Announcing New Kirkham Billet Aluminum 427 Block

[David Kirkham]

Fellow Car Nuts:

I am VERY, VERY happy to announce the new Kirkham Billet Aluminum 427 engine block. I have wanted to do this for years and we finally had the
opportunity to make one of my dreams come true.

EDIT:
Gents: Today 27 Feb 07 I am going to make some corrections on the weights of the blocks. I just called Keith Craft and convinced him to get out his scales. Many, many thanks to Keith Craft for taking time out of his day to do this for all of us! I know it was a pain and I thank him very much. (Love his motors too, by the way!)

ALL BLOCKS WERE MEASURED WITH THE MAIN CAPS ON.

Weighed by Kirkham on our digital scales. 351 Dart, aluminum 100.8 pounds (10 January 2007)

An original 427 cast iron block, top oiler (with caps) weighs about 190 pounds. CORRECTION: (204 lbs from Keith Craft)

A cast aluminum Shelby 427 block (with caps) weighs about 150 pounds. (I am giving you that number from memory. I will get the exact weight as soon as I can dig it out of our records). CORRECTION, 133 lbs from Keith Craft).

A cast aluminum Dart 351 small block weighs 100.8 pounds.

The new Kirkham 427 Billet Aluminum block (with the girdle/caps) weighs 79 pounds!

We did extensive engineering and design work to take out all of the excess weight we could find. If you look closely at the intake galley, you can see we even surface machined the lifter area to take out all of the weight possible.

The picture you see is of a wooden block that was used to prove the CNC tool paths and tool clearances. We have a 2nd wooden block we are finishing right now in the machine. Our first ALUMINUM block should be done this week. We will assemble and run the block to make sure everything works. We should be in production in 4-6 weeks. We had special FORGED billets of aluminum made for the starting blanks.

Tech Facts

FORGED billet aluminum

weight 79 pounds

water cooled

4.25 inch, Nikisil lined bores

1 piece bottom girdle (like current F1 engines--all of the main caps are milled from 1 solid piece of aluminum for rigidity.

Will take standard heads, bell housing, intake manifold.

Anticipated price $4,995 (actual final pricing will be determined when we see how many actual hours of spindle time it takes to make the block).

Here is the block we have all been waiting for! Finally, big block acceleration with BETTER than small block handling. I am so excited I can hardly stand it.

David

Added Later:

Here is a link to more pictures. I have LOTS of pictures and I will be posting them with comments on the ENTIRE process. How we did it, what we were thinking, how we solved problems, etc.

http://www.kirkhammotorsports.com/billet427block/

I have posted this in my first post as well so people who are just now coming to the post can see some more pics and follow along.

David

More pictures:

http://www.kirkhammotorsports.com/mfg/block_index.html

David