They’ll even stamp it at the factory with your original engine number…
But… if it has the original number, will that be considered numbers-matching?
$18 grand, for a brandy-new block?
Sweet!!!
Presumably it will have a date stamp as well.
According to the article, if a original serial number is request, they’ll stamp an asterisk next to the number to denote that it’s a replacement block.
If they really recreated the tooling to produce this block as opposed to digging up the old machinery (if that still existed) $18,000 seems cheap from the cost of production standpoint. Though how much demand? I don’t know.
Dave
It may be that they are using 3D printing to produce the “negative spaces” within the casting sand to make the moulds. This is becoming the regular approach to bespoke casting.
If you can design it in CAD and print it on a printer you can make it easy as pie. I read an article recently about some aficionados of early Japanese 4 cylinder cars designing and making a DOHC head from scratch for one of their cars for a couple of grand.
So then. Does that make it “matching numbers”?
I guess not, though an old number stamped into the new cast iron by a bonafide Jaguar factory worker specially trained for such work might add a certain panache, though it kinda illustrates how superficial the concept is anyway.
Still, the offering will have great appeal to a number of enthusiasts including or maybe especially those who’re salivating over the prospect of building a blueprinted engine around a brand new block, so more power to them.
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Indeed it does…
Add $6K for a new crankshaft, a thou for rods and another thou for pistons and you have a real nice budget build.
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Dave;
Reminds me of the statement—" It is only original once"----.
I have no objection and I can understand someone want a ‘new block’ for a particular car but it would give you some pause.
Regards, Joel.
Uryk posted pictures of brand new 3.8 blocks months ago on his Instagram feed…new head castings too.
He didn’t say who the originator of those parts was, but my bet is they were done by an outside entity, and Jaguar has just now got around to licensing them to put that price tag up a few extra thousand dollars/pounds.
After decades of being unobtainable, there are now at least three different sources casting brand new Lotus Twin-Cam heads. I think this sort of thing is going to become much more common in the coming years.
I watched a Bitchin’ Rides episode where the Kindig design people 3D designed the cores for the casting molds (Mercedes parts I recall) and had those parts cast by a foundry. I can’t remember if the foundry took the 3D data to make the cores or Kindig had someone else create the cores and the foundry then made sand molds from them.
Pretty cool, but being investment cast as it seemed to me, the molds were destroyed. But perhaps a suitable process for low-scale production if the market will bear the cost. It may be this is the process used to make the Jag blocks (whoever the source supplier is.)
Now, if they make a new core for each block, and then can cast the serial number into the block instead of stamping it - that would be cool and a nice touch (though not original looking.)
Dave
Given the choice between an expert rebuild using either a solid original matching numbers block and this one I perceive the greater advantage goes to the original. All things equal original atoms wins. Otherwise a brand new, blueprinted XK engine based around a new, perfect block would be pretty awesome.
Five years ago I had my engine rebuilt after 120,000 miles, and it wasn’t that pretty inside. The block needed stitching, rebore, new top hat liners, and the head was fit for scrap so a new one was machined from a blank and stamped up. The total rebuild cost was £6,500 and it runs like a Swiss watch. Here in the UK an uprated sport rebuild can be had for under $12,000. However, there is a great need for 3.8 blocks for racing. Engines are prepared to a far higher level than in the day, and the specialist racing engine company Sigma are always seeking blocks to rebuild.
How about an alloy block - should be possible at not much extra cost .
Hi,
I’m new here,have '65 FHC currently undergoing major surgery in Melb.Aust. anyway here is a great link relevant to the new 3.8 block,well worth a watch.
Christ, dont give the purists any ideas: then, they’ll want an electron microscope inspection at RM…
All perception. For some reason cars that feature their original engines (and numbers) are more sought after and command higher prices than cars that don’t. It’s just the reality. When taken ad absurdium, the preference will even extend to a clapped out matching numbers engine over a rebuilt replacement. Nonsense, but that’s the way it is.
That is VERY cool.
To bad the car’s value will take such a hit, by not being *numbers matching," or as Messr. Saltarelli recently opined, ‘non-atomically pure.’
Do you mean Saltarelli of Ducati fame? I have the “atomically pure” bodywork of his roundcase race bike sitting in my spare room,bizarely removed during restoration and replaced with reproduction bodywork after the bike was sold at auction in Monaco a few years ago.