This is the second small-block Ford that Bill Kaglatzis of BK Race Engines has built for this customer – the previous one was mercilessly beaten on for 20 years and counting!
First published in the September 2024 issue of Street Machine



“I built him a 630hp Clevo that did everything: the Snowy Mountains 1000, no-prep stuff at Coota, drag racing, circuit stuff – you name it, he’s done it!” says Bill. “It lasted him 20 years and was still going strong. He ended up selling it for more than I charged him to build it back in the day!”
When the customer decided to restore the car, an XB GS hardtop, he again looked to Bill for a fresh lump with which to power it. The brief was to step things up without compromising the versatility and longevity he’d come to love about his previous mill.



Bill specced some high-end hardware for this engine, starting with a World 9.2 Windsor block. To that he added a Callies crank, Oliver rods and a set of Diamond pistons, with a 4.125in stroke combining with a 4.155in bore for 443ci of capacity and a static compression ratio of 12.5:1. The pan is a custom BK Race Engines alloy item, while the camshaft is a Bullet stick with a custom grind applied to BK’s specs – 0.800in lift, and 278/[email protected] duration.
BAM DLC steel-bushed lifters act on Smith Brothers 7/16in pushrods, and the cylinder heads are Aussie-made Higgins 2.8 items loaded with T&D rockers, PSI valve springs and a Higgins intake.



The carby is a new product from APD, and it’s a pretty trick piece. “It’s a twin-blade carb that’s probably rated at about 1250cfm,” says Bill. “It’s the same size as a 4150, but it has two throttle plates instead of four, meaning it can flow a lot more air while still being a small package. For something like this engine, we’d typically consider going to a Dominator, but this carb is designed to fill the gap between a 4150 and a 4500 carby, suited to engines roughly in the 830-900hp range.”
Even though Bill opted for a carburettor on this mill, it will still run a FuelTech 550 to manage the ignition and datalogging sides of the equation. “The car has a manual gearbox and will be doing all types of racing, often in low-traction environments, so the FuelTech will assist with traction control and the like,” he says.




A coil-on-plug ignition system got the nod, with the coil packs mounted on a trick set of custom OC Billet rocker covers. “It’s tricky to make coil-on-plug look pretty on these motors, but when it’s done nicely, it’s cool,” Bill says. “It gives us a lot of parameters to control the engine over a traditional distributor.”
The front of the motor hosts an Innovators West belt drive and damper with a 12-magnet crank trigger.
“There’s a lot of good gear in this engine; it’s probably a little over the top, but it’s all in the name of longevity,” says Bill. “We have a lot of experience in circuit racing, and we treated this as a circuit/endurance racing engine. It may well end up at a circuit at some stage and have to be able to just belt out laps, so it required a different approach.”




That said, the customer certainly didn’t want to take a backwards step in the performance stakes, so the engine had to deliver the goods on the dyno. On pump fuel, it spun to 8000rpm and made 830hp and 630lb-ft in the process!
“We’ve built more powerful engines, but this one can do the works,” says Bill. “It’s all about quality – it can do slow city driving, drag racing or circuit stuff. Anything you can throw at a road car, this thing has to be able to do it. It’s a very versatile engine.”


WE HAVE IGNITION
Bill is very tight-lipped when it comes to the ignition coils used on this Ford small-block. “Let’s just say that they’re NASCAR-style coils that were very hard to come by,” he laughs. “Good luck to anyone who tries to track a set down!”
BK Race Engines,
Bankstown, NSW
bkraceengines.com.au
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