Well, Good Grief

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Amskeptic
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Re: Well, Good Grief

Post by Amskeptic » Thu Mar 30, 2017 12:36 pm

asiab3 wrote:
Thu Mar 30, 2017 11:08 am
Gads. I have a set of those "race ready rods" in storage for my next engine. Did you check their balance?

If the seat is bunk, I doubt Len would be interested in fixing someone else mistake, but he might be willing to work on the Yuma heads with the factory valve seats. The Good Machinists and body guys always tell me it's easier to fix damage than a mistake……… :pirate:

I can't wait to see the milage from this engine; my Colorado Dog Hair engine just ticked off 10k last week, including a 96° run to Phoenix and back. :silent:
Robbie

Here's the ad copy with salient features in bold:
OEM Connecting Rods, 13/15/1600cc Type 1 Based Engines, Race Prepped
Price: 129.95

OEM Connecting Rods, 13/15/1600cc Type 1 Based Engines, Race Prepped, are based from magnafluxed German Rod cores. New nuts, Machined, honed, and new small end bushings are put in, then micro balanced (overall and end to end).
These are perfect for racing classes that require unmodified T1 rods, OR for people that want an engine to better than stock build tolerances (which are sloppy). If you want a great rod without spending for H-beams, this is the solution! Price is for a matched set of 4 to do one engine!
AirCooled.Net responded to my email promptly,
"Demello maybe doesn't use new nuts any more."
ibegyourfuckingpardon?
"We have changed our website to reflect that."
sowhathefuckdoidowiththese$129.00rods?
"We'll send you a return tag."

I just put the crank gear and distributor drive gear on the crankshaft. I only have 2nd degree burns on my left hand and left thigh from a slop of smoking vegetable oil. Even with the crankshaft in the freezer for 30 minutes, with a careful chamfer of the crank and gear, that new distributor drive gear did not want to go on.

Will pull some exhaust valves to check the seats after I stop screaming.
Colin

(edit: just read the email from AirCooled.Net and got pissed at this part
(** We don't carry/sell connecting rod nuts as a separate product, but we have submitted an inquiry to DPR (who is the rebuilder of the rods you purchased) to see if they can supply you with new nuts - we haven't heard back yet, but John suspects that if they are now refurbishing nuts on their rebuilt rods, then they probably don't have access to new nuts anymore. We have removed the reference to "new nuts" from the product description for this item)
so I sent a reply:
Hello,

Let's be careful with our ad jargon. There was nothing "refurbished" about these chewed up nuts with coked on burnt carbon that could barely make their way down the smashed threads. The torque on connecting rods is one of the very most critical specifications in an engine. This engine is doing a 25,000 mile trip in barely a month, and these "issues that have arisen" could have been catastrophic to a newbie who wouldn't painstakingly chase each thread on each bolt and nut. Come on! This hobby has a lot of cross-talk and we who serve the enthusiasts need to be on our best game. Just this morning I have had two people mention that they have "race-ready" rods from AirCooled.Net. I, of course, must share my findings because it is extremely important to me and my reputation that I give top drawer observations and recommendations.
At a minimum, if I were in your shoes, I would provide me a credit of at least the difference between "$129.00 racy-ready" down to "$109.00 set of reconditioned stock rods" with an assurance that John would contact DPR and read them the riot act. Connecting rods are serious business!
Colin
)
BobD - 78 Bus . . . 112,730 miles
Chloe - 70 bus . . . 217,593 miles
Naranja - 77 Westy . . . 142,970 miles
Pluck - 1973 Squareback . . . . . . 55,600 miles
Alexus - 91 Lexus LS400 . . . 96,675 miles

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sgkent
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Re: Well, Good Grief

Post by sgkent » Thu Mar 30, 2017 12:59 pm

stop trusting machinists that you can't personally look at their work, their shop and into their eyes. Where are you these days. We need to find you a machinist who does quality work. I've spoken with Len and he is the only guy I trust these days although there are couple of places in So Cal that Wally recommended based on the SCORE engines they build.

Sorry about your burns. That is why I use a propane torch and nice press,

Len is in Watkinsville or Athens GA I believe. He should be able to handle fixing the heads right. He can also tell you whom to trust to do rod and case work in that area. I am guessing you are still in Pensacola or area.
TBone208 wrote: "You ppl are such windbags. Go use your crystal ball to get rich & predict something meaningful. Nobody knows what's going to happen. How are we supposed to take ppl who don't know the definition of a recession & "woman" seriously?"

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zabo
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Re: Well, Good Grief

Post by zabo » Thu Mar 30, 2017 4:27 pm

If you do go see len and you still need a machinist. check out steve sands in Hiram.
https://proflowperformance.com
60 beetle
78 bus

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Re: Well, Good Grief

Post by jimbear » Fri Mar 31, 2017 7:47 am

What? You might be going to see Len? Fancy that. I am right around the corner, literally. Can I get a 1/2 day for the new convertible beetle? :bounce:
'74 Hardtop Westy
Pretty much stock engine setup

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Re: Well, Good Grief

Post by Amskeptic » Fri Mar 31, 2017 9:07 pm

jimbear wrote:
Fri Mar 31, 2017 7:47 am
What? You might be going to see Len? Fancy that. I am right around the corner, literally. Can I get a 1/2 day for the new convertible beetle? :bounce:



I have offered no plan to get complicated and hunt down Len (who does NOT work on Type 1 heads), I am digging in with my usual stubbornness to work with I got. TWO DAYS, TWO DAYS, to get the damn camshaft gear to rotate nicely with the crankshaft.

You see . . . the machinist here in Pensacola must have clonked the crank gear in the removal press, and I sure as heck didn't re-check it after it was pulled off the crank. After these second degree burns (blisters full of fluid, they're second degree, right?), I was not about to go pull the gears off again. Relying on the assembly lube plus engine oil under bearing #3, I wrapped the bearing with plastic and started to file each and every damn tooth on the crank gear in the plane of the helical grooves, then along the outer diameter of each tooth. The gear still chewed the aluminum gear teeth at their outer edges in two spots over about four teeth each.

Well, that says the steel gear has burrs, but the two locations on the cam gear suggest that the crankshaft itself is bent. So I pulled #1 and #4 bearings and checked for run-out, sloppily, and it looks like I have barely .0005", good enough. Stupid crank/cam mesh would stop rotation cold.

Pulled camshaft and started digging out each chew mark with a razor blade. I wanted only to drop the surface below the chew point by .0005" for an oil cushion, mesh be damned. Re-installed cam gear and now the crank and cam rotate but they go stiff and the cam walks out of the cam bearings in aforementioned two spots. A full day of razor-honing the cam teeth, and I got it down to a four tooth d-d-d-d-ruck > smooth 180* > two tooth d-druck as this high spot? bent crank? weird gears? mesh problem continued to plague me.

Today was another FULL DAY of razor raking the edges of the cam gear, followed by an ignition file milling of each and every tooth on the contact curve, then later at the roots. What a pain. Scrubbed that gear after every attempt to carefully render a -1 gear out of a "0". Re-oiled it, cleaned the crank, laid the cam back in its bearings and rotated the engine listening for that d-ruck spot. From 10:30AM to 5:30PM, a good ten separate washes and re-lubrications of main bearings, cam bearings and gears, maddening! Finally, at 6:30PM, the crank and the cam rotated fully with no lifting off the cam bearings. There is still a d-ruck in reverse direction. I have no idea if this engine is going to make horrible noises, or eat the aluminum gear, but I am DONE with this nonsense. There is not a hint of lash, none, but it rotates readily except for three stubborn teeth that I sawed through with sandpaper to open them up a bit. Now, I may have trashed this gear and destroyed this engine, I have no way of knowing. I hope that the aluminum burnishes into a working relationship with the crank gear, but I do realize that there is advanced mathematics going on here as these two helixes interact with each other, and I may have screwed things up royally.

So, I got questionable valve seats, questionable rod bolts/nuts, a very questionable engine balance - look at this beaver-attacked crankshaft! They ate the cheeks right off both inner rod throws!

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At least my plastigage test went acceptably:
#1 .0015"
#2 .0017"
#3 .002"
#4 .0013"

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Crap infested "race-ready" rod bolt threads, no way would they have torqued up correctly for a newbie:

Image


Every night, I have to put this engine under wraps to try desperately to keep it from contamination, but there is a lot of threats in that garage:

Image
BobD - 78 Bus . . . 112,730 miles
Chloe - 70 bus . . . 217,593 miles
Naranja - 77 Westy . . . 142,970 miles
Pluck - 1973 Squareback . . . . . . 55,600 miles
Alexus - 91 Lexus LS400 . . . 96,675 miles

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SlowLane
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Re: Well, Good Grief

Post by SlowLane » Sat Apr 01, 2017 1:12 pm

For what very little it's worth, the cheeks on my crankshaft were "beavered" even worse than yours when I picked it up from the machinist who did the balancing. Doesn't seem to have negatively affected the engine in any way as far as I can tell.
'81 Canadian Westfalia (2.0L, manual), now Californiated

"They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it is not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance."
- Terry Pratchett

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Re: Well, Good Grief

Post by Amskeptic » Sun Apr 02, 2017 8:10 am

SlowLane wrote:
Sat Apr 01, 2017 1:12 pm
For what very little it's worth, the cheeks on my crankshaft were "beavered" even worse than yours when I picked it up from the machinist who did the balancing. Doesn't seem to have negatively affected the engine in any way as far as I can tell.


I will take that to heart, because I need to. I remember when I was all neat and organized, then it slowly began to slide into a hippiewannabe sort of entropy:

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I was batting away junk sliding around and falling to the floor while trying to button up the case:

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So carefully torqued, hiding in its "clean room", I was talking to it, "please have a good life."

Image


This intake manifold is more complicated than you think. The heat riser is 2000* primer only, the intake manifold is 500* primer + 500* clearcoat:

Image


Today? Pistons and cylinders and connecting rods using Chloe's old nuts since AirCooledNet won't honor my request to supply me new nuts that I ALREADY PAID FOR with my "race-ready" rods. You know why? Because Jon said they didn't have any. So I sent him a link this morning to CIP1 for new VW rod nuts "on sale!"

Bad hombres abound, huh Donnie?
Colin
BobD - 78 Bus . . . 112,730 miles
Chloe - 70 bus . . . 217,593 miles
Naranja - 77 Westy . . . 142,970 miles
Pluck - 1973 Squareback . . . . . . 55,600 miles
Alexus - 91 Lexus LS400 . . . 96,675 miles

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Re: Well, Good Grief

Post by sgkent » Sun Apr 02, 2017 6:32 pm

We were at Road Atlanta with two engines built by Mac Tilton instead of building them ourselves. Leland felt that if Mac could build winning motors for Paul Newman then Mac would increase our odds of winning. I didn't agree but Leland was spending his money so that out voted my vote.

On lap 2 of practice Leland said he felt the power nose over so he came in and we found a rod bearing was spinning and the rod was bent at about 45 degrees already - getting ready to grenade the engine. Mac took a look and could not figure why the bearing did that - it plasti-gauged at a perfect clearance that we had run for many years without issue. Clearly the oil pump was doing its job too and there was no evidence of air being picked up in the pump. After many folks looked at it no one could figure it out so I called Bill in California. His wife told me he had flown that morning to Road Atlanta for one of the larger competitors (remember that Bill built engines and racers for Al Unser Jr and was always in demand. I tracked him down and he came over on a golf cart about 1/2 hour later. Several people in the industry who were following the problem took me aside and asked me how it was that Bill had come to see me - that he was like the guru of engines and that he didn't work for many people - and at a great expense when he did. I was kinda shocked because Bill was a friend and he never let on that he had that kind of reputation. Anyway - it took him about 20 seconds to find the problem with the rods. We pulled the second engine apart and it had the same issue so a trip to the local machine shop fixed it. So let me share what the cause was and how he knew it in 20 seconds. Once you know this you can tell a well machined rod from a not so well machined rod.

When a rod is machined it is clipped on the cap, rod or both to make the hole smaller, then it is honed out to the spec size. That size provides the proper bearing crush. The tool that is used is a special inside micrometer that reads 180 degrees apart. As the rod is turned by hand the needle on the indicator moves to show the size of the bore. Then the rod is turned over and it is done again - to be sure both sides of the rod are even. This leaves a small scribe mark on the inside of the rod. The human hand does not swivel 360 degrees so it is common to see those scribe marks go with the rod part marks horizontal, from about 3:30 o'clock to 8:30 o'clock then skip to 9:30 o'clock to 2:30 o'clock. However with practice a good machinist can go a full 360 degrees so there is no break in the scribe mark. If a rod is gong to be tight, it will be almost ways across the part lines. This means that from say 3:01 just past the part line around to 9:01 or measuring 2:59 o'clock to 8:59 o'clock there may be a pinch of just enough to cause excessive tightness - and in the Road Atlanta case this was the problem. Bill saw that the scribe marks did not go 360 degrees which told him two things - (1) the machinist was not up to the game (2) the rod might have failed because it was pinched across the part line where it had never been measured. The simple key is LOOK FOR THE SCRIBE MARKS and make sure they go 360 DEGREES around the rod on both sides.

I suggest you look at those "Race Ready" rods to be sure they have been measured on both sides 360 degrees. If the lines don't cross the part lines, or are missing then the rod may not have been properly resized.

Image

Image below from musclecardiy.com online. This measurement is almost always correct and your plasti-gauge confirms it or not. It is across the part line that things go bad when being re-sized - that or the rod gets bell shaped. The secret is look at the scribe marks made by this measuring machine. If they don't cross the part line 100% continuous then don't use or trust the machinist cause you now know more than he/she does. No good machinist would resize a connecting rod and not measure across the part line to see if that is correct. If it isn't the machinist probably has to clip the rod again and continue with the honing. Just because there is a cross hatch there does not mean it is not pinched or way too wide at that spot. It has happened to me where a rod is perfect everywhere else but there. If the scribe marks go 360 degrees around then the machinist knows what it was and he/she accepted that.
Image
TBone208 wrote: "You ppl are such windbags. Go use your crystal ball to get rich & predict something meaningful. Nobody knows what's going to happen. How are we supposed to take ppl who don't know the definition of a recession & "woman" seriously?"

Merlin The Wrench

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Re: Well, Good Grief

Post by Amskeptic » Mon Apr 03, 2017 7:43 am

sgkent wrote:
Sun Apr 02, 2017 6:32 pm

I suggest you look at those "Race Ready" rods to be sure they have been measured on both sides 360 degrees. If the lines don't cross the part lines, or are missing then the rod may not have been properly resized.
Rods have passed my test. They fall easily enough and the rotation traces from assembly movement show normal contact. However, the #2 main bearing had a rather tightly confined shiny spot at let's say 8:00 o'clock on the left case side before i had even bolted up the case. You would think there was a small dead animal or a rock stuck under the bearing at that very specific spot, but it was clean new AS-41 saddle. Then I thought, maybe something is pushing the crankshaft at that spot, like all that rotating to lap in the slightly tight camshaft mesh. Maybe . . .
With the case assembled, the crank rotates "acceptably enough" with some barely discernible drag in two spots. There will be much prayer and gnashing of teeth between now and when Chloe pulls onto Old Atlanta Road for her break-in drive.

Yesterday no photos, rods are in, rings are installed with the famous feeler blade walk-around the piston crown technique, cylinders (Mahle Brazil) all required great additional work with a dremel to clean out the flashing between the fins, oy . . . vey.
Colin
BobD - 78 Bus . . . 112,730 miles
Chloe - 70 bus . . . 217,593 miles
Naranja - 77 Westy . . . 142,970 miles
Pluck - 1973 Squareback . . . . . . 55,600 miles
Alexus - 91 Lexus LS400 . . . 96,675 miles

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Re: Well, Good Grief

Post by sgkent » Mon Apr 03, 2017 10:29 am

I worry more about what goes on between the bearing and rod than the rod an bearing. Both matter but if the shell isn't properly supported it will walk and spin over time. Your crankshaft or case sounds warped. Do you know the history on it? Is that a split shell - if so plasti-gauge the tight area. make sure that the dowel is in the relief in the bearing too. It is also possible to have a too tall aftermarket dowel. The time to figure out the geometry errors is before running it. Did the crank spin and spin easily when it was installed by itself?
TBone208 wrote: "You ppl are such windbags. Go use your crystal ball to get rich & predict something meaningful. Nobody knows what's going to happen. How are we supposed to take ppl who don't know the definition of a recession & "woman" seriously?"

Merlin The Wrench

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Re: Well, Good Grief

Post by Amskeptic » Tue Apr 04, 2017 9:18 pm

sgkent wrote:
Mon Apr 03, 2017 10:29 am
I worry more about what goes on between the bearing and rod than the rod an bearing. Both matter but if the shell isn't properly supported it will walk and spin over time. Your crankshaft or case sounds warped. Do you know the history on it? Is that a split shell - if so plasti-gauge the tight area. make sure that the dowel is in the relief in the bearing too. It is also possible to have a too tall aftermarket dowel. The time to figure out the geometry errors is before running it. Did the crank spin and spin easily when it was installed by itself?


"I worry more about what goes on between the bearing and rod than the rod an bearing."
You're going to keep me up at night with riddles like that.

Hung the pistons and cylinders on the studs as I scrubbed each set in the sink with lots of Dawn, installed the rings, and clonked the pistons down into the cylinders until the wrist pin holes emerged from the bottoms:

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Applied a modest bead of Permatex Aviation /paper/Permatex Aviation:

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Image

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Deflector plates installed.

Image


So many people think that the clip surfaces are perpendicular to the body of the plates. No. It is a sharp angle. Bench vised the ends to a true vertical and bent the bodies to the angle of the cylinder fins. THIS is what makes them fit tightly and correctly. SEE?

Image


Dressed each oil pump gear, then filled the lower pump gear teeth valleys with assembly lube:

Image


.. .. .. then the whole shebang:

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Knocked off last night at 8:30PM here:

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AND this morning I corrected the erroneous Tom Wilson book's instructions for orienting the generator pedestal deflector plate. The louvres face down yes, but the slots are longitudinal to the crank centerline with the long slot facing rearward. The deflection is all about catching the camshaft gear spray. See Bentley, it is correct.
Deck height ranged from .063" to .068":

Here, I am disassembling Chloe's original heads (before the Yuma mudders) to inspect the seat inserts carefully. #2 Exhaust allowed a .0015 feeler blade to slip behind it, so you bet it wan't thoroughly installed. See the ring of light under the seat?

Image

I took it to a local machinist and begged him to heat the head to 400 then tap it home. Nope. No heat. He is just going to crush it home at room temperature. I shall be nervous forevermore.

Meanwhile I trimmed down the outside edges of the 3 and #4 exhaust seats to be flush with the combustion chambers using my dremel. Hairy to say the least. Then I cleaned up the ports:

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"Routered" a groove into #3 spark plug well for the suffering Dakota Digital thermocouple. With these seats, 400* is the new Back Off temperature:

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This is what happened to half of the washers in this engine. Do NOT buy fasteners from FLAPS anymore! Get them from reputable fastener houses! Not even your charming local hardware store carries any good stuff any more.

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Did I mention that I got the left head on? Yeah, I am tuckered. If the right head is good to go tomorrow, I will have the engine completed by Friday and heading up to Atlanta by early next week, I think.
ColinWhoThinks?Me?

Image
BobD - 78 Bus . . . 112,730 miles
Chloe - 70 bus . . . 217,593 miles
Naranja - 77 Westy . . . 142,970 miles
Pluck - 1973 Squareback . . . . . . 55,600 miles
Alexus - 91 Lexus LS400 . . . 96,675 miles

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asiab3
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Re: Well, Good Grief

Post by asiab3 » Tue Apr 04, 2017 11:37 pm

Damn those heads make me nervous. Well, the one being "pounded down" makes me nervous…

When you think your workplace is getting messy, here is my ORGANIZED pile.

Image


I don't even have a picture of the unsorted parts…… :pukeright:

So, pray tell, does Chloe's little oil pump secret live on? Or have you backed off to a respectable sized pump? :)

26mmRobbie
1969 bus, "Buddy."
145k miles with me.
322k miles on Earth.

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Re: Well, Good Grief

Post by Amskeptic » Wed Apr 05, 2017 8:38 am

asiab3 wrote:
Tue Apr 04, 2017 11:37 pm
A) Damn those heads make me nervous.
B) does Chloe's little oil pump secret live on?
26mmRobbie


a) Me too. Just like half of all hospital deaths are the damn hospital's fault, I bet half of our engine failures are the machinist's fault. Sloppy, dirty, indifferent, you know . . .

b) squealer,
Colin30
BobD - 78 Bus . . . 112,730 miles
Chloe - 70 bus . . . 217,593 miles
Naranja - 77 Westy . . . 142,970 miles
Pluck - 1973 Squareback . . . . . . 55,600 miles
Alexus - 91 Lexus LS400 . . . 96,675 miles

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sgkent
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Re: Well, Good Grief

Post by sgkent » Wed Apr 05, 2017 9:17 am

"I worry more about what goes on between the bearing and rod than the rod an bearing."
You're going to keep me up at night with riddles like that.
Think foundation. The bearing is supported by the rod surface. If the bearing is only partially supported it will wiggle over time and also conform to the rod. That will change the clearance between the rod bearing and crank. Once the bearing starts wiggling in the rod the unoiled back wears slowly until the bearing can do a full turn. You'd have to resize rods for a living to see how bearing shells spin with wear.

You worry about the seat. The issue is what you pointed out way back in this thread when you asked if there could be shavings under it. If there are it will not seat properly. When he is done with the work, have him lightly stake around the seats to assist in holding them in. It looks like the valve contact areas are good. Did you have the machine shop back cut the valves, valves, at least intakes? That should be good for more power at the top end. I'd have to show you how it works. Maybe I can draw something.

Steve

I borrowed this picture from the Internet "cfiamerica" and "hotrod.com". The right hand valve (top photo) is the standard off the shelf cut. At the edge there is a lip that turns up. The air and fuel coming in hits it and splays way outwards, creating a 2" or 3" wide and 2" or 3" deep dead spot in the cylinder behind the shadow of the valve. The valve on the left has had the lip removed. The next step would be to polish the back of the valve to make the whole curve to the seat area seamless. About 5 -10 minutes a valve in a good racing shop. The air and fuel will then cling to the valve and flow around it leaving no shadow. You'll get the full benefit of all the volume in the cylinder instead of the 60% - 70% which is normal when a stock valve is used. This has about the same effect, especially in the mid to higher rpms of having a larger cylinder.

Image

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TBone208 wrote: "You ppl are such windbags. Go use your crystal ball to get rich & predict something meaningful. Nobody knows what's going to happen. How are we supposed to take ppl who don't know the definition of a recession & "woman" seriously?"

Merlin The Wrench

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asiab3
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Re: Well, Good Grief

Post by asiab3 » Wed Apr 05, 2017 2:16 pm

Amskeptic wrote:
Wed Apr 05, 2017 8:38 am
b) squealer,
Colin30
Damn, are you going to be running straight 10wt in that engine? I'm at my "summer 10w40" and couldn't get the thing below 13-14psi at idle until I went to Phoenix (98° ambients, 63mph.) It's a funny thing, these bearing clearances vs. oil pressure………

Also, what was the out-of-the-box balance like on those new pistons? I have dreaded what I will do when these NOS Koblenschmidts bit the bullet in a few hundred thousand miles. They were all within 1.5 grams the day they arrived on my door. I hear horror stories of sets 10-20 grams out, and certain vendors charging a premium to "go through" ten boxes at a time to find close-matching sets…

Robbie
1969 bus, "Buddy."
145k miles with me.
322k miles on Earth.

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