Flying out to DTW and RCR

Allen English · 06-01-09, 11:22 AM

My wife and I are leaving PDX in a hour and flying to Detroit to see the RCR facility and our RCR40 that Fran & Crew have been building for us. I didn't sleep too well last night as you can imagine. For those of you that don't know what prompted us to order from RCR last September was that last August we got into an accident in our Cobra replica. We enjoyed owning and driving the roadster, and we were already saving up for an RCR at that time, so we went ahead and ordered the car instead of rebuilding our Cobra.

The engine is a 302 with the Dynatek classic fuel injection, built by Keith Craft Engines to 385 HP. Backed by the ZF Transaxle purchased from RCR. I sent RCR my ISIS wiring system to be used on the build.

Thats all for now...

See you tomorrow Fran.

Peter Jankovskis · 06-01-09, 12:27 PM

Congratulations. I hope you enjoy the tour.

Chris Kouba · 06-01-09, 12:49 PM

Hey Allen,

Have a great time! We need to connect when you get back.

Chris

Allen English · 06-01-09, 06:46 PM

Peter and Cris - Thanks.

Well we just got here and I'm hungry, so we are off to find some chow.

Chris, I will let you know when our RCR arrives, I am looking forward to seeing your car as well. Have you found a place yet or is your car still in storage?

Eric Johnson · 06-01-09, 08:25 PM

Allen,

Make sure you take some pictures for us. Have fun!!

Allen English · 06-01-09, 10:01 PM

Well we just got back from Leonardo's Italian Grille in Romulus and had some great food and wine for dinner. Very muggy here today, but nice here.

Really looking forward to tomorrow.

Chris Kouba · 06-02-09, 06:11 AM

We've found a place but the car's still in storage. We close on the 16th and I CAN'T WAIT!!

The house needs a lot of updating and my dad will be in town from the east coast to pitch in for a couple weeks so it'll be a while before I get at the car in earnest. You'd be welcome anytime though, especially if you can swing a hammer!

Have a great time in Detroit. Are you picking something up??? Or maybe just checking in?

Allen English · 06-02-09, 09:20 AM

Good Morning

Chris, Its good to here that you will be able to get settled in and soon be able to tackle your RCR build again.

Quote:

Have a great time in Detroit. Are you picking something up??? Or maybe just checking in?

We have every intention to check out our build progress today and see if we can make the final payment so it can be sent out west to its new home in Oregon.

Allen English · 06-03-09, 08:57 AM

Fran - Thanks a lot for everything, Liz and I had a great time yesterday. It was nice to see all the interesting stuff that goes into the manufacturing of your cars. We took over 160 pictures yesterday and I posted a few of the ones with our car in the Garage section here. We got to see several RCR 40's in different build stages and many other projects like SLC's and a 917. We got to see our car in the build stage, the engine and trans axle were waiting for the car to get back from the painter.

Fran Hall RCR · 06-03-09, 09:51 AM

My pleasure...glad you guys enjoyed the nickel tour.

Detroit maybe in the doldrums but getting to introduce you to some of the extended RCR team was fun...and showing you some of the inside workings to the manufacturing capability of Detroit is always a pleasure for me....

Al Jones · 06-06-09, 04:39 AM

If you folks look on the gallery section of the ffcobra.com website there are some more excellent photos(taken by the Englishs' as they are in the photos) of the RCR shop;lots of shots of interesting vehicles including the electric,some 917 pics,shop tooling,what looks like the Porsche 'one-off' that Fran had mentioned and a bunch of cars in progress (some pics of which look like they might be my '40 - clips/parts in red and the chassis minus wheels). Shop looks crowded with so many cool vehicles on the floor;even bodies(of the car type) on the walls but appears to be more than just one building or room.

Allen English · 06-07-09, 01:44 PM

Yes I did post several other photo's on the FFCobra forum:
Here is the link - RCR_001_158_Large_ - FFCobra.com Photo Gallery

I posted some of the water cut machines with what looked like 4X8 sheets of aluminum that Fran was having control arms cut out of. Also I posted several of the cars in the RCR facility. The RCR building was certainly very full and it looked like he could use an even larger place, but he did have other buildings to stage more cars in as the main building cleared. A few local people in my Cascade Cobras car club are very interested in seeing my car, but they are just going to have to wait until the middle of July to see it.

Enjoy the photos.

Jennifer · 06-11-09, 03:00 AM

When you get back from the trip, please email me at
<e-mail(at)jenalabs.com> I am in the Portland area, and would enjoy meeting with you...My husband and I are going to do an RCR when the financial situation improves,...

I am likely going to be in Michigan later this summer to setup a set of custom speakers we are building for a client there, and plan on a side trip to Fran's while I am in the neighborhood. We would REALLY enjoy seeing your RCR when it arrives.

Cheers, Jennifer

Allen English · 06-12-09, 12:32 AM

Hello Jennifer, We have alot of local people that have contacted us about the RCR products and want to see this car. We will have a group showing with our local car club the Cascade Cobras "www.cascadecobras.com" We usually meet at Grand Prix Imports in Wilsonville once a month. I will bring this post back to the top with a time and date to meet which I expect will be some time in late July.

Chris Kouba · 06-15-09, 06:19 PM

Alan-

Keep me posted too.

Allen English · 06-16-09, 01:56 AM

OK Chris I well certainly keep you posted as well.

B.T.W. My car will be the same blue as I had on my Cobra seen below - What do you folks think about the 15" BRM wheels in black for my RCR40?

Also I qant to stay with the race theme like my Cobra had. I think I would like to run Firestone tires too. What do you think I should do to stay semi authentick?

Fran Hall RCR · 06-16-09, 02:04 AM

Allen,

which Firestone tyres??......I dont think there are any available in matched front and rear sizes for a GT40.

Al Jones · 06-16-09, 02:08 AM

Fran was expirementing with my GT40's color scheme with black BRM's (see attached pics). Might be a bit understated with the blue you have. Natural finish aluminum or dark centers with the outer rim section polished,as you have on your Cobra, might be nice. Actually,if you go to the RCR website ,select the section for the '40, and then go to "view photos"/gallery,the first set of pics has a forum member's car there with black BRM's (but the blue is lighter and contrasts with the black wheels better).As for the Firestones,if you're going to run a street tire,the closest match in usable sizes and similar(not exact) tread patterns, would be Firestone GT's on the front(215x60x15) with Firestone Indy GT's on the rear(295x50x15 or 275x60x15) but these are not a perfectly matched set of 4. - A.J.

Allen English · 06-16-09, 10:38 PM

Al, Thanks for the pic's. I was thinking the wheels would look good with black centers only. The all black wheel look is almost too much for me.

Quote:

Quote By: Fran
Allen,

which Firestone tyres??......I dont think there are any available in matched front and rear sizes for a GT40.

I didn't know that they didn't have a match set of Firestone tires for the front and rear. I am not familiar with what would be the best fit on the GT40 either.

This is the tire I like>

Universal Vintage Tire

Fran Hall RCR · 06-16-09, 10:43 PM

Allen,

295/50/15 for the rear and 215/60/15 are the sizes you need to find....or their equivalents...