Projects DRAG SNAKE "Vintage Terror!"

The Gold Leaf jumped out at me as well. Only thing I wonder about is having "Powered by Holman Moody" twice, but just my opinion. What about the C in Cobra being slightly larger and dropped down with the "Powered by Holman Moody" under Cobra?

I believe this is my first comment on your build, but I've been following it and like what you've done and are doing. I had the chance to pick up a 289 Cobra for 5 or 6 thousand dollars in the early 70s but that was more than I could come up with. At the same time I worked on an AC Bristol with a 289 for a young rich kid. I put a Torker 289 intake on it and got to take it for a short test drive, hit second gear and went sideways. The kid ended up wrecking it.

 

I also vote for either bronze or gold leaf.

 

X2 on the gold leaf.
It compliments most all blues IMO.

 

Can you do it in that reflective gold like the Hurst/Olds had ? I always thought that stuff was cool, also that stuff on 78 or 79 ford trucks and Broncos, has a rich color to it until the light hits it, then BAM !

 

I prefer the blue or the purple , but those maybe considered to modern to some, Gold leaf is the best traditional look. I am still waiting to see PAINT!! lol Love this build . Larry

 

I’ve gotta ask, why the switch from the Ford expansion tank to the Corvette? Also how is your Corvette tank plumbed? The big hose is attached to a heater hose fitting on the water pump? An “in” or an “out”? The smaller one to the overflow on the radiator? Didn’t Corvettes have a dedicated fitting in the radiator for the small hose? I ask ‘cause I’m putting one on my V8 Morris Minor.
You’ve got to be getting excited to drive that thing, looks great, sounds great. Love the early body style.


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I could be wrong here, but in the few times the names Holman and Moody were on the same line on the side of the car, wasn't there an ampersand (&) between them?




P.S. Go for silver leaf.

 

Agree, that would look good too!

 

I could be wrong too, but isnt it weird having a Shelby powered by HM? I mean, wern't they competitors?

 

Of course we had an original style tank. It was something ordered very early in the process. As we got further into the build and I became more educated on Cobra history I discovered it was a 427 tank.

While small block units looked just like them they were plumbed differently, turned sideways and mounted on the driver's side of the engine compartment. AND that was only on the street going cars. The competition small blokck units had the Vette style.

So when we had issues trying to run the stock 427 tank backwards I decided to just do the simple and semi correct thing and go this new direction.

The large hose out of bottom goes to water pump. The smaller hose on top goes to the top right corner of radiator and the overflow line to overflow tank.

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At Sebring in 1963 the war got a little hotter with six Ford-powered Cobras on the grid with four from Shelby’s stables and one from Ford’s performance specialist, Holman Moody.



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i saw the early car too once i looked - didnt seem to last long or have the "later" lettering like the stock or drag cars

 

I like gold leaf but in normal flat style or like @swade41 suggested reflective gold.

 

Enjoyed your posts so far.
I’ve done many period correct restorations of racing cars as well as boats and it appears you’re trying hard to get close which is not always easy, as you are finding out!

A very good friend of mine is a man named Ted Sutton. If you don’t know who he is, he was hired by Shelby to put the first big block in a Cobra(little know fact, they first sent him a Ford Cammer to put in and after measuring things up he told them it would take moving too many parts around and didn’t make sense, so three days later a 427 side Oiler showed up from H/M).
He also was the first to ever drive a 427 cobra...great story that goes along with that.
Anyway...pictured, I believe, is the first Dragon Snake. It was built at the shop in Venice. Ted wanted to race him in his Willys. They did it at Pomona.
Since you are debating what you want to do for a logo, thought these might be some unseen pics for your files(I uploaded them from his personal pictures on his computer).
Good luck on the rest of your build!

 

This one is my favorite, but the white trap line next to the yellow makes "Drag Snake" more difficult to read. What would it look like to switch the black and white trap line colors?

 

Thanks for the photos. I have sort of become a Dragonsnake photo collector!
Lots of great Shelby stories out there...thanks for sharing. The car in your photos is the second factory car. You can tell because of the gills, wheels and rear quarter graphics.

The first big block experiment is one of my favorite stories. Before they made any suspension or chassis adjustments they stuffed a 390 FE in one. Miles made one lap with it. He whipped back in the pits, called it an absolute pig and refused to drive it! Lol

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Jackson did you see that photo of the Willys and Cobra. It won't be long now till we can sort of reinact something like that...

Of course we will have to take the photo at the start line so we can get both cars in the same frame...if you get what I am saying! LMAO!

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Yeah Randall we need to get a photog at the finish line when I outrun you once again lmao you know like I did with the Austin lol oh by the way it has a new motor and you should be afraid it’s vicious trust me I need to put a roll bar in it now to keep in compliance with the rules it’s fast


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Thanks for the info Randall. I looked back through the thread but didn’t catch post about the tank change. Looking forward to that 1st Drive video! Btw, any problem getting it registered where you live?


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It is actually a fairly recent post, on my computer just a couple pages back when we were introducing the transverse spring. I should have spent some more time there as while I suppose it seems to be a pretty straight forward install I was completely clueless. I started by trying to find a vintage photo of a competition Cobra's engine compartment. While I found quite a lot of them, none were really any assistance as far as plumbing. So since they were on nearly every corvette ever made (certainly before the advent of plastic engine compartments anyway) I starting searching there as well. And as is par for the course there were all kinds of questions here as all the lines were simply tee'd into heater hoses.

So I had a couple killer car builder buds over one Saturday afternoon. I said to them how do you suppose I should plumb this stupid thing into the cooling system. The first looked the whole thing over and said he had no idea. I said what do you mean you have no idea, you are the best car builder I know. He said wait a minute I thought we were here for steak? I said no you are here to install this stupid ass tank and if successful, you get steak. LMAO.

The second said I know what to do. He said first you run a hose from the radiator cap over flow down to some kind of over flow bottle. Then simply try and figure out how to get fluid in and out of the tank via the other two lines! Thanks. Long story short they were very little help but the steak was pretty good.

It was obvious the large hose out of the bottom went straight to one of the water pump inlets. Since I am not using the bypass line from the thermostat area, I had two to choose from. The problem I had was how to get the fluid into it and actually make the tank work as a functional part of the cooling system. After literally tearing up the internet, I finally found a small article on the yellow bullet forum that mentioned drilling and welding an alumium bung in the top right corner of the radiator to use as an inlet for an old school expansion tank. I was certainly not excited about cutting into my SECOND brand new radiator but as fate would have it, when I went out to the shop to have a look, there was already a bung there with a plug in it from the manufacturer. Good enough for me.

At this point, I have no idea if it is correct nor if it will work correctly etc. But that is how I have it plumbed up!

 

Not a lot to report from the weekend. Saturday Dad and I hit a late breakfast and then a 10:30 a.m. showing of Ford vs. Ferrari. By the time that crazy thing was over it was after 1 p.m. and by the time we snagged lunch and got home we had very nearly blown a day.

It was worth it though...good movie. Hollywood took some creative license here and there but not bad. At least there was no Flux Capasitor involved or anything like that! Lol!

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Spoiler alert, Ford Wins! LMAO!

 

I agree it was a good movie, definitely not a history lesson

 

If you want the history lesson watch The 24hr war it’s on Netflix now it’s the documentary about this and there are cobras involved but no dragonsnakes and for the record Randall it took Ford a couple tries to win just like you will when we line em up lmao


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Haven’t seen the movie yet but I’ve heard more good stuff than bad.
I researched and found that the large tank hose goes to an intake side heater hose fitting on the water pump and as you said, the smaller one goes to a fitting in the top of the radiator (that mine doesn’t have). That’s from a Corvette site.
I like the way yours worked into the engine compartment, I hope I can fit mine as well.


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There are a ton of small things getting wrapped up this weekend (no pun intended). The rest of the exhaust needed to be finished with the Titanium wrap.


I really love this stuff but it is kind of a pain to install. But it is done and back on the car.




With pipes back in place and the evac system check valves intalled I decided to go ahead and run the tubing from the valve cover breathers. I played with tubing route for a while. I absolutely hated what would be considered the standard position of running them aft towards the rear and then down. They covered the Holman Moody valve cover text and generally looked bulky and out of place.


After a bit I decided this was the best look that could be achieved with them. So we ran the tubing forward and then down to the exhaust.

 

Couldn't you just swap then side to side so the breathers are in the back?

 

Another issue that has been really burning holes in my backside is redesigning the engine compartment sheeting after installing the transverse spring. Of course I am talking about the areas just aft of the radiator on either side. Originally they were one solid sheet (and a fairly big pain in the first place) but with the spring now running through them, one full sheet is impossible.

With the spring in place and because of limited space, the only way to close that area would be with three pieces. Meaning if we needed access to the say the upper "A" arm we could simply remove one or both of the lower sections without having to remove the spring and aparatus. I spent quite a bit of time making poster board test patterns and fitting them etc. After several attempts this is what I came up with...


...And I hated it.


I simply could not stand the three pieces and the way the looked over lapped. I thought about putting a 90 degree lip on each of them and then pop rivoting the lips together. It would have been a very clean look from this side but there was so much stuff in the way on the backside that I couldn't reach them with a poprivet. So I just scrapped the idea.

Finally I decided to remove the spring and fabricate and install the lower section in one piece. Then we could reinstall the spring (which honestly only takes a couple of seconds anyway) and do the top section. However after experimenting with the first one I had an idea of how to create the lower section in one piece AND still have service room for the upper "A" arm etc.


With solid one piece lower section fitted in place, I was making the marks on it to notch it in the center where the spring aparatus fits on the top of the chassis. Instead I marked where an access hole could be drilled to the "A" arm bolts. Then I drilled both holes with 1.25" hole saw. I put it back in place and it fit with perfect access for socket.


I did the same on the other side but instead of making a notch for the aparatus, I simply marked, cut and did a 90 degree break in the notch area. Although this thing looks very clean, I will still probably drop a thin rubber flap over it.


We went ahead and popped the spring back in place. And we are now ready to fabricate the top piece.


We went ahead and plumbed the expansion tank to make sure we had no other issues before moving forward. AND HOW ABOUT THOSE HOSE CLAMPS BONES?


I think I pretty much have it down to a science now. I really like the look, AND they are completely reusable. I simple put them on with out the heat shrink and marked both the access and the bit of strap that had not made it to the screw. Then I pull them off, cut off what I do not need and install the shrink solid from the screw section to the first mark. Then just roll the screw section out of sight as you tighten them an poof...a very clean looking clamp!

 

Yes, excellent thought. AND you certainly could flip them and it would work perfectly (Dad even made the same suggestion - even after he spent half the day last Saturday trying intall the stupid covers....LONG STORY)!

I have seen them installed on the rear ends of the valve covers but I had an old race car builder advise me a long time ago not put them there. He said all engines naturally tip a bit towards the rear. That is to make sure all the oil from the top sides gets back to the pan as effeciently as possible. Since the rear of the valve covers is where all or most the topside oil (on most applications) is headed it is best to install the vaccume system as far forward and away from that area as possible. He claimed the system will work the best there since it will pick up less oil vapor and even oil itself etc. It made since to me and so I have always done it that way.

Besides on this beast, we have enough going on aft the engine, most of which we can not discuss here on the HAMB...LMAO! Thanks for the thought though!

 

Hose clamps look great, I might steal that stolen idea.