by "Powershiftmedia-ResidentDSMGuru" (matt-powershiftmedia)
Published 10/16/2017 at 23:26
by "Powershiftmedia-ResidentDSMGuru" (matt-powershiftmedia)
Published 10/16/2017 at 23:26
Tags: Mustang
; Drag Racing
STARS: 5
That title instantly has you thinking, what the hell is the Corn Snake?
Sit down, crack open a beer, and turn off the TV, I’m about to tell you an awesome story, and tell you about the sickest car I’ve ever had the pleasure of riding in.
Meet Jim, we’ve been friends for virtually forever. Jim is like anyone else, wife, kids, and a serious drag racing addiction. I’m going to go ahead and say he’s honestly the best drag race driver I know. He’s put a stock Evo 8 into the low 12s. I’m serious.
Ever since I’ve known him, his dream was a Terminator Cobra Mustang, you know, the one with 390 stock horsepower and a supercharger. He’s talked about it forever.
Well earlier this year, he picked up a beautiful 2004 Oxford White Cobra, and got to work making it nasty. After all, he’s had some very fast cars, and 390hp ain’t gonna keep someone like Jim happy for very long.
Not Just A Race Car
This car I’m about to tell you about is something very special, a car capable of turning single digit time slips and having enough manners to be driven daily.
By driven daily, I don’t mean driven to a show on weekends. I literally mean, he drives it to work. He’s put 25,000 miles on it already. That’s a lot of mileage to put on any daily driver, let alone this particular car I’m talking about.
So, What Makes It So Special?
How about 728 rear wheel horsepower, and 756 pound feet of torque? What if I told you that was on E85 pump fuel? Yes, it makes over double the stock horsepower, ON PUMP FUEL!
So now we know it makes a shit ton of power, but what about performance? After all, that’s what matters, right?
Spinning extremely hard, the snake managed a 10.33 at 136 miles per hour. This was spinning, and spinning very hard on radials.
How does it hold up?
Well as I’ve said, this car has been daily driven, but that’s not even the impressive thing about this car. You know how cars of this level usually break things and get rebuilt monthly? Well that’s not the case here. Jim is seriously drag racing addicted, and he’s at the track weekly with this car. Not only is he at the track, he’s laying down multiple passes.
On radials, the Cobra is very capable of pulling the front wheels, as shown above. I’m going to seriously give his car some kudos, and say it’ll definitely hit a nine second pass if he could get the traction he wants.
How Does It Behave On The Road?
Well I’ll say this, it rides surprisingly well for what it is. At high speed it’s very stable, assuming it has traction. The ability to run pump gas makes this thing a legitimate street car, and it retains the factory interior and air conditioning.
I’ll never forget the first time I rode in this car, and that was before he tore it down to do new head gaskets, head studs and redo the exhaust. He showed up and picked me up for a ride, after just driving half and hour to get to my place.
We took it out, he stabbed the throttle at about 45 miles per hour and the car instantly started crab walking. It did this until roughly 120 miles per hour. No, I’m not joking, it literally burned out for a solid quarter mile.
“I think that heated up the tires enough” Jim looks at me calmly and says. He puts his foot on the brake and the gas at the same time and it’s holding. “Now we’ve got something” he says, and we prepare for a launch.
The car took off so hard, I promise you the front wheels were in the air, which was very surreal considering we were spinning. I glanced at the speedometer and we were past 100 already. If you’ve never ridden in something that has a positive displacement supercharger, the power is completely linear and instant.
Ever been on one of those roller coasters that drops you, and you free fall for a few seconds? The sensation of having the wind knocked out of you? That’s exactly the way this Cobra feels. I’m 245 pounds, but was more like 300 back then, and I felt completely glued to the passenger seat. I’ve never felt anything like that before, and I still can’t believe the torque that car had.
The Build
The Cobra retains the original 4.6 4V motor, with a VMP 2.3 liter Gen 2 blower, pushing 20 pounds of boost thanks to a 2.7 pulley. As mentioned, it was torn apart and Cometic head gaskets installed and ARP headstuds keep things from going bad.
She projects her sinister voice through BBK long tube headers, Magnaflow X pipe and Borla attack mufflers. Let me tell you, this car sounds absolutely demonic.
Air is supplied through a JLT high boost intake and feeds into a Dragon throttle body. The cylinder heads were literally ported in Jim’s back yard.
Keeping things in sync is a set of Billet timing guides, and he’s opted to upgrade both the water pump and oil pump. The rotating assembly consist of Eagle rods and Diamond pistons with custom file fit rings.
Supplying the fuel is ID 1000 fuel injectors, fed by an Aeromotove 1000 pump. Fuel is regulated by a Lethal boost reference regulator and the massive and braided fuel lines are securely mounted with AN fittings.
Power is transmitted through a 4R75 auto swap, stall converter and aluminum driveshaft with an installed hoop. Keeping things planted isn’t easy in a car like this, but a 8.8 solid rear axle conversion certainly doesn’t hurt.
Suspension modification is comprehensive, featuring Team Z upper and lower control arms, Maximum Motorsport frame times, QA1 adjustable suspension in the rear and UPR coilovers up front with Viking springs.
The exterior is kept fairly stock minus a really cool American flag vinyl as you see in the above pictures.
Please, Tell Me More!
Here where we live in Ohio, we take pride in true street cars that perform at the track, and this is by far one of the coolest and fastest around here. I’ve been fortunate enough to drive a 997 Turbo, R8 V10, and many others. This car has quite literally tainted me on cars like that. They really feel like a toy in comparison.
You’ve heard me talk about my good friend Casey, and a few weeks ago Jim took him for a ride. He was skeptical and thought I was just messing with him. When he came back he looked like he had just been mugged, his emotions was somewhere in between “holy shit” and “holy shit” if I had to guess. He’s talked about that ride ever since.
The build I’m doing on my personal Talon is centered around this particular car. I want a car I can put miles on, make big power, and perform weekend after weekend. Mostly, I just want my front bumper to be on his rear bumper when we race. This car literally is the benchmark I’m using for my own car.
Except, things are about to get worse. He just informed me he’s getting ready to go from the instantaneous supercharger power delivery to a massive Hellion turbo setup. He’s shooting for a low 9 second street car.
Ladies and Gentleman, that’s how we do things here in the middle of Ohio. We have some seriously insane cars that run every weekend here at our track, and I was all too excited to tell you about this one. I cannot rave enough about how seriously impressive the Corn Snake is. This car is the true definition of a proper street build. There’s so many cars around here like that, and it gives me so much motivation for my own car!
I’d just like to take a moment to thank my friends from the 1320 True Street group, which is a group of friends that race on weekends and build cars throughout the year. Also, gotta thank my buddy Jim for the pictures and allowing me to gloat over how awesome his car is. I truly don’t fall for Mustangs easy, but this is a car I’ll always be in love with.
Be sure to let me know what you think about this beast in the comments below. If someone tells you a nine second pump gas street car is a pipe dream, be sure to show them this article!
"GTRZILLAR32-Now saving for Godzilla and a condo" (jackolson)
10/16/2017 at 23:47, STARS: 1
Terminators are the shit! Easily the coolest factory Mustang produced to me. My coworker has one too (pretty sure he got it in Ohio as well lol) and it’s currently getting an automatic swapped in with a manual valve body. I can’t wait to get a ride in it.
"Powershiftmedia-ResidentDSMGuru" (matt-powershiftmedia)
10/16/2017 at 23:49, STARS: 0
They just make power so effortlessly, and they just work. The car as fast as it is, just never felt like it was working very hard. Truly insane the way these things move. Riding it it was a true treat.
"415s30 W123TSXWaggoIIIIIIo ( •_•))°)" (415s30)
10/17/2017 at 01:18, STARS: 1
Corn snake is not a good name, it’s like how can we make this snake sound nice and tasty? Like Honey Badger, it’s like a sweet and yummy badger.
"Powershiftmedia-ResidentDSMGuru" (matt-powershiftmedia)
10/17/2017 at 01:47, STARS: 1
Haha it got its’ name based on the fact it gets a steady diet of ethanol :)
"cmill189 - sans Volvo" (cmill189)
10/17/2017 at 12:19, STARS: 1
That was a very descriptive post. I felt like I was transported into the Corn Snake. I kinda makes me sad that it lost part of what makes a Terminator special, the 6-speed and IRS. I understand why and being reliable makes more sense. I can’t believe it’s a daily. He must be best friends with all the E85 stations in town.
"Powershiftmedia-ResidentDSMGuru" (matt-powershiftmedia)
10/17/2017 at 13:40, STARS: 0
Thank you, just something I threw together in an hour. Felt like writing and this car was definitely worth writing about. Appreciate that feedback!
As for the car, I’m sure it uses a ton of E85 haha.