Kirkham Motorsports Assembly Manual

[David Kirkham]

You need an input shaft to line things up. These work GREAT!!!

[David Kirkham]

Here is the clutch plate we use.

[David Kirkham]

Here is the McLeod pressure plate we use.

[David Kirkham]

Then you will want to line every thing up on the input shaft and put it into the pilot bearing with the clutch plate on THE RIGHT WAY!!! The side marked "FLYWHEEL SIDE" of course, goes against the flywheel.




Here Sandwich is lining things up.

[David Kirkham]

Torque the pressure plate bolts to 22 ft/pounds

This is the McLeod starter that we use. It is part number 810160.

Then you will need to do something that VERY FEW people ever check. You NEED to check the gear engagement on the starter. The starter needs to have full engagement on the flywheel. If you don't get full engagement, you will chew up the edge of the flywheel ring gear and VERY SOON you will get the pleasure of taking out the interior, seats, drive line, drive shaft, clutch, pressure plate, throw out bearing assembly, transmission and FINALLY, the flywheel so you can replace the ring gear. The only thing more painful would be a trip to one of Saddam's little rooms where he "talked" to people to get info out of them, (or maybe getting hit by that drive shaft).

Here Master Sandwich is checking the engagement on the starter. Turned out it STUNK so we had to take the billet face off of the starter and take 0.080 off of the face to get it to engage properly.





You need to pull out the starter gear and make sure it has full engagement! Otherwise, you will chew the teeth off of the ring gear and destroy the starter gear. Here you can see Sandwich has trimmed the face of the starter to move it 0.080 inches in with good engagement.

[David Kirkham]

Now we bolt on the bell housing. BUT FIRST!!! We need to drill a hole in the bell housing to accept our new, cool, throw out bearing. NO MORE LEAKY hydraulic throw out bearings!

You will need to drill out the TOP hole where the clutch fork pivot normally mounted on the bell housing. We are going to use a rod end bearing there instead. I did my best interpretation of an Anasazi to draw an arrow on the bell housing to show you which hole to drill.




Then we put in the throw out bearing assembly. (Don't bolt on the transmission before the throw out bearing is in place or you will have to unbolt the tranny again!)

[David Kirkham]

This is a complete BOLT ON unit. NO WELDING!

[David Kirkham]

Notice we provided you with two holes in the throw out arm. The inner hole is for racing--hard, fast clutch. The outer hole is for me--softer, longer throw clutch as I use extremely little clutch anyway when I am racing.

[David Kirkham]

Take a sneak peek inside the bell housing and you can see the rod end we use as a pivot. It makes for a very smooth clutch action.

[David Kirkham]

[David Kirkham]

Here is Sandwich bolting on the transmission.

NOTE!!!

In this picture you can see the original style shift lever adapter. For the latest BILLET STAINLESS STEEL shift lever, READ ON!

[David Kirkham]

Here is a picture of our special shifter adapter. Now you can use a Tremec transmission and have your shifter look identical to an original Cobra.

[David Kirkham]

Here you can see our billet Tremec transmission mount. Also, you can see we put in in a transmission yoke. There are two reasons for that. One, it makes turning the transmission input shaft (on the other side of the transmission) possible. It makes it a LOT easier to get the splines aligned in the clutch plate when you do this.

Second, it is a great plug in case your transmission already has oil in it. (Our's doesn't...yet ).

[David Kirkham]

Here are some close up pics of our billet aluminum Tremec TKO 600 transmission adapter mount. This mount allows you to put a Tremec TKO 600 transmission in our Kirkham 427 KMS/SC. It will also work on CSX cars and on original 427 Cobras.

In this picture, the mount is positioned as if the engine were toward the right and the differential is to the left. The two triangular tabs you see are welded onto the frame. There is NO reason to remove the original Top Loader mount. The triangular tabs mount on the REAR of the cross member whereas on an original Cobra the Top Loader mounts to the FRONT of the cross member. The do NOT interfere with each other.

[David Kirkham]

The tail shaft sits right in this slot.

[David Kirkham]

Notice we use aircraft 1/2 high nuts on the mount. We try to save weight everywhere we can.

[David Kirkham]

And now, to the HEART of the matter.

Keith Craft Aluminum 427 FE
Shelby Aluminum Block
Scat 4.25 inch stroke crank
482 cubic inches
Aluminum Edelbrock Heads
Stage 2 CNC ported heads
Forged pistons
Edelbrock Performer RPM Heads
Aluminum Flywheel
600+ horsepower

This is how it arrives from Keith Craft

[David Kirkham]

[David Kirkham]

[David Kirkham]