Million Dollar Skunksworks Kirkham

[David Kirkham]

This funny little bracket is what holds on the radiator support tubes (no, Mr. Bruce, those tubes are not billet either )

This bracket also holds on the oil cooler and is the base for the tubing structure that holds on the body in front of the hood.

[David Kirkham]

This curved out area holds the tube that supports the front of the nose. (The bottom of the radiator opening and the top of the oil cooler opening). Now you can start to see all the funny angles in the part. The reason the jack hook is not flush with the bracket is because there are spacers (like original) that go between the frame and the jack hooks. The spacers are longer on the bottom. They are not shown in this picture.

[David Kirkham]

Another funny angle.

[David Kirkham]

Here is another view for you (I am starting to feel like Vanna White! )

This view always reminded me of FANGS! (Speaking of Fangs, that is one of my favorite shows on Discovery Channel! Along with Mike Rowe's Dirty Jobs! Man that guy eats a LOT of poo!)

[David Kirkham]

I just opened a bill from an attorney. It was for $395.00 dollars but the .00 had an arrow underneath it pointing one decimal place to the right. There was a hand-written note underneath the arrow stating something about a CC surcharge...

Man, word travels fast among you attorneys!

David

[David Kirkham]

This is a picture of the front suspension box as it was being assembled.

[David Kirkham]

Here is a pic of the rear suspension box and bulkhead as it was being assembled.

[David Kirkham]

Here is a shot of the front uprights. Notice they are hollow. That is so air can flow through the upright to cool the rotors. That is a trick we took from F1. The bearings we are using are from a Lexus. They are double row angular contact bearings--the BEST choice for wheel bearings. Notice how in the top of the picture you can see we held the rod ends (where the control arms connect to the upright) in DOUBLE shear. That makes for a light and very strong part. The engineering was very, very hard, however, to get it all to package into a 15 inch wheel.

In the picture, the left side of the upright is solid--that is where the brake loads are carried in the upright.

[David Kirkham]

This is a shot of the support brace that connects the front suspension to the foot boxes--completing the load paths from front to rear. The side pipes normally go through this area, but since the customer wanted under-car exhaust this left a very nice place to tie the frame all together.

[1ntCobra]

Originally Posted by David Kirkham

This is a shot of the support brace that connects the front suspension to the foot boxes--completing the load paths from front to rear. The side pipes normally go through this area, but since the customer wanted under-car exhaust this left a very nice place to tie the frame all together.

If you ever build another one of these cars for a customer, you know someone is going to want side pipes.

[David Kirkham]

Already got that one covered! We designed a new piece with a side pipe hole in it! That next customer being ME!

David

[David Kirkham]

[David Kirkham]

This shot shows the 1/2 inch gap that will be filled in with the front of the foot box.

[David Kirkham]