Ok, to start off my name is Evan Small and I live in Garrison, NY, a small town on the Hudson River about an hour north of NYC. I'm 18 years old and I go to Carnegie Mellon to study mechanical engineering. I currently drive a stock 96 mustang gt convertible. Over the 2001 summer I plan on building a Factory Five 427 cobra component car using a 1988 mustang lx as a donor car. My dad and I choose factory five because the kit is cheap, they are close by, there is tons of support online, and mainly because they have an excellent product whose quality is, for the most part, excellent. If you don't believe me, go by their factory one time and check out the cars they have in various stages and their manufacturing process. I've gone the donor route because it is cheap and easy compared to buying a new engine and drivetrain and searching a yard for other parts. The mustang parts are good till at least 200,000 miles and I will not be driving the car too hard anyway. I will stick with the efi setup because it is more reliable. Before this project I restored two motorcycles and the carbs constantly supplied me with problems. I personally don't like smelling like gasoline for a week because the float bowls overflow and get gas all over me! Plus, why mess with something that works. Yes, I agree that the cobra air cleaner looks nicer, but I don't think it looks $1000 plus many headaches nicer. Anyway, this car is meant to be driven, not stared at with the hood open trying to figure out air/fuel ratios.

   As far as the build goes, I will be following the manual as closely as possible with only a few modifications. My goal is to build the car for under 18K and be done with the basic build by August 2001. However, I'm not going to rush through any of the steps because, from experience, it will only give me problems down the road that will waste even more time. Body work might have to wait till a vacation from school because of time restraints.

   I will be documenting the teardown and build on this site to help current and future builders through the tough parts. Through my experience I've learned that build sites are the best source of information because of the pictures and tips each builder supplies. Of course, cobraforum.com, stangnet.com, ffcobra.com and other build sites are excellent places to get information on building this awesome car.

   This project is being funded by my dad because this is his dream car. It works both ways because I love the mechanics of the project and my dad loves the car. So, I will build most of it, and he will drive, and hopefully take care of it!

UPDATE: Well its past the summer of 2001 and I am 90% done with the car. All that's left now is body work and paint. I would have finished sooner but I got a really cool summer job that took up a lot of my time. I worked for bob akin motorsports, a vintage race shop that restores and race preps vintage race cars. Basically my job was to clean the cars at the track and fillem up with gas during pit stops. Not much work on the cars but I did do some machining on damaged parts. Next summer I will probably work there as a mechanic so then I will get to work on the cars. Doing body work over the winter and getting it painted black when I finish. Oh well, school occupies all my time now so I have to wait till vacation to finish it up and get on the road. 

UPDATE: Well I'm turning 20 soon and I have finally finished up the car just in time for winter :( I am slowly updating the site to reflect the new stuff! Some bad news last summer. My boss, Bob Akin, died in a race car accident so last year was my last year at the race shop. Currently looking for new employment for next summer [ if anyone wants to hire me give me a call :) ] Enjoy the site and email me with any questions....evan

UPDATE (January 2006): After a looong break I have finally remembered to update this page. I just turned 23, and am currently getting my masters degree in ME at Stanford Univ. This place is amazing and beautiful and the weather is great and the girls.... As an undegrad I took a 2 year detour into the data storage field. I did research on phase change memories (ala DVD) and went so far as having a paper accepted to the journal of applied physics. But alas, I am back into cars since I have began working on a hybrid automatic air suspension for a porsche 911 turbo race car. Building the cobra gave me most of the skills I needed to work on this new project.

as always, feel free to email me with any questions/comments/suggestions

esmall .at. stanford .dot. edu