i know it's cost dependant but I'd want all 8 new and similar...
i know it's cost dependant but I'd want all 8 new and similar...
Mad_Ratel wrote: i know it's cost dependant but I'd want all 8 new and similar...
Yeah, I feel like consistency is important. If the expansion differences were negligible, it'd be fine. I guess I don't quite understand how big of a difference the alloys would make on what the new material would be vs the old stuff.
corsepervita wrote: I called LA Sleeve, he says they can probably do it. Sending them pics and info now. Fingers crossed.
Send them one of the bad sleeves, too.
I say no to replacing all eight. Using one of the bad ones, a machine shop with a hardness tester should be able to find out what the material hardness is, and cross reference the grade of iron they are and make replacements out of tge same. Also, the thermal coefficient of expansion lives in a pretty confined range for the materials most likely used. Just be happy these are temovable liners, and not ones cast in !!
In reference to the earlier question on Nikisil coating ... I believe this was done on parent metal aluminum bores to give them wear resistance while not having the cost, weight, or additional machining requirements that an aluminum block with iron liners would have.
I'd be surprised if the sleeves aren't the usual gray iron.
Did you figure something out with the sleeves?
If the OEM stuff is expensive and has a long lead time, then it's time to look into custom parts. The custom parts often are from pre made blanks, they have groups of pistons,valves and stuff in blanks and they just modify the blanks to suit. I bet this is typical of sleeves and it would be cheaper and easier to get something made here rather than going back to Italy. The sleeves could just be common iron, might be better to do all 8, then none are oversize or thin, and all would be perfect sized for the set of pistons. For the ideal bore, start with the rings that are available, then have the pistons made then sleeves to match. Ideally you want file fit rings, but that is really more of a benefit if one or more of the bores is off a tiny bit.
I wonder if Mezzanine is talking about the red Jalpa I've run into a few times in Bellevue? Not to bad, I've liked them since I got a model of one back when I was younger.
I wonder if Vanagon waterboxer sleeves would work? they come in a few different bores and are fairly reasonably priced. A good machinist could turn them down to work in your block.
Give Darton a call..
Flame spray welding is being done to avoid liners completely on some new blocks so the metallurgy works. The problem here is that these are big machines vs what the typica repair shop likely has but I'm sure if you call around someone has experience with flame spray repair of the liners
If it were my car I'd definitely replace all 8. At this point new pistons, rings and sleeves to match would give a lot of piece of mind.
hmmmm, thinking about a small displacement V8 with wet sleeves....
apologies for hijack
Hey everyone,
LA Sleeve said they can definitely reproduce after they got the pictures. Heading to the machinist tomorrow to pick up a couple of sleeves to send off. It sounds like they're probably cast iron, so they said it should be no problem to reproduce them.
Looking into getting them from lamborghini sounds like a big crap shoot since i've ordered stuff before that was "in stock" only to find out it's NLA and has been for years. I'll go with LA Sleeve since it sounds like that's going to be my best bet right now.
After that I can finally get some pistons made. I'll get some pictures once I get to the machine shop tomorrow on the current hone job on the good cylinders/sleeves.
If you are having new sleeves and pistons made are you going to take advantage of that from a diameter, compression ratio, crown shape view point to improve the efficiency of the engine for more power/torque?
Adrian_Thompson wrote: If you are having new sleeves and pistons made are you going to take advantage of that from a diameter, compression ratio, crown shape view point to improve the efficiency of the engine for more power/torque?
Well, I've already taken advantage of a better valve design with the Manley valves. I'd like to improve the compression ratio a little bit. Stock is 9.0:1 so I'd like to go to maybe 9.2:1 or a little higher. I would like to keep the mass similar to the old pistons for purposes of balancing. But if there are improvements to be made along the way, yes.
Some of the major improvements that the old setup suffered from are wrist pin bushings, and oil holes in the top of the rods. I'm having holes drilled in at an angle so that we can get better lubrication in there for reliability since the original rods have none from the factory. That way some oil splash can at least get in there to lubricate the pins better.
corsepervita wrote:Adrian_Thompson wrote: If you are having new sleeves and pistons made are you going to take advantage of that from a diameter, compression ratio, crown shape view point to improve the efficiency of the engine for more power/torque?Well, I've already taken advantage of a better valve design with the Manley valves. I'd like to improve the compression ratio a little bit. Stock is 9.0:1 so I'd like to go to maybe 9.2:1 or a little higher. I would like to keep the mass similar to the old pistons for purposes of balancing. But if there are improvements to be made along the way, yes. Some of the major improvements that the old setup suffered from are wrist pin bushings, and oil holes in the top of the rods. I'm having holes drilled in at an angle so that we can get better lubrication in there for reliability since the original rods have none from the factory. That way some oil splash can at least get in there to lubricate the pins better.
What was the CR in the euro versions? Generally you can run upwards of 10:1 on the street with high octane fuel and I'd think it needs all the help it can get within the realm of reality.
Stefan (Not Bruce) wrote:corsepervita wrote:What was the CR in the euro versions? Generally you can run upwards of 10:1 on the street with high octane fuel and I'd think it needs all the help it can get within the realm of reality.Adrian_Thompson wrote: If you are having new sleeves and pistons made are you going to take advantage of that from a diameter, compression ratio, crown shape view point to improve the efficiency of the engine for more power/torque?Well, I've already taken advantage of a better valve design with the Manley valves. I'd like to improve the compression ratio a little bit. Stock is 9.0:1 so I'd like to go to maybe 9.2:1 or a little higher. I would like to keep the mass similar to the old pistons for purposes of balancing. But if there are improvements to be made along the way, yes. Some of the major improvements that the old setup suffered from are wrist pin bushings, and oil holes in the top of the rods. I'm having holes drilled in at an angle so that we can get better lubrication in there for reliability since the original rods have none from the factory. That way some oil splash can at least get in there to lubricate the pins better.
No compression ratio differences in the euro spec. They are 9.0:1 as well.
In reply to corsepervita:
That's interesting. That was a common situation on so many cars during that time period, especially high performance models.
They didn't do any further development on that engine after the Jalpa ended, did they?
You can get 9.2:1 with a little head mill and a smidge off the block deck.
Stefan (Not Bruce) wrote: In reply to corsepervita: That's interesting. That was a common situation on so many cars during that time period, especially high performance models. They didn't do any further development on that engine after the Jalpa ended, did they?
The 8 cylinder engines were axed once chrysler bought them, so the Jalpa was the best it got. I'm sure if they had kept it going it'd be a great motor later on (not that it isn't, just needs improvements). The urraco is the same block, as is the silhouette. The Jalpa was the improved version of everything from the 70s on those motors. Oddly enough, if you wanted, you could slap the heads off an urraco if you moved a bunch of other parts and made it a belt driven motor like the urraco. It's funny because the urraco had the same number of belts, but they moved the Jalpa and Silhouette motor to the dual cam setup with the same amount of valves. While the chain driven bit is a huge advantage over the urraco, I can't help but think they could have saved SO MUCH ROOM under the hood if they adapted the chain drive to the old heads.
Jerry From LA wrote: You can get 9.2:1 with a little head mill and a smidge off the block deck.
I'm hesitant to do too much on the heads since they are incredibly expensive to replace. Bowl work, seat work, etc is already a huge improvement. The seats were not blended on the stock heads, so we've already fixed that when they were welded up. But on the original seats, half of the diameter of it was lipped, horrible for flow.
On top of that, the shape of the chambers was not so good. Extra material added so my machinist can reshape that as well. If we can find some more compression (I'm sure we can), that'd be awesome as well.
Mostly posting so it pops up in my feed, but if the current sleeve place can't pull it off, look at Benson Machine in Idaho. Had them sleeve a Honda motor for me. They completely machine out the OE cast-in cylinders / liners and pressed in nice custom thick wall ductile iron sleeves, then machine everything. Really pretty work.
Just a thought. If they are custom making the liners is it possible to make them so they would accept a stock piston? that might offset some of the extra expense.
As to oiling the wrist pins... check with your piston maker... but many of today's pistons have a small oiling port that goes from the oil ring directly to the wrist pin... so oil wiped from the cyl oils the wrist pin. As to drilling the rod to improve oiling... that might help... make sure the oiling hole is directed at the thrust side of the cylinder wall for best results.
Get light weight pistons.... once you have them, get the entire rotational assembly re-balanced. lighter is better!
As I wrote in another thread... you might want to look into a DCR calculator to see what your engines DCR is now... and what you can do (compression, or cam timing) to improve it.
Odd as it might sound... Mega squirt is so far advanced from what was in there.... it should allow you to build the engine far closer to the edge.... raise compression, tighter squish, etc...
make more power with little or no downside......
In reply to oldeskewltoy:
I was going to suggest to Corse to contact you about reworking those heads, but I figure that they are expensive enough that it might not be something either of you want to take on.
That said, the port work you've showed off in your threads have been amazing and I've learned quite a bit just by reading the posts:
https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/grm/the-porting-thread/84995/page1/
I still want to send you a Porsche 924 head just because we all know they can improve quite a bit over stock.
Made an executive decision on the cylinders. The machinist showed me the suspect cylinders and to say the least... yeah... they're no good. I'm also going to need a new bearing for the water pump, and some seals, which is fine. He's going to bore the good ones that still have a little bit of scoring and some pits, but he said we should be fine. I will need to oversize the pistons, however, which is also fine since it'll give me a chance to raise compression a bit. We're both concerned about taking too much off the heads and the block because of the alignment of the chains. But worst case scenario, when I order a gasket, I can order it to a different thickness.
Going to spend the weekend disassembling the air boxes and rebuilding them, along with the runners, to prep them for the EFI conversion.
But man oh man... the engine is cleaning up SO well. Some before and after of current state.
You'll need to log in to post.
