaped ahead from the punch, that's why I'm thinking he might be geared.

 

You've got a fast car.

Quick question....what's wrong with the clutch? If you're powershifting 3rd and laying "a nice patch of rubber", it sounds to me like it's working pretty good.

 

03/04's Cobras arent big on gears...He had a decent amount of mods

 

Good point.

 

I've never heard of anyone putting gears in an '03/'04 Cobra. They don't need them, thanks to lots of low end torque and better mods out there. Besides, gearing one then modding it would force a shift to 5th gear before the end of the 1/4.

 

Some do gears, but they are not near as common as other, easier bolt-ons.

All factory cars need gear - some more than others. The 03/04 Cobras certainly don't need gear anywhere near as bad as previous years, but they could still benefit from torque multiplication.

The stock 3.55s are good to 140 mph @ 6500 rpm in 4th. 3.90s would be good to 129 mph on 26" slicks or DRs. 4.10s would go to 132 mph on a 26" slick spinning the motor to 7000 rpm.

 

nice runs with the Cobra! don't forget to respect the horse/snake too. speaking of which.. why do they call it "Mustang Cobra"? it could at least be non-specific like "Camaro ZL1" or carry the same theme like "Firebird Firehawk".

 

thanks for the quote and reiterating something that everyone replying in this post already knows...Regardless of how much power the car makes gears will help, are they needed anywhere near as much as the old dohc's NO!. As far as the 03/04 Dohc's are concerned most of the geared cars are strickly track cars. The stock ratio is fine for the street.

 

Wrong. Gears will not help (in the 1/4 mile) if the car is trapping 140+ mph, because then a shift to 5th gear will be needed. Yes, and the stock ratio is fine for the street in almost any car, thanks for the heads up. Thanks for being the *** that we all know and love so much.

 

Any DOHC car that is going 140 mph in the 1/4 is not going to be redlined at 6500 rpm. It is likely that they can twist the motor to 7500 or beyond, simply because of the power needed. It is also likely that the car is not going to have 26" slicks/tires, simply because anything with that much power is a HANDFUL down track on those little tires. As such, 4.10 or more gearing becomes desireable.

You do not gear a car to go into 5th gear in the 1/4 mile.

This assumes a manual tranny, of course. Automatics are a whole different deal.

 

Why would someone even put a 3.10 pulley on??????

Seems like a waste to me. If i had a cobra I would be running the atleast a 2.7# pulley. thats just me I guess.

 

Seems that guys are running just as well with the 2.93's as with the ~2.8's (2.76-2.83). I think heat soak becomes a bit of an issue.
IMO, a 3.1 or 3.2 pulley isn't a bad compromise for somebody who drives the car quite a bit. I have a 3.0 (isn't on the car yet). I didn't want the smallest pulley possible, yet I know with a proper tune and CAI that a 3.0 will make ~425rwhp through the stock catback. That's plenty of power for my daily driver, and driven well should get me well into the 11's.
S.

 

Do they do it because of tuning, meaning they can run the stock tune and still get a little more boost? Less of a headache trying to tune it for more boost, so a "mild" pulley upgrade would work out well for people not wanting to get too heavily involved in tuning?