Art & Inspiration Billet Aluminum Chassis by Kirkham Motorsports

-A modern driver in an original Cobra also finds them squirrley, with a great deal of frame flex, they have **** brakes, and understeer violently.

They were awesome for the day, but then, so were bias-ply tires.

David: Your book also got posted over at Practical Machinist. I was rather surprised how non-receptive more than a few of the regulars were towards it. A couple of guys basically went out of their way to find something bad about it.

You might want to wander over and say hi. Tell 'em Doc sent ya.

Doc.

 

It might not be the norm for this site but it is awesome workmanship.....

 

OOOOHHHHHH!!! that makes me want to yell and argue, goes against every cell in my body, but damn that is cool. that goes in the " ya, watch this" catagory.

 

Very cool stuff. Astounding workmanship. Thanks for posting your pics and your book.

 

The originals were made out of aluminum.

 

Phenomenal work. I could never do that

Now, where's all them people that ran their mouth on the first page??? Lets see their stuff.

Omar

 

Amazing craftsmanship, you should use your skills to do good, not evil. Stick around here and see what is going on in the Traditional Hot Rod scene. In the long run you will fit right in.

 

Why? When I was speaking to Larry I think we both thought it would be a challenge to do it. No one had ever done it before (that I have found). Machined aluminum parts are beautiful.

I think you are right. It was really done as garage art--that could be driven. Why did Michelangelo carve David? I guess because he wanted to (and someone paid him to do it). Some people hang paintings on their walls--some people park their "paintings" in their garage (and drive them sometimes too).

Now, is our work comparable to Michelangelo's? Heavens no. But he has inspired generations of those willing to dream, willing to try something new, willing to stare failure in the face and keep on fighting. Perhaps did the same with this car, albeit on nowhere near the same scale and only in a very small way.

David

 

We have other projects in the Skunk Works now. Frankly, I have always wanted to do a 33 or a 37. Just not quite in the same way many of you might think.

David

 

Thanks for the kind words!

David

 

Have you taken them to any SAAC events? What do they say about them?

I just went to your site- Wow ... A top notch Cobra replica at a very affordable price!

 

Thanks for the kind words. I think I am more of a guy who likes a challenge than a gear head, though I am undeniably a gear head.

I somehow doubt your project is a wheel barrow. My brother and I started the company with a used bench, a vise, and about 3 drawers in a tool box with a few hand tools in them. I don't even think we had a compressor. Keep trying! Keep smoothing out those square edges on your wheel and you'll have a sweet ride.

David

 

We may smack you a bit for the Billet thing but the vast majority of us can fully appreciate the craftsmanship that went into the car and the information we can glean from the book.

 

Just for clarification. On the Billet Aluminum Ch***is project, the guys in Poland only made the body, hood, and trunk. We did all the rest of the work here in Utah.

Could someone please post a pic of the "T nose" you are interested in? I'll see what we can come up with.

David

 

The car was just over 12,000 hours to build. I am not sure how much of that was the ch***is only. I would have to look and see.

David

 

I see good craftsmanship and helpful tech that could be used by any of us. Thanks for bringing it to us.

 

Doc,

Great questions and thanks for the kind words. The only reason we can get fenders straight is because we have a lot of practice. We have made about 700 cars now. You may nit-pick all you like. I will never say this is the end-all, best-all, whatever car there ever will be. In fact, I EXPECT people to find errors. No one is perfect; that's why pencils have erasers. I am most grateful to anyone who can find errors in our work and be most kind to show them to us. We all learn that way.

The carb was far from off-t******lf. It was heavily modified. We used a Holley 4 BBL for a couple of reasons. 1: We moved the engine back 6 inches from the original position of the motor. There is simply no room for the EFI to fit under the windshield cowl. Wasn't going to happen.

2: There really is no good mapping for a 427 engine for the fuel injection. We have messed with them for years and could never quite get them to run right. We tried to fix the problems for years with our customers cars and finally we called the engineers at Ford. (Remember the Copper car in the above photos? We did that for SEMA for Ford). Anyway, we asked them why we could never get the motors to run as nice as with a 4BBL. Ford EFI engineers told us they spend 6 months with someone driving around the deserts of Arizona and the mountains of Colorado tweaking with the mapping gathering data for the engineers in Detroit to ****yze on new cars. With Larry, the last thing we wanted was electrical/computer glitches. We do have one customer now, though, that is an EE who has spent the past 9 months and 10,000 miles mapping his motor. Maybe one day. That said, it still would not have fit under the windshield cowl.

Finally, as strange as this might sound, Larry was simply not interested in the motor. He has a Bugatti Veyron, after all. We were mostly interested in simplicity and reliability for Larry.

Tunnel,

You are right with the conduction of heat through the ribs. Why did we do it? Compromise. Designing anything is a battle of compromises--usually the manufacturing engineering department (me) against the mechanical engineering department (my brother).

The tunnel is stressed in the ch***is design. The tunnel is made from 1/2 inch plate aluminum. It had to have ribs in it to keep it stiff. The ribs make up a very small over surface area of the tunnel in relation to the entire surface area. Also, there is a break in the pathway by the fact the aluminum sheet is bolted on top of the ribs (on the underside of the tunnel top). Conduction through breaks is, as I am sure you are aware, slowed significantly.

Billet block. One day...one day.

David

 

Just looked at that thread. I am tired just thinking about answering!

David

 

Thanks for the kind words...I think I just might stick around a while! Seems like a bunch of nice guys here!

David

 

No, the car was delivered and he is driving it now.

Thanks for the kind words!

David

 

Thanks, I'm glad you like it. Hopefully it can help someone.

David

 

Welcome to the board David!

Ya gotta love it when they start slappin' ya in the face the minute you walk in... glad the thread started turning around

If anyone ever gets a chance to personally view any of this work in person - do it!

I'm proud stuff like this is rollin' outta UT, "traditional" or not.

 

I can't speak for the anti-billet guys, because I understand the genesis.

A few guys who had great skills and a desire to build stuff that wasn't available decided to make the parts they wanted by hand or machine. Fabrication at it's finest.

These parts were seen as beautiful and special. Others wanted them on their cars too. Some built them, some paid others to have them made. Some prefered a more original look, and didn't like the custom look. This was the start of anti-billet.

There was enough demand that some parts were m***-produced. Also, the formed aluminum became a theme, rather than simply a way to get the part needed for the application. This is where the backlash really started to build. Having the same power window switches, valve covers, mirrors and steering wheels as every other guy was not the original point of fabricating a part. especially when they tended toward the low end, m*** produced look and were not a better replacement part, but a fashion statement.

Your creation has nothing to do with the last part of that evolution, it's based in the first. Dream, design and build something that does it's job the best way possible, using the most modern craftsmanship available.
In my humble opinion, some of the guys that are against billet in an application such as yours are donning a trend and a fashion statement in the same way as the guy 15 years ago wore their fashion statement with a Peach colored, Tweed interiored, "billet" laden, A/C cooled 'gl*** car. That was also a cl*** thing, since a lot of those cars cost more than many people's annual salary, or tried to look that way. I doubt I'll ever be able to afford a cobra such as the one described, but the techniques and thought process behind it CAN be used to make my own projects better. Thank you.

 

Dave;<O</O
<O</O


Not only are you a craftsman of the first order, you are very gracious.

 

Hi David, thanks for posting this here. I'm the goof that posted it over on Practical Machinist, and I regretted doing so after a few replys. I actually tried to delete it but couldn't. I thought there would be some enthusiasm for the process you went through and the techniques you used, but the thread became all about the car. It's amazing how many adult males think they know enough about cars to deliver definitive opinions about every one they see, and if it doesn't fit their picture of correct it's totally wrong. Even those who are not 'car guys'.

I built race cars, I helped restore a real 427 Cobra race car in the '70s, and now own a CNC machine shop and manufacture my own products, a close friend is a pro cobra kit builder, so I know a small amount about all of that and I'm in awe of what you have done. I'm embarr***ed that you get criticized for building this.

Love the car, love the book, what are you working on next?

 

Impressing, craftmanship at its finest.

 

Wow!! Amazing work, a true craftsman and a stand up guy. Thank you for posting the book too, gonna have to "work late" and print that out

 

David

Thank you for coming by..for the generous sharing of your incredible book. Having been privileged to see the reconstruction of a '49 XK120 Silverstone (Aluminum Bodied hand formed)..and a XKC..I am obviously throughly amazed at your cars..

Downloaded the book..and spending hours enjoying. I can only dream of a XKC done in your shop..or a XK120FHC..or even a Testa Rosa..

Dreams are what makes us do what we do..as best we can..

Thanks

 

I couldn't agree more!!!

Unbelievable werk, great job, very inspirational
thank you for sharing
Josh

 

everyone needs to get over the no billet thing. I agree, m*** produced billet bolt on sticker **** parts ****. because everyone got em, and there's no pride in doing it yourself. But jesus, that ch***is is art work and it takes a hell of a lot of talent to make that happen. Nice work man.