METAL MILITIA

AS NEW BILLET BLOCKS FOR THE HOLDEN V8, BARRA SIX AND CLEVELAND V8 HIT THE MARKET, WE TAKE A DIVE INTO WHAT MAKES THEM SPECIAL

- IAIN KELLY

EVERY time the covers are whipped off a new billet engine block design, car fans hit the limiter like a P-plater in Dad’s company car, frothing at the 3000+hp potential of these aftermarket platforms. But what are billet blocks actually designed for?

As high-end racers in drag racing, Time Attack and other forms of motorsport chase the seemingly opposing goals of reliability and ever-climbing power outputs, specially machined engine packages have become the hot new go-to. This is where the billet block comes into its own.

Traditional engine blocks are made through a casting process, where liquid-hot aluminium or iron is poured into a mould and allowed to cool. Perfect for mass-production runs! A billet block, however, is machined from a single solid piece of super-high-quality metal called a billet.

South Australia’s Bullet Race Engineering has recently added billet Holden V8 and Ford Barra six engines to its existing product line, which includes billet blocks and heads for Toyota 2JZ and Nissan RB six-pots, as well as Honda K-series, Mitsubishi 4G63 and Nissan SR four-cylinder donks. The team have poured huge effort into improving the engineering behind some of our favourite engine formats.

“The guys buying these engines are really going all-out with them as they push for maximum power or maximum reliability,” says Bullet’s Darren Palumbo. “You can make 1000hp on the stock versions of something like a 2JZ for a time, but the risk is so much higher when you are pushing an engine that was never designed to make that power. These blocks are built to make that power.”