Keith Black The Man, The Legend

The name Keith Black had been known to tens of thousands of drag racing enthusiasts as one of the sport's finest engine designers and builders, ever! Keith Black Racing Engines excelled in a sport and profession that is fiercely competitive, and he had always remained uncompromising and forthrightly honest.

He was born in Lynwood, California, in 1926. Like many other teenagers in southern California, he became interested in hot rodding while in high school during the early '40s. After graduating, he entered the Army Air Corps cadet program, but World War II ended before he was called to action.

Early on, he displayed an uncanny ability repairing and hot-rodding engines. His career actually started with boats, not cars. It all began when a friend asked him to fix the carburetor problems in his boat. A hobby became a career, and he started working out of his backyard.

"As I became successful at it," Black says, "more people would come to me and ask, 'Would you work on my engine?' I worked on a few Cadillac and Oldsmobile engines because they were the first ones out [with V8s]. The first time I got into a race deal, where I had something that was of some size, I went into a Chrysler HEMI because I felt the engine was more of a race engine than the rest of the engines were. At that time, I did engines for boat racing that were 246 cubic inches, from the small Dodge HEMI Red Ram engine. We built those up fuel-injected - some of them methanol. We also did a 265-cubic-inch DeSoto HEMI."

In this early family photo, here’s Keith when he had a wholesale auto parts business on wheels, and spent time during the day selling to shops and at night making horsepower in his garage.

The famous G-B-P car started out orange and became yellow when there was a chance for it to be created as a plastic model car kit. The chassis was built by Kent Fuller, the money was from Tommy Greer, the HEMI engine by Keith Black, the driving by Don Prudhomme. In 1964, this car ran a 7.77-second run at over 196 mph. Check out that shark nose injector scoop!

Checking out the injectors on an early HEMI engine, Don Prudhomme, who was painting cars at his dad’s body shop during this time frame.

Forgedtrue piston company recognized KB in this promotion, highlighting the 7.77-second record run at 196.30 mph.

In 1965, Chrysler Corporation was so impressed with the precision engine building that Keith Black Racing Engines performed that they awarded the shop with a contract to develop their "Marine Racing Program" which would lead to a long and prosperous factory relationship. Black supplied early and late-model HEMI engines to Roland Leong and other fuel dragsters. By 1966, the Keith Black engine shop had become too small to handle all the business, so a larger facility (11120 Scott Ave, Southgate, CA) was obtained to deal with all the new activities! It proved good timing because his involvement with the HEMI engine was about to grow dramatically.

In 1973, Keith Black added crankshafts to his product lineup, and they were so strong that the name "kryptonite" was used to describe them! Starting with a rough billet that measured 27 inches long with a diameter of 8 inches, and then turned into a 426 HEMI crankshaft when the 400-pound chunk of special aircraft alloy steel was reduced down to 86 pounds after some 22 separate machine operations.

On one of the vintage Keith Black Racing Engines catalogs, cover 4 featuring an assortment of historical images from over the years of glory!

Keith in his wood-paneled office and in the shop, always working to safely gather the maximum performance out of the HEMI engine!

In 1994, a talented automotive artist did this spectacular "First Strike" 14" x 30" rendering of the Greer-Black-Prudhomme HEMI engine-powered dragster doing its thing at the San Gabriel Dragstrip. Today, they are highly cherished by collectors. This short-wheelbased dragster won somewhere in the neighborhood of 250 matches while only losing a small amount, the car was nearly untouchable!

Prior to Eddie Hill getting into rear-engined Top Fuel dragster racing, he was a top drag race boat racer and this shot, which was proudly displayed on the hall wall of Keith Black Racing Engines in South Gate, shows his boat with the blown and supercharged KB HEMI engine, which of course ran on nitromethane!

After Chrysler stopped producing the HEMI engines at the end of 1971, and with engineering assistance and development from Chrysler engineer Bob Tarozzi, Keith Black manufactured them from aluminum. With aluminum, racers gained several advantages, including that they saved 100 lbs (45 kg) in weight, and had an engine that was repairable in case of damage from thrown connecting rods, etc. They became very popular in the Top Fuel and Funny Car ranks!

KBRE worked with nearly every Top Fuel or Funny Car over the years, including Don Garlits, Don Prudhomme, Shirley Muldowney, Kenny Bernstein, Joe Amato, John Force, Tommy Ivo, John Mazmanian, Nelson Carter, Jim Dunn, Candies and Hughes, and the list goes on and on! It was 1974 when the release of the famed Keith Black Aluminum HEMI Block came, which without question was the "shot heard around the world" for the sport of drag racing!

Here’s what Don Garlits had to say regarding this revolutionary engine: “The aluminum 426 HEMI block was probably the biggest contribution to Top Fuel drag racing and that was all thanks to Keith Black. What a great man for drag racing.”

The business also became involved in other forms of racing, including NASCAR, SCCA Trans-Am, Indy Cars and SCORE off-road racing.

Be it on an old school nitro engine, a street rod, boat or 426 HEMI Mopar® muscle car, the KB cast aluminum calve covers always provided the a serious appearance like no other!

Hanging on the wall, this photo from 1975 with these words“Thanks K.B. for helping to make the 5’s Happen, Don ‘The Snake’ Prudhomme 1975.”

This building on Scott Avenue in South Gate, California, was where it all took place! Pictured is the restored 1969 Hawaiian Dodge Charger Funny Car of Roland Leong, which back in the day was a Keith Black "house car" and top performer.

Honesty, candor, lack of pretense and a cordial manner were his calling cards.

Keith Black
1926-1991

Author: James Maxwell