Live from the 2014 Cobra Jet Build - Brownstown Charter Tow

[Winklovic]

Kid. Candy Store.

[Jesse Kershaw]

The wheelie bar was actually engineered by the Ford Racing development team and is built by Watson Engineering. It is NHRA Stock legal and mounts without requiring fascia modification.

We put it on initially as a means to cut down on aborted runs so we could do powertrain validation and it worked so well at making the 60' time consistent we decided to offer it as an option.

Putting 3 different drivers in the car on the same day we had 60' and ET's within a few hundredths of each other.

The wheelie bar option cost $1500 MSRP and comes as you see in the photos. We had 45 of the 50 cars take this option.

In addition to computer modelling we made in excess of 80 runs on the car with the wheelie bar and over 100 for engine validation (coincidentally at a smaller pulley and more power than we actually delivered the car at to guarantee an extremely durable engine). Although we do still recommend a tear down and inspection after 50 runs, and replacement of timing chains at that time. This is cheap insurance.

The parachute mount which is standard on the Cobra Jet also underwent rigorous testing. On track at stock weight, about 600lbs heavy, through computer simulation and finally lab testing including more than a lifetime of cycles. It is probably the most heavily engineered parachute mount ever.

I always like to say we're not building a race car, we're engineering a Cobra Jet.