Art & Inspiration Billet Aluminum Chassis by Kirkham Motorsports

Hey, no big deal. I have been posting on boards now for almost 10 years. They just wanted to make sure I wasn't a troll and that I fit in. Well, not sure if I fit in or not, but I can see there are some pretty good guys on this site! Glad to have found it!

David

 

I for one think your info is very useful and much appreciated. Your craftsmanship is second to none!

 

Thanks!

David

 

David,

I just re-read your subject ***le.
Perhaps a poor choice with the dreaded "B" word.
Your book is full of useful information that would benefit any hotrodder!

Welcome aboard.
Bert

 

David,

Bravo! And thanks for posting the goods!

 

I read your book cover to cove earlier last week, and I have a single question: What are your thoughts on fatigue concerning the aluminum ch***is members?

Don't take that wrong, the thing is a work of art from stem to stern, it just seems to me that building the ch***is from aluminum automatically builds in an expiration date (unless it never gets driven, but a car like that deserves to be driven hard and enjoyed).

What were/are your plans or expectations as far as the fatigue life of the ch***is goes?

Either way, I'm completely in awe.

Those former Soviet aircraft smiths sure can handle the tin. Capitalists ain't so bad after all, eh?

Love the shape of those bodies.

 

Thank you very much for the kind words!

David

 

Actually, thank you very much for posting it on the other forum! I do mean that. I have been posting on the boards now for about 10 years...I actually don't remember how long it has been it has been so long. You run into all kinds. That's what makes us great. If we all liked vanilla the world would be pretty boring. People just want to protect their turf, they don't know the new guy, maybe he is a troll, who knows--we are all not as nice as we should be at one time or another in our lives. We just hope to get better at it. It's always nice to meet new people and see their ideas. Who knows, maybe we did something stupid. Better to find out than be left in the dark the rest of your life. No harm, no foul.

We never really say what we are working on next LOL. Mostly because we probably don't know ourselves.

David

 

Thanks! I do appreciate the kind words.

See, there are always nice people on the boards too. I just take everyone as they come.

David

 

I am a big fan of Glenn Reynolds and www.instapundit.com

He stands up for what he believes in, admits he is wrong when he is, and gently pushes the rest of us to do the same. His book "Army of Davids" has really made me think differently about the internet. Why hide info? As they say, "Sunshine is the best disinfectant."

David

 

Thanks guys!

David

 

Uhhhh,

Bert? Is that you? I keep seeing guys I know on other boards!

As for the B word...well, I know, I know the true meaning of "billet" to those of us in the industry is a chunk of metal that is about to be extruded, cast, forged, whatever.

In real life, however, it means a block of aluminum that someone makes a part out of. Some words just take on "expanded" meanings as time goes on.

As for billet an Hot Rods...well, I kinda have the same philosophy as I do while playing Bach on the piano. Bach didn't have the sustain pedal on the piano. It didn't come into being until around Beethoven's time so many people shrink in horror if Bach is played with the pedal. The fact is, if Bach would have had a pedal--he would have used it. If they could have CNC'd parts in the old days, you can be dang sure they would have done it too!

David

 

David, I'm speechless in regards to the posting of your entire book for 'FREE'! Not much of value is ever free. What you have posted has opened up the realm of possibilities for all of us Small Shop/Home Builders out there.

I can't say thank you, and have it mean as much as the gift you have freely shared.
I'll say it anyway!
Thank you!!!!

Dan Stevens
dba, Steelsmith

 

On this car, we observed as strict of weight discipline as was reasonable. We used 14,000 psi as the endurance limit on the FEA (Finite Element Anaylsis) tests. (The aluminum doesn't actually yield until 30,000 psi.) The ch***is should last forever. It is amazing the amount of material that can actually be removed when you run a part through FEA.

It is difficult to 100% load a ch***is unless you are an extremely good driver. All max loading in FEA on the parts was done at 2 G's if I remember right. We then designed the parts with a 14,000 psi yield as the endurance limit or about 1/2 of the actual yield of the material. I feel confident we have adequate safety factors for as long as anyone could possibly drive the car. Remember, Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki all make aluminum framed motorcycles. It can be done. It is just takes a little more thought.

It is extremely interesting to design a part and then run it through FEA. You think you are cool until Cosmos tells you otherwise. After the tests, it is amazing to see where the computer tells you you have too much material and when you think about the colors you wonder why you were so dumb in the first place. (We call FEA "looking for rainbows" as different stresses show up as different colors). What is really interesting is when you actually REMOVE material and make a part stronger by shifting the load paths around. As you can imagine, we were very concerned with keeping our customer happy and him off of You Tube.

David

 

David i seen some your company's work and it's beond words .Anyone that thinks they couldn't learn from some one else is closed minded.

 

Cobras were nothing but hot rods and your company produces outstanding workmanship.

 

Dan,

Thank you for your kind words.

Years ago Mike McCluskey (world renown Cobra expert) flew to Poland and got me started by giving priceless advice to me on how to make our cars better. He has helped us for 15 years now. He never asked for a penny.

Kenny Hill of Metalore showed me all sorts of cool things in his shop with F1 car parts. (No, I didn't give away any secrets--and I won't). When I had machining questions he always answered them. When I had material selection and heat treating questions he always answered them. Never once did he ask for anything in return except friendship.

Then, the TARP funds disappeared and no one seemed to know what the politicians did with all the money. Glenn Reynolds www.instapundit.com wrote "Army of Davids" saying how information was spreading at a tremendous rate and it was pretty much useless to try to stop it. The whole situation really affected me. I sincerely believe "Sunshine is the best disinfectant." Hey, if I made any errors, who better to find it than a bunch of nuts like me! I'd certainly rather find it before anything happens.

Now, I am not getting political in this thread and I hope it doesn't take a political bend. I am just as mad at TARP 1 as I am TARP 2 so I am mad at both parties equally at the moment LOL

Anyway, many people along the way have helped us to get where we are--all for free. So, I thought it should be given away for free too.

David

 

I've seen the Cobra and a few other Kirkham cars at SEMA over the years, fantastic stuff and obviously Ford Motor Company appreciated the quality work. The ***le of the thread is a bit misleading, these are not your run-of-the-mill billet gold chainer cars!

 

I couldn't agree more, share it all, and we will all benefit.

 

Wow.....Not too often you see a project like this that is as cool as it is....like others said, My chopped sectioned AD is shiet compairitavly....actually there isn't any comparison to alot of our ****.

That's not what this is about though....The workmanship, Better than the best.

The thought and design....same as above.

The views and opinions and methodology of the author....I totally agreed with. Knoledge and edumacation (yes that was on purpose) SHOULD be shared and enjoyed by the m***es that desire it.

No comparison to your endevors BUT I go out of my way to help guys in the hobby, weather its ***isting them on their project, helping out with parts that I have and aint using or teaching something that I know...I gotta buddy that comes to hang out in my garage cause I know how to weld and he wants to learn, I know how to fabricate (to a degree...it's relative really) and he wants to learn....he thinks I'm nuts for tearing into something and breaking it down to nothing but a frame and building it back up into a truck....I say nay.....I am not nuts....I am sane....constructing a peice of automotive pure *** out of nothing but a chunk of alloy is pure insanity...

And the book online.....****...that there is well....better than awesome; same as above.

 

I heard about Kirkham about 15 years ago when a relative sent me a clipping out of a Utah newspaper. I saw my first Kirkham build at the display At the UVSC college show and swap meet. I was an Engineer at ford back in the day and a buddy there raced an original 427 and I did a little work on it. Kirkham 's cars are a lot better than the originals and I have seen the Shelby semitrucks on I 15 , between Provo and Las Vegas. when I went on the tour of Shelby's shop I spotted Kirkham cars there. Shelby buys from Kirkham because of their quality. I have done a lot of different types of cars. and I appreciate good design parts billet or other wise. I just prefer to build old school like I did over 50 years ago in the old blacksmith shop on the ranch when I was in high school and short of bucks.

 

David - Thanks so much for sharing your insights (and book!) here. I'm a fabricator (nowhere near your level) and a writer. I'm currently working on a book that touches on this very phenomenon - the sharing of information, hot rod and otherwise, in a gr***roots manner - which I now believe the internet to be.
You'll probably be remembered for pioneering some of this perspective, a**** other things.
Thanks again and I'll be following your exploits with interest.
Scotty

 

I started reading this thread with a raised eyebrow, ready to ***ume the worst.

I'm glad I read further, as it would surely be an ***et to have someone of your talent hanging around here on the HAMB!

That Cobra is unreal. I can't wait to read your book.

Thank you for all the long hours it must have taken to put it together, and your generosity to make it available for free. I have no doubt it will inspire others!

Sean

 

-And that's a point that many people forget.

Now, I'm an ****og machinist, largely self-taught. I don't know a single keystroke of CNC, but I still like to believe I'm a pretty fair manual machinist. Moreover, I appreciate and often prefer the "old way". As one sourpuss on PM noted, I, too, tend to lend a bit more 'cred' to a guy that hand-hammered or hand-machined his part or widget.

But I don't then denigrate those that do it with more modern techniques.

There are a few machinists today that like to preserve the old style ways and tools, even going so far as to install lineshafts and run on steam engines. But the truth is, the old machinists who actually had to work with that, day in and day out, couldn't wait to get rid of those belts.

They developed things like turret lathes to ease and speed up their job. Then they developed things like screw machines to make small items even faster and easier. (Even today, a good screw machine can often beat a CNC turning center on many jobs, which is why lots of small producers are still running them.)

If you took a grizzled old machinist who spent WW2 cranking out endless numbers of the same fitting (9 fittings per radial, four radials per plane, 65,000 planes over the course of the war, etc, etc.) and gave him a CNC where all he had to do was drop sticks into the hopper and push the "go" ****on, he'd have taken that up in a New York second.

Yes, there's all sorts of reasons to hold on to some of the older technology. I recently picked up a sort of users' manual for my old Nichols horizontal mill (mine's a '62, but the company and mill design dates back to the teens) that shows some absolutely brilliant ideas for making obscure parts. It was written in 1922, and some of the bits would take a CNC to duplicate today.

But there's absolutely no reason to hold on to those old techniques to the exclusion of the new techniques.

Everyone here- myself and presumably David included- greatly enjoy and admire the old-world skills it takes to form a sheet of flat aluminum into a car body or fender (or hood scoop or air cleaner or...) And the techniques of English wheels and bead rollers are all decades old.

But to the same extent, we don't drop a handful of carbide into an acetylene generator to gas weld the way gran'pa used to do it. We're more than happy to pick up the $300 Home Depot MIG and tack that puppy, or the modern inverter-technology Square Wave TIG box to lay down a gorgeous bead that hardly even needs grinding.

We love the old "Deuce Coupe" look, but hardly anyone wants to run bias-ply tires or mechanical pushrod brakes. So we make the '32 look 'vintage' on the outside, but fill it with modern power discs, give it modern radials, and feed it with a computerized fuel injection.

Doc.

 

Doc, better don your fireproof undies pronto, that last paragraph is near guaranteed to roll out the "traditional police" in force.

Prepare to be called all manner of names.

I agree in principal, though me and EFI will never simultaneously inhabit the same hotrod.

The machine work on the ch***is of this car is top notch, and I really enjoyed reading about and seeing good pictures of some of their fixturing and machining schemes. Those pics and text give priceless insight that can be applied to a great many projects.

 

Yep, it's me David. I hang out here alot because my Kirkham shares the garage with a Nicholson & Wade prepared B/SP '61 Corvette that was a cl*** winner at the '62 Winternationals. You can see it here: http://www.kenbrownart.com/corvette/
There is a lot of history, information, and enthusiasm on this board.

 

Doc do you have any idea where you are? You basically just declared yourself the exact opposite of what this place is about.

 

should have put a rusty ol 331 in that billet heap of al-U-menium.

i dig it... be nicer if it was powdercoated flat black.

 

seconded.

i love the way the old cars handle, power stearing is for gimp city yuppies
and lazy commies. biasplys are great and i LOVE the smell of leaded gas.

if you don't like it all, just drive a prius.

 

So if i read this correctly, if i ( which i do ) like it both ways, traditional and street rod i must be unique cause it seems the rest of you can only dig it one way or the other. I appreciate what both offer to me depending on the mood of the day.Then again opinions are like a##holes so what do i know. Lighten up people and enjoy the ride.