Polished Kirkham with V12 engine at London

[cycleguy55]

Originally Posted by MKS427

I saw this and spoke with the owner at Cars and Coffee too. He actually aquired two of these engines to put one together. It actually blew up on the dyno and two cylinders had to be sleeved, before it was ever in the car. A custom shortened tailshaft and housing was necessary for the TKO 600 to fit. The six cylinder header/sidepipes were done to perfection, as well as the rest of the car.
I did look up the engine. Torque Engineering from Elkhart Indiana, out of business around 2003, was the manufacturer. 860 cu in with ~ 1150 hp.

"The V-12 is available in three model variants: Torque 1000, 1100 and 1200, with the 1200 producing a formidable 1,150 horsepower (858 kW) at 5,500 rpm and 1,150 foot-pounds (1560 Nm) of torque at 4,800 rpm."

"The 90-degree cylinder block and heads, four in total, are aluminum alloy castings contributing to a very light total (dry) weight of 1,212 pounds (550 kg). All three models are naturally aspirated and feature multi-port EFI controlled by an advanced engine management system."

First Look: Torque Engineering V-12 - boats.com

I suppose on a pounds/HP basis a 1200+ lbs engine may be considered "very light", but it would still create weight distribution and handling issues in a Cobra. Regardless, you can get far better pounds/HP numbers on a number of other naturally-aspirated engines (e.g. 800 HP on a 385-series running pump gas), never mind what you can do with a force-fed engine.

There's no doubt that engine in that car has lots of WOW factor but, other than that, there are better ways to put mega-horsepower in a Cobra, IMO.