Kiekhaefer Champion Maker engines
 

In the book Iron Fist, There is a small chapter involving the Champion Maker big block offshore race motors. The book does not go into much detail other than it was a BBC, mechanically fuel injected. Does anyone here remember these motors????

I installed my share of them .the 625 plus the Ignition was Ktron
And still have the stickers from them on one of my old tool boxes, the accessories were gear driven ,Only the high pressure fuel pump was Belt driven. A piece of art work

His crash box had a Hydraulic pump mounted on it for the Power steering.

The setup was impressive with the old mans headers installed and all the Braces he made for them really brutal!!It was like you could pick up the boat by the exhaust system.

As a side note; in those days there was some talk of the gear drive system requiring more Horsepower than the Vee belts we ran in those days, Ritchie Powers ran an engine with the old mans gear drive on a dyno then changed to belt drive no measured difference!! in reliability that system was Bullet proof !!

:)

Steve , Great Stuff!!! I was going to say , thats some Cool Chit,, But I didnt want to Offend You!!!!!! I love to Hear , about the Pioneers!!!!!!

Steve, thanks for the info!. What were the specs??? Were they tall blocks???stroker motors??? What did they run for cams?

Are there any of these motors still around????

I`d love to have one on a stand in my shop just to look at:D
It`s my kind of art!

Kurt.:)

Kurt, I think if I recall correctly, they were 482 cubic inch engines which was the same bore size of a standard 454 block (4.25" bore) with a stroker crankshaft of 4.25". And yes, they were fuel injected with the "velocity stack" style fuel injectors and came with equipt with Patterson or Stellings full length tubular headers. Now that I think of it, the headers may have even been made by Kiekhaefer back then as well. I think they used solid roller cams in those things. I believe they had something like a 12.5:1 compression ratio and they made 680hp, but I can't remember at what RPM---might have been 6200-6600rpm. I remember seeing these engines pictured in a magazine ("Powerboat and Sailing" magazine???) back around the mid 70's early 80's or so. It was so long ago I can't quite remember when it was that I saw them pictured. Sure brings back the memories though.

Kurt as I remember they were tall blocks, (all we had back then) aside from the passenger car engines, The Internal configuration who knows!! The Old Man was really funny about anyone digging around inside his engines (they got returned to Kiekhaefer for rebuilding) I heard Billy Martin tore one down and reassembled it and never got caught. 482 sounds about right.

The most striking thing about the Engines to me aside from performance was their Appearance When you looked at these engines they were MARINE racing engines, Period .No Mistake here, from that great cast Oil Pan on up everything and I mean everything had the Kiekhaefer makeover .right down to the Inverted oil filter .

The Kiekhaefer Equipment was all at its own level even the high pressure fuel pump had cooling fins .

The Headers from memory now !! Kiekhaefer had them bent at Detroit Tube they were not Polished and had a shotblasted appearance about them ,The tube length was 38” same as the Can am cars were running,About a zillion aircraft bolts around the collector Flanges ,which everyone complained about (but it worked well) they were also heavy .

I saw only one polished set and that was Mr.Richie Powers he had the Italians do a set for him they refused to do another , mucho work .

Thanks a bunch for the info Steve!. As I said before, I`d love to have one for a display piece!

Kurt.

A Little History!
 

Sixty years ago, Carl Kiekhaefer purchased a defunct outboard motor manufacturing company in Cedarburg, Wisconsin. Although he intended to make magnetic separators for the dairy industry, the place came with 300 "rejected" outboard motors for boats.

Rather than lose out on an opportunity, Mr. Kiekhaefer rebuilt the engines and sold them. The rebuilt engines worked so well, the buyer ordered more. Thus began what is now the largest boat motor manufacturing company in the world...
Mercury Marine.