Foundry news, the more I learn, the worse things seem.

Motor castings was the last and probably best foundry for the obsolete megablock as well as
RB water blocks. Circa 2008, both were replaced by the so-called World Block.

More recently Motor castings had been doing Koleno products as well..

Well, guess what, now Motor Castings will be gone entirely.
No more foundry, so I guess this means no more Koleno block either, until they find somewhere else, and there
aren't too many choices.



https://biztimes.com/motor-castings-co-shutting-down-cutting-113-jobs-2/

In related news:

The World block (It's Chrysler's tooling, ok?) .........Had been cast by the Dalton Foundry, who not coincidentally purchased Motor Castings....

What I just learned:
"Dalton was bought in 2016 by Speyside Equity and Beckner Cleary Partners"

Now I don't know the ins and outs of that, but any additional layers of complexity to the business probably doesn't help.
Could the purchase be part of the reason for the latest dry spell?

So, there is something to chew on, for those who follow such things (more folks than it might seem, since they're the physical source for what we use).

The main mystery I'd like to solve is, why would Chrysler allow a million dollar + tool to sit idle and not produce any parts?
Is something wrong and needs to be repaired, or is our market considered dead/unworthy?

Nothing there sounds good.

The way I read it, it sounds like Dalton is relocating MC to Indiana, basically consolidating the two foundries.
Whether there's some product/technique education, tooling/manufacturing issues, or even transportation delays, who knows?
For years, Chrysler and its owners sure seem to have had the least-favorable view of the vintage-car world.
Wonder if they're trying to sell off the tooling, or there's some trademark snafu, or a cost/profit/benefit analysis is going on?

That's because they want to sell new cars, not parts to the do it yourself crowd.

^^^ Yeah, I get that.
And I'd bet Chevy's support for their old cars has paid off for decades, driving the old cars' popularity and brand loyalty for their new stuff.

GM has always had the largest market share and part of it is the younger generation would rather buy a car that's already fast/quick from the showroom floor, than build one.

I wonder what foundry Bulldog is using for their blocks? I see on Facebook today 2 more Bulldog blocks have been delivered to customers.

There is a local Bulldog Hemi Block ordered....... we’ll how long it takes.

Im no more than a few blocks from there. Haven’t heard anything about that locally.
Ill have to go dumpster diving and look for core boxes!

I received my Bulldog Hemi block on 8/9/2019. Was scheduled for delivery on 5/31/2019 , casting was no good in the fuel pump mounting area, back to square one.
Next block went well until machine shop broke off a drill bit in the block, delayed another 2 weeks.

Bottom line is blocks are being cast / machined / delivered & they are as advertised. Paul

Bulldog is using Muncie Casting as the foundry , Magna Machine is doing the machining. Paul

Waiting for "Mahindra Industries of Mumbai announces new block castings for $995.00".
How so cheap?
No unions, zoning, haz-mat, clean air, health insurance, safety equipment, unemployment, pension, diversity training, transgender quota, child labor laws, etc.
Labor $3.50 per hour ($2.00 for children under 12).
Material: re-cycled locomotives, luxury cruise liners, etc.

Not yet, but it will - if China doesn't get there first.
No one in Congress has any interest in American industry.

How many guys are old enough to remember Brandon at 440source plans years ago to have blocks made overseas. I was on the list for 2 of them

I remember when 440 source was going to do a block, but I don't remember why it did not happen. Perhaps it is time for them to give it more consideration?

Iirc he had to order a very large number of blocks for them to make them. Lots of cash outlay. The problem has always been the desire to make both Hemi and wedge blocks from the same casting. That's where all the casting problems come in.

Mopar Performance has always been the red-headed step child of the corporation. When Galaxy was casting blocks the bean counters would never let MP order more then 50-100 blocks at a time. This caused a whole #%$@load of problems and eventually drove production into the toilet. There's a huge lead time to get everything at the foundry and machine shop up and running, and the starting and stopping of production doomed block supplies to never be stable and created all of the shortages seen over the last 25 years. This same problem killed the World blocks.

A similar problem existed with Koleno blocks, which were being machined by Roush. Roush's CNC machines run non stop, and after Koleno brought them a couple blocks at a time to machine, Roush had to quit doing them as the set up time and expense to get those huge CNC machines programmed and tooled up only to run a few blocks made no sense. Roush was looking to do a trainload, and Koleno showed up with a pick-up truck full.

In the end, the lack of a huge market and the resistance of MP to warehouse real numbers of blocks is the underlying issue that I don't see getting solved. No foundry wants to get a line up and running to cast 50 blocks, shut it all back down until MP sells it's inventory and reorders 50 blocks again months/years later.

440 source has trouble making oil pans, NO WAY I'd trust them to build a block.


Ram produces half a million trucks a year, and who knows how many Dodge hemi powered cars on top of that. That is a whole lot of new, cross drilled mains, big headed engines that you can make work as well as, if not better, than what you're asking for. After 16 years of the Gen3, there is still a shortage of parts because people are instead trying to find a foundry to recast a 50yr old block, in China no less. Just my (unpopular) opinion.

Adapt or die

Chrysler has been dead for decades.
Daimler gave zero about MP or the obsolete junk we run
Cerberus gave less that zero
FCA is making money tuning old (Gen 3) Hemi motors to staggering levels in aging, but capable old chassis, and (let's face it mostly) selling Jeeps and Trucks. Our old junk was never even a consideration.
That million bucks was written off L O N G ago and means nothing to the new boss.

Steve Morrris can have a billet block made,making 1000's of HP Fuel injected boosted power in less time it takes to get a KB block!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GabfIfeLII0
https://board.moparts.org/ubbthread...combo-from-steve-morris.html#Post2681186

That may be true, but casting a good block and CNCing a billet block are two completely different processes and the billet one will be more costly.
Core shift and porosity isn't an issue with a billet block.

As of two weeks ago MP was looking for the prints for the Gen II Hemi stuff - block and heads.

Why, no clue but they are looking for them.

Maybe they disappeared - that wouldn’t surprise me.
Question is, who would take them ?

Thank you for that tidbit....Might be a glimmer of hope, then.

It begs the question which generation they were after.
OEM, recent, or in between, since it was all made differently.....

No reason to look for the print unless some sort of action is supposed to follow, so that adds
interest.

I thought you had ‘em

I don’t have ‘em....... I thought you had ‘em

Huh....... well, then I don’t know where they are

Nothing to add except I have 8 gen 3 motors in the garage. Just bought a 6.4 out of a truck for $500

I gave 'em to you!

Who's in charge here?

I don't know, aren't you?

Makes me all the more glad I bought my KB block when I did. Hopefully I never need another one.

For many years, everything was in one place, 3rd floor of the Centerline complex right next to my office there was a semi-secret print room.

Unfortunately what was left of the whole group
was .....relocated (being kind) around 2009. I feel alot of those prints may have ended up at CTC
but also alot probably hit the shredder. A formerly highly productive Mgt team was no longer on the job,and there
were many negative actions during this time that I can't post about.

I don't think documents were probably shredded because of anyone's desire to destroy history, but much more
Fiat/ P!3+ro G's philosophy of making suppliers do everything.

I'd write a book about my experience, but I feel either folks wouldn't read it, or if they did I'd end up in court over it.

You and I both. Even though I’ve only put 30 passes on it over the last 10 years. I’m having to much fun playing with these old school small blocks. One of these days I’ll use it again.

If they find them I want a copy. A buddy of mine wants to make a block. I know. It's a bad idea. I told him we are too old for this. He wants to try it anyway.

There are no more good small block blocks either, are there?

A stock small block will easily handle 9’s in anything under 3200 pounds. How fast do most of our members want to go. I see R3 and X blocks advertised every week for those wanting to go faster

Like I've said in the past, go super lightweight on the chassis and body and anything stock will get you there in one piece.

Man! I'd read it!

I would guess the latest versions of drawings were all digital anyway - the historical stuff would have been a shame to loose if just not from the historical perspective

I also could believe that copies of those last (maybe not current) set of files made their way in to interested parties hands for undefined purpose

Being the market is so small for the Gen2 Hemi - I am guessing it will be awhile before we see anything - especially with the corporate focus on the Gen3 stuff

Management: "Let's have the legal department read every service bulletin, spec sheet, request for quote, memo, policy change, etc. Then trash the ones with sensitive content that might hurt us in future litigation".
Personnel: "We estimate that to be $ 65,972 at their billing rate".
Management: "Let's save money, and just throw it all into the shredder. If they can't find it, they can't hurt us".
It's what Big Tobacco didn't do, but should have.

Is it small? Smaller than 409 Chev or 455 Pontiac? 427 FE Ford? All of those platforms apparently can be built from scratch with aftermarket parts available for immediate delivery.

Kevin

All the sudden aluminum caps and girdles are not such a bad idea !!! Proud owner of 7- 1976-77 stock standard bore RB blocks..... It's a shame our market segment is so small and Mopar guys are soooooo cheap...

I'm no expert, but I'd say those examples were produced in much smaller quantities than a Chrysler 400 or 440. A couple of weeks ago I picked up a '78 B200 Sportsman Royal w/440 for free. There is an ad for a free Dodge motorhome not far from here that I won't deal with buy might be a 440. And I already have at least 5 440's, not including the one in the Charger. The 426 hemi has to compete with the 440 since they almost interchange and were used in the same applications. Wedges are a lot cheaper, that's the only reason they exist.

(All communications to the field have to pass the scrutiny of General Counsel (legal department).).
Totally unrelated to the current discussion at hand.

Part of the reason for the current situation - no blocks, missing prints is poor management.
Zippy nailed it. PG = totally oblivious to the real potential of the Mopar Performance line. And a few of his direct reports too.

As I said before here - poor management and no “car” people running the program. PG’s recent and only contribution - giving a Hellephant away to Worman. What a joke.

I have zero faith in big companies these days. I don't think many of them or their CEO's know how to do the right thing anymore.I could tell you stories from all my years at GM and the money just flushed away. I think they are all in it for a couple of years, and then like a changing of the guard, its sold off or broken up or.what ever........I hate what the Chrysler execs did to the company, and if I could, I would beat them all with a stick.....

Now, back to our regularly scheduled program.......With that said, we, just like the chevy and ford guys, need to get the aftermarket to support us. We need to order in volume, and we need to quite being so hung up on a purple cam and iron heads....This is the only chance we have at maintaining our presence in the sport.

I was a block engineer at GM for 7 years, I know what goes into all the machining, and its not easy...I just hope we get a couple manufacturers with blocks this year, or things are going to be bleak.

Things are already bleak. And it is not the iron head and purple shaft crowd. I sell both and I cannot remember that last ones I sold of either. We have not fixed a set of iron heads in ages. I have a front row view of almost all of the drama with blocks and believe me is has been bleak for years now. This market is TINY.
I know everyone thinks in terms of the Carlisle's and Josh Kings Norwalk race and those are great shows but they are the biggest of their kind anywhere. I have been coast to coast for years and the people interested in this stuff keeps getting smaller and smaller. If you look nation wide at the big shows (Daytona turkey Rod Run, Charlotte Autofair, Oceanside MD, Pigeon Forge TN and loads of others the Mopar market is tiny. Then throw out the restoration and the street rod type guys who stock stuff suits just fine and you are left with the SUB 9.50 Crowd. I think you can run pretty well with stock blocks to that level in a normal drag car. SO even at the larger Mopar only events you cannot fill a quick 16 with legit cars easily. I know, I have tried.

Look around at the next Mopar drag show you go to . And now a good number of the faster cars on the property are Gen 3 guys. The chevy guys have firmly embraced the LS stuff and they are going fast with it. We are just blessed with some of the most expensive cars to build and run. Think about it. You most likely know almost all of the fast Mopars in your area if you have one. It is pretty rare when one just shows up at the track that you have not seen or heard about before,
Most of our customer base has been doing this stuff for decades and a lot are simply aging out of it. I talk pretty often with other engine guys and guys the actual numbers of people buying aftermarket blocks is pretty small. Look how many years it took Chrysler to sell off the R blocks. Some of those sat around for almost a decade or more. No real demand. Now the head guys have finally given us some choices and we have no blocks. Edelbrock has hemi and SB victor heads that were at least 20 years late. Trick Flow finally gets around to heads and they are pretty nice but no blocks.
The question then becomes how fast do you expect to go with 50 year old junkyard motors? You could build an 8 second race car with a stock block, maybe even a seven second one with a really good car. How fast does it need to go? 1000 Hp gets thrown around a lot and even the CHevy and Ford guys have trouble getting blocks at that level. Are market is small and gets even more fractured with all the different crowds each with their own wants and wishes for a block. Hemi, lowdeck, tall deck this bore size or that. I order parts for and build these every day and no two are almost ever the same. Everyone wants to be different (its why you like mopars to begin with) but the chevy guys are happy with their 632 crate motors that all have the same parts. Not us. We are almost loathe to do it the same way as anyone else. Often to our demise. Todd

I've never understood the Mopar block situation. There are several vendors who make blocks for FE Ford engines and there is no way the FE was ever as popular as the Mopar big block. You can go to a bunch of races and car events without ever seeing a FE engine but Mopar big blocks are fairly common. So there is something else going on than economics.

Personally I think that Mopar messed up the whole situation by doing such a poor job at making blocks. Had they stayed out of it, the aftermarket would've filled the void. But with Mopar stepping on everyone's toes the aftermarket backed off. Unfortunately Mopar screwed things up so bad that now nobody wants to get involved.

But I don't think the situation is all that bad for hot street guys or the 9 and 10 second crowd. A stock block will handle 700 hp for a few seasons and these days it is easy to make 700 hp with a set of Trick Flow heads, a ported intake, 12:1 compression and a modest solid roller. Basically order the parts from Summit and bolt them together and hit the track. That kind of engine costs about $15,000 and it should last several seasons if the machine work is correct. 700 hp will put an A body into the 9's and maybe even a B body if a little weight is taken off the nose and a good suspension is put under it. I was just at the track the other day with a customer car like that. It has a stock block 505 with Trick Flow heads and a Holley EFI system. Runs 9's and with the EFI setup he never has to open the hood. Turn the key and go racing. So that isn't a bad deal.

I thought Keith Black was bringing back Hemi and Wedge blocks?

Be nice

Please don't do this, lets have some hope

All communications to the field have to pass the scrutiny of General Counsel (legal department


So funny! Dow Corning said the same thing just before their $$$ billion loss and bankruptcy.

Wet dreams. What ever happened to all those blocks we saw pictures of on Facebook being delivered to Best Machine

To my understanding (I do the best I can but of course am possibly incorrect), when royal oak boring (old machine shop) quit, there were several
old raw castings left. Years later, jnb machining was contracted to finish them and use
them up.

The recent fakebook pictures are from that last run (old castings, new machine shop).

Remember, “build it and they will come”?

Well, I firmly believe this a case of the opposite......”don’t build it...... and they will go”.

It’s hard to sell what you don’t have.
By not having blocks available, a lot of people looking to build high level motors will simply move on to something that is available.

That’s what I’d do if I were in that position.

Then, once they see how drama free it is getting the basic parts necessary to build a 1000hp motor...... many of them will be gone for good.

I'm sure lots of people will disagree, but if there is one focus it should be Hemi blocks

very reasonable reaction to anyone who makes the claim that KB blocks will soon be readily available.




try saying that to one of the many customers who put money down and got nothing as promised

Disregard my post in the other thread.

as predominantly Ford guy, I disagree, I see as many FE's if not 2 to1 ratio out at my local tracks and cruise nights as I do BBM I can tell you from 1st hand experience that new FE blocks are not cheep, I have as much in to my 496FE Bear motor block build as I do my 408 G3 , both have about the same nearly identical cam and compression and that G3 makes the same power , both make about 690ish,

There are a lot of FE's in truck pulling and replica Cobra's.

I agree with the bottom of your post, most of the mopar guys I know have been well in to the low tens with half the parts that my Chevy and Ford buddies needed.

INDY BLOCKS

ARENT THEY AVAILIBLE????

LOL

Been waiting on some since May.......I did hear today that Bill Mitchell is getting their stuff in one sock to make some more.
Todd

The Gen III motors are where its headed. Same or more power than a Gen II and 100lbs lighter. Sorry but the Gen II is going to die off except for a few die hards like 409s,421s and 455s. Sure they make parts but how many do you see?

I’m into the R3/W8 Stage..... it’ll be my last hurrah.

I am not sure if this has been covered but Mopar doesn't have a great track record at producing good performance parts or maybe more accurately good quality control - think cracking W2s, poor castings on W5s and don't forget the poor machining on Stage 6's. Looking in the 2001 Mopar Performance catalog there were 50 different blocks, 63 different heads and 44 different intakes available! While that was great for the builder, it doesn't make much business sense - your not going to sell a lot of any of them. If they would limit to a couple of Hemi, BB & Sb blocks a small variety of heads, I think that they could do better. They need to price them right and deliver a good product and by the way NO ONE should have to wait 6 months for parts to be built! I know most businesses follow the same program today - don't keep anything on the shelf - for accounting reasons but what do you think make Amazon, Jegs, Summit so successful? They have it on the shelf and can ship right away - no secret formula - but the opposite of what most manufacturer's do these days. Find a good foundry - something that Chrysler always seems to have problems with, a good machine shop and pay them on time - I have always heard that Chrysler is notorious for late payment. You can get aftermarket Buick & Olds blocks but these come from aftermarket sources. Maybe Andy is right, Chrysler should have stayed out of it and let the aftermarket fill the void. Edelbrock seems to be selling a lot of Chrysler heads...
It seems to me that I recall a time when Mopar Performance was one of the only Chrysler divisions that was making a profit - what happened? I realize that Chrysler's main focus is building and selling new cars and the Performance part is a very small percentage of their overall profits. Sorry, I just had to rant about this.

Not all heros wear capes.....

I could be wrong, but I don't see the gen 2 hemi dying out. It'll just get more expensive to build a "mild" one b/c you'll end up having to buy a billet block unless someone other than Bulldog and Indy step up. Look at all the fast drag cars...most are running blown/turbo billet hemis. Still a Gen 2 engine for the most part.

Performance was handed off to Accessories management, then not coincidentally the most profitable Performance parts
were gradually migrated to Accessory part numbers. This action alone made Performance as a whole appear to be an unprofitable waste of time
and gave Accessories a giant surge in sales.

(the most profitable items being those that can be rolled into a new car payment).

Although I have to say the list is long...this is probably not a topic anyone would want to get me started on (at least, not without
an Alcoholic beverage of some sort readily available), that's probably the biggest factor right there.

NASA doesn't have the prints to the Saturn 5 rocket anymore either.

I can't think of a single person who is contemplating building a Saturn V rocket either.
Go figure.

I sent him $500 deposit several months ago....................

.....this alone makes we want to fly to MI for a weekend, pack a cooler of cold ones, and let Zippy tell his tale!

My engine guy tried to get MP to build a basic R3 block for serious engine builders, basic two bolt main caps that would later be tossed, small bores, blank lifter bosses, etc. I'm not sure the average guy would want that, but the top of the line engine builders might just want a basic block as a starting point. The MP guys at PRI didn't agree, I'd bet most of those guys are long gone. That was before they moved it from Indy to Orlando, so that was probably 10 years or more ago.

The last few years that I was at PRI, Mopar Performance wasn't even there!

Tell you what , they have really impressed this guy, those W8/9 heads run well.

I agree, But I don't think the price will exceed the ratio it is now to other type of engines.,example if it cost 40% more to build a 526ci G2 then a 540 BBC I don't think that ratio will change.
I can say I've seen more G2's in the last few years then I did in the 90s