New Keith Craft Motor

[66 snake]

Well, we went to Arkansas yesterday to order the new motor.

Just wanted to say Thanks to Drew and Gary for suggesting Keith Craft Racing Engines for my stroker upgrade.

Had my mind made up on a 410 500HP stroker but by the time I walked out, Keith had upgraded it to a 418 600HP street rocket.

He was very easy to deal with and showed us around. He has a nice setup there. Very professional and extremely detail oriented. Top notch equipment and good inventory. He even had a Shelby American aluminum engine block there. I thought about switching over to that, but he said it was spoken for, but if the deposit check bounced it was all mine.

We should have our new engine in about 5 weeks.

[James Baldwin]

Oh my... Sounds like it is going to be great! Congrats

[Boudy]

Just couldn't resist the upgrade could you?

Congradulations! From what I am hearing, that is one stompin' motor.

Boudy

[392cobra]

that is some nice engine you're getting

congrats

colleen is going to love having it in her lone star.

[STROKER]

Congradulations,

You won't regret the cubic upgrade or the choice of builder. Keith Craft built me a 410 for my first Cobra and it would get it, and very reliable. He is awsome to deal with and know's his stuff...........

Enjoy it!

Danny

[weekendwarrior]

What block is being used for the motor. Rebuilt 351, FMS, Dart, Alum.?

TIA

[gsharapa]

Congrats on your engine! That 418 sounds very simular to what I was planning if I go small block stroker. Keith is a great guy and really knows how to build a haulin small block!

Drew has a Shelby Aluminum block over there also. When we took his block over last fall Keith had just got in one, so that's probably the one he now has a deposit on. Are you going with the sportsman block, race block, siamese block or the aluminum block? What heads?

[66 snake]

Yeah, we saw Baird's name on the stack of Shelby Aluminum products.

Keith is going to build this 418 on a new sportsman block w/ ...

SCAT 4340 crank - Zero balanced
SCAT 4340 HB rods
JE forged pistons
Comp cams custom grind - Hyd. roller
Comp high tech push rods
Scorpion roller rockers
Victor Jr intake
DaVinci HP 950 CFM carb
All ARP bolts
(Massive) AFR 225 heads
Bottom end girdle
And lots of other goodies

I considered the SVO 4 bolt main block but Keith says he can make up to 900 HP on this block and be OK.

Gary, thanks again for recommending Keith.

[TerrysSPF]

Does anybody have a phone number / address for Keith Craft? Does he have a web site? E-mail address??

66snake: congrats on that engine! I like the idea of going with the hyd. roller. He can still get you 600hp with the hyd cam? Thats awsome! Those AFR heads are huge (225). Will you have to get up the rpm's to make that kind of power w/ those heads? I think they're set up for 7-8000 range! Did you discuss the 205 heads at all? I was just wondering what the power would fall to with those vs. the 225's.
I know the AFR's come CNC ported from the factory, but a guy I spoke to at a place called Performance Engineering (Eric) said he has AFR port the heads "differently" for fitting on a Cobra. Seems the headers flow differently on a Cobra so he has them "matched" to the intake and headers they use. Maybe Keith already does this, but it may be worth mentioning to him just in case. Eric says it does increase the flow a bit.

[JBAIRD]

Terry, could you please send my stuff back. Drew.

[Boudy]

www.keithcraft.com

Boudy

[jrussell]

Oh Yeah...... another Keith Craft in the group!
I think you are going to be more than happy with the bullet Keith gives you! After the 408 and now 418 he built for Drew, this would be "my guy" to build an engine.
I would imagine you are going to go up for the Dyno pulls just like Drew did, and then you woll be on cloud 9 coming home.
John Russell

[gsharapa]

66Snake,

You might want to have Drew take you for a ride before you decide on the Hyd Roller!

I've had both and the only draw back to the solid roller is you need to adjust the lifters once in awhile and with the miles we put on these cars it would be once a year. Heck, all the 427 Side Oilers have a solid lifter cams which is not as good as a solid roller.....

What I don't like about the Hyd Roller is it runs out of juice at 6,300 RPM where a solid roller will keep building HP up to 7,000-8,000 RPM. That's why all the race cars run solid rollers. This bull S___t about running a solid roller on the street is just that, a bunch of guys making statements and don't know what they are talking about. Same statements about a dominator on the street.
A solid roller in the combination Keith priced for you would be about 30 or 40 more HP just with the solid roller. Just my thoughts but I've work for Ford Motor Company for 25 years and have had tons of cars and my next one will have a solid roller!

TerrySPF,

You must of not see some of my past replies to you under the Dallas Feb 1 meeting post, as I gave you Keith Craft's phone number: 870-246-7460. I also replied that the only thing I did to Drew's cobra was adjust the carb as all these engine builders make them rich because of the dyno time. "Be Carefull" on heads as Superformance does not make headers except for the normal Ford head bolt pattern. Keith likes the Brodix heads over AFR etc as they flow better. SPF does not make headers for them unless custom ordered. Drew sent the header flanges to SPF and had 2 inch custom headers made for the Brodix heads, which really make the engine flow especially with those stainless steel side pipes he has.

[Boudy]

I'm with Gary. Rollers only for temp and HP and solid rollers if you're going to really push the thing.(why would you build such a rocket it you're not gonna push it, RIGHT?) Anyway, I used to adjust my race rig every week, but they never moved so I dropped it to every two weeks.

Boudy

[bittentoo]

66 Snake and 392Cobra,
I'm considering the Lone Star and would love to hear the pros and cons on your Cobras. How easy were they to build, quality of parts and body fit, tech support from Lone Star, etc.

And your cars look great!!!!!

[TerrysSPF]

Drew: I shipped your pictures out last Mon. so you should get them any day now. Thanks for sending them! It was still hard to tell what that Marlin Blue looks like (it looked different in a few of the pictures - especially the ones you took in the garage w/ a flash). I think I would have to go down and see it in person. It looks like a hell of a car though. Do you know if it's the only SPF in Marlin Blue? And what the heck are you building NOW? From the post above, it sounds like an all alum monster!!! Are you ordering another SPF?
gsharapa: I missed your reply on the Dallas Feb 1 thread. Thanks for the e-mail address and the phone number though!
I may contact KCraft and talk to him about different cams, etc. Besides adjusting the lifters once in awhile, my other concern is that, here in the Chicago area, there isn't a lot of room between lights / stop signs to get up to 8000 rpm! So I was wondering what a hyd roller would do to the HP curve and what else, if anything, would need to be done to the engine if you made a cam change like that. I may be better off looking at BB's and getting the low rpm torque to get me from light to light.

[427Aggie]

Terry,

I will make a recommendation to you. Pay the money to fly and look at the cars before you buy...if you have any doubt about its drivability and light to light running then you need to pay the $300 bucks and get down to Dallas. I can tell you that this motor has more torque than my 427SO so it shouldn't be a concern.

Just a suggestion.

Matt

[Gary Morris]

Matt........that's cause your car is Black............now BLUE ones, that's another story.

Me

[jwoodard]

as a fellow TCC member and one who has driven around the Dallas streets with Drew in our Cobras I can tell you this car is very streetable. You would not need to make any changes to drive this car in Chicago. Like Matt said, come see this beauty. You wont be sorry you did.

Jim

[James Baldwin]

This thread makes me want to buy a smallblock stroker..

Anyone want to trade me for a measley little Aluminum Shelby motor?