It has been a long and interesting road for LateModelRestoration.com’s project Coyote Swap. They’ve taken this 1997 Cobra that has a racing pedigree as a former Bob Bondurant School of High Performance Driving student car, as well as currently being owned by Warren Hall, and raced by Shannon Guderian, and breathed some much needed new life into it with an engine transplant.

The LateModelRestoration.com crew replaced the worn out MACH 1 engine that had previously been transplanted into the car, for a brand new Ford Racing Parts Coyote 5.0. They upgraded the engine with BBK headers, a Moroso oil pan, JLT air intake, SCT custom tune and more. Shifts come via a Tremec 3550 transmission. Many of those parts were necessary to make the engine either fit, or to add durability to it for the racing environment it will face. 

The payoff fro this massive undertaking has been a an impressive 447 hp, and 411 ft-lbs of torque to the rear tires. No word on what kind of numbers the old Mach 1 setup pulled, but we would probably be close in saying this is likely a gain of at least 125-140 hp to the rear tires for the old Cobra.

LateModelRestoration.com also updated the exterior of the car with a set of their new SVE wheels in bright silver, as well as some new headlights. They also took the down time to upgrade the front brakes to a Ford Racing M2300X Brembo brake kit for better braking ability at the track.

The car hasn’t hit the track just yet, but the LateModeRestoration.com crew have done a few short test drives to make sure it’s ready to go. For more information on the parts used in this swap, or to see future track videos, check out the LateModelRestoration.com Coyote Swap page.