Video: Kirkham University Making A Billet Aluminum 427 FE Engine Block

Hey Guys,

Here is another YouTube from Kirkham Motorsports University. Here we show you how we took a solid, 386 pound block of aluminum and machined it into a 427 FE engine block.

As always, I am happy to answer any questions.

David

 

wow

 

My my my. That block looks like a jewel. Enjoyed watching the process.

 

Cool, always wanted to know how they did that. So how many hours total machine time does someone have in something like that?

 

Machining and guys that know how to use them are the reasons why we see so much new product out there. You can make almost anything you can dream up, measure, and digitize. It just blows me away what we as human beings have accomplished since that first guy/gal picked up a rock and broke bones to get the marrow. If they only knew that now we can just machine off the bone to get the marrow, heh. Serioulsy amazed. Compared to all the people, facilities, machines, and hours it would take to recreate that block the old poured aluminm/cast iron casting process, not to mention the used energy to make it it's like night and day. With enough money you could do that in your garage. Amazing. Mark L

 

Nice work David!
a few questions
How long did it take from start to finish to machine this aluminium 427 Block?
Retail cost?
I assume you make the heads also?
Total cost from pan to carb?
Also since Ford spent money & time to develop this engine are they ok with you making these engines and do you pay a licensing fee to Ford?

 

Do you carve on somthing cheaper like plastic or? before the hunk of aluminum just in case it's a "O SHIT DAY"? Have any blems?

 

Actually they made a mock-up out of wood. It's in their front office.

 

i had an tafc racing friend who owned a machine shop. he made lots of stuff from wood ,flow tested it and if he liked it remade it in billet.he had a whole display case of wooden racing heads. always struck me as funny to look at a wooden hemi head .
fred

 

Wow. I'm dazzled and amazed.

I noticed the bottom of the block is flush with the midpoint of the main bearings. Is there a girdle to support the bottom end, or is it made to use a different (not FE) pan?

 

Thanks guys! I am glad you guys liked it. I know you guys aren't really the "billet" crowd, but I was hoping you'd enjoy the process and see how we solved the problems we were faced with. Not to say we have all the answers. Who knows, you guys may come up with a better way than we thought of...in fact, I hope so!

David

 

About 30 hours of machine time.

David

 

Yes, we have come a long, long way. You are right (and most astonishingly) there is very little labor in the block. We just hit a button and walk away. What is most amazing to me (and the big reason I love to come into work every day) is this block never existed in the "real" world. It only existed as electrons. Then one day we cut it out of a block of aluminum. We live in an amazing world.

David

 

Machine time: About 30 hours to machine the block.

Retail cost: Not sure yet. We don't even have a running engine yet We hope the block will sell for less than a Shelby block, or under $5,000. We will see.

We have heads on the drawing board, but we have so many other projects I am not sure when we will get to it.

Total Cost: That depends on parts, of course. Probably in the $19,000 range.

There isn't any licensing on a block this old.

David

 

There was a bet going on that. The machinist/programmer said he could machine it without any mistakes--first time, no proofing, no babysitting. His brother (the block designer) said, "No way!" The machinist won. The block was programmed and Sandwich hit the button and walked away. No mistakes. We do live in an amazing world. The latest CAD/CAM programs are very powerful.

David

 

Does this "new" old block have provisions for the old accessory mounts or are you going to macine it for use for serpentine set ups and newer style brackets?It would be a sneaky way to hide a lot of power if you painted it and ran stock accessory's.

 

The wood block was for a dry sleeve version of the block we made a couple of years ago. With our latest wet sleeve version, Sandwich smiled, hit the cycle start button, and walked away.

David

 

Today we find it is cheaper just to mill the part in aluminum. There are many things that you can't figure out with wood, like speeds and feeds (which Sandwich did go back and adjust from time to time if the end mill started screaming). It is pretty rare we scrap a first article any more. We program them, make them, and sell them.

David

 

No doubt, I've yet to machine anything from mastercam that didn't come out exactly like the DXF or IGES file from Solidworks.

Block looks great btw!

 

This is way cool, I have a Machine Tooling Associates Degree from NDSCS here in North Dakota, we were trained on Haas Machines too. Its incredible what can be done these days, my education is Limited in the 3D machining as it was really just coming out when i started back in 99.

This is great. On top of that im a big FE ford fan!

i take it you chose the FE based on your Cobra Stuff? What made you choose the FE?

 

We will be making a one-piece girdle this week which will include all of the main caps. When we are finished, a standard FE oil pan will bolt to the girdle. That said, we are designing our own oil pan right now.

We used a one-piece girdle so we could make the forging for the block as thin as possible. The thicker the block, the harder it is to make sure the aluminum gets hardened all the way through during the quenching process.

I'll post a video of the girdle later this week.

David

 

Yes, garbage in, garbage out. The programs pretty much machine the part exactly as it is drawn. Occasionally, we have problems with fillets and blends but for the most part we can work around them fairly easily.

We use Solidworks for our design work and Surfcam for our CAM work.

David

 

We make the FE because it is what our customers use in our cars. Also, the blocks have been hard to get a hold of lately. When that happens with our suppliers, we just and make the part ourselves. Life is too short to wait on vendors.

Your education is only limited by your imagination Just dream and don't let anyone tell you it can't be done. There have been many times in our business people have told us things "can't be done" only to have us hand them the "impossible" part while their words are still in the air.

"We have to ask 'Why' five times." Shigeo Shingo

"No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking." Voltaire

David

 

All original parts will bolt on to the block, except the motor mounts. We will supply motor mounts with the block, however. We have made many new style brackets that will be able to be used as well. I don't think we will be able to hide much with this block

David

 

Thanks for posting these films - really fascinating Please keep them coming.

 

David,

I am just fully amazed at what has come out of the machinists minds in the last 5 or 10 years.

Your FE block is another one of the awe inspiring things that can be done with the knowledge and the top tools of the trade.

While most of my questions have been answered already (thanks to other HAMB members),

I just gotta ask, Whats 386 lbs of Billet worth anyway?
That sounds like it was a big piece of moolha to start with.


Cheers,

moe



ps,
thanks for posting this up on the one and only HAMB in High Definition (computer monitor here is 52")
and yes, I have subscribed to your youtube videos.....





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David, Thats outstanding work!!

Now how about something for the traditional hot rodder. I was thinking of a transmission case that looks identical to the early ford 3 speed toploader (78 series case) but houses a more modern synchronized gear set, perhaps with an overdrive. I bet your team could pull it off!

Geoffrey

 

David, would love to see a few shots/various angles of the artwork in wood.


Years ago when Clive Prew was redesigning the legendary Stromberg 97's,
They started out by using an SLA "copier" to scan the Stromberg into a pixelated rendering (on hard drive).
The SLA design is fairly precise but then again, it does use an lazer beam/scanner to detect and render the object in 3D and the rendered image will always need some tweaking.


Once Clive had the carb properly rendered they set up the SLA to reproduce the 97 in resin form.
The resin is very fragile but it does give a person the ability to look at a prototype without the expense of tooling up and casting/machining a ton of part$.


During the development stage Clive kindly emailed some pics of the resin based 97's.
It was amazing to see something that we normally associate with metal shown in the prototype stage rendered up in resin.


...Your FE work and the fact that your block was first rendered in wood makes for an interesting opportunity (for us all) to see yet another great part of hotrod and racing history being redesigned and rendered into a medium that is more suitable in an automotive 'art' museum, rather than under the hood of an early Cobra (or Deuce for that matter).

Cheers,

moe

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I'm glad you like them. If you have any suggestions as to what you would like to see just let me know.

David

 

Glad you like the videos. I wasn't sure about the HD because it took so long to upload. But if you guys like it then we will keep loading them in HD.

Custom forged aluminum blocks are about $3/pound + shipping. There is about $1500 in raw aluminum in one of these blocks.

Thanks for subscribing. I hope you like our other videos too.

David