Sabre #???

Well, guys and gals, Ron Earp informed me last night that, at long last, my car has some paint on it! Yeah!! After only six months the guys at the Hot Rod shop finally have put some of the Ford Bright Island Blue on it. If some of you haven't gotten around to getting the paint job set up, GET READY FOR A SHOCK. With the increases in the prices of oil and metals and the continued tightening of the EPA screws, automotive paint prices have gone through the roof. I chose a Ford color thinking that it should be relatively inexpensive: NOT!! The gallon was $638.00 at what I assume to be jobber price.

Anyway, I consider anything with paint on it as a major break through. My wife hates the painters because in the meantime I have assembled all of the parts for the stage II motor (AFR 165s;lowered and ported GT40 intake; 24# MAF and injectors and FRPP X303 cam) and everything except the short block for the stage III motor. I have about 4 quotes right now for the short block and am waiting on two more from local performance machinists before I actually purchase it. I already have the intake, heads, valve covers, distributor, 36# injectors and MAF, computer, TwEECer RT, FJO wide band O2 controller, Accusump, timing cover, valve covers, transaxle and the flywheel has been ordered from Kennedy.

Lynn

Hey Lynn,

What's the difference between Stage II & Stage III, and what happened to good old Stage I.

Regards, Buzz

Buzz,

Stage I is the motor in it now which is a bone stock Falcon 5.0L (with the intake turned round the right way The only mods are a bigger Pro-M MAF and larger BBK throttle body and, of course, the "Bundle of Snakes" headers. I bought the complete motor from Ford (and I mean complete, including: spark plugs, oil filter, engine harness, all sensors, water pump and flex plate. The only things it didn't have were the MAF meter and pulleys. Oh and the fuel vapor purge solenoid; although it did have the complete EGR setup and throttle body with IAC and TPS. This motor will get the AFR 165 heads, X303 cam, GT40 intake and 24# injectors and MAF. I will put the TwEECer RT on the computer and I'll use the wide band O2 sensor kit to tune with. These parts will make it the stage II motor.

Stage III will be a Dart block with 4 bolt mains and 4.125" cylinder bores. I am putting a 3.25" stroke crankshaft in it which will give me 347ci. A solid roller cam will be used (exact grind not specified yet) and Jesel shaft mount roller rockers. The heads will be AFR 205s. The intake is a Jack Roush 3pc (there are pics of this somewhere on the forum.) I will be having another set of headers made with 1 3/4" tubes rather than the 1 5/8" that are on it now. (John Hester of GT Supercars is going to make these for me.) The rotating assembly will be internally balanced rather than using the 50oz imbalance of the stock motor, which required that I get a neutrally balanced flywheel from Kennedy to match the adaptor kit. I will also be swapping in a G50/50 transaxle in place of the G50 that is in the car now. The whole idea is to build a motor that I will turn high RPM; I will set the redline somewhere between 7250 and 7500 RPM. (Around 7000 RPM with the G50/50 should yield 200mph once I make some aerodynamic changes that will allow the car to be held in a straight line and keep the greasy side down


Regards,
Lynn

Lynn,

Congratulations.

It is great to see one of these cars finished. I take my hat off to you like I do to the earlier KVA builders. They have done it with Little Or No help from the manufacturer. I had the club in England to help me , so Very WELL DONE mate.

When is she due for her maiden flight.!!!!

Best wishes,

Robert

Lynn,

My engine builder was surprised at the 1 and 5/8 inch exhaust for a 351 block. Considering the $2,500 or so that he thought would be a minimum cost for someone to make a 1 and 3/4 or 1 and 7/8 set, he felt additional power could be made elseware for less than that amount.

Questions: Are you getting a "proper" set for the same price as the 1 and 5/8 set? Are sets going to be available at a set price for the 351 blocks. And, if it isn't that you can get the larger ones for the same price, then what were you're thoughts on additional cost for 1 and 3/4 vs other horsepower choices for the dollar.

Regards, Buzz

PS: Do you think there is any hidden meaning in Robert's questioning about your "maiden flight" right after you're talking about 200mph.

Buzz,

Well it isn't a 351 block. It is a 8.2" deck 302 block (as stock), but with 4.125" siamese cylinders (4.185" is the max you can take these without doing an ultrasound check for minimum cylinder wall thickness.) And it has 4 bolt main supports on ALL the main bearings. The oiling system is also set up better than the Ford blocks so that it has true bottom end priority oiling. This oiling system also lends itself quite happily to a top-o'the-line dry sump system, which I don't plan to employ at this time. My engine consultant, who is an automotive engineering graduate student who's main area of study is engine air flows, spec'ed the tube sizes on the headers. And, in the one way I agree with the ultra-originalists on the other side of the pond, I wouldn't put anything other than "Bundle of Snakes" headers on the GT40. Even if they don't add a lot in power, they just look tooooo cool

As to Robert's "mainden flight" remark: the true maiden flight, for which there is no set date yet, will be done with the stage I motor. So, I doubt there is any chance of becoming airborne with ~250 HP. Once I get the chassis sorted, which will take a little while, I will put in the stage II parts and maybe make some of the aerodynamic changes. I also plan on doing some track days and hope to do some high performance driving lessons. At this point, hopefully, I'll be ready for the stage III motor. With the good Lord watching over me, maybe there will be no unintended "flights of fancy."

Regards,
Lynn

I took some photos with my little digital yesterday to show the color of the car. The problem is that with the pearlescents and metallics in the paint, like many of the modern paints, the color you see depends on the point of view to a great extent. The following series of photos, while not of the best quality, will illustrate this (hopefully

P2

P3

P4

Lastly, here is a shot of the rear clip out of the sun. I hope these pics have helped to give a felling for the color of the car. I'll post a few better quality shots when they get developed.

Looks good Lynn, I am partial to darker blues like yours. What color is that , couldnt find it near your pics . Dan

Very nice! I bet you're happy to have the painting finally behind you!

Lynn,
That really looks good! Does it really change that much from Inside to outside lighting?

Hersh /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Hersh, it really does change that much. I left out some of the in between photos, as I walked from one side of the nostrils to the other, for brevity. But in addition to the changing area of the sky reflected, the angle of the sun also makes quite a bit of difference and this can really be seen with all of the pics from the walk around. The body guys said that this is because there is a lot of pearlesence and very fine metal flake in the paint. Within a ~20° viewing angle around a reflection of the sun, the paint looks about 6" deep as well. The camera is a cheap digital that my youngest son bought me for Christmas and that may be having an effect. This is probably the cause of some of the radical difference between the outside and inside shots, but there still is quite a bit of difference.

What is really crazy is that this is a Ford color. The 2004 model year paint catalog had this <font color="blue">Bright Island Blue</font> listed as a Z3 (Focus?) color only. I think it may be found on other cars in the 2005 model year paint catalog. I picked a Ford color thinking it would be cheaper, boy did I get a shock! The painters were even flabergasted at the price. This is not that blue to plumb purple change paint that Ford has put on a lot of Mustangs though. I forget the name of it, but IMHO the purple part looks butt ugly. It is not Bright Atlantic Blue either; this had been my original choice until I saw the new Island Blue. The Atlantic Blue is seen on a large % of the Ranger pickups. Because of this and the fact that it is just too light (again in my opinion), I switched and am very happy that I did.

Regards and thanks for the kind words all,
Lynn

Lynn,

Very nice!
The color looks oddly familiar(almost identical!)? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif
My paint makes the exact same change, when
brought out into the light. (Porsche Cobalt Blue Met)
It's great to see that you are getting close!
Keep at it!

Bill

Bill - that's why I have a pic of your car as my computer's wall paper ;-) Lynn

Lynn,
Can we get a pic of the under side and the front underside of the nostril panel. I am altering my nostrils to go down to the base of the fans in order to cut down on the airpressure build up under the panel. Do your nostrils meet or come together at the top of the panel? I think they have to in order to cut down on that pressure build up. Your pics show how different each "brand" handles the nostrils.(at least different from mine) I have the pictures of Bill Bayard's setup. Are there any others of you out there doing this with your twin nostrils??? Would love to see how you handled it.
Bill

Bill, sure; the next time I get over there, I'll take a photo of the underside. Like you, I've seen this handled a bunch of different ways. To a large extent what needs to be done, if anything, will depend on the design of the side walls in the nose. The Sabre and RF(I think) do not have side walls that go from the foot well to the radiator and up to the underside of the front clip. Without sidewalls any air not going up and out through the nostrils will spill over and out through the wheel wells. If your design basically boxes in this area with side walls and the nostrils aren't designed to take all of the air up and out, the pressure is going to build up in the nose. Bob Williams put three 3-4" diameter cut outs on each side wall on his DRB, but the nostril cover still lifted a LOT at highway speeds (for Bob that is around 95-100mph The last time I was at GT Supercars, John Hester was designing this aspect of his nose hatch. I'll see if he has any pics he can share on how he did this also.

Lynn

Well, this isn't actually for the Sabre car as it turns out. I started work on Stage IV, but have decided that it is better suited for a Jag; something like an SS-100 or newer 120. It is going to be a straight ten. Here you will see construction is under way for the bullet proof bottom end: