Released on October 8, 2008

Wolverine Bronze Co., Roseville, Mich., recently won a contract to sand cast precision parts for the 14-liter, 1200-horsepower, DiMora Volcano V-16 engine.

The engine, which will be fitted into the $2 million DiMora Motorcar Natalia SLS 2 sport luxury sedan, will contain parts produced in Wolverine’s low pressure sand casting process, in which the molds are poured from the bottom to the top, limiting inclusion defects and resulting in tight grain structure and dimensional control.

Only a handful of metalcasting facilities in the world maintain precision sand casting capabilities, each of which is unique. In Wolverine’s version of the process, a pressurized inert gas forces molten aluminum up through a tube from the furnace into the mold. Molten metal continues to feed the casting under pressure until it has solidified, starting at the most distant points and gradually cooling toward the fill tube.

“Wolverine is a world leader in low pressure casting technology and is a prime example of the innovation that is reinvigorating the Detroit-based American automobile industry,” said Alfred DiMora, CEO and founder of DiMora Motorcar. “This cutting-edge [metalcasting facility] was designed specifically to manufacture the kinds of complex, thin-walled, aluminum sand castings that we need for the Volcano engine.”

Wolverine Bronze is a nonferrous job shop serving the automotive, aircraft and aerospace industries with aluminum, copper and bronze castings from a few ounces to 60,000 lbs. It also manufactures and distributes a product line of cast aluminum and welded steel bases, standard fixture components, and special application bases and castings.

“All of us at Wolverine Bronze are tremendously excited about our new relationship with the DiMora team,” said Paul Smith, second generation owner and vice president of business development. “The original concept in designing our low pressure system was to produce the highest quality sand castings possible and target this capability to the high-performance engine market.”