Million Dollar Skunksworks Kirkham

[David Kirkham]

Believe it or not, on Wednesday, we took the entire chassis apart to clean in inside and out. We had to get the tapping oil out of the holes so the Loctite would stick.

[David Kirkham]

Here are all the parts taken back off again.

[csx wnab]

i think a mill. is too much. i think i could build the ultimate KMS427S/C for less than a 1/4 of that. full comp.dry sump and all aluminum engine 4130 chassis or stainless. i'll stop now. i dont want to let out all my plans for my KMS in the future

[ac andy]

Hi David, some of those photos are hard to make out, what with all that scrap aluminium in the background(coupe and roadster shells). Only joking!!!

That is an unbelievable project that really needs to be seen to be believed!!

Congratulations on a remarkable effort. Well done!!

Andy.

[Don]

David.........I may have missed, who are the personnel that are involved in the design, machining , fabrication, assembly etc. ?

To everyone's credit, if Detroit or the foreign manufacturers were to take on the task......would be years of committee meetings and a cast of ?

Hopefully, an auto /sports car magazine(s) will have a lengthy article on the major accomplishment. The " WOW " factor needs no further explanation.

[David Kirkham]

csx wnab,

The object of this car was to make the coolest car on earth...not necessarily the fastest car on earth. Our customer didn't really care about "fast" as he already owns every super car imaginable. You can only drive so fast anyway--as such, speed has never really been at the top of my list of "cool."

He wanted the coolest car imaginable and gave us free license. Obviously, "coolest" is in the eye of the beholder. This is what we came up with. No doubt, others on this site, you included, could come up with your own version of "cool," equally as valid as what we came up with.

David

[David Kirkham]

Originally Posted by Don

David.........I may have missed, who are the personnel that are involved in the design, machining , fabrication, assembly etc. ?

To everyone's credit, if Detroit or the foreign manufacturers were to take on the task......would be years of committee meetings and a cast of ?

Hopefully, an auto /sports car magazine(s) will have a lengthy article on the major accomplishment. The " WOW " factor needs no further explanation.

Thank you for your kind words. I too agree Detroit could have never come up with something like this. Too much bureaucracy and no freedom of expression or artistic license. It is really a shame.

The people involved are just us guys here at Kirkham. The concept was mine. The engineering was done by my brother Thomas (with lots of modifications to the original concept, of course, as time went on). The design/machining was done by me and our guys here. All design, assembly, and manufacturing was done in-house and within the family. We didn't sub anything out.

The WOW factor was really the ultimate goal of the project. There really is no other billet chassis car on earth, (at least that I have found). It is really a unique, one-of-a-kind (and once-in-a-lifetime) project.

David

[David Kirkham]

Here are the 1/2 shaft parts getting ready to be hardened. Notice we are polishing to a mirror finish the 1/2 shaft axles. We don't want any stress raisers in those babies! The parts on the bottom are the hub end of the 1/2 shaft. The parts on the top are the differential end of the 1/2 shafts. We made a few extra parts as you can see here.

[David Kirkham]

The little parts in the above picture are parts of the control arms. Notice the 2 extra 1/2 shaft axles on the right side of the picture. They will be polished too.

David

[David Kirkham]

Originally Posted by ac andy

Hi David, some of those photos are hard to make out, what with all that scrap aluminium in the background(coupe and roadster shells). Only joking!!!

That is an unbelievable project that really needs to be seen to be believed!!

Congratulations on a remarkable effort. Well done!!

Andy.

Andy,

It does need to be seen in real life to be appreciated. The car is really growing on me. It is one of 2 cars we have ever done that I like more and more the longer we work on it. The only other car I can say that for is the Copper 40 Ford GT we made for Ford for SEMA.

David

[lineslinger]

David,
You guys should be proud. That chassis looks like it should be crawling around taking soil samples and pictures on Mars.
Well done sir.

[David Kirkham]

Originally Posted by lineslinger

David,
You guys should be proud. That chassis looks like it should be crawling around taking soil samples and pictures on Mars.
Well done sir.

You are most kind. I am still very nervous my customer won't be happy. He is very particular and knows great craftsmanship. He sees it every day. Maybe the artist is never happy with his work. I do think this car is pretty cool, however.

David

[David Kirkham]

Here is a better shot of the 1/2 shafts and associated parts. The differential side snaps into the Dana 44 differential, just like a modern car. The outboard side of the 1/2 shaft bolts through the hub with a 3/4-16 thread. The clamp on that big bolt keeps the hub bearings together.

[David Kirkham]

Here is a shot of the motor mounts. They were made so you can attach the motor mounts to the motor and lower the motor into the car--unlike the original car. In the original 427 Cobra, you have to lower the motor in first, then slip the mounts in. There is barely enough room to slip them in.

[Don]

David, should you desire to publicize the accomplishment, via an interview and article, consider MotorSport, i.e. international recognition and exposure

http://www.motorsportmagazine.co.uk/

Simon Taylor writes terrific articles. He interviewed NicK Mason, drummer for Pink Floyd, on the CD " The Sounds of Goodwood " For those that are not familiar with MotorSport, a very high quality publication, a natural for the vehicle being constructed.

[lineslinger]

My comments were not meant as a suck up, craftsmanship is always to be noted, if your customer starts to pick it apart I would like to discuss the project with you..no BS.

[David Kirkham]

Originally Posted by lineslinger

My comments were not meant as a suck up, craftsmanship is always to be noted, if your customer starts to pick it apart I would like to discuss the project with you..no BS.

My customer has really been one of the nicest men I have ever dealt with--maybe even the nicest. He has never nit-picked anything I have done. On the contrary, he has been quite complimentary...the funny thing is, the more complimentary he is, the more I want to make the car even better just so there is no possibility I could let him down. I am just nervous, that's all; I really don't even know why, I just am.

David

[David Kirkham]

This is a really interesting part. This is the pedal box. On the original 427 Cobra, the master cylinders for the brakes and clutch is under the floor. My customer told me one day he wanted to drive this car down the PCH from San Francisco to LA. One of the problems with the original car is you can't slide your foot under the brake pedals because they are floor mounted. We thought a lot about this and decided to hang the pedals from the top.

The problem is; if you hang the pedals from the top, they are right above the exhaust and they will "pre-heat" your brake fluid for you! Bad, very bad--especially if you are facing turn 1 at the end of the straight and you already have your brakes hot. So, we flipped the master cylinders around so they face the driver and the brake pedal turns into a class 1 lever (just like a teeter totter). It made things tight, but it was the only answer that worked.

[David Kirkham]

Notice in the above box we made 2 internal supports for the pivot pin. The stiffness of the pedal box is critical to brake feel. You do NOT want your brake pedal or pedal box flexing! You do not want anything in the brake department flexing as it gives the driver a vague feel of what the brakes are doing. Flex makes modulation of the brakes impossible (or at least very difficult). So, we placed intermediate braces in the box--between the brake and clutch pedal levers--to mitigate any flex that could creep into the system. Also, the front of the foot box is made from 1/2 inch aluminum plate. The top of the foot box is made from 1 inch plate! (All hogged out and lightened up, of course.)

[David Kirkham]

Here are the brake and clutch pedals.

You can see we designed them so there is clearance for your toe as you work the pedal. We designed the pedals straight so there would be no chance of the pedal flexing under hard braking. The original Cobra brake and clutch pedals are bent to put them in the right place for the driver to use them. The bend in the pedals is weak spot that causes the pedals to flex. That was a problem we had to solve in this car.

So, we placed the pedals optimally in the foot box for the driver, but that caused problems lining up the pedals with the master cylinders as the pedals are nowhere near directly under the master cylinders. So, we machined the offset into the top of the pedal--along the axis of the pivot pin--thereby eliminating any side loading of the pedals or the master cylinders.

The down side is the billet to make the pedals was 4 x 2 x 20! That is 16 pounds of billet! The finished machined pedals are just over 1 pound each.

We have been asked many times how much of the billet goes into chips. I would guess on average 90-95% of the aluminum billet goes into the chip barrel. Aluminum does recycle, however!