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Manny’s Custom Builds joins us to discuss Cobra kit cars, fabrication and more.
Manny’s Custom Builds joins us to discuss Cobra kit cars, fabrication and more.
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About this episode
Manny from Manny's Custom Builds joins the CarCast crew to discuss the intricacies of building Cobra kit cars. He shares his journey from a welder to a master fabricator, emphasizing the unique challenges of customizing these iconic vehicles. The conversation dives into the importance of adapting builds for driver comfort, including modifications for taller drivers and the integration of modern components like the TKX transmission. Listeners will appreciate the insights on fabrication techniques, the importance of hands-on experience, and the camaraderie that comes with building cars together.
Topics:
cobra kit cars
fabrication techniques
driver comfort modifications
tkx transmission
custom builds
hands-on experience
car assembly challenges
customer collaboration
body mounting
modifications for tall drivers
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Technical
Too Afraid to Ask
Car
Shelby Cobra
"... videos that are applicable to building a replica Cobra. And there's so many holes that need to be filled..."
Car
Ford F-150 Lightning
"...ehind me in the photo of the Black Truck, the 954 Lightning. Yesterday, I was in the garage in the parking ga..."
Car
Plymouth Prowler
"...re calling it the Growler, which was, I think the prowler from Dodge. They had from the 32 Roadster, the La..."
Car
Lamborghini Countach
"...e. They had from the 32 Roadster, the Lamborghini Countach GT40 and the Cobra. And there was some type of Me..."
Car
Ford GT40
"...ad from the 32 Roadster, the Lamborghini Countach GT40 and the Cobra. And there was some type of Mercede..."
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Hello. Welcome to CarCast. I'm Matt, the moderator,
the Andrew here with Bill Goldberg. Our guest, Manny, we've been talking about you for a long
time now. Manny's custom build. You're here in the garage at Goldberg's garage. For those of
you guys that are watching it on the YouTube channel, you can see our lovely guest and
the car behind them, Ed Bill. But yeah, thanks for joining us. How are you?
Doing good. Thank you for having me. I've been pretty excited about it, but mostly excited about
the progress that we've made on the Cobra back here. So it's pretty cool stuff going on here.
I'm not getting any sleep. We've been basically talking to Bill and getting updates on this
project. It's basically been all-encompassing for quite some time now. Just between the project
and then whenever you get a chance, Bill and Wana can get out to Colorado to see Gage or have
Gage come and see them. But the rest, you're right. It's just this Cobra project. But let's
talk a little bit about you. How did you get into this start? You have a shop out there. Where are
you guys located? It can't be that far, right? Comfort Texas. I'm pretty close to Bill here,
about 15 minutes away, right in front of CGC, Cerakote or Clint. That's kind of how we met, really.
But yeah, I mean, I got into this. I've been doing this for about 11 years now.
I originally got into it because of my brother. So my brother has his own shop in the Fort Worth
area. Originally, when he was hired on to Bill Cobras, he was hired as their lead technician,
their master mechanic. When he showed me the pictures of the cars they were building at the
time, I was working just as a welder or fabricator. I just, you know, I told them,
I will sweep floors, clean bathrooms, whatever position you guys have in that shop. I want
to work there. Fortunately or unfortunately for me, I don't know, available was with fiberglass.
Nobody wanted to do the fiberglass. It's itchy chemicals, all that stuff. But
for whatever reason, fiberglass doesn't bother me. It is immune to freaking fiberglass.
It's the strangest thing I've ever seen. That's a gift worth paying for, by the way.
So I started doing the fiberglass, did it for about two or three years.
And during that time, their main welder quit. So that's when, you know, I kind of stepped in,
I'm like, hey, you know, I just happened to do that for a living before I did fiberglass.
And after that, I jumped into the welding and fabricating, welding the frame,
side pipes, roll bars, all of that stuff, and just kind of climbed the ladder from there.
After that, you know, it was basically running the shop and focusing on the assembly,
aside from still doing welding, fabricating, helping wherever the shop needed a little bit of
extra help. But with that, you know, one of the things that really I see this with a lot of
people that are doing cobra builds, there's a fear of, you know, am I drilling the hole in
the right place? Am I doing this? Am I doing that? And, you know, with that in mind, doing from
fiberglass to the frame to the assembly of the vehicle, it really showed me a lot of mistakes.
But one of the biggest things is getting rid of that fear to be able to do whatever you need
to your car. And you know, one of the things I was telling customers is we can fix anything,
whether it's on the frame, body, I'm like, or we can make something that works.
In the beginning, I didn't have a, in the beginning, I was terrified to drill on this car.
Yeah. Whether it was through, first and foremost, the carbon fiber, but even the fiberglass,
right? Because, you know, I'm not a fiberglass guy, if I screw something up. Long story short,
right now, I'm getting a drill near this car, I have no problem with it. So I mean,
you learn through process of just trying, you know, like any other build, what's specific
to these cobras, you know, we're trying to put the frame, or we're trying to put the body all
the way back down on the frame, right? Because the bolts have to line up and I screwed this up
and I screwed that up. Man, he's been doing this for so, so long. Once he came in today,
I pointed out the issues that I had, and they're just common problems that he's
rectified throughout the years. Yeah. And even, even with that in mind, you know,
I've been doing this for so long, but because they're hand-built cars, in the end,
not a single car has been a lack. They're pretty close, you know, the, you know,
save any hole. This hole here is pretty close to this one that I did on the last one,
but it's not the exact same place. And that could be from, you know, the fiberglass thickness
changing throughout, you know, like in the cars that I built, it's, we don't use a chopstrand,
we use a hand-laid fiberglass, the whole thing, so that there's no inconsistencies on the
thickness of the body. Well, but from one body to the next, man, they're completely different.
So, you know, the floor could be quarter inch, a little bit too far forward, a little bit too
far back. There's just no way to control everything exactly because they're hand-built cars from the
frame all the way up to the body. But not, you know, not a single car has been exactly identical
to each other, not just in the assembly aspect, but as far as, you know, motor transmissions,
interiors, gauges, they're just so customizable to, to whatever your personality is.
And that's again the, that I made to you, you know, I'm obviously a Dodge guy, but I mean,
this is one of the most iconic and most beautiful, frickin' sexy cars built in the mid-60s that still
stands up with any other frickin' car as far as aesthetically and performance-wise. So,
quite obviously, and it's funny because Bruce Meyer commented on one of my posts of the car,
right? And the reality is I'm copying his original frickin' Cobra, that race.
Yeah, he's got the first street Cobra. Yeah, which he just wanted a war at a Pebble Beach force.
Gorgeous. And it's how it was back in the early, in the mid-60s, right? And that look
is something I replicated in 2025 because I think it's badass and it's a killer car. Now, granted,
you got your Purist like any other vehicle, like any other brand, but this is a car that you've got
so much freedom. Whether you're a Dodge guy, whether this is so much fun and you can take it,
you can put your own stamp on it. True to his statement that they're all different,
but it's cool that they're all acceptable because everybody just puts their own spin on it.
It's funny because cars back in the day from the factory were often different. Like, I know
everybody says, you know, you got to get it. They couldn't replicate the same shit over and over and
over again. Yeah, like anybody working on cars will go, you know, I don't want to do a replacement
fender or replacement quarter panel because nothing's going to fit right. And you're like,
yeah, but it's popped from the same tooling that Ford used back in the day or whatever.
And I'm like, I know, but it's never going to fit right. Like it was just fit the right.
An interesting thing that came up, Bill's heard of this story before, but with Adam Carolla's
collection with all of the vintage Lamborghinis that he would have, that there's, you guys
were talking about e-brake soon. The e-brake was sometimes on the right next to the tunnel
and sometimes on the left by the door. And I'm like, why? And when we finally talked to
one of the people who worked there at the factory, the test driver, he's like,
he's like, what I found was it depends on who's putting it in, if they're right or left-handed
and where they wanted it to go. Sometimes they just didn't really think like they should all
be in the same space. He's like, I'm left-handed. I want it here on the left and nobody cared.
Cars went out the door. Especially on this when it's a driver's car, right? And you're
building it for your own satisfaction and your own driver ability. And a prime example
as what Manny did with the trans mount for the e-brake, right?
I mean, it's all completely shooter preference, shifter preference, driver preference.
And it's all completely applicable to my size, the length of my arm. It's everything. It's
comfort. It's usability, right? And yes, it's mounted backwards. Yes, the handles, the shifter
knob is mounted backwards, but they're all strategically placed so that I can get to them
number one, comfortably and number two, safely.
You know? That turn around in that bracket was less than 24 hours. And literally,
we had a time constraint because I had like five guys coming over and I put Manny to the gun, right?
And I said, you know what? Today, I want to get to the point where the next time we congregate,
we're putting the fricking body on. Yeah. I was just watching the YouTube video on
of you guys doing the bracket, the assembly here. You guys can find it at Goldberg's
Garage, the YouTube channel. You can see it there.
It was a technical video. It's not the most exciting video in the world, but it's one thing that Manny
is going to start doing is through my process of trying to build this car and trying to get
questions answered, I go to YouTube and I look for instructional videos or I look for videos that
are applicable to building a replica Cobra. And there's so many holes that need to be filled.
And that's what he's doing. Speaking of that, we talked about this before on this behind me in the
photo of the Black Truck, the 954 Lightning. Yesterday, I was in the garage in the parking
garage of my apartment complex going, I need to put a new starter on there and taking a page
out of your book. I was like, I guess I'm just going to try to film it. I don't know if it's
going to work well. And by the way, if I was doing something under the hood way easier, but I was
underneath the car, underneath the truck trying to get a starter and hold the camera going,
well, I need three hands for this, but I shot it and I just wanted to do a quick
like installation video going, here's the truck. We're going to put a starter in it.
It needs a starter and then I'll get to other stuff. Let's see if I can film some of it.
It's not going to be the best video, but we'll show you how to do it.
I had the same dilemma yesterday and I have the answer. Just use your, gets there right here.
That's what I'm doing. Anytime I'm underneath the car, that's what I'm doing. I'm not messing
with the camera. I'm not messing with my hands because this is the best view that you can get.
Period. End of story. And I mean, used properly. They're freaking great to slide
in videos now. Are those the, those are the, the meta glasses. Yeah. They're so easy. Literally,
you put them on, they hook up and then you press a button and it starts recording.
If they're two minute videos, right? And they immediately go to your phone.
So, and then you can download them and do your thing with them, but telling you when it's
an instance where you're trying to mount something and you're in the engine compartment
or you're most importantly underneath it, 100%. That's actually a smart idea. I could have used
that. And I also could have used some eye protection as all the crap and crud from underneath it.
I got a wire in my freaking eye last night. It was falling into my eyes and I'm trying
not to bitch about it while I'm under the car with, I'm trying to hold the phone.
So the video is going to be a little dark. It's going to be a little quick,
but I'll get the first one up. Then the next one is under the hood. I'm doing
distributor and I'm doing a bunch of stuff that Holly sent me by the way.
I reached out and said, this truck drives like shit. I need to fix it.
Thank you, Holly. They hooked. I mean,
yeah, there's a,
everyone has one of these, right? Yeah. Every day changes. You know, Holly hooked
this up with the harnesses last week, right? So one of the last details
when you're trying to get this thing on the road. So thank you, Alex.
Appreciate it greatly. Big time.
The other thing we were, we were talking about the other day was when you were trying to put
that bolt in the back and you're spent all day drilling it and putting one,
one bolt and laugh, man, he's laughing at you. But you couldn't not finish like you had to
finish. And when you were done, you have to walk away with a little bit of that sense
of satisfaction. And it's been a minute since I've been able to work on the truck because
moved out of the warehouse. I don't know. Last November, almost a year. So once the starter
and everything was done and I put the key in the ignition and it fired right up, I was like,
oh, that's the best feeling in the world. I don't know why just the smallest little thing.
And it's just the best feeling in the world. You have a list of stuff and it's not a simple
fix. And so you add it to the list and then it takes you a little while to get to it.
That's where we are right now. Those are the things that I'm having to do right now
that we said, you know what? Okay, we'll do the brake lines.
All right. So Manny, continuing with your background, your story. You were working
at your brother's shop. Your brother's shop, was it specifically Cobras? Because you had
mentioned Cobras, but what else were they? What kind of shop was it?
The shop itself originally was, it was a car company. So they were building all sorts of kids
from, I think it was like seven different kids. They were calling it the Growler,
which was, I think the prowler from Dodge. They had from the 32 Roadster, the Lamborghini
Countach GT40 and the Cobra. And there was some type of Mercedes that I'm not familiar with,
but they had several kids. I need to check this out. Those are kind of, I'm curious.
Well, from all of those, the only one that survived was the Cobra, partially because it's
a stretched wheelbase that was changed on it. From what I knew back then or what they told
me was the other one that I really liked was the GT40. That one unfortunately was basically an exact
copy of the original and they could not produce it as a fully built car. But with the Cobra model,
because it has a little bit of accented fender flares, the stretch in the cockpit for more room,
it's basically its own design. Shelby, I guess, couldn't pursue. They tried,
but couldn't pursue for the rights on that model. But did you catch what he just said?
It's stretched. Yeah. Yeah. So four inches and then different firewalls. So on top of the four
inches, I have an extra two inches and an extra four inches. So far, record, I've been able to
get a guy that's six, five into one of these comfortable. Had to do some modifications because
one of the things I couldn't get past was the windshield. And it really all depends on the person.
Some people have long legs. Some people have long torsos. In my field, long torso people
are the difficult ones because the windshield, it's either right here or just basically right
here and right at your eyesight. And that's really the biggest struggle is if you're
longer torso, that's kind of, there's not much I can do there without making the car look
kind of odd as we raise the windshield too much. Is there a way to do a bucket? So if you cut the
floor and dropped it down two inches, is that possible? So the frames that I build already
have basically an angle from on the back in the front. And so we're using four inch, four by one
and a half tubing, square tubing, which it brings it down to four inches technically where you're
sitting. So with that drop plus a low profile seat, that's basically the lowest I can bring you.
But because we're able to offer that, people that are six, six, one, six, two,
then have seat sliders on their cars. And so if you're able to let other people drive it or
if they go to sell the vehicle, they have the options that you have a seat slider,
you're still comfortable. You can have your wife drive it. Because of the stretch,
transmission tunnel is narrower. So instead of being in kind of a sideways position where your feet
are kicked off to the left, you're basically sitting comfortable straight to steering wheel,
to the pedals and transmission using the TKX or the Tremac transmissions. It's basically a spot
on fit. What I would compare it to is I have a 2012 Mustang. I would compare it location-wise
exactly to that and in comfort to that version of Mustang. And see, this is something that obviously
I learned afterwards. And that's one of the main reasons why I start talking to Manny was, hey,
they offered one for a bigger guy, right? But I obviously had one that's existing. And so we
tried to do the things that some things that he incorporates with his to my existing. So the low
profile seat is basically, I switch mine out. Yeah. I mean, there's a two or one and a half inch
riser in the front. But I have to keep the riser in the front, because if not, I'm literally
sitting right on the ground. And it's extremely uncomfortable. Yeah. So with our frame and
having that angle, that's kind of what we're doing with the riser. It basically puts you and,
you know, instead of sitting completely flat, if... Yeah, it leans you back a little bit because
the seat's not adjustable in any sense. And we kind of lean back a little bit just to get a little
less. But it can be. You can put a track in there. Yeah. Yeah. You can't do it in mine,
unless you want to go from midget to even shorter midget. Right. Because if you're
track, you'd start putting you up toward the windshield or down toward the back.
Now, one positive thing that we found, other than the fact that it's crooked,
is that I did a steering column tilt that we were able to put in. And a lot of people said that
it couldn't go in the Cobra, but I spoke to Manny and he's put a lot of them in. So we
slapped it in here. And definitely, definitely changed the
entrance, the seating position. I mean, it's... And anytime you can get an inch, man, in this.
And I want to show you one thing. I mean, are you ready for this? Yeah.
In one picture, this is the description of this car. Okay. Bear with me for a second.
Yeah. All right. All right. We're going to get up and walk around in the shop for a second here.
Can you see that? We see a bit of the column and then we see the pedals and the spark plug wires.
Okay. So yeah, how are you going to change that plug wire?
You mean, well, that's how I change it. That's why the freaking access hole is there.
Yeah. Is those plug wires.
That's actually pretty good. That's pretty smart because, I mean,
you've got to get your big ass underneath the dash, but hell of a lot easier than
try to do it from the engine compartment. Yes. Well, it's impossible, number one, from the engine
compartment. And number two, I mean, the heat, the engine. I mean, it's literally on my shin.
I mean, it's crazy. It's crazy the amount of space that every single aspect of that vehicle
is screaming for. Yeah, I like it. That's a smart idea to be able to access that.
Mania, what I wanted to ask you was about your shop that you have now. You're on your own,
doing your own shop. Is it specifically Cobra's now as well or what do you do in there?
Yeah. So basically just strictly Cobra's. Every now and then we do get people wanting us to
do the restoration, which we tried for a bit, but there's just, I don't have the experience for that,
I guess, to put it plain. Going into the Cobra business and doing that from I was in my 20s,
I basically have hooked onto that market and being able to go from fiberglass all the way
to the assembly of the vehicle. I've gotten pretty good at finding solutions for the Cobra's.
Now, one of the, I do want to expand on to, you know, different body kits. One of the great
things about working for that shop back then. I basically came in right at a time when they
were trying to launch a new car, I think it's called a blade. It wasn't really a hit, but it did help
me a lot to learn the fiberglass procedures and basically mold making. So because we had to
do body work on this car and basically make a mold from scratch, I was able to get that knowledge.
So I want to expand a little bit. I love Mustangs, you know, I want to expand into the Mustang market.
Like one of the cars right now that I did, I did for my wife is a 2005 Mustang and I did a wide
body kit on it. One of the things that I'm not a fan of on wide body kits is doing the rivets.
I like the way they look wide body, not a fan of rivets. So, you know, I spent,
it took me a while. I spent a lot of time after work and basically blended it in. No rivets,
all, you know, looks like it belongs. So that's, you know, one of the things that I'm probably
going to put out pretty soon is the offer that body kit, you know, fender, rear fenders, bumpers,
all that stuff. Okay. On the cobers that you guys are doing, is there,
is there a kit or something that you like to start with or how much do you do just do in-house?
Like you're not building the bodies completely from scratch, right? Is there, are you? You are.
There's different options. So you have your options of doing just the kit. You can buy just
the kit, do yourself at home or you even offer, I guess, an in-house bill where you can come
into the facilities and you can build it with, you know, our help. And, you know, it varies from
you basically, you can buy frame and body from us and that's it or we can do the full kit for you.
You know, it's basically whatever the customer wants. And then, you know, with that stage of
picking out what you want, same thing with your firewall, you know, I tell you our normal
stretch is four inches. We have a two and then a plus four. What do you want? With the plus four,
however, and I haven't, I haven't done too much into this just so much to do, with the plus four
inches, you're kind of limited to a 302. You can only put a lawn mower. Yeah, so the 351 being
that it's a little bit wider at the head. So with that 302, I basically, you know,
fabricate a custom header to it and, you know, kind of route everything super tight.
But, you know, some people that want a Cobra and are limited because of their size,
they're able to have an options. And with those, those 302s, you know, board and stroke,
typically what we do is a 347s. So around 450 horsepower, which is plenty for a car that
weighs, you know, our cars being that they are a little bit bigger, about 2500 and 60 pounds with a
full tank of gas. So that's, that's also like a 16 gallon tank, so no normal size tank, which,
you know, get in seven miles to the gallon is kind of needed. But, you know, you're kind of
limited to a 347, but, you know, still those, those people that are on the fence about the
size and then being able to fit in one of these because of that option, they're able to,
you know, basically pursue their dream car. Well, so you mentioned something interesting. So
when you're talking about creating more space in the cockpit for that driver, the two inch or the
four inch stretch, you're not changing the proportions of the car itself. It's not like
you're buying a Cobra with a longer door, right? Because Shaq is trying to get in it, right?
And like West Coast Customs added six inches, you're talking about moving the firewall
to allow more. So getting in the vehicle is essentially the same. But once you're in it,
you feel like you have more room because you've moved maybe the pedal box, you've moved the
firewall, you moved all of that to give you more room, which is why it eats a little bit more
into the engine compartment. You need a 302, you need a small engine. Well, yes and no.
So the normal stretch for this Cobra, the four inches was done right at the door.
Okay. Oh, the body itself already has that stretch, you know, that doesn't change.
Partially why we did it at the door is getting in and out of these cars, that door being tiny
is hard. So having that extra four inches right at the door helps immensely to get in
and out of them. After that, then that's just a change in the firewall. So I have
three different options of firewalls that, you know, when I'm building after I've
got the body and I'm fiberglass and everything together, that's when I ask, you know, what
firewall do you want? And then I fiberglassed that into place. And that's, you know, basically
you have your custom firewall to your selected option. And at the end of the day, you've got
options, man. That's the coolest part, right? That's that, like I said, that's kind of what
drew me to Manny and that guilty by association. He was literally 50 yards away from Clint's
place at CGC where I was doing all my Saraco stuff. And so I'd go over and introduce myself
to Manny. We talked about the project and I'd bend his ear every time. And then he's like,
you know, well, maybe I should come over one time and we'll start working on it. And,
you know, it's been, I can't thank him enough for his help. He's kind of transitioning
and we're trying to get his shop out there at the same time. And it's like once a week,
it's like D day, man. Okay, Manny's coming today. How can I eat until dinner?
You know, let's, let's do it. And man, the ability to strike these punch lists down has
been fantastic. But that's why the project's taken so long, right? Because it's not a,
it's not on the schedule project. It's just when we've got time to do it,
Clint comes over, Clint came over last night till 10 o'clock and did wiring.
So periodically when we got time, we just lend it to it. But right now,
we're at that point, man, where it's all hands on deck when we can,
yeah, because we're this close to getting it fired up.
I got a couple of questions about the car, but let's, let's take a quick break and then
we'll jump back into it. Hey guys, it's Matt again. I just wanted to give a big shout
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Okay. So what I want to ask was, Bill, on your car, because this was an existing kit already,
which obviously we talked about many times, you wanted to create some more space for yourself.
You talked about moving the seat, going to a lower profile seat, or lowering the seat,
but you didn't, you didn't change anything else in the car. You didn't change the firewall or
anything like that or the dash. Not at all. Not at all. And you know, one thing that I did,
adding the tilt column, sure. But yeah, I mean, I came to that realization yet or two days ago
when we put the body on the car and I put, you know, hastily put the seat in
and sat in there and I'm like fudge, man. It's changed everything and it's still tight
as hell getting in here and it's playing in the end. But the fact is, is this right here.
Yeah. I did the first mock-up with Manny. I told you, I changed the seats out, right?
Yeah. Look at the thickness of that cushion. I mean,
Yeah. So we're looking at the seat bottom.
I can cut it down to here. Okay.
And look what he gives me. Yeah.
Then I'm not looking over the windshield, right? Right.
So other than dropping it down, I don't, I can't do anything, right?
Yes. 1000%. It gave me probably an inch. And anytime I can have an inch to play with,
whether it's the seat or whether it's the column, man, that's really comfortable.
And the biggest difference that I made was the Tremac, right? It's literally moved up
eight inches from where it was originally. Yeah.
Everything's still being the same, man. It's, I'm not shifting here, right?
Right. I'm in a comfortable position to where you normally shift. And so that in itself
changes the dynamic of it, yes, still being the same size, but there's little alterations
that have helped. Yeah. Having the different shifter locations compared to the four speed makes
all the difference in the world. And the TKX when that came out, and I know we talked to
my kid from Tremac about it, they were smart. I'm surprised they didn't do this a while ago,
but it solved the issue that so many people are running into, not just with kit cars, but
fitment into so many different muscle cars and stuff from the day.
The six-speed's badass. And I've done a six-speed on my red Mustang Cobra, but
just even the fitment is tight. When I was doing that car, if the TKX was available,
when I started that, there wasn't a TKX. I don't mind the six-speed. It's done. It's in there.
I mean, the car's not done, but the transmission's in there. We got it all to work.
But having the TKX, I would have been like, oh, five-speed's fine, lighter, smaller, more room
around the exhaust, more room around the crossmember just, you know, just would have been better overall,
but yeah. Nothing but happy with it so far. And we haven't even fired the thing up.
All right. So the big news, though, is as you can see behind you is you've got the
body on it. Tell us about it. How did it go? Tell me it was super easy. It was no problem.
And it took 10 minutes. I'll tell you from my perspective,
and then you can get a real person's perspective that's done it 50,000 times.
How many bodies do you think you put on? I don't know. Just throw it out there. Hundreds?
Yeah, I mean, it's hundreds. It's been so many. This was my first one. You watch all the videos,
you do the, you see how people done it? Issues, you know, you, I always think the
worst. I'm a pessimist, so I don't think it's going to fit. I had four guys over here,
five guys over here. And so we had somebody strategically at every single freaking point
to where danger could occur. And I got to say, man, looking at the entire process,
it's still not fitted properly. I have a half an inch to go on one body bolt,
and then it'll be done. But man, it was flawless. I mean, I'm going to put,
I'm putting the video, they're putting the video together right now, and it's a bad ass.
It was such a cool day, dude. It was so gratifying, but it went on really freaking easy, I thought.
Yeah, so the fact that we were able to match so many of the body pulls to the existing frame
pulls actually surprised me. One of the things is, you know, I don't typically do them,
how we're doing this one, you know, basically, I'm building them from scratch, you know, we're
starting from nothing and then building up, which in my opinion is a lot easier. Having to do,
you know, basically body off and stuff, you're, you know, it's a little bit more difficult, but
the tolerances on this car are very tight. And, you know, compared to the ones that I'm
and they're not existing. Yeah, I mean, it's whenever I was, I had to hold the front end,
so I wouldn't touch the radiator. I mean, I was like an eighth of an inch from touching the radiator
and I'm having to pull it back as they're setting the body down. As I'm pulling the trunk back.
Yeah, so we had to do a lot of it to finesse it and get it to sit properly.
The ones that I build, typically, you know, I have half an inch of, you know, we're able to,
you know, go tilt the body front to back and kind of shimmy it and do whatever we needed to get it
exactly. But that's for the first, that's the first time. That's the first time. So you can
mock it up. You have, you have clearance and variance. And so you can put it any way you want
and then boom, then the next time you put it on. Yes. But, you know, taking stuff off,
especially when you take an entire body, I'm sure stuff shifts a little bit just from sitting
and not sitting on a solid surface. But overall, I mean, we were able to get it everything on,
everything, you know, most of the holes were pretty spot on. So like I said, I was very
pleasantly surprised that that's how that went. I think the biggest thing that made it
easy was the amount of people that were here to head. Because if you've got me pulling
on the back and you've got an eighth of an inch clearance with the two rear
bumper brackets that the body literally goes over, and then you've got Danny in the front,
pull it on the front end, and the radiators got an eighth of an inch clearance. And then you've
got somebody looking at the shocks. You've got somebody looking at, you know, the heads,
you know, because the heads, dude, my linkage has an eighth of an inch clearance on either side,
whether it's where it hooks on the firewall or whether it hooks on, you know, the foot well,
it's, there's no room to spare. Act that this thing went on. I mean,
actually, the throttle linkage, did you try it to make sure it doesn't, when you throttle it,
it doesn't hit? It's a good question, right? Like maybe it fits. That's a fine detail, right?
Yeah. Okay. But look how close it is. Oh, I see. Yeah, there to the, to the valve cover.
Yeah. And, and the body. And the body. Even closer to the body. And when you move it,
when you throttle it, it's still clear. It still clears. Yeah. Yeah. But you can only like blow
air in between it. It's that, that fricking close. So when I'm, I'm talking about clearing
stuff, I mean, I'm not kidding. I mean, it's, it's, it's pretty, pretty amazing. I mean, like I said,
the, the firewall, the, the access hole in the driver's compartment, that's indicative of the whole
car. So when you guys, when you guys put the body on, this wasn't using the lift to lower the
body down, you guys. Oh yeah. It was. So, and then everybody was around it just jamming a finger in.
Everyone's getting wedged in there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. For me, the first time one goes on, man,
I mean, obviously I did my willies. That's fricking easy. That's a little tub.
But this thing with considering it's a race car and all the stuff, well, okay,
the Bilstein shocks in the front, they don't fit. The diameter is too large to where they hit the front,
the, the AR on one side of the frame on the other, both of them. So that has to be changed out.
But I was amazed at how easily it went on. Yeah. Okay. So the shocks, the coil overs are too,
too big in diameter. You need a smaller diameter shock. Okay. Yeah. They're literally hitting
on the A arms hitting on one side and it's up against the frame on the other side. So we can
move the car, but we surely can't compress the shocks because it's going to hit. But yeah, it's
easy stuff. What we're, the next thing we're doing when we hang up here, we're doing the,
what are we doing? The steering column, the angles a little off. And then we're going to
hopefully rectify that and then put the dash on. And then we probably have four or five
different wires to continue the wiring. And we're literally there, man. I hooked the gas tank up
last night. I mean, we got to finish brake lines. I mean, that list is there. We've got carpet and
trivial stuff, like the doors being put on, but, and the seats being put in. But yeah,
we want to get this thing fired up as quickly as possible. Okay. Yeah. So how much,
I mean, it's tough to say you got your checklist and everybody's got other jobs to do,
you know, running back and forth. We're going to thrash on it a little bit today. And, you know,
the checklist, obviously there's stuff that we can do after we've tried to get this engine fired
up. Yeah. The checklist, like you're saying, the suspension, the shocks, you can replace the
coilover. You can fire this thing up, but you're still, yeah, the roll bar with the roll
bar. Yeah. We're not doing that until after we get this thing fired up and, you know,
tuned up and fighting a rock and then we'll do stuff with that.
Does the body have to come off at any point now or is this done?
Yeah. No, that's, it's, it's where it's going to be. And, you know, at this point,
we're working, working around it now. It's funny how I pushed Manny to certain deadlines.
And in this situation, Clint's like, well, Clint's mastering the wiring issue, right?
So he comes over periodically and nine times out of ten, it's not when Manny's here.
And so they have questions back and forth. I'm not a wiring guy. I'm not going to profess to
be by any stretch. And he obviously wants the body to come back off. So it makes the wiring
easier. Yeah. And right immediately as soon as we put the body on, I tried to get to Manny and
push an answer from his mouth that we weren't going to take it back off. And right when he got
that answer, when I got him to utter that answer, I started tightening bolts up.
It was, it was no, no turning back. Decision's been made.
Oh, I knew that Clint was going to tell him with conviction that Manny said that the
body's not coming back. Yeah. Sorry, Clint. And then that leads to last night,
I'm underneath it. I'm tightening up body bolts and I squished, I squished a
body mount bolt in between the body and the frame. Got left behind between body.
Oh, yeah. Okay. Oops. Oops. I mean, I screwed up.
Well, look, as Manny said, everything can be fixed.
Cut off wheel. Yeah. Okay. So you're getting closer, filming it during the process. Hopefully,
we'll get to start seeing some of those. We're filming a tenth of it. It's tough,
man. Yeah, it's tough. Unless you have dedicated camera guys and I don't want
someone here 24 seven, you know, because, and, you know, I just don't part of the problem with me
is I've been doing this so long and I just started doing it recently because, you know,
Bill told me about it or I should is my every building cobras is my everyday thing
that I don't think about recording anything. You know, for me, it's just another day.
You know, I guess I kind of lose that new feeling. I remember when I started working
for that kit car company, you know, I was taking pictures of the cobras. I was taking pictures
of, you know, the bodies, everything, everything that I was doing. I was recording and maybe
after a year or so, I just kind of you get used to it, you know, or. But now it's different.
And it's a cry for help for guys like me to look on YouTube for direction. And now,
I think he's understanding that there's a huge gap. Truthfully, there is. And you know,
whether it's a cobra or whether it's something else. Yeah. Where car hacks and shortcuts and
experience really means a lot. And if you can, if you can pick out one little subject on a cobra
that there's not an instructional video about, then I think it's needed, you know,
because there's a lot of guys out there that have these cars. And I think there
will be more and more, you know. With heaven, you know, we have people over the U.S. that have
our kits. I mean, often a lot of them have my cell phone number and on the weekend, they'll
shoot me. It takes like, Hey, you know, the manual says to do this, you know, how I'm trying it,
but it's not working. You know, so I have a lot of pictures of where, you know,
arrows pointing to here, do this quarter inch, you know, stuff like that. So I already do have
a lot of a lot of information on it. The thing with it is it's specifically do the cars that
I'm building, but a lot could be applicable to just the task itself. It can, you know, or if anything,
it gives you a really good idea of how, how to tackle whatever build you have going on. The
trans mount, right? Okay. I looked, I looked, so if you go on Google and you just mount
trans mounted e-brake bracket, there's a very limited amount of them that are out there.
And there's even less brackets that are on, that are on video on YouTube. Yeah. If many can fill
that gap on a transmission that's as popular as the TKX and a build that's as popular as the Cobra
Kid car, that's a void that needs to be filled. So I think it's cool for him because he's learned
that through the process. And a guy like me, who's doing it for the first time and who doesn't
have an ego. And I look for myself in ways to rectify problems and they're not out there. And so
I think that's where he needs to, he needs to fill the void. Yeah. You know, and that, that's a good
point is, is the video you guys just put up like a day ago was making that, that bracket for the,
for the drift break, right? For the e-brake that you guys did. It's mounting it to the
transmission. So someone can look at that and essentially replicate what you did to mount
that, that drift break to a TKX. It doesn't have to be Cobra specific. And maybe they want to
change the shape of the handle or have it come out of a slightly different location. But
what you did there, and also talking with, with my kid at Tremac about it as well going,
hey, does this make sense? Can we do this? Can we drill here? Can we tap that, you know, that,
that hole or whatever? And then he'll say, you know, sure, it makes sense to do.
He was a great bit of information. And I didn't, we didn't touch anything until I asked him,
because I don't, I don't want to cover anything up. I don't want to get it to get in the way
if I have to access anything later. Now, logic is going to tell you what you're looking at.
It's going to answer your question, but I just wanted to make sure. And, and I think
Manny should offer, Hell, Tremac should offer that somebody should offer that because Tremac's a great
a very popular transmission. And that application, as you said, could be done with anything,
with any e-brake, any, any vehicle, if they have the room in the top. From the beginning
on that bracket is, you know, I'm assuming they're solenoids. I know for sure we,
we were right, we're right over the reverse, reverse light switch that Tremac has. Yeah.
Now these cars, the Cobra doesn't have, you know, reverse lights. But with the design of that bracket,
you know, or just with anything I do is I always keep, keep in mind that somebody's going to work
on this in their house. They don't have a lift. They don't have the options to remove the body
from it. So whenever I work on a Cobra, and it's a changing process, you know,
that the car is always evolving. But my goal is always being able to access whatever you're doing,
being able to maintenance the car at home. What's the complete opposite of what it, what it is now.
That's how everything used to be. So whenever, you know, like that, that bracket, you know,
I had a specific cut out for that reverse light switch. The majority of people are going to
need that, maybe not in the Cobra market, but I know every other car is going to need that.
Yeah. So, you know, made it one easily to be removed once the body was on, but then
also has the option that it doesn't really have to be removed because everything you need to get to
already has access. And first and foremost, it fits in the tunnel.
It fits. So moving forward on the kits that you make, are you going to,
are you going to use the TKX? Are you going to recommend the TKX to clients now that you've
got a bit of experience with it? That's already what, what we've been using. That's what the company
that I was originally working for was using at the time was TKX. And then, you know, we switched
over to the TKX. Even able to offer the, I believe the T56, Magnum, the T56, or the six-speed,
we've been able to do that. That four-inch stretch, you know, I've had these cars next to,
you know, normal-size wheelbase, the nine-inch wheelbase, RSV94. The great thing about that is, so
most of the, most of the cars have independent rear suspension, not because,
because they wanted the handling of the IRS, but because there's no room for the driveshaft.
I mean, you saw the driveshaft on his car, it's like seven and a half inches.
Yeah. You know, so with the four-inch stretch, we're actually able to do a four-nine-inch from,
I believe, Moser, or pretty much any four-nine-inch rear-end solid axle, which, you know, a lot of
these cars, not many people take these cars to actual courses, tracks, stuff like that. It's
more of a drag strip, you know, straight line, with a four-link suspension. It handles great
on the track, you know, and a lot of people don't push them that much, and the four-nine-inch,
and the way that suspension is designed, handles pretty much what a lot of people will push these
cars to. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, it's looking good. I'm glad you guys got the body on,
and you were able to come here and chat with us finally, to chat with us all about it. It's
a badass car, and we've all been excited to see the progress on it.
What's next for you, Manny? What's going on? Just keep your shops busy. You're looking for more stuff.
So I'm actually looking to maybe make some modifications. I've been trying, I've been
getting a lot of feedback from customers, and making some modifications. I know a lot of
people that are purists, they really don't want the car to change, but a lot of these changes are
for the better of the car, making it more drivable. Well, nowadays it's so much more acceptable for
people to do custom customs, right, and take it a little further, because it's all, again,
it's all applicable to the driver. I'm seeing a little bit more lenience in that market,
more acceptance, really. I guess it's been about a year and a half ago,
I did one with an LS3. Same thing with having that transmission, LS3 being almost the exact same
dimensions as the 302. It's a perfect fit. It's just people don't like seeing Chevy in a Ford car.
But again, again, it's an LS. You know the reliability of an LS. I wouldn't want one in there.
This gentleman said he's like, I want to be able to daily drive my car, not mess with the carburetor,
anything like that. He's like, I want to get in it and drive it and enjoy the car.
And he's like, if I was like, I'm not even taking it to car shows. This is purely for my
enjoyment. So we did an LS3 in his car. So my goal is, I want people to enjoy these cars.
I want them to basically enjoy the building process. If you buy one of these cars and it
turns into a nightmare, you finish your car and you just want to get rid of it just because
it's a pain in the ass. Yes. So luckily, I think I have it pretty spot on with people enjoying their
builds and being a part of it is another thing is being able to have that sensation of I did this.
I helped build this car. Not only do you know exactly what's going into your car,
but because you were a part of it, you now are learning how to maintain your vehicle without
having to take it to a shop. Well, that and you have no one else to blame when you hook your
linkage up and then you're driving and you hit the throttle and the linkage falls off.
You're the one who did. But to speak to that, again, this is the second car that I've done.
First real car, I mean, the first was a G. But I mean, this experience was freaking awesome.
It was earth shattering. And the pride that I have by installing one bolt
is infectious. And the amount of help that he's given me is, I mean, I can't even freaking,
I don't even know where I'd be. This thing, I'd still be trying to put the shocks in or
something. But it's been a lot of fun. And it's, I've learned a hell of a lot. I've had a great
time along the way. I've been frustrated a little bit, three and a half hour bolt situation and
snapping. Oh, I, I, I snapped a couple more of your drill bits. Sorry.
You know, for the most part, it's been freaking so much fun, man. And not a lot of people get
this opportunity. And I'm 150 years old. And I now can say that I put a freaking car together
every nut bolt of it. I've touched every single bolt on this car. And that's empowering. And
and it's fun. And as a car guy, you know, that's now I'm a real freaking car guy,
because I can say with conviction that I put a car together. Yeah. And although it hasn't started yet.
That's all right. It'll get there. There's no turning back now. Hell no. There's no turning
back now. All right, guys, this has been awesome. I appreciate it. For those of you
that are online, of course, check out Manny's Customs Builds. His website is on Instagram as well
at Manny's Custom Builds on Instagram. You can also see him linked from Goldberg's Garage
Instagram page as well. There's a few posts up there as well. So yeah, give him a follow,
say hi, see what's going on in the garage. And Manny, thanks so much for joining us.
It's been fun. This is probably not going to be the last time you're on the show. So
well, you're welcome back anytime. And I'm sure when this thing is on the street,
we're going to have to get you back on to talk about it. But awesome. Bill, thanks so much.
I'm glad you guys are getting this stuff done and having fun during the process.
You got it, buddy boy. Until next time, keep the air and the spare and the bag and the wheel.
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