KJ Byrnes - Special Editon SHOgun #005
Posted Jul 30, 2002 - 02:25 AM
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I have the no. 005 car and have spent quite a bit of time gathering articles, talking with Beck and other owners. By the way, the article that you reference comes from the Sep 94' issue of Turbo High Performance. The body molds and chassis tooling were sold to a Ford collector in Kansas and hence the cars are no longer available. Beck tells me that only 7 were built, including the prototype. He tells me that mine was the last one completed. Apparently the no. 6 7 were finished before mine, he doesn't recall the story. Also, the actual wet weight is 2550 w/o driver (also verified by other mag. articles) so the pwr/wt ratio is more like 11.5 :1 but still a hoot. Mine is only putting out about 170 HP at my 5,700 ft CO altitude per the 1/4 mi.time calculations, a little low even when corrected. Not sure why. The car has about 8000 miles on it. Here's an attachment that I'm putting together for a future car show : DRIVETRAIN - Powered by a stock 220hp Ford Taurus SHO motor and its 5 spd trans. in a mid-engined configuration.
- SHO motor (Super High Output): 3.0 ltr 4 cam 24v V6. 7200rpm redline. Dual mode intake runners. High alloy block, Forged pistons, crank, rods w/internal oil-water heat exchanger. Built by Yamaha for Ford and referred to as the SHOGUN motor (hence the car name).
BODY - Based on the 91’ FORD Festiva (built by KIA).
- 4 fiberglas fenders and hood (w/ducted radiator vent for improved cooling).
- front air dam w/integral driving lights.
- wet wt 2550 lb.
CHASSIS - 63hp Festiva motor is replaced with a 15 gal. fuel cell.
- Front suspension vented disc brakes from Ford Taurus.
- Adjustable Koni’s w/ adjustable ride-height suspension.
- 4-point Roll-cage + diagonal door bracing added.
- additional side-impact beams added.
- quicker custom made rack pinion steering gears.
INTERIOR - Recaro seats, Momo steering wheel.
- Full VDO instrumentation incl. 160mph speedo.
- Deist aircraft 4-point seat harness
| HISTORY - This is the last of 7 built between 90’-92’. The car was apparently ordered (and the number 005 reserved) prior to the fabrication of the no. 6 7 cars.
- Conceived built by Chuck Beck (chassis fabricator for the Shelby GT-350 and Ford’s GT-40 racing programs) and Rick Titus (SCCA endurance champion). Styling input from Peter Brock (Shelby Datona Coupe designer).
- All were built to customer order to avoid DOT certification although they are CA emissions legal.
- Selling price $48,500 (no doubt a primary reason for so few being ordered).
- All SHOGUN’s were painted a different color. This, the “purple” one, was accented with custom purple door panels and purpleheart wood trim.
- This SHOGUN was built specifically for SCCA racing so several features of 005 are unique to the other cars : all others used a 2 point roll bar, standard Festiva steering, leather seats, and different interior door panels, seat belts, interior trim, and body decals. The original owner provided the motor modified with a lightened flywheel and under-drive pulleys. This car is in as-delivered condition except for tires.
NameDropping - Jay Leno owns the no.003 car modified with nitrous to 330 hp.
PERFORMANCE - 0-60 in 4.8 sec
- ¼ mile in 12.9 sec at 101mph
- 1.04 g cornering (even today only bettered by the Ferrari F-40)
- “The Ultimate Pocket Rocket” R T
- “One loose cannon” C D
- “it’s 1:05 lap time at Willow Springs is a decent 427 Cobra time”
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