1998 Ford Mustang Cobra - Vitamin AI

It always starts with a few bolt-ons and a couple of days at the track. The story is all too familiar--boy meets car, boy modifies car, boy then becomes obsessed and nothing can stop him from building the fastest car he can afford. In the Mustang universe, this usually applies to those with a drag racing bent, but unlike most, Ernesto Roco went down a different route with an addiction that was just as fierce. Rather than go in a straight line for 1,320 feet, his compulsion was road racing.

After taking delivery of this '98 Cobra off of the showroom floor, his SVT Mustang would soon follow his maniacal desires for the next six years. "Not long after I bought it," Ernesto says, "I started modifying it for better handling, braking, and acceleration. I began entering open track events, and soon after, time trial competition, and it was only downhill from there. Looking for more of an adrenaline rush, I opted to join the newly created NASA American Iron (AI) series in 2001."

His toy project soon became a serious effort, as the Cobra was quickly converted to a dedi-cated race car. Taking into consideration the competition that usually fills the paddock in AI, Ernesto did not want to be left behind on the starting grid when those pesky LS1 F-cars rolled around, so to make up for the number-one deficit, he concentrated on horsepower.

He started off with the 4.6-liter powerplant, but after a few mechanical hiccups and several overhauls with the overhead cam engines, it was time to move forward by going backward. Instead of rebuilding the quad cammer, an old-school-but-still-cool 302 replete with pushrods was swapped in. "I switched to the pushrod motor with a carburetor" Ernesto says, "and it has been great and reliable ever since--not to mention cost-effective. I wanted to keep everything simple and didn't want to over-engineer the car, thus, the carbureted engine without dry sump oiling or even a fan. It seems to work for me."

Starting with a late-model 302 block as a foundation, Ford Performance Solutions of Anaheim, California, bored and stroked the engine for 331 inches. The zero-balanced steel crank, Manley rods, and 10.5:1 pistons were then assembled into the freshly machined E7 casting. A Crane solid roller cam was slid into place. With Twisted-Wedge heads and a Parker Funnelweb intake, the now 5.4-liter puts out a healthy 440 hp at the wheels. Certainly impressive in power numbers alone, even more so is that it keeps cranking out the fun lap after lap, and currently powers the Cobra to several BTDs (Best Time of Day) in the current AIX configuration. Even though it is down on power compared to the rest of the American Iron Extreme (AIX) field, it's still running fine with the less-powerful American Iron (AI) engine.

Aside from the powerplant, the Cobra gets a lot of attention for its incredible handling and braking. Here, Ernesto relied on Griggs Racing and its entire bag of tricks to make his snake out-slither the AI and AIX fields. Up front, Griggs' radical SLA (Short Long Arm) front suspension system does away with the factory Ford modified MacPherson setup. It includes a specially designed crossmember, with a fully adjustable SLA with Koni coilovers integrated as one unit. With the new SLA, camber gain is achieved under compression as well as during normal steering without excessive base settings. Unsprung and sprung weight is reduced, and dialing in base caster, initial camber, and Ackerman is greatly simplified. Ultimately, it allows the front tires to be fully planted in just about any circumstance in a racing environment.