Yeah,,,tall deck, go cat go.

Who's going to be the crash test dummy, and find out the hard way which dimensions are off...? What are there, like 100 potential alignment/concentricity/thread depth/deck height errors?
If they're smart, they will actually build engines with the first castings, and not even take deposits until they have at least dyno results.
But I doubt it.

[/rant]It's just me, remembering some of their past work

Who's going to be the crash test dummy, and find out the hard way which dimensions are off...? What are there, like 100 potential alignment/concentricity/thread depth/deck height errors?
If they're smart, they will actually build engines with the first castings, and not even take deposits until they have at least dyno results.
But I doubt it.

^^^This will take a lot of the out of the forum when someone purchase the first one.^^^

The first blocks were cast 18 months ago.........

Had a long talk with a good reliable source at Carlisle about Hemi blocks. He has ONE older block left and won't sell. He's heard of none coming out as of now, only smoke, what he sees is what's left of the junk batch coming to surface. Chrysler sent quite a few of that batch to his dad to see if they where fixable, not enough pots to catch the oil and water running out. All those blocks where to be destroyed but a lot got through the cracks to unsuspecting buyers. Molds are still there but Fiat wants big bucks to let them go, could care less about the racers, only money. Only thing to do is keep patching what you got for now. He's won't run the S/S for fear a hurting it, and the stocker on a limited basis.
Sounded like he was in the know, since they build cars and engines.

"The first blocks were cast 18 months ago........."

And they're not ready yet???
Doing this in they're spare time???

You are kidding - right????

L
The entire Manhattan project took only 27 months. 18 months IS dragging their feet, or they're over their head.

Okay - so you are clueless..........

I will assume that a few of these blocks are on the street with a non disclosure agreement.

After seeing this same type of scenario play out with various different parts, from all sorts of companies over the years, I don't get too worked about new products coming to market until after they are already available and in the hands of consumers.

If these things actually make it to market, and prove out to be worthwhile pieces, I'm sure they'll sell plenty of them.

What was the budget for The Manhattan Project any way? Did we ever pay it off?

Really, do you have one that's useable or are YOU living in fairy land, repeating what you heard?

So how many new cast iron blocks have you brought into production?...........none you say...........so how is it exactly you know how long it SHOULD take to have them scienced out and ready to ship.

Seems Ritter is still having problems with their blocks and its been several years. There were always little issues with the World blocks. The place in TN hasn't quite got it right yet. Who knew all these companies had to do was call you and you could get them lined right out

Well here is a new Hemi block that was in a shop a few months ago. Was told it was a new one anyway. Sure looked it to me. Jusr sold my last Megablock. I still have one more aluminum block but if time comes I need another and nothing is out there then I'll sell my stuff and go a different direction.

I'm all for brand loyalty, but this is the sort of thing that should make you re-examine whether an RB is cost effective, or a deep pit to throw money into.
The reason the blocks cost so much is that (in addition to the R&D... ha ha I'm kidding, there isn't any) the start-up cost has to be amortized over a fairly small number of purchases. This is why they don't make aluminum heads for the 318 poly.
The model is the light bulb: the first bulb costs $10 million, the 10 millionth bulb costs $1.
They're only going to sell (perhaps, when Satan skates to work) 1,000, not 10,000.

Come on dude, thought you where smarter than that. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to recognize the problem. He said the first blocks where cast 18 months ago, the "science" part should be done before the first one is cast. It's not like theses groups are making a totally new product or re-inventing the wheel, just copy the blocks that where made in the 60's. Ever heard of reverse engineering? With the technology out there today it means one thing, human error. Make the stupid block just like before, get a working model. then make changes down the road. How long does it take KB to go from rough casting to finished product? Not 18 months I'm sure. You might wait that long, but you're just on a long list.

I am smarter than that. Starting from scratch tooling and core boxes, plus getting the casting process right takes TIME. Just because the first castings were cast 18 months ago, does NOT mean a single one of them was usable. After that run, any number of things may have needed to be changed. If that was tooling or core boxes, that is not a "shelf stock" item, nor are they cheap.

Make it like before...........so you mean with weak main webs, core shift and questionable oiling? Or do you mean with a max 4.380 bore, no provision for bigger cam, higher location, or bigger lifters. And two bolt main?.........gotcha. How many are YOU in for like that at $3500 a pop

Time and money are interchangeable. MM most likely doesn't have enough cash to speed the project up so they are doing what they can when they have the money to fund it.

If Ford wanted to release a new FE block they could have it on the market pretty quickly but they would throw 10 engineers and several million at it. Projects go pretty fast when you have lots of cash to grease the skids.

There's a pretty good article from about a year or so ago in Engine Professional magazine about the new Rousch Racing block they came up with. About all the CAD work involved, working out coolant flow paths, etc.
I think it illustrates Andy's point about the $$$ aspect of it. It didn't seem like it took all that long to get this new motor platform up and running...... But that's where the cubic dollars comes into play.