1993 Mustang Cobra

Owner: Ben Obrien

Ben bought this '93 Cobra to use as a driver. It was a car with over 100,000 miles on it and had been slightly abused by the previous owner. The previous owner drag raced it so the original T5 transmission had been blown up and replaced with a Tremec 3550. We welded up the torque boxes as they had started to crack from the abuse. At that time we also installed a set of Global West subframe connectors with seat supports, Global West caster/camber plates, a Ford Racing Strut tower brace and new Koni Yellow shocks and struts. The previous owner had also cut the original coil springs making the car way too low so we installed a set of Ford Racing "B" springs.

When Ben bought this Cobra we added a few upgrades: Koni Yellow shocks/struts, Global West caster camber plates, FRPP strut tower brace and FRPP "B" springs. Ben used this as a daily driver for a while. Unfortunately the engine developed a bad noise so he stopped driving it and brought it to us.

We knew the engine was done as the noise was indicative of catastrophic failure. All started by a valve spring failure the valve dropped and destroyed the factory piston....this is what we found when we removed the cylinder head.

This is what we found in the oil pan!

Here the block is broken....officially now scrap iron. 2 of the rods were destroyed, 1 head damaged, camshaft and crankshaft destroyed.

Here are the parts that originally caused the mess.

We completely gutted the car and mounted it to one of our rotisseries and Soda blasted the bottom of the car and engine compartment.

With the bottom of the car blasted we can proceed with some structural upgrades.

We added our own jacking rail and bracing to the original Global West subframe connectors.

With both sides finished we can move on to the next step.

This was a New Old Stock SAAC MkII roll bar that we picked up at a swap meet years ago...we welded nuts into the body to make this a removable bar should the need arise.

Next we welded in nuts and mocked up an '03 Cobra IRS rear suspension. This will be removed again so that we can refinish the underside of the car.