Low Deck ?'s

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Bear, why not consider something in a smallblock. An alum block that you could deliver inb either a 59 or 48 degree config, that wouldn't take a home mortgage to buy, I believe would sell great. There's other people doing big blocks but noone doing smallblocks. Remember the XR-2 promises. Think small and fill the pocketbook!!!

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I'm not to sure about the small block stuff, if we did it would require ALL new tooling and the inital cost would be staggering, but still its not a bad idea sometime in the future

Is'nt MP planning on a project like that???

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So I guess my biggest question is is it worth the rest of my life savings to develop the low deck or is it better off in the hands of a different manufacturer.

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I must have missed something,what block do you currently manufacture?
My request would be,aluminum low deck,raised cam,4.60 bore,chevy main caps(non skirted block),hemi 99 main bearing journal diameter(you could always bore the mains bigger if need be),wedge or hemi head bolt pattern,priority main oiling and wet lifter bores,dual trans mounting pattern(chevy and mopar).
Will you sell many? Probably not,it's very specialized piece.They would need to be priced around $5.000 dollars to be competitive and still recoup your investment.
Casting blocks is very difficult and only a few foundry's can handle it.
I wish you the best of luck and put me down for the first one if it has the features I listed above!!!!

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Sorry, I probably should have made that clearer.
We are Koleno Performance the manufacurers of the KP440

Your right it is a very specialized piece and you are also right that not many would sell, but there is sooo much more to it and I believe thats were alot of people dont understand. Everytime you change even one thing, it cost money.If you change the skirt, then you have to change the pattern, if you change the pattern you have to machine it diffrently, if you machine it differently you have to change the fixtures that the blocks are machined on.So as you can see everything effects everthing else (just like our economy )


Thank you very much for your input and well wishes

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Great, I have one of your blocks in my car right now!!!! Bought it from Dave Koffel in March.
Believe me I know what patterns and castings cost.I did'nt realise you had an existing pattern,cores and molds.
BTW I talked about deck thickness with Dave, as I wanted to cut the deck on the KP440 to a low deck.I left it a r/b.
If I can be of any help,just ask!
Steve

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Ahhhh thats right the Predator guy, how could I forget. Hey thanks alot thats great, we really appreciate you going with our block, how is it working out for you if I may ask??

p.s.- how about those Wheatcrafts

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Bear one thing that Steve hit on would definitely be on my list and that's the chevy pattern. if you're basically starting a race block from scratch i don't know why you wouldn't put both patterns on there. i understand is cost more but as a consumer i know i'd pay more for that convenience. being a race block there's a lot of people that are going to want to bolt something other than a 727 on the back of it.

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The duel bellhousing idea is not as hard as the chevy style skirt and we thought of that on the blocks, but there again it would come down to the demand

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i for one wouldn't hessitate to buy an aftermarket low block in cast iron or similar. i already bought a maxx alloy low block but would like to be able to have a capable spare shortblock waiting in the wings incase of emergencies. i killed a few stock blocks but would rather stay at the low deck diamensions for ease of fitment in the racecar & streetcar. bonus point is the chev & ford boys think it's a small block.

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thanks for the input!

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As someone else mentioned, the current trend of the masses seems to be building big inch motors, and the low deck isn't the block of choice there at the moment as it's limited by design. I'm not sure how raising the cam works in a low deck, but if it's doable and would allow one to use more arm with the short deck then that would certainly make a low deck much more attractive.

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plus the original price of your blocks , you can thank the seller of CCJ for blowing wind up everyones skirt and touting $1500 blocks before the idea was even on paper , then not delivering the goods .

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I really think it would come down to what the retail cost ends up being. If it came in at $3000 like your rb I doubt sales would be great. If the cost was under $2,500, which would compete with World rb blocks, then you might sell enough of them to see a return on your investment.

The last thing I would do is add the GM bolt pattern if it increases the cost any at all. If it's doable without increasing the retail cost, then of course do it. I don't understand why it's even needed when you can just use Ultra Bells or Reid cases which I believe (??) can be had with a Mopar bell

As someone else mentioned, the current trend of the masses seems to be building big inch motors, and the low deck isn't the block of choice there at the moment as it's limited by design. I'm not sure how raising the cam works in a low deck, but if it's doable and would allow one to use more arm with the short deck then that would certainly make a low deck much more attractive.

Thanks for having the guts to do what you do. It's guys like you that keep our hobby alive and I wish you nothing but the best in whatever you decide to do.

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I'm not trying to let but are'nt
steel billet caps better than ductile
screw in plugs better than pop ins
arp hardware better than just about anyones
the ability to go 4.5 with .300+ wall thickness
strenthening ribs and fully machined except for finishing the cylinders and decking by Roush
pretty outstanding atributes??? I mean come on the caps alone are worth at least about $400!!!

I think your are right about the bellhousing deal.I dont understand the concept fully myself, why not just get a different bellhousing, and are'nt there issues with the starter??


Thank you very much, we appreciate it

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I'm not trying to let but are'nt
steel billet caps better than ductile
screw in plugs better than pop ins
arp hardware better than just about anyones
the ability to go 4.5 with .300+ wall thickness
strenthening ribs and fully machined except for finishing the cylinders and decking by Roush
pretty outstanding atributes??? I mean come on the caps alone are worth at least about $400!!!

I think your are right about the bellhousing deal.I dont understand the concept fully myself, why not just get a different bellhousing, and are'nt there issues with the starter??


Thank you very much, we appreciate it

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I agree with you 100%. I believe your block is better and worth the extra money. Unfortunately I'm not a good barometer of the overall market. If a guy hears that a world block will suffice, and it's on sale for $2,350 and yours is $3000, that guy has a way of forgetting your blocks attributes and focusing on price alone. There are those of us who are willing to pay the difference to get the best, but I think there's more of them then there are of us.

If I was building a engine with a iron block, it would be yours hands down!

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i can say that in the kind of racing i do (weight to cid) you should be able to build a more competitive engine for the reasons above (lite, less rotating mass, stronger. we dont use huge cid engines and spin the little ones to the moon.
I to would like to see a low deck cast block, would order one right now.

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why do we need a decent aftermarket low block? because even good stock blocks can only handle so much power for so long before they fail & destroy all your good add-on parts. low blocks might have a cube limit but they're in the right ballpark for common as muck -1,sr & eddy heads in terms of flowability/cubes. both my previous 400/451's died from block failure. even a half filled block didn't stop my last stock block from doing a horizontal split in the bore hydraulicing that chamber & cracking the head. i waited for months on the story mike @ MM telling me Bulldog were making an iron low deck. i gave up waiting & bought an Indymaxx, it blew my budget at the time but i needed something better than another stocker which i knew would eventually fail. sure i was expecting big numbers from my build but don't we all? my 451 in my 'cuda was easier to work on than my mates 440 & junky old hooker headers would fit easily & could be moved over for head retorquing without too much profanity. personaly i feel low decks are great sleeper motors as the ch*v & f*rd boys don't know what they're up against & they become rather sheepish when you take them out with what they think is a small block. a certain Mr Mustang with a 428 hasn't been back since a 340 'cuda put him on the trailer lol.

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Thanks alot mate, is that you in that car lol
Unfortunately your not the only bloke that has been had by the misterious bulldog!

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i can say that in the kind of racing i do (weight to cid) you should be able to build a more competitive engine for the reasons above (lite, less rotating mass, stronger. we dont use huge cid engines and spin the little ones to the moon.
I to would like to see a low deck cast block, would order one right now.

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I've lately heard of people talking about wanting low deck blocks but when it comes RIGHT down to it are they really going to buy them? Some will for sure but once that first set of go getters are out of the way is the market still there for years to come.... I'm not so sure.

From what i have read and heard your KP blocks are amazing pieces of work and Koffles would back them, if they weren't!

This might be a silly idea but someone said they were gonna try and cut the deck height of your RB block to a low deck. Would it be easier to just change something on your already good RB to allow them to be cut down to Low decks if the customer wants? I'm probably missing something that wont allow for this.

Another good point is alot of people are wanting to go BIGGER and BIGGER cause its getting cheaper to build 540-572ci engines. Maybe look at what the main cubes were in engines five ten years ago and look where they are now.... and then guess where they might be in 5 years. In my mind i think we would be seeing more 572ci then 500's. and we will be turning the BIG cubes just like the 500ci's. But that's just my guess. I know the 600-650ci around here are running 8000-8500rpm for a good 20 seconds every run making 30-40 paces a summer. and the NTPA boys are doing closer to 100 hooks a season. (they all use iron blocks)

I guess what my little point is as technology changes were trying to get the BIG cubes to make the same cube to hp ratio as the smaller ones and its slowly catching up.

Maybe the best bet would be is ask what Koffles or Muscle Motors would like to see.

You know what i would like to see (4.840bs)

Doug

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You are absolutely right Diablo some people are tire kickers.It would seem that all you would have to do to a RB block to make it a Low Deck is mill the deck down, but its just not the case, for example the stock for the head bolts would be one thing the biggest diffrence though however is how your tooling is set up.Sorry about not having the 4.84 in production yet, but you know how the story goes one thing at a time.

Thanks for talking us up!!!

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Bear, I am building a 512 right now using a 72 400 block. I did a partial fill on it. I have a BCR girdle kit w/ aluminum caps. So, let's see, $300.00 for the block.
$100.00 to clean it.
$100.00 to Mag it.
$ 75.00 to fill it.
$600.00 for girdle kit.
$4 or 500.00 to install girdle kit
?????? Machine work ???????




I will say approx. $2,000.00 into a stock block which I will still have to worry about. I will pay the extra money for your block. A 4.5 bore. Better oiling. Stronger mains. Stronger block all around.

I will place the order right now if you want to take pre-orders. I think you will find the market for the low deck is there, Your quality seems to be outstanding. If you do the same with the low deck you should sell some blocks.

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You bring up some very good points my friend.We still need to do some tweeking to the patterns but it is doable.We do not want to take ANYONES money until we actally have the product, even though it is EXTREMLY tempting.Just getting some extra assurance that people will in fact buy them means a world of difference!
We really appreciate the comments and hope to gain your business!!!

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BIG BEAR, if you did make the (IRON) low deck how much heavier would be than the factory low deck block? hopefully not much.

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Until we actually machine one to completion its kind of hard to say.But whatever the differance,I would have to believe the strenght gained and the capabilities of the block would exceed the weight difference! And if we end up casting the way we intend to, we will end up with a much more substantial deck!

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Guy's, You have to realise that you can't have all the options without a weight penalty.Thicker bores dual pattern belhousings steel billet main caps etc. add weight. Marty i feel you and steve have done a great job to get where we are now.For the foks out there we should have the first al block on the dyno before christmas.We will post pic's and results when done here on martys site and on our site.I can tell you that the al block with sleeves and billet caps weigh in at 132 lbs.We are very pumped with the project.Thanks,Scott

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Thanks alot Scott, we really appreciate that coming from you! It's good to hear that you are making progress on that engine.Keep in mind the production blocks may differ slightly just as the iron one did.

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Well there are low deck options out there for sure. Indy and KB have been mentioned already. I have a KB low deck in my heap. There are NO options in low deck iron. Is there a market, probably, will they buy it, maybe. It certainly is an unfilled void in the Mopar aftermarket block arena, so if I were looking to sell more product I think I would look to the untapped areas.

As I am sure you are well aware in business if you dont have marketing you will not sell a lot of product. Word of mouth only goes so far. My best example in the Mopar aftermarket would be Indy Cylinder Head. You see post after post here about how these guys are rude to customers and so on. Yet go through the pits at a Mopar event and tell me what you see, Indy this Indy that. They have a very good marketing machine and people know who they are. Heck pick up any Mopar rag out there and thier name is plastered all over it. Good or bad anytime thier name comes up it is an advertisement for them. If you want to move product people HAVE to know who you are and what you can do for them. Froom what I have heard you blocks are very nice pieces. But unless folks know they are out there they may end up going the route of Brewer heads. I hope it does not hapopen and with you all the luck in the world but Mopar guys are a fickle bunch for sure...Just my

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Thanks

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Bear, I think the dual pattern is a good idea. It opens up more options, more potential sales. The arrival of conversion bells is great, but adds some $600 to build cost. The savings there alone is another selling point to me. The support components(heads,rotating assemblies,valvetrain) have all outgrown the stock block. I knew you were thinking of bringing a new product to market, I hope this is it.I wish you the best of luck in whatever you decide.

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So thats the hipe of having the dual bellhousing.Don't you have to carve up the chevy bellhousing for the starter to fit?
Thanks alot for you input, it really does help

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If you do this will CGI be a option?

thanks, bob

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Probably not, CGI would require special patterns and machining tools, and I don't belive enough people would shell out the dough to make it worth while.
Thanks for aking though