Thread: tin-man has some questions, it begins.....

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My error on the scrub angle deal, should have said scrub line. While Roger is correct for the variations he noted, the scrub line basically involves an imaginary line from the bottom of a deflated tire/wheel to other inflated tires. No portion of the vehicle should be at or below that line so as to come in contact with the pavement to cause loss of control (and of course the additional damage).

As for the Chevy engine thing, it's been beat to death even moreso in rods than in the Cobra world. I'll put more of a historic twist on the story to better frame the argument. If you were a rodder in the early '50s when the flathead Ford V8 was still reigning supreme (though fading a little to the newly minted overhead engines from Olds, Caddy, and Mopar) and you and your bench racing buddies sat down to design the "ideal" engine you'd stipulate things like; compact outer dimensions that would allow fitment in most of the more popular bodies (generally pre-war Ford) without being forced to do major surgery to frame, firewall, rad placement, hoods, etc. Also you'd put the sump at the rear as that would clear the steering and front crossmember configurations on a majority of cars preferred by rodders. You'd make it with the starter on the right side rather than conflicting with the steering box. You'd make it lighter than the flathead because less weight is like free horsepower. And you'd make it so it would produce more horsepower with modest (read lower cost) upgrades. And you'd make it in huge relative numbers so it was, again, cheap and readily available. In other words you'd build the small block Chev. I doubt that Ed Cole and his team of engineers specifically targeted the hot rod community in their design parameters (other than maybe the design elements that supported "easy" horsepower increases).........but for whatever reason it worked that way. It was like a revelation to the rodders of the time. A stock wrecking yard pull out SBC had as much or more horsepower than a built flathead..............and once the yards started getting wrecks, cheaper (and lighter). The hot rod aftermarket jumped on them right away and discovered how readily they responded to traditional hot rod power tweaks, and opened the door to new ones. The SBC grabbed a foothold.

Meanwhile the OHV engine that Ford designed around the same time, the Y block, wasn't nearly as hot rodder friendly, and earned the scorn of all but the most blue oval loyal. It took Ford another 7 or so years to come up with their own small block which is a very good engine. But in standard wrecking yard take out form in many hot rod engine compartments it required modifications to accomodate additional length due to a water pump longer than the Chev, and often, a change in oil pump pickup and sump relocation. There's more to the story, but that should give you an idea. Momentum was on the side of the SBC, just as it had been on the flathead Ford before it. The true blue Ford guys have all manner of rejoinders to this, but they all involve jumping through extra hoops. Which is fine if you don't mind being stubborn, pig headed, and irrational.

In the Cobra replica world there's an opposite convention. Since none of the early advantages of the SBC apply, there's no historical rationalisation, nor any physical restrictions that support NOT using the Ford engine, big or small block. And since it's replicating an historical, iconic car, again the zeitgeist demands a Ford. Put a Chev engine in and it kills the market value (except in Europe for some strange reasion). Anyway, that's my story and I'm stickin' with it, ...................watch for incoming.