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Old 11-23-2016, 11:38 AM
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RodKnock RodKnock is offline
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Join Date: Feb 2007
Cobra Make, Engine: KMP 539, a Ton of Aluminum
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Quote:
Originally Posted by undy View Post
Three words for porosity issues... Vacuum Casting Impregnation.
Undy does the "three word" thing too.

He also seems pretty smart to me. He wouldn't trade his Pond alloy for two cast iron BBM's.

Statements (and even solutions) by Barry R:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Barry_R View Post
Every single aluminum block I do will get impregnated from now on (Bill - your's was done too) after I had an issue a few years ago. The cost is added into the build, but I do not call it out because customer get nervous about a process the might not understand. This place does a bunch of military and OEM transmission stuff.

The weight savings is nice and I can fully understand the desire. The blocks themselves seem to be consistently inconsistent in quality. I have always been able to build them into good engines but they are always a challenge and I kind of agree with the sentiment - they should cost 20% more for labor because of the extra effort required.

The 427 stuff is definitely cool - given the choice I would prefer to build an iron block every time. We pretty much never have any issues with 390 based 445 builds, and we do them at a rate of two or three per month.
I noticed that Barry mentions building and not having many, if any, issues with original cast iron FE blocks, but doesn't mention aftermarket cast iron blocks. Hmmm.
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