Horse Sense: The pedigree on this Cobra is as rich as they come. World Record holder Richard Lelsz and crew at Strictly Performance [(713) 910-0111] used a similar combination of parts on Jay's car as they did on Ken Biscamp's mind-blowing, mid-nine-second, yellow coupe.
Our January '04 issue was a coming-out party for the '03-'04 Cobra-we featured no less than four articles dealing with the factory-blown wonder Ford. Amongst the collection was the record-setting coupe from Strictly Per-formance and the barely-breathed-on, 10-second stocker of Tommy Godfrey, two pioneers with the Cobra set. And, while we all know Nitrous Pete was the first to put an '03 Cobra in the 9-second zone, you also had to know there would be others who tried to run the number with less equipment. Following up the smash hit that was Ken Biscamp's 9.59 record-setter, the crew at Strictly Performance has borrowed from Tommy's minimalist philosophies to put together a true stunner in Jay Knott's wild, Sonic Blue beauty.
Jay Knott (right), Richard...
Jay Knott (right), Richard Lelsz (center), and Greg Flatt (left).
As soon as Richard Lelsz set the world record with his Strictly Performance Cobra, the haters began shooting down the car, saying that by replacing the six-speed and IRS, Richard had, in essence, done nothing more that run any New Edge Mustang into the nine-second zone. Undaunted by the detractors, Richard looked for an opportunity to show his skills with another Cobra, but this time the car would retain its factory-issue T56 and the IRS.
New to the high-performance side of the Mustang, Jay turned out to be just the right customer for Strictly Performance to recruit for testing. The goals for Jay's car were simple-run in the 9-second zone with the stock six-speed, the IRS, and as little else as possible. Straightforward and simple, those goals were nonetheless a challenging level of performance. But Jay's car was fast from the get-go, with 12.00s on the stock F1s with just a supercharger pulley change and chip tune-up. New to the modular Mustang, but not new to Mustangs in general, Jay went ahead and installed a Kenne Bell supercharger after several impressive reviews, including the one in this magazine.
The exterior of Jay Knott's...
The exterior of Jay Knott's '03 Cobra gives little away. The rims and ET Street rear tires let you know the car has been breathed on. But is it a pullied-up stocker, or is there something else going on? Once the nitrous kicks the Kenne Bell blower into Overdrive, this thing will huff and puff its way to 10.03 at 141 mph. The only other mods are replacement parts for driveline components stuck between 700 lb-ft of torque and 3,800 pounds of Ford. When an input shaft in the trans-mission lets go during a Second-gear power shift, it isn't pretty!
Jay's kit came directly from Nitrous Pete and included a custom chip that was set up for a safe (read: rich) street tune-up. That's something you would expect from a mail-order package to make sure the end user doesn't destroy his $10,000 engine. With Strictly Performance being a local speed shop and having such success with the blown Cobra, it wasn't long before Jay decided to have Richard test the waters with a custom tune for his application. Baseline testing showed the now-Kenne-Bell-blown Cobra was up to 550 rwhp, and when Richard cleaned up the tune, it jumped to 620-plus rwhp.
While the power has come easily for Jay, the drivetrain backing the play had always been a concern. After all, dozens of '03 Cobras have exploded rear units and crushed stock halfshafts, with only a portion of the power this car possessed. In fact, Strictly recommends to its customers that they dump the IRS and swap over to a live 8.8-inch rear if they're anywhere near the 10-second zone. Along the way to bring all that power online, however, Richard and head technician Greg Flatt have learned quite a bit about setting up the IRS to at least survive some of the abuse the quarter-mile dishes out.
"Urethane bushings for the rear carrier are a must," Richard says. "This keeps everything stable when you launch the car. But we don't like the urethane mounting bushings-they really decrease the ride quality. So, we leave the mounting bushings stock. Jay has also tested a five-way adjustable shock that we've set to the softest setting. The car is so heavy and it makes so much torque, it almost drags the rearend on the ground with a good launch!"