Getting The Cobra Competition Ready With A QuickTime Bellhousing

quicktime-leadartAs our Factory Five Cobra Jet Challenge build continues to take shape, we’re beginning to really focus on the details. Since the car is being built for use in organized motorsports, rather than just tearing around town, there are a number of elements within the project that have to be considered specifically for that purpose, not just in terms of making the car competitive, but also to ensure the car conforms to sanctioning bodies’ rules and regulations for race cars. Otherwise, it’s going to be stuck in the paddock come show time.

og_imageBack in the early days of motorsports, as equipment was pushed to its performance limits, the process of discovering those limits often involved catastrophic parts failures that would not only cause damage to the vehicles, but serious injury to drivers. As SEMA grew over the years, a new organization was formed in 1978 called the SEMA Foundation, Inc., or SFI, specifically to manage the racing specifications program. Today, SFI certifications are generally considered the standard that safety gear must meet in order to qualify for use in motorsport with most sanctioning bodies in the USA as well as other organizations across the globe.

In this installment of the Factory Five Cobra Jet Challenge build we’re hooking up a new Tremec gearbox to our Coyote 5.0-liter V8 using a QuickTime bellhousing. QuickTime offers a number of bellhousings which meet or exceed the SFI 6.1 specification requirement. In addition, their unique design and manufacturing process provides a number of advantages over other offerings available to builders looking to install a competition-spec housing.

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QuickTime gathered input from OEMs, engine and transmission builders, racers, and hobbyists when designing their bellhousings to ensure they got all the details right.

Making The Grade

Achieving an SFI certification is not a rubber stamp type of operation. In the case of bellhousings, in order to meet the 6.1 certification new manufacturers (as well as established ones that are looking to put a new design on the market) must send three examples of their bellhousing to SFI for testing. SFI then puts a 29-pound flywheel into the bellhousing, spins it up to 10,000 rpm, and explodes the flywheel. All three housings submitted must fully contain the fragmented parts in order to meet the spec for the SFI’s certification. Additionally, once a housing has been certified it must be re-tested every two years in order to maintain its SFI certification status.

QuickTime has patents pending on no less than 16 points of the design and manufacturing process of their bellhousings. Built from high grade steel that's hardened to over 80,000 psi strength, it's more than twice as strong as hydroformed bellhousings.

Unlike the traditional manufacturing process for bellhousings in which the housings are stamped out from a mold, QuickTime uses a patent-pending “spun” metal process which strengthens the material to a level far beyond that of rolled or stamped offerings. This innovative approach allows the company to design bellhousings that are not only stronger than hydroformed bellhousings, but significantly lighter as well. QuickTime also laser cuts the openings and trim bellhousings to the particular dimensional requirements of an application with unparalleled accuracy.

“These manufacturing processes simply weren’t available 15 years ago,” says Ross McCombs of QuickTime. “And, everything we offer is made in the USA with US-certified steel, right down to the fasteners.”

A Bell For Every Occasion

SFI certification also specifies that designs must have seven bolts on the top of the bellhousing and eight bolts on the bottom in order to meet its 6.1 certification. While QuickTime offers a wide range of bellhousings that conform to that rule, they also offer a selection for street use that differ in their design in the interest of packaging/clearance considerations for various applications. “These bellhousings still meet SFI’s standard for strength despite not being designed for use in motorsports,” Ross added.

Installation of the bellhousing is a fairly straightforward affair: install the block plate behind the flexplate/flywheel, bolt the bellhousing to the engine, slide in the trans, and bolt the trans to the bellhousing.

Modular Ford guys will be happy to know that QuickTime also offers a number of SFI and non-SFI compliant bellhousings for various applications, from the Ford Mustang T5, TR3550, and Ford TKO 500/600 (PN RM-6081) to the ZF transaxle used in the Detomaso Pantera and GT40 (PN RM-8084), as well as C4 and AODE automatics (PN RM-9080 and RM-9081, respectively) to name a few. QuickTime even has a convenient bellhousing selector on their website to help you determine exactly what you need to match everything up for your build.

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With everything buttoned up the drivetrain gets closer to its date with the engine bay of the Cobra. The strength of the QuickTime housing provides great piece of mind and its light weight design means we’re getting the best of both worlds. In motorsports, every extra pound makes a difference, and the QuickTime bellhousing is another piece of the puzzle on our way to a seriously competitive Cobra.

It’s also worth noting that the bolt patterns are the same across the small-block Ford modular V8 lineup, so a bellhousing that works for a Coyote 5.0 will also fit 4.6-liter and 5.4-liter motors as well.

One Step Closer

Rome, as they say, wasn’t built in a day, and neither are bitchin’ race cars. But, we continue to make headway with the Factory Five Cobra Jet Challenge build, and with a previous addition of our ultimate fuel system the Cobra is really starting to come together.

With the running gear coming together along with a way to feed it, it won’t be long before this beast is screaming down the road course. You can follow along with the Factory Five Cobra Jet Challenge build right here.

With over 250 models offered and more than 4,200 combinations available, it’s a pretty safe bet that QuickTime has a bellhousing that’s right for your build. Check out the QuickTime website, and if you can’t find your application, be sure to get in touch with their technical staff to help you get the right bellhousing for your setup.

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About the author

Bradley Iger

Lover of noisy cars, noisy music, and noisy bulldogs, Brad can often be found flogging something expensive along the twisting tarmac of the Angeles Forest.
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