Eaton's Mk4 #9130 Oregon Build- First Year of Street legal driving

[Mark Eaton]

I arrive to this scene with my two hands, the will to succeed, and a shop! Oh, and a new Harbor Freight memebership. Build experience? Not much, in 1987 my college roommate and I pulled the engine out of my ’69 Chevelle, and rebuilt it. Every part on that rebuild I foraged from local junk yards. Painful. But she ran. I loved that old convertible. I had to sell her to afford medical school. Since then I haven’t had time to look back until now.

As a general and vascular surgeon I love working with my hands and I am good at making thins fit together. I have 100% support from my wife. I have two boys (11 &13) whom are budding young mechanics, that is, when they’re paying attention.

What I know right now is that I want a Cobra to drive around town with my wife on Sundays in nice weather and occasionally take it to the track and drive like a bat out of Hell. I am not interested in building a space shuttle with a steering wheel or a “show quality” car. My purpose for this build thread is to get as much advice as possible from those whom have come before me. I doubt anybody will learn anything of value from my postings.

MK4 Complete Kit

Options:
powder coated chassis
IRS
17” Halibrand style wheel/ tire package
power steering
Front and rear Wilwood brakes
Front and rear sway bars
body cut outs
GPS gauge kit
leather seats
dual powder coated roll bars
heater
windshield wipers
wind wings
battery cut off switch
catalytic converters

DART SHP 347 Stroker engine (EFI) with Tremec TKO 600 from Mike Forte

I haven’t decided on colors for sure but I’m thinking a Maroon/Black/Smoke theme.

Regrets, none. Except I wish I had started reading the Forum like a year ago. I’m so far behind on all these decisions. There are some great threads which I appreciate so much. Modification ideas I have picked up from the threads so far: hydraulic clutch, custom battery box (Either Breeze in front or the FF metals in back), snake skin in the cockpit, bed liner under the body, brake and clutch reservoir from CNC, trunk box, rear quick jack couplers, Upgraded louvres from FFR, leather partial steering wheel wrap.

Stewart Transport showed up 8/10/2017 and we got to work!








My 11yo helping remove panels