FE Power Forums
FE Power Forums => Member Projects => Topic started by: jayb on October 09, 2011, 10:32:32 PM
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Back before the cammer bug bit me in 2007, I was in the process of collecting the parts and getting the machining operations done for an FE high riser project. This engine used a Shelby block, Blue Thunder high riser heads that were max effort ported, and one of two potential intake manifolds: a tunnel wedge intake for the high riser, and a sheet metal intake.
For the sheet metal intake I started with a Dove tunnel wedge manifold, and cut the top off so I could weld on sheet metal runners. At the time, this seemed a lot easier than trying to machine the plates necessary for the ports of the intake, with all the pushrod holes, the bottom plate connecting the two port plates together, etc. At the time I only had a cheap Chinese copy of a Bridgeport in the shop, so I went ahead with modifying the Dove intake. I quickly discovered the limitations of my 180 amp TIG welder, as it would constantly blow the breaker as I was attempting to weld the runners to the base. I also found out the hard way that the base would warp severely due to the welding, and in order to get a good seal I ended up welding donuts around each port and machining the base in my mill to correct for the warpage. Finally I got all done with this and leak checked the intake. I found that all my welds were pretty good, but the Dove manifold base leaked like a sieve around the ports and into nearly all of the pushrod holes when the ports were pressurized. Thorougly disgusted with the whole thing, I set the manifold on the shelf and got started on my first SOHC engine.
So here it is, four years later. Things have changed. My TIG welder has been sold, and I've upgraded to a 250 amp unit, with both Argon and Helium available to optimize aluminum welding. I've also acquired a powder coating oven, which makes a great pre-heat oven for welding aluminum parts. My Chinese vertical mill has been replaced by a Bridgeport, I've acquired a CNC machine. And, I have a couple of SOHC sheet metal intake builds under my belt (although I still haven't got one optimized for performance). After Drag Week was over my shop was a complete disaster, so first thing on the agenda was to get the place cleaned up. As I started organizing the shop, I was drawn to the high riser stuff. In addition to all the parts I had acquired before, I had also made a deal a couple years back with Barry R that netted me a Danny Bee belt drive for the cam. Sure would be fun to start playing with all those toys again...
My Galaxie has been sitting engine-less for over a year, and I have a 510" SOHC that I was planning on putting together to go back into that car. I had looked at this engine at the runup to Drag Week, and determined that it really needed pistons and boring before I put it back together. Last weekend I tore down the short block on that engine, and on Monday this week took the block into my shop for the machine work. Ordering the pistons was going to take around 6 weeks, and I didn't feel any pressing need to get the 585" SOHC out of my Shelby clone yet. So, I decided I should put the parts on the shelf to use, and put the high riser engine together.
After doing an inventory of the parts, I cleaned up the block and got ready for assembly. Here's a photo of the block ready to go:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/hrblock.jpg)
Next I cleaned up and installed the crank. This is a 4.500" stroke Scat crank that has been seriously lightened, with scalloped counterweights. For comparison purposes, the 4.600" stroke crank in my 585" SOHC weighs 67 pounds, while this crank only weighs 51 pounds! Here's some photos of the crank installed in the block, showing the extra counterweight machining:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/hrcrank.jpg)
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/hrcrank2.jpg)
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/hrcrank3.jpg)
When installing the side seals in the number 5 main cap, I used a different method this time than I normally use. In most cases I coat the side seals with The Right Stuff and install them the normal way with the nails, but this time I decided to try using just sealer, and leave the side seals out. When doing this, you can actually use the rubber side seals to force the sealer down into the seal cavity, to ensure that there are no air pockets. You can tell you are having success when the sealer starts to come out between the #5 cap and the side of the block. Here's a photo showing this:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/sideseal.jpg)
Here's a photo of the pistons and rods that I have for this engine. The rods are Crower billet rods with BBC rod journal sizes (to match the crank), and 6.700" length. The pistons are 12:1 Diamonds, coated on the top and sides, and use the BBC .990" pin:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/hrrodpis.jpg)
If you look closely at the connecting rod shoulder, you can see that the near shoulder in the photograph has been ground a little for clearance. Since this is not an SOHC engine, there is the potential for interference between the rods and the cam lobes. When I first dummied this engine together, rotating it through led to interference between the rod shoulder and a couple of the lobes on the cam. As a result all the rods had to be ground a little, to keep them all the same weight, despite the fact that only two of the rods interfered with their associated cam lobes.
One thing I kind of regret about this engine is the piston design. When I first ordered these pistons back in 2006, I was not yet pushing the compression ratio as far as I normally do now with my street engines. I was also not moving to a really small ring package. These pistons, at 12:1, leave a little something on the table with respect to compression; especially with the good chamber in the Blue Thunder heads, and with the cam that I selected for this engine, I think I could have gone to 13:1 and still run around town on pump gas. Also, the 1/16" - 1/16" - 3/16" ring package is standard tension and size, and that again is going to leave some power on the table for this engine. I thought briefly about re-ordering the pistons, and going to the higher compression and a set of lower tension .043" - .043" - 3mm rings, but if I did that I'd have the SOHC stuff here by the time I got the new pistons, so I just decided to put it together with the parts I have. I'm shooting for 800-850 HP with this engine, and I should be able to get there despite the 25-35 HP I'm leaving on the table with the pistons I've got.
The bore on this engine is 4.375", and I happen to have a tapered ring compressor for this bore size, so the short block went together pretty easily. I also recently acquired a motorized piston ring grinder, with a dial indicator to determine how much material was taken off the rings during the operation. Using this tool was a lot easier than the standard file-fit ring practice I've been using up to now, which involves a hand-cranked rotary file and holding the ring in place by hand. Assembly was fast using these tools. Here's a photo of a piston and rod assembly installed in the tapered ring compressor, and ready for installation in the block:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/ringcomp.jpg)
And here's a photo of the pistons installed in the block:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/pistons.jpg)
I was able to get all this work done in the evenings this week. I had limited time over the weekend, but I decided to take the time I had and work on getting the Danny Bee belt drive installed. This turned out to be a somewhat arduous task, and thank goodness for my lathe because without it I would have been stuck, but in the end I got the belt drive installed. Here's a photo of all the belt drive pieces as they come out of the box:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/dbee.jpg)
After reading the instructions the first thing I wanted to do was to test fit the pullies on the crank and cam. The cam pulley fit on the front of the cam with no trouble, but the crank pulley did not fit on the crank snout. I took some measurements and found that the ID of the crank pulley was nearly 3 thousandths smaller than the crank snout. The instructions said to take some 600 grit sandpaper and sand the crank snout down if the pulley didn't fit; what a joke! No chance of that happening in any reasonable time frame. Instead I chucked the pulley up in my lathe and very carefully took some material off the inside diameter until it was a snug fit over the crank snout. However, when I pushed it on all the say, I encountered another problem; see the photo below:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/dbee1.jpg)
The pulley would not fit all the way up against the flange of the crank; the seal surface was too long, and hit the flange before the body of the pulley bottomed against the crank. Back to the lathe, I cut .080" off the end of the seal surface, and was then able to get the crank pulley slide properly into position. After the successful test fit I pulled the pulley off the crank, and installed the two half moon keyways required by this crank. These are Chivverlay pieces, but it is what Scat puts in all of their cranks, so that's what I had to use.
The Danny Bee belt drive also comes with a Torrington bearing thrust washer setup for the cam, with a machined thrust plate, very similar to the setup that Doug Garifo at Precision Oil Pumps sells. I installed the cam in the block, and then installed the two thrust washers and the Torrington bearing into the thrust plate and bolted that into position. Next I put the remaining two thrust washers and Torrington bearing on the cam pulley and installed that pulley onto the cam. I checked endplay as specified in the directions, and found I had .007", which was with their recommended range. With all this stuff test fitted in place, I pulled the cam pulley and the bearing and washers on that side, and installed the machined aluminum front cover that comes with the Danny Bee setup. Here's a photo of the front of the block at this point:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/dbee2.jpg)
Finally I installed the pulleys and the belt, and tensioned the belt according to the instructions. Installing the cam pulley was a little tricky, because I had to line up the cam dowel without being able to see what I was doing, and also the thrust washers and Torrington bearing had to be kind of forced through the rubber seal, carefully, before the cam pulley would fit into place. Finally after about an hour of screwing around I got this stuff put together; here's a photo:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/dbee3.jpg)
With the timing belt setup installed, I temporarily installed the crank sleeve, harmonic balancer, the water pump, and the alternator and alternator bracket. I wanted to see what I had to work with in terms of fabricating a timing pointer, because obviously with the Danny Bee setup a stock pointer wasn't going to work. Next I installed a piston stop and temporary pointer so I could determine top dead center; see the photos below:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/pistop.jpg)
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/pointer.jpg)
After setting the crank at top dead center, I figured out how I could machine a simple pointer that would bolt to the water pump and the alternator bracket. All these little machining projects take time, but they are worth it in my opinion. Took about an hour and a half to make up this little pointer; here's a photo, and also a picture of it installed on the engine:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/pointer2.jpg)
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/pointer3.jpg)
Next I decided to mock up the valvetrain and degree the cam, and check piston to valve clearance. First thing to do was to remove the valvesprings from cylinder 1 and replace them with checker springs. The heads have been sitting on the shelf ready to go since 2007; they are the best flowing FE wedge heads I've ever had. I had them check on two different flow benches, a Superflow SF-600 and a Superflow SF-1020. On the SF-600 they flowed 401 cfm at .800" lift on the intake, and on the SF-1020 they flowed 390 cfm at .800". Notably, on the SF-1020 the heads flowed better in the low range than they did on the SF-600. Exhaust flow on both benches was in the 265 cfm range if I recall correctly. Area under the curve from zero to .800" lift was nearly the same with both benches. The heads use 2.300" intakes and 1.75" exhausts. Here's some pictures of these heads:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/hrheads.jpg)
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/hrheads2.jpg)
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/hrheads3.jpg)
If you look closely on the exhaust port side of the heads you can see an area that has been machined. I did this, to take off some material on the head and allow for easier fitment of the headers in my Mach 1's engine compartment (which was where this engine was originally destined to go). I shaved off about .070", which doesn't seem like much, but every little bit helps since the Blue Thunder heads have raised exhaust ports, making fitment in the engine compartment more difficult.
I installed the four head studs around cylinder 1, put on the Cometic head gasket for that side, and installed the heads with the checker springs on number 1; here's a photo:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/hdinstall.jpg)
The Blue Thunder heads are designed to be used with a custom T&D rocker arm setup, so I bolted that on next. First step is to bolt on a plate that the rockers themselves in turn bolt to. Here's a picture of the plate:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/td1.jpg)
Next, you have to check to make sure that the rocker arm shaft is at the correct height with respect to the valve, and then space this plate up if necessary. The T&D rockers come in pairs on their own small shaft, so that there are actually 8 different rocker shafts on the engine when everything is assembled. In order to use the gauge that comes with the rockers to check the height of the shaft, the checker spring had to be removed from one valve and one of the rockers had to be removed from the shaft. Here's a photo of the checker gauge, showing that the shaft needs to be raised around .200" in order to provide the correct rocker arm geometry:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/tdgauge.jpg)
T&D provides machined washers to use as spacers, so I installed them to the correct thickness under the plate and then reassembled the checker spring to the valve and the rocker arm that I had removed to the shaft. Then, with my Smith Brothers pushrods in hand, I assembled the valvetrain for cylinder #1. The lifters are Comp Cams roller lifters for an SBC; because of the width of the ports on the high riser heads, I needed an offset pushrod location, and it wasn't available with an FE lifter. Here's a photo looking down the pushrods at the lifters; you can see that the intake lifter has the pushrod seat offset, while the exhaust lifter has it centered:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/offsetlftr.jpg)
This matches up well with the T&D rockers, which feature an offset intake rocker arm. However, I also have the option of using an offset lifter on the exhaust side, even though the exhaust rocker is not offset. Here's a photo of the lifters where I've installed the offset exhaust lifter also:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/offsetlftrs.jpg)
Using two offset lifters instead of one gives me more room around the port on the exhaust side, and I think I may need that. Here's a photo of the complete valvetrain assembly with this setup:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/pushrod1.jpg)
I ran out of time to degree the cam and do the piston to valve clearance check tonight, so I'll have to keep working on that next week. I'll post an update on this project when I have more information and photos, probably in a week or two.
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Looks good Jay.
Kinda wondered when you'd finally get around to using that stuff. Takes some effort to get the Danny Bee set up and they provide zero instructions, but once done you're gonna love the darn thing - cam timing changes take 3 minutes.
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You're right Barry, I like it already. I degreed the cam this week and had to move it about a degree and a half. I was able to get to all the nuts on the cam drive sprocket just by rotating the crank, even though the water pump was installed, and after they were loose I just moved the crank and dialed the cam timing right in. I was also able to get it exactly, not within a degree like I could with a Rollmaster indexable set. And of course no disassembly to pull the crank sprocket.
Do you normally have to mess with the crank pulley on the Danny Bee setup to make it fit? I was kind of figuring that I had to do that because of the Scat crank, and that maybe with a stock type crank it would have fit the way it was supposed to from the start.
Another question on that setup: That black anodized circular piece that holds the cam seal and fits in the aluminum front cover seems to be stuck in place. See the photo below for the part I'm talking about:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/dbee2.jpg)
There are three small screws that look like they should hold this piece in place, but when I remove them the piece won't budge. I'm thinking about doing some cam changes on the dyno when I get this engine ready to go, and it sure would be nice to just pull that plate to get the cam out. Can you normally get that plate out with the front cover installed? I'm thinking maybe I should pry on the thing a little...
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Another question on that setup: That black anodized circular piece that holds the cam seal and fits in the aluminum front cover seems to be stuck in place. See the photo below for the part I'm talking about:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/dbee2.jpg)
There are three small screws that look like they should hold this piece in place, but when I remove them the piece won't budge. I'm thinking about doing some cam changes on the dyno when I get this engine ready to go, and it sure would be nice to just pull that plate to get the cam out. Can you normally get that plate out with the front cover installed? I'm thinking maybe I should pry on the thing a little...
Also looks like 3 tapped holes that might be used to jack the pc out of the cover. Betting the screws that hold it on fit in there and will go to bottom of hole and force it up
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There is an "O" ring on that center piece that is probably holding it in place. Snug fit to prevent oil leaks. Joe-JDC.
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Love it Jay! That engine is going to make very sweet music.
I'll be checking back frequently. BTW I'm planning to build a new version of the spin test machine this winter (as if I don't already have enough to do!) I'd like to coordinate with you and your schedule on the rocker project, if possible.
Once I'm committed to building the new machine, parts will be coming off the old one so it will be out of service!
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Sounds like I'd better get going again on that rocker project! Let me try to get that back on the front burner this week, and I'll have a time estimate for you, Bill...
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Hi Jay,
I'm building a similar type engine - once we get going on the build I will start a separate project thread.
I'm also using the BT high riser heads and have a question about the lifters you are using. You mention they are SBC lifters, what diameter bodies are they? Also, are the link bars SBC or do you need to have the FE link bars swapped? I have a set of Crower FE lifters I was planning to use, but I haven't checked how close the pushrod is to the intake port. So you have got me thinking if I may need offset lifters. If so, I know that Crower make offset SBC lifters in various diameter bodies, not sure about the link bar size or lifter height.
By the way, I also have a Danny Bee timing set I'm going to be using, so good to see what work may be required to get it to fit. I'm also planning on using an Aviad dry sump system, so it will be fun trying to get that all to fit. As I said, once we make some progress with it, I'll post more on it.
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Todd, you need to use the FE link bars and the SBC lifters with the larger body diameter. They make them with the stock Ford body diameter for aftermarket Chevy blocks.
I'll be interested in seeing the details of your build, especially the dry sump setup. I'm going to swap to a dry sump on my big SOHC engine, but I'm not sure yet if I'm going to go with Aviaid or Moroso components...
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Jay - Don't kill yourself on that rocker project. I guess it depends on how soon you want that stuff tested. I envision it would be a few months to get the machine built and sorted out. I'm thinking I'll want to start around Thanksgiving, which would put the new machine in operation by the end of February. If that works for ya, I'd be happy to make you the guinea pig!
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Great read as always. My Danny Bee unit on the 385 has a similar, but smaller diameter plate as yours and it comes out with a little persuasion and small curved point pry bar.
The bolts can get stuck, both the cam retaining plate and the larger access plate. I don't use lock-tite on them anymore, I use Vibra-tite which is typically used on brake caliper bolts. I had to weld bolts onto those little counter sunk bolt heads when it pull the motor apart. The Dougan's guy showed my a collection of similarly welded up bolts from several different belt drive set-ups so the issue more common than I would have thought.
Do check for push rod clearance alll the way through the cycle form the pushrod to the link bar stanoff on the lifter. With offset pushrod cups especially. I had to go to a short tie bar set-up 351C lifter on mine to cure that issue. I went to .904 diameter Isky's for the new build as you get a larger diameter wheel, .810 vs. .750 and it is over .100 wider than the normal wheel on a .874 lifter.
Something to think about for the next one.
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I've managed to get a little more work done on the 545" motor over the last few days. Thanks to Mario, Joe, and Bill for their comments on the Danny Bee front cover and getting that plate off. Joe was correct about the O-ring on the black plate helping to hold it in place, and Mario was correct about the three unused holes being threaded to help push the plate out of it's mounting position. I just took the three screws that held the plate in place and screwed them into the other three threaded holes, and sure enough the plate eased right out as I tightened the screws. Here's a photo of the front cover with the plate removed:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/dbeenocvr.jpg)
Looks like it will be a snap to change cams with this setup, provided I have a removable plate on the bottom of the intake that can be pulled off so the lifters can be removed. I will make sure I design that into the sheet metal intake.
Right now the front of the engine is back together, and tonight I'm working on getting the heads installed. As soon as that's done I should be able to start designing the port plates for the sheet metal intake manifold.
I also did the machine work on the 60-2 trigger wheel over the weekend. I wanted it to fit concentrically on the ATI harmonic balancer, so first I machined a 1/8" thick donut on my lathe to fit inside the trigger wheel, and fit over the raised ring on the harmonic balancer. After that I put the trigger wheel on my CNC machine, found the center of the hole, and drilled four sets of holes on a 3.200" diameter, to bolt the trigger wheel to the balancer and allow moving it in 30 degree increments, to change the position of the missing teeth with respect to the crank. Here's a couple of pics:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/60-2spacer.jpg)
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/60-2spacer1.jpg)
I also sent the Cobra Jet valve covers I'm planning to use off for polishing, and finally ordered some more of those sight gauge tubes for oil pans, so when those items arrive here I can mock up the entire engine with the tunnel wedge intake to see how it will look. I'll post another update on this project in a week or two. Thanks again for all the comments!
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I don't know anything about belt cam drives. And I've never had offset lifters or rockerarms.
What I do know is those heads are full-on bad-ass. Everything else is just details, IMO. Can't wait to hear how it turns out.
paulie
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That Scat crank is a work of art, for sure. Almost a shame to also cover up those fine looking rods & pistons too with an oil pan! Btw, who did the machining work on the crank?
Your offset lifters would play havoc with a cast intake. Will look forward to your how-to-make-a-sheet metal intake gets around this difficulty.
I do hope you at least 'clay' the other 7 holes to check for sufficient valve to piston clearances (radial fit too).
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The crank came right from Scat that way, finished ground, scalloped pendulum counterweights, the whole works. I've got a tunnel wedge intake for this engine that Joe Craine ported that I'm going to try to make fit with the offset rockers and lifters, so we'll see how that goes. When doing the sheet metal intake I'm going to do the port plates first, so I should be able to bolt those on and confirm that they fit with the pushrods in place. If I have to make adjustments I'll do it at that time, so it should be fairly easy to make the pushrods fit since I'll only be working with the plate at that point.
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I pulled the tunnel wedge intake off the wall today, cleaned it up and set it on the engine just to see what it looks like. All part of the self motivation process ;D
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/hrtw.jpg)
Today I also started working on the drawings for the sheet metal intake. Hopefully I'll be finishing the drawings and acquiring the necessary material in the next week or so, and then I can start the machining operations on the port plates.
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The fit looks really good at the corners.
Going Sideways with some BIG Holley's?
I really love that look.
Tricky machine work, but looks wild.
I have some good pics of a sideways setup.
I really want to do a T Wedge on my Geny.
They are just too bad.
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The most time consuming part of this high riser project is going to be building the sheet metal intake manifold. I got started on this a few weeks ago by starting the drawing of the port plates. These are FE-complex, because of the valve cover rail, pushrods, ports, and water jackets running through them. In addition, I had decided to try kind of a new design approach on this intake, where the runners lined up with the general port direction. If you look at the intake ports on a LR, MR, or HR FE head, they are all angled towards the center of the block from the port opening in the head. My HR heads had been opened up to flow the big numbers, but the general "angled in" configuration of the ports was unchanged. Also, the roof of the port was angled up as it came out of the head also. I wanted to try to take those angles into account, and build the intake to match. Here's a picture of the partially finished intake port plate drawing:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/hrpdraw.jpg)
From the drawing you can see the angled ports. One way to machine these would be to angle the plates on the mill and then just cut a pocket, but there are some subtle curves in the roof and side of the port that I wanted to put in, so this wasn't the ideal solution. I thought the best way would be to use a special cutting tool, like what you see the CNC head porting guys use, so I could just outline the shape I wanted in 1/8" cross sectional increments and then cut them with the CNC porting cutter.
I found an outfit in Michigan that would manufacture the cutting tool I wanted. This is definitely the coolest cutter I've ever had:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/newcuttr.jpg)
The ball on the end is 1" in diameter, and the shank is necked down to 3/8" behind the ball, giving me the ability to cut around a corner up to 5/16". They sure didn't give this piece away at $230, but it is a carbide cutter that the manufacturer will resharpen when required, so I'm thinking of it as an investment ;D
Last week I purchased the 2" X 6" 6061 aluminum bar that I needed to build the port plates. (They didn't exactly give this stuff away either LOL!) I bought enough so that I would have an extra 6" section that I could use to practice on, to get all the machining operations around one of the ports set up. After I had this piece right I could just copy and mirror the program to do the complete port plate.
I started off drilling the intake bolt holes and a guide hole for the water jacket passage, and then milled a pocket straight down to start the port. Here's a picture of the plate on the mill:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/hrport1.jpg)
Next I chucked up my new cutter and spent quite a bit of time programming all the different passes. There were a total of 17 different outlines that I had to program, but many of them were similar, and I had done the curve work in Excel and generated a list of all the key coordinates that the CNC tool would require there, so most of the programming was just keying in the numbers. After double checking the whole program, I started up the machine. Here's a shot of the test plate after the first of the 17 outlines has been cut:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/hrport2.jpg)
I stopped the program at this point to check some measurements, but everything looked good, so I let 'er rip. When the whole port was done it looked like a CNC'd cylinder head port, and I was really pleased with the result.
Next machining step was to set the plate up on a 45 degree angle and cut the bottom of the plate where it will meet the valley plate and end walls of the intake. The setup presented some indexing challenges, but nothing too difficult. Here's a picture of the plate on the 45 degree angle table, with the steps in the plate being milled:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/hrport3.jpg)
The angle milling had to be done on both sides of the plate, and then I chucked it back in the vise to do some of the inital edge milling. I finally finished this up tonight; here's a picture of the partially finished plate:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/hrdmplt1.jpg)
Here's a couple more shots of it installed on the engine at cylinder #1:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/hrdmplt2.jpg)
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/hrdmplt3.jpg)
Looking down into the port in the photo above, I like the idea that I can get a sand roll in there before I build the rest of the intake, to get a perfect alignment between each port and the port plate. I just have to pull the heads and bolt on the plates, and I can get a perfect port match.
Next steps on this test piece will be to mark the pushrod locations and then program the mill to machine those. After that I'll have to tilt the test plate at a 4 degree angle in order to machine the valve cover rail, and then it will be time to remove as much extraneous material as possible from the plates, to lighten them up. Once that is finished I can start on the real plates by applying the CNC programs I developed on the test piece. Hopefully within the next few weeks I'll have these plates finished up, and can start on the runners and plenum of the intake. I'll post more info as soon as I have some significant progress to report - Jay
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That is some nice work Jay, I have enough software now I do not do handcoding anymore but I have done a lot of that over the years.
Can remember spending a full week figuring out points in a 2D Cad program and converting to G-Code.
Tell me what controller your machine has and I may be able to tell you a few tricks to decrease your programming when you go to cut the 4 parts in the finished head plate. I assume 2 ports on one end are identical and the other end is a mirror image.
If you have a list of g-codes your machine uses it would help too.
Thought for you, if you put a bolt pattern on your head plate, make another set of flanges and weld your sheet metal runners to that flange. THat way the head plates stay until the heads change and you can play with the intake more as it is a separate part.
Keep up the good work!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Well, that is an interesting idea about making the remainder of the intake manifold bolt onto the port plates. One of the things that I liked about using those big thick plates as the start of the intake is that they would not warp too much when I welded the runners to them, so if I did as you suggest then I'd probably be back to having to worry about warped flanges. I'd also need a second set of intake gaskets. However, the idea of being able to pop the top of the manifold off for modifications, or maybe even to swap on a whole different top ala Pro/Stock Engineering, is rather attractive. I'm going to have to give that some thought...
My CNC control is a Milltronics Centurion 5, and it has G codes for changing to five different coordinate systems, and also the mirror and rotate codes. So my plan for doing the plates will be just to cut port number one, mirror to cut port number four, un-mirror and change coordinate systems to cut port number 2, and then mirror again to cut port number 3. Thankfully I don't have to work directly in G code; my machine has something they call "conversational programming", where the screen on the control prompts you to enter whatever parameters are required, and then it automatically compiles the G code when the program is completed. I have found it to be very easy to use, and although its not as nice as having the CAD/CAM software generate the CNC program, it hasn't been too bad for the work I've been doing. The worst time I had with it was when I did the runners for my SOHC intake, and I had to enter something like 40 different inside toolpaths and 40 different outside toolpaths to machine the runners. That took a few hours...
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Well, that is an interesting idea about making the remainder of the intake manifold bolt onto the port plates. One of the things that I liked about using those big thick plates as the start of the intake is that they would not warp too much when I welded the runners to them, so if I did as you suggest then I'd probably be back to having to worry about warped flanges. I'd also need a second set of intake gaskets. However, the idea of being able to pop the top of the manifold off for modifications, or maybe even to swap on a whole different top ala Pro/Stock Engineering, is rather attractive. I'm going to have to give that some thought...
Put an O-ring groove either in your head plate or the runner flange. If you make the runner flange out of 3/4 or 1 inch thick and machine an extension on to weld to (easier welding to 1/8 wall) then it should not warp too much.
See the weld extensions on my design
Sent you a PM but do not think messaging is working
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v660/Mario428/fesheetmetalintakeearlydays.jpg)
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I did get your message, Mario; thankfully that part of the forum software is still operational!
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Very cool ideas on how-to make that custom intake. Too bad an FE is probably the hardest intake of all engine designs to cobble up!
That $230 for the ball end mill, even though it is pretty big, is amazing. Hopefully you can get lots of use out of it over time!
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Hey Jay check out this companys CF parts. http://www.ozmoengineering.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1&Itemid=2 As always cool work. Scott
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Those are pretty cool, that's for sure. I have quite a bit of fiberglass work experience myself, and have thought about doing something like that, but it would be a learn from the ground up experience in terms of the underhood requirements for a car. Their web site says they'll do custom work, but they want you to order 50+ parts, so that's not going to happen. I'll be sticking with aluminum for now...
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Despite a busy schedule I managed to get a little more work done on my high riser project this week. I chucked the dummy piece back up in my CNC mill and cut the pushrod holes early in the week. On the drawing I designed the pushrod holes to be oblong, .625" in diameter at the ends, and angled to match the angle of the CNC'd port wall. I also designed them to be .050" away from breaking into the port itself, and hoped that the pushrods would fit in them without any trouble.
This turned out to be wishful thinking on my part. The pushrod with the offset rocker fit just fine, but the one going into the non-offset rocker showed significant interference, even when I used it with the offset lifter. The first photo below shows the interference, and in the second photo you can see that the pushrod is a ways away from being properly seated in the rocker:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/hrprt02.jpg)
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/hrprt01.jpg)
I put the part back in the CNC machine, changed a couple of numbers to move the pushrod hole closer to the port, and repeated the process. After a few tries it became clear that I was going to have to breach the port opening in order to get the pushrod to fit properly, so I bit the bullet and moved the hole over far enough to get the necessary clearance. I'm not too concerned about this, because since the port in the plate is CNC machined, I'll just move over a couple of the mill tool paths and create a little bump on the finished port where the pushrod has to fit. But it still kind of sucked having to cut a hole in my nice CNC'd port. Hopefully that bump I have to put in won't affect the air flow too much. Here's a couple more pictures of the dummy plate in place with the pushrod in it's proper position:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/hrprt03.jpg)
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/hrprt04.jpg)
I'll modify the port program to put in the bump sometime this week. I'm still thinking about Mario's suggestion to make the intake a two piece affair, with O-rings to seal the top half to the port plates I'm building. I'm kind of leaning that way at the moment, except that it would require a jig for welding that wouldn't work on a standard FE engine. I should have another update next weekend.
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If it's not one thing it's another. Tough break Jay. No pun intended. ::)
I was wondering about the Victor with the brass tubes into the ports.
Did you ever test that on the bench to see if they upset the flow much.
I am still yet to do that to my Victor and have the brass tubes.
Just wondering.
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I've never done a flow comparison with the brass tubes installed. I assume the flow would be reduced because the cross sectional area is reduced, but by how much I don't know.
The hole is no big deal at this point because the aluminum plate is just a dummy. The important thing is that now I know how to modify the cross section to make everything fit. Would've been nice if I didn't have to go into the port, but oh well... :-\
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Is it an option for T&D to supply a set of rockers with offset for both the intakes and exhaust?
I'm watching this closely as I can see myself having similar problems when I go to fit my Dove tunnel wedge to my BT HR heads.
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Todd hit the nail on the head. If not T&D, won't some type of Jesel shaft rocker for a BBC, Pontiac, generic GM Pro Stock or Pro Sportsman head fit with the correct offset? I realize that today's rockers in Pro are in the much higher ratio ranges (2.0+) but perhaps a unfinished blank could be acquired.
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Since I've already spent $1200 on the T&D setup I don't really want to switch to a different style of rocker. Besides, the Blue Thunder heads are specifically designed to use the T&D rockers.
Looking at the T&D setup, when they offset the rocker they make the rocker itself wider. To do that on the non-offset side, everything would have to change, including the stand with the studs that bolts onto the head, the individual rocker shaft, and the rocker arm itself. So I don't think there's much of a chance to get an offset rocker in on the problem side of the port.
I think I can live with a slight bulge in the port, and not really loose much, if anything, in horsepower. We're only talking about a bulge .050" into the port. Joe Craine also suggested that I could increase the height of the port at this point so that I didn't lose any cross sectional area. That would also be a fairly easy change in the CNC program.
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Yes T&D does offer offsets in both positions.... I have a set of T&D on a BT MR head that are .250 offset on the intake like yours Jay, and .080 offset on the exhaust. I did order these custom, but I think almost all T&D stuff is made to order for us FE folks. I was worried you may go through the port with the pushrod tube! I do like tipping or aligning the port on the manifold adapter to the head like you are doing, makes perfect sense. Blair Patrick told me he usually has .180 offsets in both directions... I see why now. I used a 180 offset lifter for the intake lifter and a centered for the exhaust, these are Comps new "Elite" roller lifters and you can exchange the pushrod cups (without tools in a few seconds) to either direction offset or centered.
I can send you a .080 rocker to try and dummy it up, to see if it would work better for you. I won't need it for awhile. It is a standard width body (they do make different width though) with just the adjuster offset so I would think it would fit on the shaft and stand. My shafts and stand look the same as yours as far as spacing of the studs, but not sure if exact.... I would maybe call T&D and talk with Sheldon to see if the stands are the same or if they make several different ones for the BT heads (I wouldn't think so but...). I would think the stands would be different for dual .180 offsets because of where the center bolt on each shaft would be located in a different spot.
I think you can buy just the rocker bodies separate. They would have the bearing and adjuster with it, but no stand. I think they are around 55 bucks each... so $440 for 8 exhaust rockers.
I was also thinking you could adjust your CNC program and maybe not tip the port so much, or gradually change directions to make a sort of turn or (short side radius sideways) to the manifold to correct to straight... to line up with the manifold runner ports. You have to change directions at some point as not all runners (the outer 4) will have a turn to make a straight shot at the head. Sort of like this... ( ( versus this... / / I don't think you have to make the complete turn, just 1/2 of it or so, gradually over the 2" thickness of your head plate, or adapter, or port plate.... whatever you want to call it.
On Randy's tunnel ram that he made for the BT heads, he used 1 1/2" adapter plates and then welded the front and rear china walls to it, then a tunnel rams with flanges that bolted to it, so basically a 2 piece "AKA" PSE type deal. He still had heat warpage and shrinkage, requiring a ton of machine work to get it right. The intake top was easy to correct the the lower was a bear. On the Schwartz/Patrick tunnel ram, it is a bolt together deal and completely CNC machined. That way there is no weld distortion. I think he has done a few tunnel ram tops where the flange is machines, then the tops, where they are then welded together about 2" away from the flange part way up the runner, they are thin and the same thickness, welding easily without warpage at the flange... like what Mario was talking about further up the thread.
I like the lower part of the plates where you leave a step on there to the china wall and for the valley tray. I think if there was a way to make a 45* lip instead, and then have a valley tray lay on that and have a few bolt holes along the side to secure to the head plate without welding might work out well. Most of the Yates/Cleveland and Ford/Chevy/Dodge Nascar setups are like this. They run the water out of the head, bolt a valley tray to the lower part of the heads, and the intake is a "spider" or runners with flanges only. I would not run water through your plates, I would block it there, and drill and tap the heads, run a 12 or 16 AN line out to a Y or remote thermostat housing and then to the radiator. Make plumbing and welding machining etc, easier on the manifold adapter or base. Only thing you have to worry about is locating the distributor hole and sealing the china wall and to the heads. I have a few pictures of the Schwartz/Patrick billet valley tray and it does bolt to the head plates, no welding.
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Well THAT is very interesting information. Do you have a photo by chance of the offset rocker you described? Also, any way you can measure the width of the body of the offset rocker? If it was the same width as mine, I could just get the same rocker from T&D, and that would solve this problem. If you can't get at the rockers to measure them, no sweat, and thanks anyway.
Looks like I'll be talking to T&D soon...
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I don't have a photo handy but can sure get one later. I did measure the body width and it is .900" wide. There are thin shims on both sides, outside the bearing, inside the snap rings on the shaft. I'd say the distance between the two studs to mount the exhaust rocker to the shaft, is approx. 1.570", center to center. The intake rocker width is 1.150" and is actually a 1.8 ratio, the exhaust is .175.
How do these dimensions compare to yours?
I think they would have .125 offsets also... but, most likely that would have a wider body.
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I measured mine tonight, and they are the same as yours, with the 0.900" wide rocker arm and about 1.570" center to center on the studs. My rockers are both 1.75:1 for the ratio.
I'm going to call T&D about this. If I could get rockers with the same offset as yours, .080" towards the outboard side of the port, I wouldn't have to change the port in the spacer plate.
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Jay, hopefully the T&D deal works out on the pushrod hole location. The other factor that might help is going to a lrger diameter lifiter, a .904 or .932 with an offset push rod cup would give even more room.
I am really pleased with how the .904's worked on the 588" build.
As to manifold, XR7's idea about a dry manifold, e.g. the wet parts are separate along with a vally tray would really simplify a lot of other considerations and allow you to experiment wi the dry side only in terms of runner length, plenum configuartion, carb or TB or IR etc. You might want to add a bolt hole or two in the head to make the attachment process easier and cleaner or look at bringin water into the head from the front like the C460 and other 385 style heads.
I know all this moves away hrom certain FE centric design ideas but you are pushng the evelope anyway and most of these parts are after market custome stuff as well instead of NOS unobtainium so why not?
Keep up the great work its inspiring for me too.
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In fact I spoke with T&D yesterday, and they confirmed that I could get those rockers with the offset adjuster, just like XR-7 said. So, I have ordered a set, and I think that will eliminate the need for any bulge in the port wall.
I actually would like to go with a larger diameter lifter, but the short block is already together and I've had the lifters for a few years, so I didn't want to tear it all apart and remachine it for the larger diameter. But its good to know that they work well; maybe if I go through this engine again in a few years I'll machine for the larger lifters, along with upping the compression, reducing ring tension, etc.
After your post I looked tonight at the front of the heads to see what would be involved with just running the water straight out. Looks like it could be done, but I could also bring the fitting out the front of the port plate block, which would avoid cutting the head for a fitting. I think I'm going to go that route.
Bill, I'm definitely not married to the base FE design, so modifications like this are not off the table for me. I just want to go FAST ;)
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Well I'll try to insert a couple pictures here, but if they don't load... I'll just send them to you Jay.
(http://a1.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/377437_2476914555048_1018002382_2842391_464106586_n.jpg)
(http://a3.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/379908_2476914715052_1018002382_2842392_270655548_n.jpg)
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Yep, that's what I need, all right. Thanks for the pics!
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Way cool, XR7 to the rescue! I like the idea of not tubing those sidewall cutouts that could impede airflow.
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Happy to help, in any way I can.
I was curious what the cam specs for this HR build are Jay. I am thinking it would be pretty stout to take advantage of those awesome flowing HR heads.
Was also wondering how long your valves are... I went a little longer than normal, @ 5.550" and still need to mill about .030 off the rocker pads on the heads for .822 net lift. Your valves must be even longer if you need to shim, and/or less lift. The T&D shaft height gauge for the FE is designed for .650 lift and is stamped as such. For lifts over .650, the shaft height should be lowered by 1/2 the difference, or if less lift.... raised up with shims by 1/2 the difference. So if it were .850 lift as an example, the shaft should be below by .100 according to the gauge when in contact with the valve tip. You probably already know all this, but just find it interesting how your set-up is so much different than what I have here. I guess that is why they supply the gauge, component stack ups for individual builds are different. They are basically after a "mid-lift" type rocker geometry to where the rocker is in the center of its travel pivot or arc, exactly at 1/2 or "mid-lift".
One last question (for now)...LOL. How long did your push-rods end up being and what wall thickness? OK, sorry... that is 2 questions.
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The cam I have for this engine is a ZT series Comp mechanical roller, with the 4821 lobe on the intake and the 4827 lobe on the exhaust. This is 272@.050 on the intake with lift in the .720" range, and 282@.050" on the exhaust, with .730" lift. Funny you should mention the cam, though, because I've been rethinking it lately. I'm using the 26099 Comp springs, which are good for about .800" lift, and I have enough piston to valve clearance to accomodate that, so I've been giving some consideration to going bigger on the cam. The only issue is that I have had to grind the rod shoulders already for cam clearance with the 4.500" stroke, and if I go too much more on lift I might end up without sufficient clearance there. So right now I'm leaning towards getting a different cam for this engine that uses the 4827 lobe on both intake and exhaust. This would get my horsepower peak higher in the RPM range; I'm thinking with the existing cam it might peak down around 6200 or so, and I'd like to see the power peak at 6800 instead. Hard to say for sure until its on the dyno, of course...
On the valves, I can't remember how long they are, but they are very close to stock length. However, I did use +.050" retainers to get the spring installed height at 2.050". Thanks for the info on the T&D rocker gauge; I knew that the .650 on the gauge indicated .650 lift, but I did not know about raising or lowering the shaft to compensate for more or less lift. I ended up eyeballing the motion of the roller tip across the valve as I tested for different shim heights, and I ended up with less shim than I needed to make the gauge perfectly square, so it sounds like I went in the right direction. It will be nice to be able to measure and calculate exactly next time I mock up.
My pushrods are 9.55" overall length, but I'm currently using some SBC lifters in the engine, so my pushrod length will probably not translate directly to yours. That's another thing I'm thinking about changing this engine; since I bought the parts for it, I switched over to Crower roller lifters, and since I can get FE Crower lifters with the offset pushrod location I'm thinking about buying a set of those and putting those SBC lifters on ebay. Wall thickness of the pushrods is unknown, but Smith Brothers said they were good for up to 900 pounds of open spring pressure.
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I had a big change in plans on this engine this week. About a week ago I spent some time talking to Blair Patrick about my camshaft dilemma. When I caught Blair he was in the truck coming home from a dyno session where his latest 511" FE made over 850 HP (I hope to post some details on this engine in the next few days). The engine wasn't all that radical, and other than Blair's superior engine building skills, it didn't really get any overly specialized treatment, just a really good set of Edelbrock Pro-Port heads and a tunnel wedge intake with a couple of 660 center squirter carbs. The cam was relatively small at around 270 @ .050", and the engine peaked in power at 6400 RPM. My concern with my camshaft is that it may be too small to make power where I want it; with the extra cubes in this engine, and the ports in the heads, I wanted to be making peak power at around 7000 RPM. But my cam has about the same duration @ .050" as the one in Blair's engine, and his engine is smaller. No way I was going to peak in power at 7000 RPM with this cam.
Another cam problem was that I really wanted to run more lift in addition to more duration. The head flow of the high riser heads is still increasing at .800" of valve lift, and my cam has intake lift of around .720". And I can't run any more lift with the big stroke on the crank, because the rods are within .015" of hitting the cam lobes.
Sitting over in the corner of my shop is my third engine project. I will start posting on this one shortly, but basically it is a smaller SOHC, that I plan to put back into my Galaxie this spring. It is apart for a new set of pistons and a general freshening up, including a grind on the 4.375" stroke crank.
Over the Thanksgiving weekend it dawned on me that I might be able to play a game of "musical motors" with the high riser and the smaller SOHC, to the benefit of both engines. If I swapped cranks in the two motors, I would gain an addition .062" of clearance from the cam lobes to the rod shoulders in the high riser, allowing me to run a much bigger cam. I would lose 15 cubic inches and the associated horsepower, but I was pretty sure I'd pick up more than that with a cam swap. On the smaller cammer motor, bore is 4.285, and the 4.500" stroke would get me to 519 cubic inches, which the heads on that engine will definitely support.
The bad news was the associated costs. I'd be setting the existing pistons in the high riser engine aside in favor of a new set of slugs. But I kind of wanted to increase the compression ratio on the engine and go with a smaller ring package anyway, so I guess I could handle that. But on the smaller SOHC, I had just received my new pistons from Diamond, and didn't want to order another set. This meant shortening the rod from 6.700" to 6.637" in order to maintain the correct piston height in the bore. This was a custom rod, and was probably going to be expensive. Hmmm....
I called Blair back up and bounced some of these ideas off him. He agreed that I would get a net gain if I dropped cubic inches and picked up cam on the high riser engine, and thought that 900 HP wasn't out of the question for that engine. THAT would be cool... He had a couple of grinds that he thought would work well in the engine, and he's going to send me the specs in the next few days. And he also had a great suggestion on the rods. Crower makes a forged 1000 HP capable rod in a 6.625" length, just a little shorter than what I need. Blair suggested I just get a set of custom Cometic head gaskets, in a .027" thickness instead of the .040" standard thickness. This would get the piston to chamber relationship back where it was supposed to be if I swapped in the 4.500" stroke crank and the off-the-shelf 6.625" rods. I wasn't sure if Cometic made the custom thickness gaskets available in the SOHC version, but it was sure worth checking on.
Next day I emailed Cometic, and sure enough they could whip up the head gaskets I needed. So, I pulled the trigger on the musical motor deal. My 545" high riser project is going to morph to a 530" high riser project, with a bigger cam and more compression. And my smaller SOHC is going to get a little bigger as a result. Plus, I'm a lot happier with both projects after this decision. I should get more horsepower out of both engines! I'm pretty psyched up about this... ;D
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Sounds like a good plan to me.
I gotta ask though, how do your Hi-riser heads and intake compare to Blair's Pro Ports and intake? I'm not sure I'd make an ironclad statement that since a certain size cam peaked at a certain rpm in a smaller engine, the same size cam must peak at a lower rpm in a bigger engine. I think if your induction system has more capacity it may rpm the same or even higher than the smaller engine, with the same cam. I'm sure you've taken all this into account. Just curious about it.
paulie
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Hey Jay---
I just read back through this thread, and had a thought. If you just bend the pushrods over a little bit, you'll eliminate the interference with the holes and not need to go for all these hardware changes!! ;D
KS
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Hey Jay---
I just read back through this thread, and had a thought. If you just bend the pushrods over a little bit, you'll eliminate the interference with the holes and not need to go for all these hardware changes!! ;D
KS
Fabulous idea, Ken. If I send you the pushrods, will you bend them for me? :D
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Sounds like a good plan to me.
I gotta ask though, how do your Hi-riser heads and intake compare to Blair's Pro Ports and intake? I'm not sure I'd make an ironclad statement that since a certain size cam peaked at a certain rpm in a smaller engine, the same size cam must peak at a lower rpm in a bigger engine. I think if your induction system has more capacity it may rpm the same or even higher than the smaller engine, with the same cam. I'm sure you've taken all this into account. Just curious about it.
paulie
I actually think that's a pretty sound statement, given engines that are fairly close in horsepower. My intake testing didn't show any significant difference in peak horsepower RPM with fairly wide variations in the manifolds themselves. For example, if you look at the engines tested on my 390 stroker mule in the book, peak horsepower varied from about 420 to 525, but peak HP RPM only varied from 5500-5900 across most of the tested manifolds, such as the Blue Thunder dual plane, Performer RPM, Streetmaster, Victor, and Dove tunnel ram. The only intake that really fell outside the box was the Edelbrock SP2P. Generally, the intake just didn't have a real big influence on what RPM the engine made the most power at.
The cam, on the other hand, can easily shift the power peak up or down 1000 RPM depending on duration. And the power peak with a given cam will always shift down if the cubic inches go up, keeping all other variables constant.
Blair mentioned that he tried two different tunnel wedge intakes on his engine, one for a medium riser and one for a high riser, and he said the high riser peaked in power about 300 RPM higher than the medium riser version did. That's more than I would have expected, but certainly within the ballpark. In any case I feel pretty comfortable that given the power targets, RPM targets, and size of this engine, I need to be running quite a bit more duration than the cam in Blair's engine.
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Jay, how could Blair run a MR and a HR tunnel wedge on the same engine? Unless he swapped heads, they are so different where the valve covers meet. I have a new Dove TW for HR here that I just finished for a fellow up in Wisconsin, and it is huge. It flows more than my SF-600 can measure, and I did not open up the port to the gasket size. (could only manage 20" of flow at 600 cfm) Anyway, it sounds like you are on a quest for a particular HP number, and I hope you find it. Joe-JDC.
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Sounds like a good plan to me.
I gotta ask though, how do your Hi-riser heads and intake compare to Blair's Pro Ports and intake? I'm not sure I'd make an ironclad statement that since a certain size cam peaked at a certain rpm in a smaller engine, the same size cam must peak at a lower rpm in a bigger engine. I think if your induction system has more capacity it may rpm the same or even higher than the smaller engine, with the same cam. I'm sure you've taken all this into account. Just curious about it.
paulie
I actually think that's a pretty sound statement, given engines that are fairly close in horsepower. My intake testing didn't show any significant difference in peak horsepower RPM with fairly wide variations in the manifolds themselves. For example, if you look at the engines tested on my 390 stroker mule in the book, peak horsepower varied from about 420 to 525, but peak HP RPM only varied from 5500-5900 across most of the tested manifolds, such as the Blue Thunder dual plane, Performer RPM, Streetmaster, Victor, and Dove tunnel ram. The only intake that really fell outside the box was the Edelbrock SP2P. Generally, the intake just didn't have a real big influence on what RPM the engine made the most power at.
The cam, on the other hand, can easily shift the power peak up or down 1000 RPM depending on duration. And the power peak with a given cam will always shift down if the cubic inches go up, keeping all other variables constant.
Blair mentioned that he tried two different tunnel wedge intakes on his engine, one for a medium riser and one for a high riser, and he said the high riser peaked in power about 300 RPM higher than the medium riser version did. That's more than I would have expected, but certainly within the ballpark. In any case I feel pretty comfortable that given the power targets, RPM targets, and size of this engine, I need to be running quite a bit more duration than the cam in Blair's engine.
I didn't consider just changing the intake manifold. That would be a very different story. I was talking about changing heads and intake. The heads being the more important part. I don't think the combos in your book are a comparable situation. Are Blair's Pro Port heads comparable to your Hi-Risers? You're Hi-Riser heads are over the top in awesomeness in the wedge head world. I'm not convinced different heads and induction have no or little influence on rpm range.
JMO,
paulie
edit: This is a double post. Sorry. I didn't see my first reply and thought I didn't hit "Post", so I typed essentially the same response again.
paulie
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Jay, I know we are dealing with some differences in archecture but to make close to 900 HP on the old 582 I was using RX series lobes, 4311 & 4315 and for the 588 to make a bit over 1000 we wnet to REV intake and XCX exhaust 1844 and 1964 lobes respectively on a 113. Just as FYI.
Lash stability and RPM has been great though the power peak is now 7500. With the RX's and a 109 it was a 6900 power peak.
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Jay, how could Blair run a MR and a HR tunnel wedge on the same engine? Unless he swapped heads, they are so different where the valve covers meet. I have a new Dove TW for HR here that I just finished for a fellow up in Wisconsin, and it is huge. It flows more than my SF-600 can measure, and I did not open up the port to the gasket size. (could only manage 20" of flow at 600 cfm) Anyway, it sounds like you are on a quest for a particular HP number, and I hope you find it. Joe-JDC.
Good question Joe, obviously these were not true medium riser and high riser intakes. I think what Blair may have been talking about are the Dove high riser intakes, standard vs. the cast to fit a Cobra version. Have you seen those? Apparently the Cobra version is cast with the high riser base mold and the medium riser top mold, to get an intake that is low enough to fit under the hood of a Cobra replica. I've got a picture of the two side by side around here somewhere...
I'm guessing that this is the "medium riser" vs. "high riser" that Blair was talking about, but I will ask him about it next time I talk to him so I can clarify this.
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Jay, I know we are dealing with some differences in archecture but to make close to 900 HP on the old 582 I was using RX series lobes, 4311 & 4315 and for the 588 to make a bit over 1000 we wnet to REV intake and XCX exhaust 1844 and 1964 lobes respectively on a 113. Just as FYI.
Lash stability and RPM has been great though the power peak is now 7500. With the RX's and a 109 it was a 6900 power peak.
Thanks Bill, I appreciate the data points. Those duration at .050" numbers are much lower than what I was thinking about. Hmmmm... FYI, my 585" SOHC peaked at 6600 with 293@ .050" cams, but of course with the lower rocker ratio of the SOHC you need to subtract around 10 degrees from the @.050" number to make it equivalent to a wedge FE, or any other motor with a rocker ratio in the 1.75:1 range. So, 585", 283 @ .050" with the correction factor, and peak power at 6600 fits into my equations pretty well. Your RX lobes don't LOL!
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In reading back over your 4821 intake lobe (and Cdmbill2's RX 4311 lobe) I believe both are noted by Comp as being designed for high lift rocker ratios. Are you intending to make your own higher ratio 1.80-1.85 FE rockers in the future? Don't know if folks like T&D make them already for the FE so....just wondering.
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Just to keep this going, I'll be happy to do the bending. I'll have to build a jig to make sure they're all the same. And there's always the possibility of having to bend them BOTH ways so as to make them universally usable! (Just let me know!) ;D
KS
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In reading back over your 4821 intake lobe (and Cdmbill2's RX 4311 lobe) I believe both are noted by Comp as being designed for high lift rocker ratios. Are you intending to make your own higher ratio 1.80-1.85 FE rockers in the future? Don't know if folks like T&D make them already for the FE so....just wondering.
T&D has ratios from 1.70 up to 2.00 available in every .05 for the FE.
On one of the builds I am working on, the cam being used is a custom Comp with FB lobes, 1816R/1960R with the 1.8/1.75 rockers come out to .846/.792 lift without lash. The duration is 281/286 @ .050 This is a 511 cubic inch, 4.375 bore Genesis iron block with a 4.250 4340 crank. The heads are BT gen 2 MR with CNC chambers, hand ported, that flow 386@850, it will have a two piece sheet metal 2x4 tunnel ram.
Jay, how could Blair run a MR and a HR tunnel wedge on the same engine? Unless he swapped heads, they are so different where the valve covers meet. I have a new Dove TW for HR here that I just finished for a fellow up in Wisconsin, and it is huge. It flows more than my SF-600 can measure, and I did not open up the port to the gasket size. (could only manage 20" of flow at 600 cfm) Anyway, it sounds like you are on a quest for a particular HP number, and I hope you find it. Joe-JDC.
Knowing Blair, he has probably tried both HR and MR tunnel wedges on both MR heads... and maybe even both MR and HR intakes on HR heads!!! The Edelbrock pro-port is a MR head with a small "peanut port" and un-machined chambers. These are for CNC only as they need a ton of work, but you can place a newer style oval raised port with a straighter shot at the valve. You can basically put a HR port in these heads, without welding and/or epoxy. There would be some work to make the valve cover work out, but a spacer or angle shim, and/or machining to make it come together is certainly possible. I have MR and HR heads here now, as well as 3 tunnel wedges and a HR tunnel wedge, they will all bolt up, same bolt pattern and water port location, only the port location itself, and the valve cover rail height and angle are different. Mix and match, a little machining and epoxy or weld maybe, your in business...
not sure why the quotes merged in with my comments... but you can figure it out???
(Edit - You must have deleted one of the quotes strings by accident. I fixed it - Jay)
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Thanks XR, good thing Jay won't have to make any more custom parts ;D.
Is the engine your doing for your own ride? What will it go in?
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I wish it was for my ride! I'm building this for a good friend, it will go in his Thunderbolt clone.
Also I don't mean to "steal the thread" or anything like that....as I was just trying to add info to (possibly) help Jay's build. I think your new plan is a good one Jay! That HR does need a bigger cam! Looking forward to what Blair specs out for you.
Less stroke won't hurt it at all.... I know of one HR (BT CNC ported by BarryR) with a 4.375 bore and 4.125 crank, less than 500 inches and made over 900 HP.
On your rod length deal, I see that Oliver has billet rods for BBC that are available in several lengths... including 6.635 which would work perfect for you. They have them available in 2.200 and 2.100 pin sizes and are a very strong, high end rod (a little spendy but most likely similar in price with a Crower). Here is a link to an EBAY auction with listings for the 2.200 which is what the 4.500 crank that would go into the SOHC is correct? Do one of your cranks have the 2.100 rod pin?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Oliver-BBC-Billet-Rods-Standard-LG-Journal-/220655833355?hash=item33601cd10b&item=220655833355&pt=Motors_Car_Truck_Parts_Accessories&vxp=mtr
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Those Oliver rods do look good, but I'm pretty much already committed to the Crowers. Also, since they aren't Crower's billet rods, they are only about $800 for the set. They are still good for 1000 HP, according to Blair. And, my .027" Cometic head gaskets are on the way.
Also on the way by now are the .080" offset T&D rockers; should have those next week. When I get them, I'll try them out on my new port plate, which I just finished up this week. Here's some pictures:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/HRPlate1.jpg)
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/HRPlate2.jpg)
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/HRPlate3.jpg)
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/HRPlate4.jpg)
I used Mario's idea of the O-rings around the port, and will make a bolt on "upper" intake for these plates. I'll run the water jacket opening out of the front of the plate on each side, and machine the china walls and the valley cover so that the whole works bolts together. Lots of CNC work, but that's half the fun ;D
I also got the scoop from Blair on the intake manifolds. I had it a little mixed up. He ran two motors on the dyno recently, both making over 800 HP (see the separate post in the tech section). Both used Edelbrock Pro-Port heads with Blair's intake port, which requires welding on these heads to raise the ports as far as he wants them to go. One of these engines used a medium riser tunnel wedge intake, and the other used a high riser intake, with a plate bolted to the head to get the correct spacing with the raised port. The high riser intake got a lot of work on the valve cover rails to make them line up properly, and Blair said he also used a valve cover spacer, to get the valve cover up higher after the machine work.
On the cam, after some in depth discussions I decided to go with an older Super Stock cam profile that Blair used to run, with .445 lobe lift, 282@.050 on the intake, and 288@.050 on the exhaust. Hopefully that will get the power band where I want it, but if it doesn't Blair said he could duplicate that cam in a variety of duration@.050 numbers, so there are some options to tune the duration to get into the power band I want. I'm also going to go up to 13.25:1 compression ratio on this engine. This gets me outside of my normal comfort zone for DCR; I usually limit that to 8.5:1 so I can easily run pump gas. DCR with this cam and CR will be around 9.2:1, which is stretching it a bit, I think. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, though; I used to think that a 4500 stall converter was about all you could get away with on the street, and that turned out to be not even close to true. Hopefully I can live with the compression with this engine.
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Nice workmanship on that plate Jay! And being able to swap intake on an FE without pulling the rocker shafts, p-rods, ditzy and still getting 'wet feet', etc.......Sweet! Better looking than the old PSE unit for sure. Can't wait to see all those modern Cleveland intakes tested as well...
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Jay -
Lovely work on the port plate. I see all of the setups, not to mention the many toolpaths generated without the benefit of CAM software. You da man!!
I am inspired :)
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You probably wouldn't be so inspired if you saw all the mistakes I made along the way LOL! For example, in the valve cover rail I missed a tool change operation and started drilling one of the bolt holes with a 1/2" end mill. You can see that in the photos. At least that one's an easy fix, and I changed the program to fix it there too. I am actually somewhat inspired by the CAM software; sure would make life a lot easier...
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8) Very nice job Jay! Wow!!! You have been busy... getting any sleep?
I see several changes you have made here and there, and all for the better, a few things that I hadn't thought of too, LOL. I really like the way it turned out.
Any chance you could post a picture from the side/end of the head, and also the back of the port plate where it bolts to the head? This whole thing is sure interesting to me.
One other question I wanted to ask... what camera are you using? Very clear/sharp/detailed pictures. flash? resolution? Keep em coming! ;D
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Sorry for the delay in my response, Thor, I've been tied up with several other things, plus getting the second port plate machined. Here are some of the photos you asked for, including the side of the port plate, the back of it where it bolts to the head, and a shot of the engine with both port plates installed:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/ppside.jpg)
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/ppback.jpg)
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/portplates.jpg)
The 'ol FE kinda looks like a Lima motor with those plates on there :D
On Monday this week I got my new offset T&D rockers. T&D was just great about this; I sent them my old rockers, which I've had for five years, and they swapped me even up for a set of the offset ones! Mine weren't used or anything, but still, after five years it was awfully nice of them to do that. I got the second port plate bolted onto the left head tonight and decided to mock up the valvetrain. I was very pleased to see that my clearance problems are gone, as expected:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/prclear.jpg)
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/prcleara.jpg)
Thank-you very much for mentioning the availability of these offset rockers from T&D. If you hadn't told me about them, I'd have probably stuck with the ones I had, and put a bulge in the port, which obviously would not be as desirable as the setup is now.
Lastly, you had asked about my camera. It is an Olympus SP-550UZ. Nothing special really, cost about $500, has some neat features such as the ability to change a picture from color to black and white, plus an auto-focus correction for camera shudder. I think nearly all new cameras in this price range have these features. I used mine to take all the pictures in my book, too.
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No problem Jay, I know how it is, I've been busy too! I have to say you really have done a fine job, those plates look super! There are very few people who have the skill, knowledge, and resources to pull that off. The back side almost looks to cool to hide once bolted down.... The valve cover rail on the plates is still higher than the head rail, do you have to mill the final angle on that, or are you going to keep that height for the ports and run a spacer of sorts on the head to bring it up to height?
I sure enjoy reading your updates on this build and seeing the pictures etc. I can't wait to see the valley tray and of course the billet runner tunnel ram top you have planned.
I am happy that I could help you out on the rockers, also very impressed with T&D as a company... for swapping the rockers out, straight across. That must have been a shock, I bet you were saying "happy birthday to me"! I had a similar experience with Jerico, they swapped me out a input shaft and bearing retainer, from Chevy parts to a Ford on a transmission I bought from a racer, straight across even though they had been installed in the transmission (they were new un-used parts). Saved me about $400. Most companies would just say "sell your stuff on EBAY, we don't do trade ins or swap parts, you have to buy the parts needed from us".
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On the valve cover rail I'm going to build a spacer to get the rails to match up; I machined the plates so that a 3/8" spacer will fit. On the runners my plan is not to do billet runners; I've already built a fixture to press them out of 5052 1/8" sheet, so I'm going to go ahead with that. I think I'll machine a plate like Mario suggested, with some extensions that will meet up with the sheet metal runners to make the welding easier. Then I'll just go into a normal sheet metal plenum.
I thought about machining the upper out of a couple of billet pieces of aluminum. This would give almost infinite cool factor, but it would be heavy, and the cost of the billets would be pretty high. Plus the time required for programming and machining would be pretty significant. So I'm going more or less conventional on the upper portion of the intake.
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Jay, you might not see it from your own point of view, but as is usual with what you do, there's ALREADY ultimate cool factor!
KS
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T&D has always been a very good company to work with - and I normally use an .080 offset/.250 offset rocker combination on high riser heads. Glad to see that Thor got it covered for you. I have also gone with the .904 offset lifters on serious ones to straighten things.
I've done a MR intake on high riser heads and it's do-able with a fair amount of butchery. Never tried the other direction though. There are a lot more MR cast intake options - hence the effort.
I've seen some really odd behavior from the same cam in very different engines in terms of both power and peak RPM. I've kinda given up on predictions to a point and rely on the "stab it & see" method. Intuitively you are right in needing a bigger duration stick. Directionally it seems that my Edelbrock headed motors need more duration than my BT headed ones to get the peaks at a comparable RPM - has to relate to flow potential at different points in the curve more so than just the peak flow that everybody fixates upon.
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I continued to make progress this week on the high riser, with more CNC work on the intake manifold setup. I had a few setbacks but they were CNC machine related. First, earlier this week the coolant pump suddenly stopped working. This happened while I was around the corner from the machine, working on something else, and by the time I head the tool start making screeching noises it was too late to save the end mill in the machine at the time, or the valve cover rail spacer that I was machining. I got up and running again by picking up a sump pump from Menards and Mickey-mousing the thing together so that I had coolant again, but this basically took out a couple evenings this week. My replacement coolant pump has now arrived, so sometime over the weekend I'm going to have to install it.
Then, today when I was machining the valley cover plate for the intake, the machine suddenly stopped, flashing an 'X-axis error' on the computer screen. Wisps of smoke started coming from under the table, and I quickly shut the machine off. After getting everything cleared away so I could see what was going on, I found a broken conduit and a broken wire. The wiring that goes to the servo motor and encoder on the X-axis runs inside a flexible conduit. This conduit had broken about 6" under the table, and the ends had separated, exposing the wires. One of the wires had been cut, probably by the sharp end of the conduit. Once I figured this out, it was a simple matter of reconnecting the wire by soldering a short piece in, and then wrapping the whole thing up in electrical tape to protect the wire bundle from the broken edges of the conduit. Then I used a piece of heater hose, sliced down the length, to cover up the break in the flexible conduit, and duct taped over the whole thing. This is admittedly another Mickey Mouse repair; I really should take the whole thing apart and put a brand new piece of conduit it. But I have no idea how much work that would be; the wires disappear into the servo motor box and I don't know if they would be easily disconnected, or what other problems I may run into trying to do this. So, I'm going to live with the repair I've made for now.
I burned up three hours on that repair, but finally got the remaining work on the manifold base completed. Here's a picture of the valley cover plate being drilled for the holes to bolt it to the port plates. This is also prior to any of the "dress-up" machining that I did on the plate:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/facing.jpg)
Here are some photos showing the manifold end rails, the valve cover spacers, and the completed valley cover plate:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/cw1.jpg)
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/cw2.jpg)
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/vcrail.jpg)
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/intkparts.jpg)
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/intkparts1.jpg)
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/fordlogo.jpg)
I really like the way the valley cover plate turned out. I machined the fins in the plate with a 1/8" 10 degree taper end mill, and spaced them so that they are the same as the fins on the valve cover. The covers look nice polished, so I'm thinking about getting the valley cover plate polished too. The Ford logo came to me courtesy of a local friend who owns and operates a tool and die shop. He sent me the G-code, and I just had to make a couple of minor code modifications to make it run on my machine. The logo is .010" deep, and was cut with a 1/16" ball end mill. I practiced on a couple of scrap pieces before I did this, and managed to break one of those tiny little mills before I got the feeds and speeds right. But in the end it turned out really nicely, and I think it will add a lot to the engine's appearance, especially since there is no distributor to get in the way of the view of the logo.
Next up is starting to machine the upper portion of the intake, but before I do that I have a couple of programs that Mario sent me to try out on the SOHC rocker arm project. Hopefully I'll post some successful photos of that project tomorrow night.
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Now that looks frikken cool Jay! Nice work.
So, are you going to eventually make & sell a variant of the new JBE (Jay Brown Engineering) FE Ford
intake adapter?
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I guess I hadn't really thought about that. I have been giving some consideration to doing a PSE style intake adapter for MR and LR engines, but my initial thoughts on that would be to cast the base like PSE did, and then machine it from there. I suppose I could also just machine it. Hmmmm....
For the high riser stuff I think it would probably be a rather limited market, so maybe offering a machined version would be OK. But to be honest I'm so busy getting these three engines together that I don't have time to think about building similar products to market at this point. Maybe this summer sometime.
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Awesome Jay
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Impressive looking work as usual! Later, Travis
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Thumbs up from the Left Coast! ;D
Nice Ford logo too ...
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8) Very nice! Great job (as always) on the valley tray, I really like how you engineered it and it came out way better than what I had thought up in my mind (I was still thinking about a 45* angle on the sides). The straight down bolt together deal on the tray and the steps on the china wall spacers.... it all comes together very nice and well thought out.
The fins and FORD logo really add to the tray. The whole thing looks super! If it were me I would polish the tops of the fins only... and leave all the machine tool paths, remainder as is, etc.
I guess we can call this an "extra" high riser? Wow! Ports are up so high you need a valve cover spacer even on a high riser. It just keeps getting better and better.
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Have you seen this place Jay? http://www.ebay.com/itm/Oval-Intake-Manifold-Runner-Tubing-1Ft-Lenght-RMR-071-/260598327521?pt=Motors_Car_Truck_Parts_Accessories&vxp=mtr&hash=item3cacdee8e1
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I had not seen that; thanks for the heads up. The tubing shown in the ebay ad is not large enough for what I'm doing, but maybe they have other sizes available...
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not to be asking a stupid question (what me? no never)
But how is the coolant moving in/out of the heads?
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I will be drilling and tapping the port plates on each side for a 1/2" pipe thread, facing forward. This hole will intersect with a hole machined in the port plate that lines up with the water jacket opening in the head. Then I'll just screw in a #10 X 1/2" pipe AN fitting to the front of each port plate, and run two AN lines to a remote thermostat housing. This is kind of like the setup I use with the SOHC engines, and has always worked pretty well for me.
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Sometimes things get a little spooky....
I was visiting John Marcella the other day.
(http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e135/Barry_R/imagejpeg_0.jpg)
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So, it looks like John is doing the same thing as Jay. Is that a cast piece Barry? I zoomed the pic but it's still hard to tell if it's bar stock or a chunk of casting.
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It is a casting.
I provided it to John.
I can say no more.....
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Very nice work Jay. I'm chomping at the bit to get home in April and start my milling education on my modest machine. Just out of curiosity, with all the time you spend in the shop does the Mrs. ever come and grab you by the ear demanding some attention? I know mine does. :) Mike
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Sometimes things get a little spooky....
I was visiting John Marcella the other day.
(http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e135/Barry_R/imagejpeg_0.jpg)
Hey! He can't copy me like that! ;)
I remember talking to Art at Blue Thunder several years ago about this. Art was going to build some plates to turn the FE into an "honest" (his words) engine, by extending the head to include the valve cover rail, pushrod holes, etc. Since that piece is cast, I'll wager that Blue Thunder is behind it...
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Very nice work Jay. I'm chomping at the bit to get home in April and start my milling education on my modest machine. Just out of curiosity, with all the time you spend in the shop does the Mrs. ever come and grab you by the ear demanding some attention? I know mine does. :) Mike
She mostly comes out to the shop to drink my beer in the summertime, when she's working in her expansive garden and starts to get thirsty :D
My wife and I were in our 30s when we got married. We were both already "set in our ways", so to speak, and had agreed that we would let each other pursue our own interests without interfering. However, relationships being what they are, I make a point to spend at least a couple of hours per day with her, despite all the activity in the shop. For the most part she is happy with that. I've been told on more than one occasion that I'm one lucky SOB, and I firmly believe that to be true.
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Thanks Barry as I suspected it looked like a casting....and the obvious question that preceded the question; why would anyone invest the $ in a casting unless it was destined for volume production? Jay may have hit the mark but I'll ask no more!
Funny too that whether it is BT, Pond, Shelby, etc. no one hit on the old PSE adaptor idea some 10+ years ago now when the FE's 'stock' started to rise again. As Jay's book shows, the high end FE heads and/or CID's are limited by the wide ranging, still available, yet old school, small runner/low runner/non-optimized runner/small plenum intakes of yore with only a few modern FE intakes up for the challenge.
Now, being able to bolt-on a variety of newer intakes or allowing a much easier path to hand-make sheetmetal intakes......looks like 2012 will be a very FE'ing kind of year!
Oh, and Jay, on spending time with the wife.....you are one lucky SOB for sure...LOL!
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Jay, it's obvious that you put the same sort of effort into relationships as you do in other things.
I just re-read the above and I see it needs re-wording---
Your wisdom regarding your relationships is also reflected in the efforts you put into other pursuits. It's a privilege to know you.
KS
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Yes one lucky SOB pretty much sums it up. I was not so lucky, but hey now I dont have to worry about the other half needing all of my time. So why aint I getting as much work done as Jay? I am just not on my FE's, building a new house myself is time consuming. Hopefully in a year I can get back to work on a few of my cars and go racing.
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Got done with the latest step in the High Riser project this evening. I'm working on the upper portion of the manifold now, and the first step is to build the plates that bolt onto the port plates that bolt onto the heads. I started with 1.25" X 4" 6061 aluminum, and again purchased enough of it so that I could test machine a small section to get the CNC program right. I wanted to make these plates thick enough so that they wouldn't warp too much during the welding operation, and also wanted to machine them so that I could use Mario's idea of an extension of the runner that would be easy to weld to. After making the drawings I calculated the CNC toolpaths, using my 1" ball porting tool for contouring the inside of the runner and the outside, where it necks down for the welding. After I cut the piece I bolted it onto one of the port plates, and it looked pretty good:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/testupr.jpg)
I had one error in the program that caused the welding flange to be a little thin in the lower left area of the port, but that was easy to find and fix, so I chucked up the real part and set up the machine. It ran for about 8 hours yesterday making the first part, and another 8 hours today making the second one. Tonight I bolted the flanges onto the engine:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/upperplt.jpg)
I think they look pretty good, and they sure will be a lot easier to weld to than a flat plate would be. Here's a shot looking down the runner. The first 3.25" of the runners are essentially complete now, except for the final smoothing with a sand roll:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/halfport.jpg)
Next up I'm working on the plates that the runner will weld into to form the plenum. They present some special machining challenges, so it will probably take me a few days to get a test plate completed and confirm the program works before I do the actual plates. But once they are finished, there is nothing keeping me from forming the runners and starting to do the welding on this intake. This has been a lot of work on the machine side, but I think it is coming together nicely, and hopefully it will be worth it in the end.
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That's some nice stuff you're making there Jay.
Why not make the plenum and the runners out of plastic and glue it together?
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Plastic? I'm thinking it may not hold up well to backfires and so forth. I thought about using fiberglass or carbon fiber to make the upper part of the manifold, but I don't have any experience with that stuff in an automotive application, so I think it would be risky. Aluminum is safe and conventional, so I think I'll stick with that for this project.
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Jay,
You're right about the heat issues on a composite intake. You'd need a high temperature resin, like a cynate ester or BMI/polyimide which are expensive and tough to work with. The alternative would be a high temperature epoxy which is easy to work with, but again is pricey. I've thought about making an intake for the FE out of carbon fiber, and while possible, heat has always been the key problem.
Joe
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More progress on the sheet metal intake over the long New Year's weekend. It took me longer than I expected to get the plenum plates machined, but after three test plates I finally got it right, so I put the full size stock in the CNC machine and ran the program. Unfortunately the translation from small test plates to the full size plate revealed an error in the program, and I also made a setup error on the first plate, but it still turned out to be usable. The second plate came out perfectly; here's a couple of photos:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/plnmplt1.jpg)
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/plnmplt2.jpg)
Given the runner length I wanted for the manifold, the plenum had to have a gap between the runners. Rather than extend the plenum down into a point below the runner entry (which I've been told doesn't work well because fuel tends to puddle in the vee), I machined the plates with a flat bottom that is at the same level as the bottom of the runner. The CNC program machined almost all of this area, but I had to finish it by hand with an abrasive porting roll in my die grinder. With the flat bottom, I was able to incorporate some tabs at the bottom of the plenum plates which allowed them to be bolted together. I figured this would make fixturing the intake for welding much easier. Here's a couple photos of the plenum halves bolted together:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/plnmplt3.jpg)
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/plnmplt4.jpg)
Once the plenum plates were finished I started on the runners. Previously I had made some machined aluminum blocks that allowed me to bend the runner shape, half a runner at a time, using 1/8" 5052 aluminum in my hydraulic press. When I pulled these out of the drawer and measured them, though, I realized that they had not been built using the correct radius for this new manifold design. So the runners weren't going to match up well with the ports in the corners. I decided I'd rather make up some new blocks with the correct forms so that the runners would be right. This wasn't too tough to program into my CNC machine, but in order to make the blocks where the runners were pressed as smooth as possible, I had to take very fine cuts with the tool, every .025" down a 6" length for both the positive and negative forming blocks. This took a long time on the machine, but finally yesterday the blocks were done.
Today I started on the runners themselves. I had previously cut 16 aluminum squares, 5.5" on a side, out of the 1/8" thick flat 5052 sheet. One by one I put them in the press with the forms and bent the runner halves into shape. Here's a picture of one of the runners being bent, and a bunch of them completed and ready to machine sitting on the bench:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/runrbend.jpg)
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/bends.jpg)
Bending the plates didn't take long, and I had previously decided that the easiest and most consistent way to trim these plates to the correct size would be in the CNC machine. It didn't take long to write a few little programs to do this, and pretty soon I was machining the bends with the correct angles on the end to keep the runner angle correct with respect to the head port, and also to put a taper on one bend of each pair, to get a slight taper to the runner itself. I ended up having to write six different programs in order to get all the combinations handled, and in fact I still have four bends to finish the machining on, but this all worked pretty well. Late this afternoon I stopped work on the CNC and took four of the runners over to the welding bench. I clamped them together prior to welding and they all fit together real well. I welded the seams on both sides of each runner, and then took them over to the other manifold parts already mocked up on the engine for a test fit.
The test fit did NOT go well LOL! I taped the four runners onto the base of the intake, but when I tried to fit the plenum plates on top they were way, way off! What the heck? I looked at the setup for 10 minutes, trying to figure out what was wrong, but everything seemed to be right. The plenum plates just wouldn't fit.
Finally I pulled up the drawing CAD file that I had made for this intake, and that I was basing all the dimensions off of. First thing I did was recheck the measurements from front corner to front corner of the engine, where the end rail meets the heads. I could have kicked myself; the measurement was just about 10.5", but I had drawn it as 11.5" on my drawing! That was the base dimension for calculating the runner length and designing the plenum, and it was either a measuring error or drawing error on my part that caused the problem.
Fixing this problem was going to be one of two choices. I could either shorten the intake runners until the plenum set down in the correct position, or I could section the flat portion of the plenum and remove one inch, so that it would fit down properly on the runners as they were. I decided to pursue the latter course, because I had messed up the machining on one of the plenum plates anyway, and the part that was messed up was the flat portion. Plus, I didn't want to reduce the runner length because I had that right about where I wanted to get the manifold to tune at 7500 RPM. So, I unbolted the two plenum plates and took them over to the bandsaw, and basically cut the middle flat section out of the plates. Now of course I didn't have bolts holding the plates together, so I took some steel blocks and clamped the plates to them in the correct position, and then welded along the bottom of the seam from the outside of the plenum to stick them together for easier handling.
Back at the engine mock up the modified plenum fit just fine, so I taped it in place to get some pictures. This thing is finally starting to look like a manifold:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/2runner.jpg)
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/plenum.jpg)
This week I should be able to get the remaining four runners machined and welded together, and be ready to tack up the manifold. Before I do that I have to disassemble the valves from the heads, bolt the plates on, and use a sand roll to smooth out the CNC porting marks and match the plates up to the ports in the heads. Then I should be able to tack the whole thing together on the block, before removing it for final welding. I'm planning on using the tacked up manifold as a guide to make the same sort of steel welding fixture that I made when I built my intake for the big SOHC. This will make sure that the manifold stays as square as possible during the welding operation.
Despite making pretty good progress on this intake, it is still taking a lot longer than I had originally anticipated. What a surprise LOL! Hopefully I can get this thing completed sometime in January, and go on to some of the other engine projects that I need to get finished before spring...
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After seeing all the work that's involved, even for yet-to-be-finished manifold, one has a better appreciation of why Hogan Racing Manifolds charges $3,700 to $4,000 for their version.
Gotta be a pain as well to line up both ends of the runners and the plenum correctly before welding. It'll be interesting to see your fixtures here as well.
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...and by that time breakfast was on the table... ;D
KS
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Jay-
I feel your pain on setup errors and programming SNAFU's LOL! What I don't get is how you're doing as well as you are programming by hand.
Without my CAM package and the ability to simulate my toolpaths on the 3D model, I don't know what I'd do...
Looking good!
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Okay now, I'm in, lol. My question concerns how the plenum will be attached and will the runners remain where they're at. I've never really noticed other handmade intakes, but I envision an issue where #1 and #5 being so close that #5 might be suckin' the 'air' out of #1's runner. I'm sure there're more modifications till completion where maybe the plenum box will seperate tgubes' proximity to each other, Rod.
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Nice to see you here, Rod. The runners are going to remain as they are, and sucking air from adjacent cylinders is a concern. This is one reason why I had the plenum plates separated somewhat on the original design, and I would have preferred to keep it that way. But if I left the plenum as it was, I was going to have to cut the runner size down, and I decided that doing that would hurt the design more than moving the runners together as it is done now.
I think the only two cylinders I'm really concerned about in this case are #1 and #5, because they fire consecutively. So, they will both be drawing from the plenum at the same time. Hopefully the plenum will be large enough to support this requirement, and of course there will be a Dominator throttle body directly above these runners feeding them air, which I'm hoping will limit the problems associated with this arrangement.
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I beleive Barry R knows John Marcella quite well. Would it be worthwhile to ask for a recommendation, from what I have seen from John on yellowbullet he would appreciate the work you are going thru to build an intake and might be willing to answer that question? With no science behind my opinion at all I do think there is a concern with 1 & 5 so close together.
I realize a large plenum may mitigate the problem but when # 1 piston starts coming back up and air is still ramming in #5 is just starting to generate some real vacumn as it starts down the hole.
JMHO ;D ;D ;D
That and a toonie will buy you a Tim's (may have to be Canadian to catch that ::) ::) ) ;D
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Yep, that one flew over my head LOL! I'm actually going to be talking to Barry in the next day or two, so I'll ask him if he can connect me with John. But another idea is just to build a second manifold "upper", to test them back to back on the dyno. Using your approach with the unboltable upper I could probably do that with another week or so of work. Something to think about...
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Like Mario, no science behind my opinion but....
I've posted a link showing the stock interior of a BBC plenum (converted to EFI too) and I'll admit to being only familiar with tunnel rams run on BBC/SBC engines (hey, it was long ago..LOL!). But in both cases, the paired intake runners are literally as close as Jay's design and, of course, they also have 2 cylinders that fire in consecutive order w/o any real issues. Yes, the BBC cam makers did invent so to speak the swapped Chevy firing order common now on all-out race BBC and SBC's too for the same reason....better cylinder filling. Yet, the hp gains are alleged to be minimal and some folks have told me it's only on the order of 5-7 hp in at least 600hp engines. Good article too on the how/why although I have zero idea on how many hp a Reher-Morrison Pro Stock engine in the 1,300+ range may gain.
Good to know that another racer maybe be able to shed some light on your efforts before your done.
http://media.photobucket.com/image/chevy%20rat,%20tunnel%20ram,%20interior/mrn2obelvedere/SideViewIntakeShowingInjectorsandRa.jpg
http://www.precisionenginetech.com/tech-explained/2009/06/03/special-firing-order-camshafts/
So a $2 coin will getcha a donut? How's my Canadian, eh?
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(http://i591.photobucket.com/albums/ss358/mrn2obelvedere/SideViewIntakeShowingInjectorsandRa.jpg)
Big difference in the angle of the paired ports, the entrance to the ports on the tunnel ram are flat not facing each other like Jays setup is. The tunnel ram if the throttle bodies bolt on what is show is virtually an individual runner deal, just enough room for some vacumn balance.
Toonie - Canada's $2.00 coin, the $1.00 coin had a loon on it so got called a loonie, so when the $2 came out, toonie
Tim's - Any city or town in Canada has more coffee shops than anything else, most numerous is Tim Horton's. 3000 + in Canada, 600+ in the US
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True and for this intake, point taken!
But, I couldn't find quickly some other interior shots of older SBC/BBC tunnel rams made by Weiand and Edel-B that do have the lower edges much closer together, ala' Jay's, than the one I selected and posted.
After some searching, here's a link to what I was thinking about, the old SBC TR-1 from Edel-B that many ran in the days of yore: http://www.gasserhotrods.com/forum/showthread.php?349-Tunnel-Ram-Question
Anyway, it'll be good to hear from Barry's contact if this does actually pose a problem....I'm sure we all hope not but it remains to be seen. If Jay does end up doing two different plenums, it should prove the point. The bad news is I do remember the advent of the sheetmetal intake era (mainly Pro Stock 351C's) where lots of racers spent a lot of time and effort shaping up many variants,, only to find they often lost hp! It is an art for sure in not only runner i.d. and length but plenum shape, volume, etc.
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For another variation on the plenum discussion, this is my TFS A-460 t-ram after porting done by Wilson manifolds. It has the as cast TFS dual Dominator top runing two 2180 CFM Accufab TB's and port EFI. We ran this motor at Drag Week briefly after making 1006 HP on pump gas.
Its mated to a set 3rd gen TFS A460 heads using a custom CNC program developed by Lem Evans and TFS. The 385 firing order is also 15426378, but when we put it on the engine dyno we found lean out issues at certain RPM's with #2 and #7 using eight AFR sensors in the primaries of the dyno headers. TFS says this is typical. So no issues with 5 and 1. Your results may vary.
(http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh238/CDMBill/DSC00292.jpg)
(http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh238/CDMBill/IMG_1288.jpg)
(http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh238/CDMBill/IMG_1291.jpg)
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Bill, the inside of your manifold's plenum looks just about the same as what I wanted mine to look like. Unfortunately the runner length didn't work so I could leave it like that. Do you know how long your intake runners are? How long is the port in the head, on a centerline from the port opening to the valve seat, and then how long is the runner in the intake? I'm curious about the length from plenum to valve, and how it compares to mine. This dimension on my intake is 13".
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Wow. Some beautiful work going on there all round. Makes you feel very amatuerish reading through this thread. Well done and good luck.
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Looking good, Jay! One thing I found with your radius on other manifolds was that the air wants to cling to the wall where it does not have the radius. Kinda like a water fall. I found if I had any break in the turn, then airflow increased. What I am trying to say is that if you could complete the radius all the way around the opening, I believe you will have a better transition into the runner, and would not have any puddling in the plenum bottom. I know the picture of the TFS does not have a complete radius around each runner, but I still have seen that kind of ledge decrease airflow over a complete radius, even a small lip would be better than nothing. JMO, flow tested and verified on Hogan, Comp Cams Plenum box, Sheet metal intakes, and aluminum spacers. Joe-JDC.
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Thanks for the heads-up on that Joe, I will work a little more on that lower radius.
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Keep wanting to throw my 2 cents in and had a thought. LOL
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v660/Mario428/Intakerunner.jpg)
Runner with a curve, flattens the angle where the port goes into the plenum and gives some separation maintaining the same length.
Biggest problem is it requires a left and right hand runner section
I would also make the forming dies from UHMW polyethylene, very easy to mahine and more than strong enough if you use a fairly large section
http://www.mcmaster.com/#uhmw-polyethylene-sheets/=forv6h
They sell reasonably price ballnose end mill too for the corners, only need hi speed steel for alum & UHMW
5/8 part # 3046A44 on http://www.mcmaster.com/#end-mills/=forw55
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Another interesting idea, but I've wanted to stay away from curved runners. As I understand it, it has been fairly conclusively shown that curves in the runners cost horsepower via airflow reduction and fuel distribution issues. All the modern tunnel ram style intakes, like sheet metal manifolds, use a straight runner rather than a curved runner.
On my SOHC sheet metal intake, to get the runner length I want I plan to machine a filler piece for the plenum that puts a curve in the runner inside the plenum itself. It will be required because the port on the SOHC is so short that the runner length going up to the plenum puts the tuning of the runners around 8800 RPM, and I'm not going to be spinning the engine that high. The filler piece that curves the runners in the plenum will allow me to stack plates up on top of it, to extend the runner lengths for tuning purposes. But under the plenum the runner will still be straight, and that's where the fuel will be injected. So that design is kind of a compromise, because the air will have to turn in the plenum, but the fuel will be in a straight line airstream.
Thanks anyway for the thought, Mario, and the information on the material. If I ever needed to make a curved piece that would be a good way to go.
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It's my understanding too that straight runners are the hot ticket for drag racing engines that use carbs at the very top of the common plenum and, as stated, curves in runners cost hp due to airflow reduction and fuel distribution issues.
But, is this really true (fuel distribution at least) if one is running a port-injected EFI system?
I'm just thinking of the many heavily-folded curves in an late 80's-1994 OEM 5.0 Windsor engine with mass air. In essence, the intake only handles air and of course the fuel is added via an injector just before the head runner starts. I guess my point is if your not running carbs does using a curved runner (with EFI bungs/injectors down low on the intake runners) really hurt performance? Maybe that fella Barry R is setting you up with would know...just like I'm sure the rest of us here would too!
Another interesting idea, but I've wanted to stay away from curved runners. As I understand it, it has been fairly conclusively shown that curves in the runners cost horsepower via airflow reduction and fuel distribution issues. All the modern tunnel ram style intakes, like sheet metal manifolds, use a straight runner rather than a curved runner.
On my SOHC sheet metal intake, to get the runner length I want I plan to machine a filler piece for the plenum that puts a curve in the runner inside the plenum itself. It will be required because the port on the SOHC is so short that the runner length going up to the plenum puts the tuning of the runners around 8800 RPM, and I'm not going to be spinning the engine that high. The filler piece that curves the runners in the plenum will allow me to stack plates up on top of it, to extend the runner lengths for tuning purposes. But under the plenum the runner will still be straight, and that's where the fuel will be injected. So that design is kind of a compromise, because the air will have to turn in the plenum, but the fuel will be in a straight line airstream.
Thanks anyway for the thought, Mario, and the information on the material. If I ever needed to make a curved piece that would be a good way to go.
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I think it is probably largely correct that the fuel distribution would not be an issue if you injected at the port. However, if you have ever looked inside an injected sheet metal intake, you will see it gets wet with fuel in there. So, despite the injector location, fuel moves around in the intake, and will therefore be subject to some extent to the airflow issues inside.
Also, with this intake I will be positioning the injectors as high up on the runner as possible. The advantage that carbs have over injectors in these applications is that the fuel acts to cool the air/fuel charge as it leaves the carb and travels down the runner to the port. When you inject right at the port, there is less time for this cooling to take place, so a port injected engine where the injector is very close to the port will be down on peak power a little as compared to the carbs. On the other hand, if you position the injectors up high on the runner, you get most of this effect back, albeit with less low speed control. As I understand it, Formula 1 engines put the injectors up at the top of the plenum, where the carb would normally be, in order to maximize this effect.
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The cooling effect is present for sure. Interesting that you've decided to mount the injectors high up, ala' a carb's exit of an air & fuel mix, a nice move for sure. Then straight runners for sure.
Forgot about the F-1 engineers doing the same to those high winding engines.
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Fuel distribution IS an issue with direct port injection, just as it is with carbs, because of reversion, resonance, and boundary layer effects on the fuel in suspension in the airflow. Below is datalog of the same 588" 385 motor I mentioned in an earlier post. The datalog is from an engine dyno pull where we used eight AFR sensors mounted in the primary tubes of the dyno headers.
The tested RPM range is from 4500 - 7500 although the graph covers roughly 3500 to almost 8000. Look at Cylinder #2, the Red line in the bottom graph. During a WOT pull it goes as low as 10.7:1 AFR, and then 2 seconds later it's running at 13.5:1. The mid line is 12.5 AFR.
Cylinder numbering:
Top Graph: (Yellow=1, Blue=3, Purple=5, Green=7)
Bottom Graph: (Red=2, White=4, Blue=6, Yellow=8)
You'll see the traces for each cylinder move around quite a bit but variation narrows at around 5500 rpm through 7500 which is the target WOT operating RPM.
You can see a video of the setup here: http://www.bangshift.com/blog/Dyno-Video-A-598ci-1014hp-Ford-Big-Block.html
(http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh238/CDMBill/Bill_Fowler.jpg)
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Bill, that is great data! This must be the 'geek' setup at work? Where in the headers did you put the O2 sensors? I need to get bungs welded into my headers so Scott can put that setup on my high riser, but I'm not sure where they should be positioned.
Edit: Never mind, I just watched the video and got a look.
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Great detail, Bill. I guess one could expect some variations in the a/f ratio in any intake at any rpm but it's amazing just how much it bounces from one reading to another, let alone cylinder-to-cylinder variation. Helps explain technically too why those who tried to run a T-ram on the street (I didn't but had folks ask me to look at their setup) had a devil of a time with lean/rich running and poor low engine speed performance.
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I think it is probably largely correct that the fuel distribution would not be an issue if you injected at the port. However, if you have ever looked inside an injected sheet metal intake, you will see it gets wet with fuel in there. So, despite the injector location, fuel moves around in the intake, and will therefore be subject to some extent to the airflow issues inside.
Also, with this intake I will be positioning the injectors as high up on the runner as possible. The advantage that carbs have over injectors in these applications is that the fuel acts to cool the air/fuel charge as it leaves the carb and travels down the runner to the port. When you inject right at the port, there is less time for this cooling to take place, so a port injected engine where the injector is very close to the port will be down on peak power a little as compared to the carbs. On the other hand, if you position the injectors up high on the runner, you get most of this effect back, albeit with less low speed control. As I understand it, Formula 1 engines put the injectors up at the top of the plenum, where the carb would normally be, in order to maximize this effect.
Jay, can you say E85? Low injector AND superior cooling! (Just a thought)
KS
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Availability of E85 is the problem. Used to be fairly common in my area, but it has mostly disappeared. Beyond that, there is no guarantee that it will be available on a road trip (for example, on Drag Week).
I have thought about running methanol, with a dual fuel system that uses methanol at the track and pump gas on the street. There are some cool ways you can do that with a cleverly applied EFI system, but so far I haven't ventured down that path.
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Jay, you asked about runner length and other dimensions. The length from the plenum wall to the back of the valve is approx. 11.5". Plenum volume is approx. 625 cu/in. after porting without including the small area under the TB's in the top plate.
As you saw, I'm working with a cast manifold which is good from a dollars perspective but is somewhat one size fits all. IIRC It was originally developed for 500 Cu/in. NHRA Pro Stock way back in the day, but like the heads, has gone through some modest changes along the way.
PipeMax says they could be a bit longer for the displacement and RPM, but not much, and with the porting and the match to the cylinder heads, the taper is real close and I was pleased with the results given the compressed time frame and budget constraints I'd placed on the build.
Obviously you know that da Geek was involved, thank goodness, and I benefitted from their EMC experience. I welded the bungs into Dougan's dyno headers 12" from the port with the same orientation as much as possible. (Nice guys to let me hack on their dyno headers) I've replicated the bungs now on the in car headers, but the locations are not quite as uniform as I have to deal with installing/removing the eight sensors from the tight confines of a fully chassis dyno ready car.
Machoneman: I was frankly surprised that idle quality and drivability were as good as they are with the T-Ram and dual 2180 CFM TB's. In part I think it was because our baseline tune had a lot of drivabilty work done on the previous version of the engine which was only 6 cu/in smaller but had a single big TB on a tall single plane manifold and a slightly smaller cam.
Secondly, we went from an in neutral idle RPM of 1200 up to 1300 and the car has a pretty high stall converter in it at the moment which masks a lot of low speed stuff. BTW the cam is 282/294/113 with .830 lift. I am likely used to some less than ideal NVH in my supposed street car, but that's road we've gone down trying to be competitive at Drag Week with big heavy cars. That said doing this with EFI is way easier on gas and with far better manners than an equivalent dual four barrel carb set-up.
One last note, it was almost impossible to watch eight AFR readouts during a pull. We tuned off the two sensors in the collectors for the most part, but the addition of the eight AFR's in the primaries along with eight EGT's really helped fill in the gaps.
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Good to know. But an .800+ lift "street" cam? Wow, I'd be chicken to try that for sure. I can only guess 50% nitro would be next...LOL!
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One last note, it was almost impossible to watch eight AFR readouts during a pull. We tuned off the two sensors in the collectors for the most part, but the addition of the eight AFR's in the primaries along with eight EGT's really helped fill in the gaps.
Having all eight AFR readouts seems like it would point towards individual injector tuning as the next logical step in really dialing in the engine. Unfortunately the ems-pro doesn't have the capability, but the FAST and BigStuff3 setups have it, because they can go to full sequential. I was actually contemplating a switch to a BigStuff3 setup at one point, because I wanted to maintain the full sequential capability of the FAST setup but still be able to run the Ford trigger wheel. The Geek, and the price, talked me out of it. Seeing your data, though, I can see where there is power to be had with individual injector tuning. Besides that, it would be loads of fun to vary one injector on the dyno and see what changed. Hmmmm....
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Since I run a stand-alone methanol injection system to act both as the fuel with my 'spray' system and as a chemical intercooler to augment turbo boost on my Land Speed car, I can tell you that the use of methanol will open up a whole new world of experimentation/tuning when you get to that point. Methanol is VERY forgiving in terms of air/fuel ratios, clear to the point of having to be careful of hydraulic lock. When you have other things in place and start experimenting with methanol you'll wonder why you took so long to get there!
KS
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Jay: I bought an MS3X unit before DW11 and we used it with the eight AFR setup, but we didn't have time set up and transfer the tune. I had built the harnesses etc. buit time got thight. That video dyno session was four days before I loaded up to go to Kansas, not quite as bad as your thrash, but close.
The MS# will of course handle individual cylinder fuel and spark as well as a bunch more datalog capability.
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I have been keeping an eye on this build since the beginning but had not posted here before. Simply mind boggling work. Love it!
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Jay: I bought an MS3X unit before DW11 and we used it with the eight AFR setup, but we didn't have time set up and transfer the tune. I had built the harnesses etc. buit time got thight. That video dyno session was four days before I loaded up to go to Kansas, not quite as bad as your thrash, but close.
The MS# will of course handle individual cylinder fuel and spark as well as a bunch more datalog capability.
Hmmmm, I was not aware of the MS3X. I will look into that controller. Thanks for the heads up, Bill!
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Doc (Seered) went to that for DW 2011 and DG has a very good handle on it now. Its one of Matt Cramer's products. Not the same source as the EMS-Pro, that one is coming I'm told.
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Bill's correct, I am a lot more comfortable with MS3X now that we finished EMC, Doc's car, etc.
Jay you'll like it because there are a ton of other inputs you can log. On Doc's car we're picking up Oil Temp, Oil Pressure, Fuel Pressure, Vehicle Speed on top of the usual Coolant temp, Air Temp, MAP, TPS, etc. It has an SD card for datalogging, there were a few bugs with the logging back in October but it appears those bugs are worked out. He has a switch on the dash to toggle between his E85 tune (track) and gasoline tune (street/highway). Doc is happy with how it performed.
DIYAutotune.com supplies them.
As usual, Jay, let me know when I can schedule a visit so we can set it up and have some fun tuning 8 1-cylinder engines on your dyno :-)
-Scott
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Hey Bill, do you have some pics of your LSR car and engine available? Or, maybe a link to a site where we could gaze on them?
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If that question is addressed to me, you can get a few rudimentary pictures by going to LVC Forum and looking in the sub-section labeled as 'LS High Performance.' There's a running commentary of my slow efforts to go from E Fuel Competition Coupe/sedan to E Blown Fuel Competition Coupe/sedan. There are some photos along about the fifteenth or sixteenth post. The record can be viewed at the ECTA website. Perhaps a whole new ball game now that it'll no longer be necessary to tow clear to North Carolina and instead just go to the general Cleveland, Ohio area.
KS
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Thanks, I'll do that CammerFE (sorry, I mistakenly said Bill).
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Well, Jay, I was hoping you would be the first to get a FE to break the 1000 HP with a verifiable dyno pull, but apparently not----SO how about the first FE to break 1100 NA? DOABLE??? :-X Joe-JDC
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I think it's do-able with a cammer, but not with a wedge. For what it's worth, I try to design all my engines so they will run on pump gas around town. As a result I'm giving away some potential power from compression, and also not being on the ragged edge on the cam.
My target is actually 1000 HP on pump gas. THAT would be cool...
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Got back on the high riser project this week, and managed to get most of the tough stuff done on the intake manifold. I still have a lot of work to do on it, but the initial welding is complete, and thanks to my jig and carefully machined parts, it seems to have weathered this part of the build just fine, with no extreme warping to worry about.
During the evenings this week I spent some time trimming up the runner assemblies in the mill to make them all identical, so that I would have minimal problems with fit. I also bolted the port plates and the intake manifold base plates to the heads, and used some sand rolls to remove the CNC tooling marks inside the runners, and smooth everything out so they lined up perfectly with the ports in the heads. It was cool to be able to do this; when I got done it looked like the port runners were a single piece, except where the gasket was between the port plates and the heads.
Friday night with a full weekend in front of me I spent the evening tacking the runners to the intake manifold base plates. I wanted to be able to move them around a little if necessary, so I didn't weld them completely, just ran about a 3/4" long bead along the bottom of the runner to hold it securely in place for fitting the plenum plates. Then I bolted the heads, port plates, and manifold base plates to the engine, with the head gaskets installed but without the intake manifold gaskets. My thinking here was that I wanted to make the intake manifold wider than necessary, to give me some room to machine the manifold base plates in case they warped during the welding operation and needed to be planed. Here's a couple photos of the engine with all this stuff installed:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/runners1.jpg)
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/runners2.jpg)
Saturday I started by taking my two plenum plates, which I had previously welded together into a V, and tried to fit them on the runners. They were close, but sat up about 1/8" too high. If you look at the previous photos I posted you can see that the plenum plates have the runner entrance machined into them, with about 1/4" of each runner extending out of the plates, to make welding to the formed runners easier. I took the welded plenum plate and stuck it in the mill, and cut .125" off the extensions on the plates. Back on the engine the plenum plates now fit almost perfectly.
I weighted down the plenum plates on the runners to keep them stable, and started welding the runners to the plenum plates. After getting all eight runners tacked, I continued welding as far around the runners as possible, both up at the plenum plates and down at the manifold base plate on each side. When I finally got done, about 2/3 of the welding was finished.
My original plan had been to unbolt the manifold from the port plates at this point, and use it as a pattern for a jig to be used for welding the remaining seams. I had a brief urge to just tear the manifold off the engine and finish welding it on the bench, without the benefit of the jigs, but after thinking it over for a little while, and remembering how much time I had into the manifold port plates, runners and plenum plates, I decided I'd better not chance it. So, I grabbed the 4" angle iron and 2X3 square steel tubing I'd purchased for the jig and set about building it. After cutting the steel to length I put the 4" angle iron in the CNC machine and drilled the holes to match the manifold base plates, then tapped the holes for 3/8-16 bolts. Finally I bolted the partially welded intake to the angle iron, set it on the square steel tubing, and welded the angle iron to the square steel. Here's a photo of the partially welded intake on the jig:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/intkfxtr.jpg)
Now that the jig was done I was able to complete welding on the intake. I flipped the jig over to get access to all the runners for welding. Just like on my SOHC sheet metal intake, this gave me excellent access for welding, and it was not problem to get the manifold welded up.
Over the course of the last few weeks I've been rethinking the oiling system on this engine. I had planned to use a stock type oil pump, and drive it with a "half distributor", which would be a partial distributor shaft that bolted into the distributor's location, and connected the cam gear on the cam with the oil pump drive shaft. One problem with this design was that where the half distributor (or a full distributor for that matter) came through the intake manifold, there was always a vacuum leak when I tried to run a crankcase vacuum pump. Bill Fowler had been telling me about his Peterson external oil pump, so I decided to look into one of those. I liked what I found out; the pump sucked out from a line at the bottom of the oil pan, but also could be ordered with some scavenge stages that essentially created crankcase vacuum. Using this setup I could eliminate the half distributor and the external vacuum pump, and also the potential vacuum leak at the half distributor location in the manifold. I made the decision to go forward with this setup. As a result of that, I decided to machine a new valley cover plate, one without the distributor hole, to completely seal up that potential leak. Here's a photo of the new valley cover plate installed on the engine, with the port plates:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/pporing.jpg)
In the photo above you can see that with the extra room created by the lack of the distributor hole I was able to make the Ford logo bigger, which I thought was pretty cool. Also you can see the Viton O-rings installed on the port plate, in preparation for installation of the manifold.
Finally, after the manifold cooled down today I bolted it back onto the engine to see how it fit after the final welding. It appeared that the mating surfaces were still pretty flat, but that the entire manifold had shrunk just a little bit. The ports and bolts still lined up perfectly though, and I still had the port plates installed without the .060" thick intake gaskets. So I think that once they are installed, the manifold may fit pretty well as is. Worst case it looks like I might have to take .010" or .020" off the mating surfaces. Here's a photo of the manifold installed on the engine:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/vplenm.jpg)
Next up is the finish porting work inside the runners where they meet the plenum plates and port plates, and then installing the injector bungs and welding them and the fuel rail brackets in place. Then I'll be able to finish the plenum of the intake and start thinking about the top plate to mount the Dominator throttle bodies. I'm looking forward to seeing the whole thing put together! I'll post more photos as I make progress.
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As I started reading your post, I thought that if it were me I would make the manifold base plates a little wider to allow you to machine it flat to compensate for welding warpage.
I then read on and saw that you thought the same thing.
It looks like it was a very good idea. :D
I can imagine that aluminum would want to move around quite a bit as even thin steel will warp/move when welded.
I have never heard of the Peterson pump before this, that is quite the deal to be able to eliminate the vacuum pump.
Looks like it's really coming together! 8)
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After being out of the country for a couple of weekends, and then spending last weekend recuperating from the jet lag, it felt good to get back out to the shop and get some work accomplished this weekend. Picking up where I'd left off on the sheet metal intake manifold, I decided the next step was to get the injector bungs welded into the runners. First I cut some 3/4" aluminum bar into 1.75" lengths for the bungs, and then drilled them in the lathe with a 17/32 bit to fit the injectors. Next, I fixtured the upper intake manifold in the CNC machine and plunged a hole into each runner with a 1/2" end mill, then enlarged it to 3/4". Using the same runner to runner dimensions that I'd used to bore the runner holes, I put the holes for the injectors into the fuel rails. There's a special tool required for this, available from Kinsler fuel injection, so I had bought the tool and the blank fuel rail from them before going off to Europe. After the fuel rails had the matching holes bored in them, I used a couple of dummy aluminum fuel injectors that I had built for the previous sheet metal intake and fixtured the fuel rails and injector bungs onto the manifold. This was kind of a tedious process, and it was problematic because the injector bungs kept wanting to slide down through the holes in the manifold, but after persevering for a while I finally got all eight injector bungs tacked in place. After finish welding, the upper manifold now looked like this:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/bungs.jpg)
At this point I removed the upper manifold from the jig and spent a few hours with the die grinder smoothing out the internal passages where the runners met the plenum plates and port plates, and also where the injector bungs protruded into the runners. This particular job is the worst part of the whole process if you ask me, because it seems to go so slow, but finally I got the runners and the bottom of the plenum looking like I wanted them to look. Bolting the manifold back on the jig, I cut the pieces required for the remainder of the plenum and tacked them together:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/sides.jpg)
Finally I took some 1/2" square aluminum bar and made the side rails for the top of the intake, and tacked them in place. Once this was finished up, I just had to fry it all together. My aluminum welding is still suspect, but I felt pretty good about welding a leak free plenum because the beads seemed to flow into the aluminum pretty nicely during this process. I welded all around the outside of the intake, and also on the inside, sealing up any crevices where fuel might puddle and cause driveability or inconsistent mixture issues. Overall I think it came out reasonably well, given my limited welding skills:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/rail.jpg)
Finally, I put the injectors and fuel rails in place on the manifold, and cut four small pieces of 1/2" square aluminum bar to use for attaching the fuel rail to the manifold. After welding these in place, I took the manifold off the fixture and put it on the engine, along with all the other sheet metal intake pieces I needed for this setup:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/sioneng.jpg)
The only thing left to do on the manifold upper is to machine the top mounting surface flat, and to cut about .030" off each manifold mating surface so it will fit properly on the port plates. After this is completed, I have to machine a top plate for the manifold to mount the two throttle bodies, and then I am pretty much done with this intake. With luck I'll be finished up sometime in the next week or so. I'll post some pictures of the finished product when I get done.
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Jay,
For all of us that have zero interest whatsoever in SOHC Fe's, I'd like to say thank you for this thread.
It is awesome and something that many of us can aspire to.
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Getting close to firing Minky up. ::)
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Well, I don't know about that, Howie, but I am supposed to be getting the new pistons this week...
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At the speed that I am building my lowly Geny your Minky will
be on a rebuild cycle by the time I get mine fired up.
I did buy a very nice oil pump for it from Scrap Iron and have made the cam choice
so things are moving. At molasses pace in Feb.
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Been making more progress lately on the high riser engine, and I've almost got everything mocked up for final assembly. A couple weekends ago I got the upper intake on the mill and machined the flanges so that they were flat and square. I did end up having to take about .050" off each one to get them to fit properly, but when I finished the ports in the upper manifold line up perfectly with the ports in the port plates. Here's a shot of the intake on the Bridgeport:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/millintk.jpg)
After milling the flanges I milled the top flange flat where the cover plate bolts on. Part of this operation was to mill a groove in the top for an O-ring for sealing the top plate to the flange. After I got this groove cut I took some 1/8" O-ring cord and cut it to the correct length, then butt glued the ends together; I think this is going to work out real well for sealing the flange. Finally I drilled the holes in the flange for bolting the cover plate in place, about every 2 1/2".
I transferred the pattern for the bolt holes to a plate of 1/2" aluminum and then made up the cover plate on the CNC machine. On the bottom side of the cover plate, where the throttle bodies mounted, I used a 3/8" corner rounding end mill to radius the holes where the throttle bores come through the plate. For the most part this finished up the intake; here's a photo of the manifold bolted on with the cover plate and throttle bodies set in place:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/intakon.jpg)
After this was done I started working on the coil mounting brackets. This is a fairly involved part for a distributor-less engine, and I didn't want to take the normal course that most people take and mount the coils on the valve covers. So, I designed a bracket to hold four coils on each side, and set it up to rubber mount to a couple of tabs that would bolt to two of the holes on each side of the intake. I added some fins and some lettering the brackets to spice them up a little bit. Here's a photo of one of the completed brackets, sitting on top of the engine:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/coilbrk1.jpg)
Here's a shot showing how the brackets bolt onto the engine:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/coilbrk2.jpg)
After mounting both brackets and then mounting the coils on the brackets, I decided to cut and install the spark plug wires to see how it would all look together. Here's a couple of pictures of the engine at this point; I think it looks pretty good:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/coilwire.jpg)
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/coilfrnt.jpg)
Finally, today I got started on making up some mounts for my new water pump. I had decided to go electric a while back, but the standard Meziere electric pump wasn't recommended by Meziere for an engine over about 650 horsepower. So, after doing a little research I decided to purchase a higher capacity pump for a 385 series Ford engine, and adapt it to the FE. Today I took some measurements off the pump and designed a 2" thick spacer to do the job. I started by turning a 4.5" diameter aluminum bar in my lathe into kind of a spool shape, as shown in the photo below:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/spool.jpg)
Next I stuck the part in the CNC and machined the side that bolts onto the engine block. After flipping it over and re-indexing the part, I started machining the other side, but fairly quickly it became apparent that I had made a setup error, and was not cutting the water pump side of the spacer correctly. I figured out the problem and fixed it, but this was going to have to be a test piece, rather than one I could use. Here's a picture of the botched spacer:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/wpspacer.jpg)
Nevertheless, I was able to test it out for mounting purposes, and it seemed to fit pretty well. Here's a picture of the water pump mounted on one side with the spacer:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/wpmount.jpg)
The whole engine, mocked up to this point, is shown below:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/mockup.jpg)
I have a plan for making the alternator bracket, and will try to start on that this week after finishing up the water pump spacers. I also expect to be getting my Peterson oil pump in the next week or two, and have some ideas on how I will mount that on the lower passenger side of the engine. The only other thing I need to get finished up is mounting the fuel pressure regulator and running the fuel lines, and the engine will be able to be completely assembled when the pistons arrive.
Also this week I got my new valves, which are hollow stem Ferreas that weigh 112 grams on the intake and 114 grams on the exhaust; this is about 30 grams lighter than the Manley valves I have now. Along with the valves came the cam, springs, retainers, locks, and valve seals. I need to get the valves ground to fit the heads and measure for pushrods once I have the valvetrain mocked up with the new valves. But this project is moving right along, and I'm hoping to be able to dyno the engine towards the end of April. I'll post more updates when I have them.
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aww hell, now you're just showing off.
seriously, looks awesome, can't wait to hear it run!
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Looks great Jay!
All that machined aluminum reminds me of the old Miller racing engines.
Can you see the resemblance?
(http://www.milleroffy.com/zborowski_engine.jpg)
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Jay, the Jag engine for my land speed car is distributor-less and makes use of a coil-on-plug layout. The problem is that the individual coils are about the same size as your thumb and are prone to failure. I'd therefore decided to make use of the same sort of arrangement you are using. What is the source of the coils you are showing in the pictures above? Thanx!!!
KS
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Jeez Louise that stuff looks good Jay. I think you need to dress the welds on the runner tubes as they just don't match up blingwise. No knock on the welding, its just everthing else is so CNC/milled etc.
The adapted Mezeire pump idea is very cool and nicely ececuted.
Is there any need to pull water from the back of the cylinder heads to the front? I've done that for awhile now based on inut from Jon Kaase, I don't know if that applies to the version of the FE heads you are running. I've seen a lot a variation in the set-up. I have #8 lines, but I know some other very succesful guys with big Brand C engines that use #4. Supposed to even out chamber temps and eleimnate hot pockets and air bubbles.
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Jay, the Jag engine for my land speed car is distributor-less and makes use of a coil-on-plug layout. The problem is that the individual coils are about the same size as your thumb and are prone to failure. I'd therefore decided to make use of the same sort of arrangement you are using. What is the source of the coils you are showing in the pictures above? Thanx!!!
KS
I'm buying the race coils from DIY Auto Tune, www.diyautotune.com. Here is a link:
http://www.diyautotune.com/catalog/ign1a-race-coil-p-394.html
You also have to buy the connectors for the coils:
http://www.diyautotune.com/catalog/crimp-connector-for-ign1a-p-395.html
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Jeez Louise that stuff looks good Jay. I think you need to dress the welds on the runner tubes as they just don't match up blingwise. No knock on the welding, its just everthing else is so CNC/milled etc.
The adapted Mezeire pump idea is very cool and nicely ececuted.
Is there any need to pull water from the back of the cylinder heads to the front? I've done that for awhile now based on inut from Jon Kaase, I don't know if that applies to the version of the FE heads you are running. I've seen a lot a variation in the set-up. I have #8 lines, but I know some other very succesful guys with big Brand C engines that use #4. Supposed to even out chamber temps and eleimnate hot pockets and air bubbles.
Bill, I'm hoping that once I get done buffing the intake manifold with some of those balled up Scotchbrite pads in a die grinder that it will be closer to the bling of the machined pieces. If not, maybe I'll grind the welds some, but I doubt I'll go that far. Speaking of bling, I was thinking about painting between the fins on the valve covers, coil brackets, and manifold valley cover to make those parts pop a little bit more. Maybe red, to match the plug wires? Or Ford blue? Or would paint in those areas be too much?
I know absolutely nothing about running coolant from the back of the heads to improve performance or even out cooling. But if Jon Kaase does it, I'd better pay attention :D Can you outline the performance advantages? Is it just to keep the coolant temperatures more consistent around the chambers?
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This stuff started with the Chevy Nascar heads years ago when they had heat issues with the center pair of exhaust ports. I first noticed it with Jon Kaase's winning Pontiac engine at Engine Masters seven years ago where he pulled waterout the back and center of the intake. he did the same on his winning 385 motor for EMC and most of the competitors do it now.
The theory covers several bases: ensuring there are no trapped air pockets at back of the engine under normal filling, and, keeping a larger volume of water flow moving more evenly across all of the combustion chambers to deal with the greater heat loads of high output engines. A lot of aftermarket heads have revised (shrunken) water passages to allow for agressive porting, varies head to head obviously. This also involved opening up some of the water passage holes in the gaskets to take adavantage of the supplemental water flow routes. Kaase has a recommended set of sizes and Cometic makes a 385 series gasket with those larger holes. The pictures below are the fittings I added at the front of my manifold and there is a similar pair at the back connected by #8 Earl's PerformoFlex hose (weighs less, way easier to fabricate)
Hoepfully some FE head experts here will weigh in on the vaibility, necessity or lack thereof.
(http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh238/CDMBill/Cooling%20Project/106d888a.jpg)
(http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh238/CDMBill/Cooling%20Project/c6d421f9.jpg)
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Blue anodize on the valley cover and coil brackets? Don't know that I've ever seen that done. Would really make the Ford oval pop.
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Hmmmm, anodize.... I hadn't thought about that; I was thinking more powder coating, since I already have the powder coating equipment. Anodizing would be really cool. I will have to look into that...
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Hey, I like all the ideas. But, blue striping and red wires might clash a tad. Your fix on how to mount the coils is a great one as it cleans up the covers a bunch and allows them to be easily seen. The Chevy LS series comes to mind as those right-on-top-of-the-covers coil packs really look dumb and almost totally hide the covers!
On anodizing, I like that too but that would make the covers (or intake and/or valley shield) all one color and I think that might hide that nice fin work. But, I guess if say the covers were red and you carefully sanded down the fin edges you'd have that nice contrast again.
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Jay that engine just screams "Take Me to Engine Masters".. I think I could still get you a spot.
RB
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"Setup Error". Those two words I know too well. Don't you hate that, especially on the last operation of a complex part??? :-\
Looking good Jay!
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As to colors, the Red on your SOHC motor looks real good, given my usual tendency towards black or Ford Blue they would be my normal choices. But blue with Red wires, uh, no.
Any other color wires out there? I know its spending money twice.
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Jay that engine just screams "Take Me to Engine Masters".. I think I could still get you a spot.
RB
Gee Royce, you must have a lot of pull with the EM guys LOL! Unfortunately, about the time that Engine Masters rolls around I hope to be savoring my victory at Drag Week 2012, with the high riser engine still installed in the car and cooling from the event :D
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"Setup Error". Those two words I know too well. Don't you hate that, especially on the last operation of a complex part??? :-\
Looking good Jay!
Glad I'm not the only one having that problem...
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As to colors, the Red on your SOHC motor looks real good, given my usual tendency towards black or Ford Blue they would be my normal choices. But blue with Red wires, uh, no.
Any other color wires out there? I know its spending money twice.
I kind of thought that blue with red wires would be patriotic ::) Or not. Buying new blue wires would be OK, but I kind of like the idea of red in between all the fins. Gotta do more thinking on this; does it matter though? I'm not a show car guy...
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Put some high-temp socks on the wires...problem solved. ;D
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Jay that engine just screams "Take Me to Engine Masters".. I think I could still get you a spot.
RB
Gee Royce, you must have a lot of pull with the EM guys LOL! Unfortunately, about the time that Engine Masters rolls around I hope to be savoring my victory at Drag Week 2012, with the high riser engine still installed in the car and cooling from the event :D
You realize we both have a ways to go to beat the car that won the last two years. Although there is a rumor it's not legal for Street Race BB/NA and would be in Super Street Race BB/NA where you are about even with him given the Galaxie's performance in previous years.
As long as a Blue Oval car is in the Winners Circle I'm happy.
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I knew that comment would get a rise out of you Bill :D Frankly, I'd be happy too, as long as the Ford in the winner's circle was FORD powered. Didn't the guy who won last year run 9.70s? Or was he faster than that?
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Jay, I would leave it all raw aluminum, no paint. The aluminum looks too cool to cover up. Plus paint adds weight!
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If the High Riser is going in the galaxie, then red accent paint would look very cool with your red interior. I like shine, but paint is cooler---literally. Joe-JDC.
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Actually I plan to put the high riser in my 69 Mach 1, the green one in my signature picture. Blue would probably be better, but I do like the red...
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Jay, I would leave it all raw aluminum, no paint. The aluminum looks too cool to cover up. Plus paint adds weight!
Color or not - make sure someone gives me the heads-up when it's dyno time!! that engine looks awesome! we must run the 8-O2 sensor rig and give this manifold a fair shake :)
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Don't worry, Scott, you are in the plan. In fact I just got my Megasquirt and wiring harness this week...
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Jay, the Jag engine for my land speed car is distributor-less and makes use of a coil-on-plug layout. The problem is that the individual coils are about the same size as your thumb and are prone to failure. I'd therefore decided to make use of the same sort of arrangement you are using. What is the source of the coils you are showing in the pictures above? Thanx!!!
KS
Hi KS,
The IGN1-A coils Jay uses have onboard transistors (also called ignitors), where your OEM-style coils might not. There are versions of this same coil without the transistors, make sure to ID which type you need before purchasing,
-Scott
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Got some new parts!
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/530pist.jpg)
These are CP pistons I got through Blair Patrick Racing. They aren't coated yet, because I'm going to mock them up in the engine and check piston to valve clearance before I go ahead with the coating. They are nearly a flat top, with only about a .035" high dome outboard of the valve pockets. They weigh 557 grams each, and the pins weigh another 152 grams. 8000 RPM!
I also got the rings for the pistons. What I had been hoping for on the rings was to go to a .043/.043/3mm ring package. However, as it turned out those thin rings were not available in my rather peculiar 4.39" bore size. So Blair set me up with a different ring package, using dykes rings. I've never used dykes rings before, so it will be interesting to see how the engine works out with them. For those who are not familiar with dykes rings, they use a narrowed down inner ring profile to reduce the ring tension, while still leaving a fairly wide ring area on the cylinder wall. Here's a photo of one of the rings, showing this unique cross section:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/dykes.jpg)
A few weeks ago, Woody Owens contacted me about an FE crank spacer with a built in gilmer drive pulley for the FE, available from Aviad. I had never seen one before. It didn't dawn on me when I was emailing Woody that I could maybe use something like that to run the Peterson external oil pump I need to fit on the engine. After looking at the picture that Woody sent, I decided to call Aviaid and order one. Here's a photo:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/crnkslev.jpg)
This spacer puts the oil pump drive out of the way, back behind the harmonic balancer. It has 26 teeth. I like it because it will make the mounting of the oil pump on the engine much more compact.
I'm planning to finish up the water pump spacer machining this weekend and get to work on mocking up the short block to check for p-v clearance. Should be fun...
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Beautiful work Jay. I loved the cammer builds as much as the next guy, but this wedge is awesome. Can't wait to see the results
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Got some new parts!
A few weeks ago, Woody Owens contacted me about an FE crank spacer with a built in gilmer drive pulley for the FE, available from Aviad. I had never seen one before. It didn't dawn on me when I was emailing Woody that I could maybe use something like that to run the Peterson external oil pump I need to fit on the engine. After looking at the picture that Woody sent, I decided to call Aviaid and order one. Here's a photo:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/crnkslev.jpg)
This spacer puts the oil pump drive out of the way, back behind the harmonic balancer. It has 26 teeth. I like it because it will make the mounting of the oil pump on the engine much more compact.
I'm planning to finish up the water pump spacer machining this weekend and get to work on mocking up the short block to check for p-v clearance. Should be fun...
Jay
It's good to hear the Aviad spacer looks to be a good part. I'm about to pull the trigger on a dry sump set up from them for my TP project. They make a complete 4 stage set up for the FE. Bracket, pump, spacer, belt, pan. Have you ever run a dry sump set up on any of your motors?
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I have not yet run a dry sump, but I am about to. My big SOHC is going to get one before I put it back in the Shelby clone for Drag Week 2012. I'll post the information on what I'm going to get and how it works under that thread, when I get going on that engine.
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I thought about the Dailey set up integrated pan and pump. Billet pan looks sweet.
http://www.daileyengineering.com/fe_cammer.htm
I'm pretty sure I'll go the Aviad route though. I'm also looking to run my PS pump on the backside of the oil pump.
http://aviaid.com/pdfs/127-ford_fe_systems.pdf
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This week and today I finished up my adapters for the 385 water pump. Here's a photo of the finished adapters (built without any setup errors this time LOL!), and also a shot with the water pump mounted on the engine:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/385adpt1.jpg)
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/385pmoun.jpg)
I need to do a little hand grinding on these internally to smooth everything out, but they are essentially completed at this point.
Just as I was getting the adapters bolted on the engine, the Fedex Ground truck arrived (rather unexpectedly on a Saturday), and delivered my new Peterson oil pump! With the pistons, crank sleeve, and oil pump arriving here, the last couple of days have been just like Christmas. I pulled the pump out of the box and was immediately surprised at how large it was; I hadn't seen a picture of it before I'd ordered it, and I wasn't expecting a pump that was this long. Here's a picture of the pump, along with the inlet tube that has to be welded into the oil pan, and the red anodized large screen filter to keep any trash in the pan from getting into the pump:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/petepump.jpg)
I measured the length of the pump, and it measured 11" from the end of the shaft to the end of the body. I knew immediately that this was going to pitch my mounting plan for the pump right out the window. Sure enough, I jockeyed it into an approximate position in the Mach 1, and given the position of the headers and shock towers, it would not go back far enough to let the shaft line up with the Gilmer belt pulley machined into the crank spacer I had just bought from Aviad. No big deal on the spacer, because I can use it on my big SOHC when I set that engine up for a dry sump. But now I would need a separate pulley for the pump, to mount out in front of the harmonic balance.
Another fitment issue I had not previously considered was the position of the strut rod housings in the engine compartment. Those things always seem to get in the way of something, especially if you're working under the car. But in this case they would limit how far down I could mount the pump, unless I mounted it entirely under the car, which I really didn't want to do. It looked like the lowest spot in the engine compartment where I could mount it would leave the shaft of the pump at about the same height as the crank centerline. This was of course above the level of the oil in the pan. I read the directions for the pump and it didn't say anything about it needing to be mounted real low, but I'd like to check on that to be sure. Also, the pump could be mounted with the inlets facing down, up, or to the side, or in any direction for that matter, but I don't know if there is a preferred way to mount it so it will work the best. Another thing I thought about was whether I could disassemble the pump and rotate the scavenge sections 90 or 180 degrees with respect to the pump section. That might make the mounting situation a little less challenging, but I don't know if I can do that or not. I'm going to have to give Peterson Pumps a call on Monday and try to get these questions answered.
In any case, I'm about done with the work on this engine for now. I'll be waiting for parts and services for the next several weeks before I can proceed further. I need to have the new hollow stem valves ground to fit the heads and the guides honed or replaced if necessary to fit the valve stems, and I also have to send the pistons out to be coated after checking the piston to valve clearance with my new cam. Once the pistons are back I'll have my shop check for correct piston to cylinder wall clearance, and touch up the hone if necessary. I expect all this to take 4-6 weeks. Then I can do the final assembly, finish whatever brackets are required, and get the engine on the dyno. Oh yeah, and I have to build an oil pan. This thing had better make 900 HP when I'm finished with it...
Edit: On further examination of the pump, there is no way that the scavenge section can be rotated with respect to the pump section. The bolts holding the pump together are unevenly spaced.
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I thought about the Dailey set up integrated pan and pump. Billet pan looks sweet.
http://www.daileyengineering.com/fe_cammer.htm
I'm pretty sure I'll go the Aviad route though. I'm also looking to run my PS pump on the backside of the oil pump.
http://aviaid.com/pdfs/127-ford_fe_systems.pdf
Man, that billet oil pan is really cool! I never thought about a billet oil pan before. Hmmmmm......
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It must feel like Christmas all the time when you open up those packages, even if you bought the presents yourself...LOL!
Not surprised on the fitment issues with the dry sump pump. Not easy to retrofit on a already-built chassis. Have seen that pro all-tube chassis builders (for Pro, Pro/Mod) like Skinny Kid, Bickel, do require the team to supply a mocked-up engine with not only the multi-stage pump mounted but all lines attached, the pan and details on where the requisite sump tank should go. Good luck with mounting same as I hope you don't need to do any chassis work to make it fit.
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Well, it's going to have to fit without any surgery, because I'm not going to start cutting on my R code Mach 1. But as long as I can mount it above the oil level in the pan, I think I can make it work. Otherwise, I may have a problem...
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The Peterson Wetvac I installed on my Genesis engine was a real challenge to get the pump fittings to clear all the other parts. I think it would have been even tougher if the pump was moved back, especially if you are using factory engine mounts.
(http://i446.photobucket.com/albums/qq183/dajameson/pumpfront.jpg)
(http://i446.photobucket.com/albums/qq183/dajameson/pumpside.jpg)
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Jay I noticed one thning and metion a couple others. I relaized as I added this that its a bunch of stuff and some photoes are out of order in terms when they were taken. But I thought I might be able to save you some time.
The Peterson I have uses a Gilmer belt and pulley like the one below. The Avaid drive mandel you bought looks to use a Super Torque belt like you timing belt likley uses and they have different and non-compatble cog designs and belt pitch see comparison shot between the Super Torque used onthe Danny Bee belt dirve and the Gilmer used on my Peterson.
(http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh238/CDMBill/Peterson%20Wet%20Vac/fd13d01f.jpg)
(http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh238/CDMBill/Peterson%20Wet%20Vac/9d202a48.jpg)
You have the new updated Peterson whih has the oil section up front instead of the back as mine does. In order to get the drive mandrel lined up and to clear various Mustang suspension components I added 2.75" spacers behind the Peterson supplied 385 mount. Their mount had an addtional sapcer ~1.75" out the front of it. It used the Ford alternator bolt and the lower front accessory mount bolt hole next to the timing cover. I used Grade 8, 7/16" all thread to sandwich my spacer, the Peterson mount and the alternator's main mounting point. The lower hole is 3/8" all thread with the spacer mount, timing pointer and tension rod for the Alternator stacked up. The first shows just the mount and the Wide-vac unit. You can see the #16 line that comes under the dampener form the pick up tube I installed on the drivers side of the engine. I need to add that pick-up ecreen at some point as my fragged lifter tore up the pump pretty good at DW '05.
(http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh238/CDMBill/Cooling%20Project/DSC00550.jpg)
(http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh238/CDMBill/Peterson%20Wet%20Vac/8c19dbaf.jpg)
(http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh238/CDMBill/Peterson%20Wet%20Vac/5396c1d2.jpg)
(http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh238/CDMBill/Peterson%20Wet%20Vac/20205396.jpg)
I made a drive mandrel spacer which sandwiches the pulley to the dampener. My dampener spacer has the 36-1 wheel welded to it be hinf the dampener in that same space the aviad unit is designed to run the dry sump belt. I could never make that spacing work w for belt clearance nevermind the location of the Wide-vac.
(http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh238/CDMBill/Cooling%20Project/DSC00515.jpg)
I also ran a strap from the alternator stud to the water pump boss to help stabilize the whole assembly against the pull fo the alternator belt and the wide-vac pump drive. It also holds the Lokar dip stick.
(http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh238/CDMBill/Cooling%20Project/DSC00515.jpg)
This last one gives an idea of the relationship of all the pieces now. I added the little tensioner for the new Powermaster 200 amp alt after pitchng the belt in Topeka. The new motor revs faster and perfect aligment is more necessary that before. You can also see the mnadrel spacer. You should be able to make that in about three minutes given what you've been doing on the CNC. I used a lathe and a mill.
(http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh238/CDMBill/IMG_0080.jpg)
BTW this setup just survived the Run to the Coast, road course, speed stop slalom and auto-x so I think I'm good for DW now. Fingers crossed, now for paint and new hood.
(http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh238/CDMBill/Peterson%20Wet%20Vac/670eec02.jpg)
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I just saw the JamesonRacing post and noticed that his has rounded tooth drive so they've updated that. One other note on the front of his his pump snout there is a small allen head bolt and washer. You can use that for pre-lubing which is another advantage of these set-ups. The disadvantage is the bolt is small and my high torque drill sheared it off.
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Thanks for all the pictures, guys, they answer nearly all of my questions. Bill it sure looks like you are correct about the differences between the belts. Since I can't use the Aviaid spacer with the built in pulley, I will need to order both pulleys from Peterson, so I will see what they send me, but since I'm going to end up with both pulleys from them, it probably doesn't matter. I think I can use that big stud coming out of the block like you did for the main mounting point of the pump.
That pump is so heavy I'm tempted to try to find another way to mount it at the back also, for better stability, kind of like the way it was done with the motor plate. Bill, unless I'm missing something yours just mounts at the front. Any vibration or stability problems with your setup?
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Peterson sells a 7/16" drive spud that replaces the capscrew on the end of the pump so you can easily prime the engine. It has a ball end like an allen wrench, so it accomodates some offset angles to access it. I spec'd the HTD drive for my oil pump, IIRC it's a lot stronger belt system than the Gilmer belts.
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Peterson sells a 7/16" drive spud that replaces the capscrew on the end of the pump so you can easily prime the engine. It has a ball end like an allen wrench, so it accomodates some offset angles to access it. I spec'd the HTD drive for my oil pump, IIRC it's a lot stronger belt system than the Gilmer belts.
Thanks, that helps. I think I will go with the HTD drive and standardize on that.
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Jay - Going HTD is a good call. I use it on all of my stuff (including the spin test machine!)
I used to do some timing belt design at Ford. We replaced the trapezoid tooth profile with HTD whenever possible. It's quieter and far more durable, with a lot more reserve capacity for when you need to squeeze aluminum chunks through that oil pump ;D
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Jay, stability simply hasn't been a problem. I base the conclusion on having no issues at all with oil, supply, pressure, anything, and the neither the belt nor the pulleys show any unusual wear or witness marks that would indicate movement. I was able to watch it on the engine dyno and everything just spins, no deflection, no movement. In the car there is no indication of movement.
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BTW this setup just survived the Run to the Coast, road course, speed stop slalom and auto-x so I think I'm good for DW now. Fingers crossed, now for paint and new hood.
(http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh238/CDMBill/Peterson%20Wet%20Vac/670eec02.jpg)
Not to hijack this but on the topic of dry sump. What did you do for valve covers and breathers?
Are your VCs closed? Do you only run a breather on the oil tank or are you running some type of breather on you VC. To maintain vacuum in the crankcase and limit air in the oil I would think no breathers in the covers. This could cause problems with condensation in the covers though. I've been trying to do some research on this but haven't found a good discussion on VC breathers with a dry sum system.
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You probably don't want to run a valve cover breather on an engine with a dry sump or even with a vacuum pump; the only breather should be on the vent can. If you use a breather on the valve cover, you won't develop any crankcase vacuum, which of course is the point of running a vacuum pump and at least partially the point of running a dry sump.
Sometimes you will see some kind of a breather device on the valve cover of one of these engines, but in this case it usually contains a vacuum relief valve. For example you may not want to exceed 15 inches of vacuum in the crankcase, because on a wet sump system this can cause oil control issues. So, you put a vacuum relief valve set at 15 inches of vacuum on the valve cover, and then if your crankcase vacuum starts to exceed that, the vacuum relief valve will open and let some air into the crankcase to bring the vacuum back to 15 inches.
Hope that helps - Jay
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Jay that is the logic I am following. Sealed covers to maintain the crankcase vacuum created by my 4 stage pump.
My car will see some street miles and in reading about sealed covers and dry sumps I have seen references that this will cause the potential of moisture buildup in the VCs.
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I can see that as an issue; any condensation in the engine will not be able to evaporate out without any valve cover breathers. But solving the problem by adding breathers to the valve covers will defeat the purpose of the vacuum stages of your pump. One solution is to run the engine at a high enough temperature so that the water evaporates; presumable the water vapor would then get sucked out of the crankcase by the pump. Some of this always happens on my engines because the froth in the catch can always has some white foam in it.
Also, if you run on the street you can disconnect the vacuum stages of the pump, and stick a breather on the valve cover. I do that on my engines where I'm running a vacuum pump, although I do not plan to do it with the Peterson pump/vacuum setup, or with the dry sump setup I'm going to put on my big SOHC.
In any case, I don't think this is a real big issue. Monitor your oil, and if you start to see too much evidence of condensation, change it. I don't think you'll have a problem with it.
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FeTorino, Jay is right on this one, whether its a dry sump deal or a vacuum pump or a an exeranl oil/pummp with two vacuum scavenge stages as jay and I have the engine needs to be sealed up as much as possible.
In my valve covers are only the vacuum lines going to the Peterson wide-vac set-up, and an o-ring selaed cap for adding oil.
(http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh238/CDMBill/Wide-Vac/03d8eee8.jpg)
In one of the vacuum lines I have an adjustable vacuum break made by Star Machine (there are others on the market, some requires shims which is a PITA) It is outside the VC as I don't want to pul air through the engine when it hits the targeted vacuum level.
(http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh238/CDMBill/Wide-Vac/c4d5840a.jpg)
The output of the two vacuum stages are routed to these paired Jaz breather tanks. Why two? I found that in some conditions, high humidity or rain and long days of driving, Drag Week for example, enough water and a little oil is puled out of the engine to fill a single breather which makes for a huge mess.
(http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh238/CDMBill/Wide-Vac/69f99791.jpg)
After the Run to the Coast event last weekend here in SoCal when it was quite dry I drained this stuff out of the two breather tanks. It is typical of what I see. The longer the mtoro has sat or run the more you get. Its maybe a half a beer can worth in volume.
(http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh238/CDMBill/Wide-Vac/f67af9ff.jpg)
I'm pretty religious about draining these now as when they get full and the stuff backs up into the breather elements themslves is a mess to clean up. I have my vacuum break set at 12" and have had no observed problems. The area of concern is generally drying out the wrist pins. I have my set up connected at all times and it pulls 3-5" just driving around. because the crankcase pressure is reduced the boiling point of the water that condenses in the engine is lower than normal and I find the oil in the engine stays clean, I never see any indication of rust or corrosion and I target 180* as a normal operating water temp and the oil temp is about the same once everything is warmed up.
The vacuum system itself does three things, reduce crank case pressure against the back of the pistons, keeps the engine clean, and it allows me to run thinner rings at modest tension and still get great ring seal and ring life. The total benefit of all that on my motor is around 40+ HP. One of our DW buddies runs a 496"pntiac and at the engine dyno recently we did back to back pulls disconecting his more typical three vane vacuum pump the difference was an average of 9 HP with a peak 15. But remember, this is just the benefit of the reduced crankcase pressure and yes we did rig up a conventional breather. Its the overall system approach that yields the larger gains.
On the importance of sealing up the engine we another buddy with a Brand X 525'" engine that was also dynoed recently at the same facility. We were seeing low crankcase vacuum numbers with a four vane external vacuum pump and it turned out that the gasket under the distributor was fully sealing. With a quick R&R and some Ultra Grey silicone the egine hit the intended 15" peak vacuum and made and averge improvement of 14 HP and 24 peak.
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This week my pistons came back from Polydyn for coating. On Wednesday night I checked them for clearance to the bore, and was surprised that the clearance was only about .002"! I thought I might have to have the block honed to fit the new pistons, but I was expecting more clearance than .002". However, I looked at the piston data that came with them and rather than the .0065" piston to bore clearance that I'm accustomed to seeing, these pistons specified .0035". Apparently they are a different aluminum alloy that expands less than other alloys normally used in forged pistons. In any case though, the block needed to be honed, so on Thursday I ran the block, crank, rods, and pistons, along with all the other reciprocating assembly stuff up to the machine shop for fitting the pistons to the bores and balancing the reciprocating assembly. My machinist said he would do his best to have everything ready by next Friday.
I still have some fabrication work to do on this engine before I can assemble it, so I got working on that this weekend. First job, and the biggest job, was building the oil pan. I already had the Mustang up on the lift, so I spent Friday night pulling the existing pan off the engine so I could fit the new pan on the car as I was building it. This was going to be necessary for a couple reasons. One was that the headers on the car have a somewhat unique design, and I wanted to keep them, so the pan was going to have to be made to fit. Second was that I wanted to run a deep sump for the full length of the motor, like the Super Stock guys do on their early Mustangs, and this meant that the pan had to have a tube running through it so that the drag link would fit.
The lower header tubes are a slip fit to make the oil pan removable without taking the headers loose from the car. After the oil pan was removed I put the two inside tubes back in place to get an idea of how wide the pan could be at the back of the engine; here's a photo:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/headertubes.jpg)
In this photo the drag link and tie rod ends have already been removed. They are the reason for the configuration of the tubes. The headers are a modified set of Hooker adjustable race headers with the 2 1/8" tubes, and those headers hang too far down to be practical for a street car, IMO. So when I got the headers I modified them to give more ground clearance. This involved making the lower tubes removable and kinking them to the inboard side of the car, so that the tie rods could move through their full travel without hitting the headers. Normally these two tubes hang down below the tie rods, and in addition to hitting the ground in a street application when you go over a bump they will hit the tie rods when the steering wheel is turned one way or the other. With the headers in this configuration I have zero ground clearance issues, but the primaries are no longer equal length.
After getting the existing oil pan off the car I took some measurements and started drawing up the design of the new pan in CAD. I wanted a kickout on the right side of the engine, but the headers and the drag link tube were going to get in the way to some extent. On the kickout I wanted to make the first wall at 45 degrees to the oil pan rail, so that the oil that was stripped off by the windage tray was deflected down into the pan, rather than bouncing back off a straight wall and back into the crank. As a result the pan rail itself didn't have the kickout.
Saturday morning I programmed the pan rail into my CNC machine and cut it out from 3/8" aluminum that I happened to have on hand. Here's a photo of the pan rail bolted in place on the engine in the Mach 1:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/oilpanrail.jpg)
From there I started cutting and bending 1/8" 5052 aluminum sheet to begin fleshing out the pan. By the end of the day Sunday I had a pretty good start, but it was fairly tedious work, especially once I got to the tube that the drag link has to go through. For each test fit I had to assemble the steering and run it through the tube, and then to make any modifications for fit or clearance I had to pull the steering all apart again, make the change, and then test the fit again. Here's some photos of the pan in various stages of construction.
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/panconst1.jpg)
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/panconst2.jpg)
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/panconst3.jpg)
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/panconst4.jpg)
Despite spending most of the weekend on this project, I'm probably only about half way done with this pan. Hopefully I can get it finished up next weekend. Then I still have the oil pump mount and the alternator brackets to complete before all the fabrication work is done for this engine. I have to admit I'm getting kind of tired of the fabrication; I want to slam this engine together as soon as it comes back from the machine shop and get it on the dyno! Hopefully I can get the fab work done and get the engine running at the end of this month...
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Well what is this weeks progress. I need my weekend High........ riser fix. ;D
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Well, not a lot is going according to plan at this point. Just today I got the block and reciprocating assembly back from the machine shop, so I can assemble the engine now. Last weekend I worked out the brackets for mounting the Peterson pump and the alternator on the engine, but didn't quite get them machined all the way because I had to take some time to get prepared for the Boy Scout invasion last Tuesday night. Every year I host my son's Scout troop and show the boys how to make a backpack ID tag with their name and troop number on it, using the bandsaw, drill press, Bridgeport, and CNC machine. This year, though, after about 3/4 of the tags were done, I had an unfortunate CNC mishap; my toolchanger didn't rotate into the correct position prior to the tool change, and the head came down on the carousel between two tools. It broke the whole toolchanger arm mount, which is a big cast aluminum piece. So, instead of finishing up the machining on my brackets this week, I've been disassembling my CNC machine for repair. Last night I welded the broken piece back together, and tonight I re-assembled it, but I found out that one of the position sensors got squashed in the carnage, so I'm only halfway functional on the machine at this point. To top it off, my whole weekend this week is pretty well booked up with family stuff.
So, I'm delayed. Hopefully I will get some significant project made over Memorial Day weekend...
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Yikes Jay! I hate hearing stuff like that :o
So far our Haas has been flawless, but I could see the 1-ton Z-axis servo force creating havoc with the tool changer if anything went wrong.
It sounds like you have the repair process well in hand. It's just time and aggravation, right?? Best of luck to you.
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This week and today I finished up my adapters for the 385 water pump. Here's a photo of the finished adapters (built without any setup errors this time LOL!), and also a shot with the water pump mounted on the engine:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/385adpt1.jpg)
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/385pmoun.jpg)
I need to do a little hand grinding on these internally to smooth everything out, but they are essentially completed at this point.
Hey those adapters look familiar except I had to build mine with a band saw, drill and a grinder LOL
Mine adapted a BBC to FE which is easy to do because the spacing is the same.
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I really wanted to use a BBC pump, but I didn't like the way I would have to bend the water pump inlet hose around. The BBF pump that Meziere offers allows two different inlet hose locations, one of them on the standard FE side, so I went with that. But I'm sure the adapters would have been easier with the BBC pump.
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Makes sense, the radiator I was using (scirocco) had the inlet opposite from the Ford.
I spent about 1/2hr trying to attached a larger photo. How do I do that?
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VERY IMPRESSIVE Jay!!! To say the least.... ;D
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Makes sense, the radiator I was using (scirocco) had the inlet opposite from the Ford.
I spent about 1/2hr trying to attached a larger photo. How do I do that?
The link below will give you the basics for posting photos. You have to host them somewhere online; Photobucket is a convenient choice and is free.
http://fepower.net/simplemachinesforum/index.php?topic=2.0
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Jay, questions about the slip fit headers. Always took them to be an assemble in the car and weld everything in place. I see with yours that they are not such and are removable. I see what appears to be a bracket for mounting at the connection points. But how do they seal?
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If you put some high temp silicone in the tubes when you slip them together they seal OK for a while. Eventually, though, they will start to leak. I think that is the price you pay for slip-fit tubes.
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Gotcha, thanks for edjumacating a young buck
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Hey Jay. Any news on the big 545? Inquiring minds want to know....
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Behind schedule, but finally moving again, Phil. I'll have a detailed update after this weekend - Jay
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Was just going to ask the same thing since I have been out of town for a few days. Wondered what was going on up there. Hope it surprises you with great numbers. Joe-JDC.
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ARE YOU walking softly and carrying a BIG STICK? HOPE SO, want to shut up a certain mouth. I hope you have a great week, and put the naysayers to flight. Is there anything I can do to help for afar? Joe-JDC.
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Thanks for the offer, Joe, but I'm good. As usual things are behind schedule here, but my short block is going together tomorrow and most of the engine will be assembled after next weekend. My friend Scott Clark will be coming up to help with the dyno session on July 28/29. Should be an interesting time.
Don't let the mouth on the FE Forum bother you. He is only a keyboard racer ;D
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Jay I speak for many when I say I can't wait to see your high riser dyno session. The mouth doesn't realize the real best FE is a tunnelport :LOL
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I dont think he is even a keyboard racer....
JMO..Cory
I have edited my post...I was really pissed off when I read Mr Gordon's post
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Finally got back to the high riser project this weekend, after getting the Galaxie back together (replaced the flywheel with an ATI unit). Re-starting from scratch, I assembled the short block over the weekend. All the clearances looked good, and things went along pretty well with one exception. This is the first time I've assembled a short block with Dykes rings, and on the first piston I tried to go a little too fast, jammed the top ring between the tapered ring compressor and the piston, and put a bend in the top ring. After that I was more careful, and got seven of the pistons and rod assemblies installed with no further problems. I'll call in the order for a replacement top ring tomorrow, and hopefully will have that by the end of the week. In the meantime, there's a lot of other things I can be doing, such as assembling the heads, finish welding up the oil pan, install the cam and Danny Bee belt drive, finish machining the oil pump and alternator brackets, etc. etc. I'm hopeful that by next weekend the engine will be all together, save for some of the plumbing and accessories, so I'll be ready to dyno it at the end of this month. Here's some photos of the short block and a piston/rod assembly:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/530sblk1.jpg)
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/530sblk2.jpg)
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/530sblk3.jpg)
I'll post another update next weekend.
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Love the shot with the Cleveland 2X4 peeking around the corner.
The engine is bad ass Jay!
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Yeah, I'm in the middle of the intake adapter project as well, so there's a bunch of 351C stuff scattered amongst the FE parts ::)
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The motor continues to go together...
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/hrsb01.jpg)
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/hrhd01.jpg)
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/hrlb01.jpg)
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/hrlb02.jpg)
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Holy crap those ports are huge! What sort of flow #s did you get out of them?
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Jay, how did the Danny Bee timing gear go together, any problems? I have a similar set up to use on my 482 High Riser, just interested in any user experience with it.
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Holy crap those ports are huge! What sort of flow #s did you get out of them?
They flowed 402 on the intake at .800" lift on a Superflow 600, and 390 on a Superflow 1020 bench. They are really big, and I think I'm going to need to get to 7000 RPM before they really start working like they should. The dyno will tell the tale...
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Jay, how did the Danny Bee timing gear go together, any problems? I have a similar set up to use on my 482 High Riser, just interested in any user experience with it.
I had some issues with it. It was a pain, but now that its on there I really like it. See page 1 of this thread for some of the details.
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Most of this engine went together on Saturday this week without any drama. That was more or less expected, because I had dummied it together a couple of times before, but there's always room for unexpected problems, so you never know. This time there weren't any. Here are some photos of the engine:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/hrports.jpg)
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/hrassm.jpg)
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/hrassm2.jpg)
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/hrassm3.jpg)
Despite looking complete, there is still quite a bit of work to do on this thing, including making brackets to mount the Peterson oil pump, a custom alternator bracket, brackets for the crank and cam sensors, a target for the cam sensor, finish welding and installing the oil pan and windage tray, etc. etc. My pal Scott Clark will be here in two weeks for the dyno session, so I've got a lot to do between now and then, but I think I'll be ready. Today I spent the day on my old CNC machine making the oil pump brackets, and that turned out pretty well, so I've got a good start. I'll post another update next weekend.
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Jay
Are you still dry sumping the motor? If so are you going to run those VCs or a sealed set?
That motor looks insane BTW. 8)
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I wasn't planning on running a dry sump on this, just on the big SOHC. But that plan has gone in the trash now, as a result of delays in getting my pistons. I will be running an external Peterson oil pump on the high riser, though. I'll be welding some bungs on the valve covers over the breather holes in order to hook up the vacuum lines to the scavenge stages of the Peterson pump.
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Why would you go to the expense and work of running an external oil pump and not dry sump it? Sorry if I missed something earlier in the thread.
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The big issue was making room for the tank in the engine compartment. The car is an original R-code, and I didn't want to cut it up to make the tank fit. There isn't a good spot to put the tank under the hood without modifying the inner fenders.
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Some serious looking hardware there.... lots of planning and great execution. Very anxious to see how this one turns out. Good luck with it Jay. Hope you exceed your hp/tq goals.
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Origional R code with shaker? ;D How is that shaker going to fit NOW? LOL, sure looks like it will be a torque monster. Good luck! Joe-JDC.
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Funny you should mention that, Joe. I've acquired a fiberglass copy of the factory shaker hood scoop, and it will be stretched and enlarged to work with the induction system. I'm hoping that it will look like a factory shaker on steroids LOL! We will see...
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Simply beautiful!
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That's just plain nasty. It is going to haul arse!
(please note the correct spelling of arse ;D)
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Looks AWESOME JAY! Any power numbers yet?
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Still working on brackets and stuff, Chris. Was going to dyno this coming weekend, but I pushed it off to the weekend of August 4 to make sure I was completely ready to go; I have an EFI tuning guru (Scott Clark) coming up from Nebraska to give me a hand with tuning the engine that weekend.
By the way, CP finally finished with the new pistons for my big SOHC. That one will be going together right after the high riser, and hopefully be in a different car for this year's Drag Week...
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Jay did you get to see a set of ponds SOHC heads yet. Are they going to be on your new engine? They sure look nice! I no he has spent alot of R&D time on them.
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I have seen Robert's heads, and will be putting them on at least one of my SOHC engines next year. Unfortunately there hasn't been time since his heads have come out to get an engine ready with them, because I need completely different pistons, so I'm running my existing heads on the engines at the moment.
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Finally, this engine is ready for the dyno. I have spent the last two weeks building custom brackets for the crankshaft sensor and the cam sensor, the cam sensor target, the crank sensor target (this is the big toothed wheel in front of the harmonic balancer), and other brackets for mounting the alternator and Peterson oil pump. It was unbelievable how much time this all took. On top of that, it took me nearly the entire weekend last weekend to finish welding up my oil pan, make the swinging gates and doors, weld in the pickup tube, and leak check the pan. Yikes, what a struggle!
Dyno day is this coming Saturday, and we'll run on Sunday too if required to get the engine sorted out. Hopefully there won't be any showstoppers; that would put a serious crimp in my plans for Drag Week this year. I'm hoping for 900 horsepower, but expecting more like 850; we will see what happens. Here's a couple of photos of the engine on the stand:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/hrrfd01.jpg)
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/hrrfd02.jpg)
I'll post the dyno results over the weekend - Jay
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Holy crap that HR engine looks like a beast!!!
Josh
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The collectors look small for an engine of that output, will you be testing other sizes? Or is the camera angle just messing with my eyes?
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Sure it looks frigging awsome, but with out a really kool air cleaner it my suck in small kids and such. ::)
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The collectors look small to me too, but they are 3.5" outlets, and the primaries are 2 1/8". They are merge collectors, so they neck down in the middle to less than 3". According to Blair Patrick, he has run those collectors on engines over 900HP, so I don't think they will be holding me back. The part of the exhaust system that will really limit power production, in my opinion, is the immediate turndown of the primary pipes after the flange. Wish the Mustang engine compartment had more room for the primaries to come straight out of the ports for 8" so, but of course it doesn't.
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This engine interests me more than the cammers, I'm just more of a fan of the traditional headed FE's. If you were going to give me ( :D) one of these, I'd take this 857HP (that's my guess) over say a 950HP cammer; but hey, that's just me 8). Looking forward to some dyno. no.s and some E.T. numbers
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Muey bueno!!!!!! Your aluminun TIG is coming along nicely also. I see a sight glass on the front of the pan too. That's a good idea for several reasons.
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expecting 850, hoping for 900. Sounds like a good goal!! See you on Saturday morning,
-Scott
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Haven't felt the ground shake yet, everything working on the High Riser? ;D Might have to switch to a certain "little" Y-block I watched run this week if it comes up short! LOL. Just poking fun. Hope it exceeds your expectations. Joe-JDC.
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"I'll bid 865 horsepower, Bob."
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I bet he is sandbagging and it makes over 900. :P
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In theory, he is limited to ~840-850HP with 410 cfm heads unless he spins it high. His SOHC made around 1.65 hp/ci, and it would be a push for a pushrod engine to get there with 410 cfm. The unknown is the sheetmetal intake and throttle bodies and their efficiency, IMO. Sometimes a sheetmetal intake can be 120% effecient in filling the cylinder, and actually make more than the .257 X cfm X # cylinders. Could be a sleeper, and surprise even him if everything falls into place.
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Update: just finishing up the wiring now, they're putting oil in the motor. The plan is to fire it up tonight and make sure everything is working, then make pulls tomorrow morning.
:)
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Unfortunately I didn't get much of a chance to get at the wiring on the EFI system until Saturday, and I also found on Friday night that I did not have the complete wiring harness for the MS3X! I caught Scott at home before he left to come up here on Friday and he saved me with the correct wiring harness, that he had in stock. Scott, BradFORD and I spent all day today wiring the engine, and after a couple of false starts finally got it going at 11:00 PM tonight. It is missing on number 2, and the cam target is phased incorrectly, but we are confident we can get those problems solved tomorrow morning. Should be making power pulls by noon tomorrow. I plan to take the engine as high as 8500 RPM if it is still making power up there. I will post some dyno numbers tomorrow night, barring any unforeseen problems. Below are some photos of the engine on the dyno, showing the rats nest of wiring including 8 O2 sensors, one for each header primary - Jay
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/hrondyno1.jpg)
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/hrondyno2.jpg)
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Update Sunday 1:15 - Our dead #2 cylinder was due to a stuck fuel injector. No big deal, I thought, but over three hours of work on the injector has so far failed to free it up. We have soaked it in injector cleaner, lacquer thinner, and acetone, put 125 psi air into it to try to free it up, and hit it with screwdrivers and drifts to try to shock it back to life. So far no go. We have now decided to go back to the low impedance injectors just to run the engine through some pulls. Because of this we had to go to bank fire mode on the Megasquirt controller, so our hopes of individual cylinder tuning have gone out the window. Right now we're just hoping to get some decent power pulls by the end of the day. I'll post more later tonight - Jay
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Do you ever do anything the EASY way? LOL, I am amazed at some of the glitches you run into, and yet you still keep on going. Hope it works for you. Are 2 Dominators are looking tempting, yet? ;D Joe-JDC.
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How about two of these?
(http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll306/superjinca/sv1.jpg)
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We are all eagerly waiting :)
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C'mon Joe! Progress marches on lol! I'm using a Victor you ported for me for my port injected 482! Carbs are poorly controlled fuel leaks after all ;)
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Yeah, but they are almost "goof proof" ::) I just witnessed a Dominator on the dyno pick up several HP over a very well tuned 750 Holley. Sometimes the simple things work, and we don't always need to re-invent the wheel. I like EFI, but carbs are so easy, I just prefer them for racing. Joe-JDC.
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As usual, nothing is easy with this stuff, and we struggled for most of the day dealing with the aforementioned injector, and then with some other issues, but finally we started making pulls on the motor around 3:00 PM. This was with the motor set up like an ems-pro, in bank fire mode rather than full sequential. We ran the first pull from 3500 to 5000, and the engine was really rich, so we dialed it down over the next couple pulls and came in around 600 HP at 5000 RPM. One thing I noticed was the vacuum in the crankcase was nowhere near what I expected; the Peterson pump has two vacuum stages pulling from each valve cover, but the most vacuum I recorded in the crankcase during the dyno pulls was only about 6 inches. I think I must have a leak in the crankcase seal somewhere; usually you see this around the distributor seal but of course there is no distributor, so it must be leaking from somewhere else. I need to solve this problem before the engine goes in the car; I'd like to be running around 15" when I'm going down the track, and that would pick up some HP too. I'll pressure check the crankcase this week to try to find it.
The other issue was the engine would not idle below around 1800 RPM, but I think I know what the problem is with that. After building the upper sheet metal intake, I had never leak checked it. I'm pretty sure that when I do that I'll find some minor leaks in the welded areas, and after I seal those up the idle should come down. Just last week I machined the plate I need to bolt to the top of the manifold and seal the top of the plenum, so I'll pressure check that this week too.
From the original RPM range we increased in 500 RPM increments up to 7000. The engine made 650 HP at 5000, 725 HP at 5500, and 780 at 6000. We were making A/F adjustments all the way and running just a little bit rich. The power curve flattened out in the mid 6000 RPM range, but looked to be on the rise at 7000 RPM and I thought the engine was getting its second wind; here's the data:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/530hr12.jpg)
The last data point in the dyno graph is always a little suspect, and that was the case here. After further tuning and running all the way to 7800 RPM it was clear that the engine was going to peak around 7000 RPM. The power band of the engine is clearly in the 6000 to 8000 RPM range. We ran a total of 18 pulls on the engine today, and the last two were with the dyno exhaust system disconnected. This engine didn't pick up power like my 519" SOHC did with the exhaust disconnected; we richened it up somewhat after the first pull with no exhaust system, but it didn't appear to improve the power of the engine any, so we left it as it was. Here's a graph of the final dyno data:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/530hr18.jpg)
So the engine peaked at 851 HP, which is just about where I'd expected it to be. I think if the crankcase vacuum was up where it should be and we'd had the opportunity to do individual cylinder tuning, it may have made 875 HP, but I don't think its good for 900. In any case, though, I have the data I need to order the rear end gears for the car and the converter for the trans tomorrow, and I have a little time to try to tweak the performance of the engine somewhat over the next week. Here's a couple of videos of the dyno sessions, one from inside the dyno room and one from the dyno operator's perspective.
http://youtu.be/Ih3PvCgc_Jc
http://youtu.be/fy2MS3W_tVc
If I get further dyno information on this engine before I pull it off the dyno and put it in the car, I'll post it here. Finally, thanks to all the members for the encouragment on this engine build; it was fun to share the build and the results with you guys - Jay
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Hard fought hp there.
At least this year you have some time to sort things out before Drag week. I bet you find the 20+hp sealing the crankcase leak and with some more injector tuning.
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850 HP is very respectable. Your R code is gonna haul the mail!
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Jay, are you going to try to go back to SEFI, or stick with the batch fire?
I doubt you'll find any peak power, but you may find some drivability.
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Sorry to hear about the troubles Jay.
Best of luck fixing the intake leaks. Hopefully you can get some individual cylinder tuning done to pick up driveabilty and a few ponies.
- Bill
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That motor is a beast! At 7000+ rpm it sounds like 100,000 killer bees attacking the microphones at a rock concert. Good job Jay!
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Congrats on the build. That thing is a monster and I'm sure there's a lot left in it. :)
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Another outstanding build.
You da man...
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Jay, are you going to try to go back to SEFI, or stick with the batch fire?
I doubt you'll find any peak power, but you may find some drivability.
Actually I'm not convinced anymore that SEFI offers any big drivability advantage. A few years back when I switched from FAST to ems-pro I was pretty concerned about that, because my FAST setup was full sequential and the ems-pro was bank fire. But I noticed absolutely no difference in drivability from one setup to the other.
I'd still like to go full sequential for the individual cylinder power tuning advantages, but it will depend on whether I can get a reasonably priced high impedance injector that will fit my setup. The ones I was trying to use are Injector Dynamics units which are big bucks, and I don't want to buy another set of those if I can avoid it. I'm going to buy one replacement for the stuck one, but I plan to use them on the big SOHC engine, not the high riser.
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Wow! That's awesome, the sound gives ya the vapors!
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Looks and sounds great! AWESOME job Jay!
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I think the Mr Bill doll is holding it back!!
Sounds wicked though... (I think Mr Bill has permanent hearing damage, and no fillings left in his teeth!)
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Jay, great work on HR and over coming the usual teething issues. You may have an intake leak, but I found that my dual four barrel TB's are hyper-sensitive to adjustment with large variations in speed with tiny, tiny changes in the adjuster. The linkage bewteen the two TB's exaserbates the changes.
Like you, I have yet to see a big change in power with the sequential and phasing work which we haven't really touched yet.
Scott may have mentioned the VersaFueler injector driver box I found which allowed me to re-use my low impedance RCI 1000 injectors on the MS3X in full sequential mode.
I sent you an e-mail regarding the Peterson Wide-vac. How are you measuring crankcase vacuum? I was a bit taken aback today when I logged my crank case vacuum off the GM 1 bar MAP sensor and saw almost 12" at low load, nowhere near high Rpm.
Coming in at 1.6 HP/cu. in. I thought you would see more too. Even so that 851 number has me quaking in my Simpson boots. How much does that Mach ! weigh?
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The Mach 1 should weigh about 3600 pounds with the driver. Go ahead, Bill, dig out the dream wheel and see who's faster ;D
The big dyno thrash always leaves open questions and stones unturned. Last night I started looking at the induction system stuff in preparation for removing the intake and testing it for leaks. First thing I found was that the plug that covers the hole for the idle air control motor in the rear throttle body had unscrewed itself and was laying on the top of the manifold. Fairly major vacuum leak there. Then I found that all four idle adjustment screws on the throttle bodies were open quite a bit more than I expected. I hadn't even looked at this on the dyno, so that was another major reason for the high idle. I'm still going to leak check the intake, but I'll bet that those two things are the primary reasons for the high idle.
I'm measuring crankcase vacuum with one of the spare pressure/vacuum sensor inputs to the dyno. I have a GZ Motorsports vacuum relief valve on the engine, and I'm a little suspicious of that thing, and may try running without it just to make sure it is not leaking vacuum early and causing the problem. Other than that I'm not sure where to go with the vacuum leak, but I imagine pressurizing the crankcase and spraying a soap solution around the gaskets will help me figure it out.
Since the engine can stay on the dyno for the next week and half while I'm waiting for my converter, I have a few more HP tricks I'm going to try, including increasing the plenum volume and using a different cam. We will see what happens...
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Jay, the math gives the edge to the Mach 1 over the prom queen's ride.
I had some of those same post dyno 'discoveries', my favorite being the disconnected IAT sensor I had on the chassis dyno at Westech last year.
Those throttle balde set screws are exactly the ones I was referring to when I mentioned idle speed and sensitivity. It sgood that you'll have some additional dyno time to get that sorted. The dual quad TB's add their own special tuning challenges.
I looked at the upper RPM torque band with the slight sawtooth and I think additional plenum volume will help pick up a bit at the upper range. Not sure you'll benefit at the track twisting it past 7500, it'll be interesting to see it in person for sure.
I had to change valve cover gaskets to get a good seal on mine. I had Earl's Pressure Masters that leaked at the bolts. I changed to Cometic's and they have been solid for a year of dozens of off and ons.
My odd Crankcase vacuum/MAP reading was becuase I hadn't fully tightened the fitting for the vacuum hose after adding the MAP sensor fitting to the VC. Sheesh.
I don't recall your cam specs, but I we ended up with a 113 lobe sep on the 588" tunnel ram vs a 109 on the prior 582" version with a single 4 bbl TB.
I think you are going to find more power.
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Jay, the math gives the edge to the Mach 1 over the prom queen's ride.
I would say not by much, if any! And since the car has not been driven on the road or track since 2007, I think there will likely be tuning and traction issues for me to solve. Regardless, it would be really cool to see two Fords fighting it out for the top spot...
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Well, as a data point the barge went 10 teens at Tuscon last Saturday in 6000' DA's. I rolled over the track's scales in Drag Week trim and hit a nice fat 4051. It was 4153 in full street trim with the complete exhuast system and full 20 gallon gas tank. I hope your prediction of an all Ford final comes true but there are a lot of fast cars out there this year.
Like everyone who follows your terriffic efforts I'm bummed about the 519' SOHC in the Galaxie, but glad everybody is home safe and in one piece.
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Jay have you tried increasing plenum volume on an EFI manifold yet?
I am wondering how much is enough to see a change. In my case, a ported Victor EFI manifold and no spacer under a 4150 style throttle body, I think the motor may like it, but I only have .750 of room until the air cleaner hits the scoop. Think a 1/2 inch spacer would have enough volume to matter on a dry plenum?
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I would put a 1" open spacer under each TB, and do one pull, if it needs more plenum, you should have an indication with the spacer change. I recently did a day long dyno session, and ended with a 3" combination that worked on a single 4V dual plane intake that made 585 HP. 1" open on bottom, 2" 4 hole tapered CNC on top. One spacer lost 15 hp, and other combinations varied in between---just have to try and see. It sure would be a quick way to test if it needed more plenum. Joe-JDC.
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Too late Joe, I already made the whole thing LOL! See the black plastic piece sandwiched between the manifold top and manifold base in the photo below:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/hrpspacer.jpg)
I'll find out if it does any good tomorrow night...
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Did you get the radius into the runners that I mentioned in an earlier post? May be a moot point now, but it sure seems to help on every one I have seen. Hope everything works for you. Joe-JDC
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Yes, I did do that radius as you suggested Joe, quite a while back in fact. The manifold looks pretty good on the inside.
Tonight I ran the last pulls on the engine, this time with the 1" plenum spacer installed. It didn't really do much good; here's the before and after data. The red lines are without the spacer, and the black lines are with it:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/hrspacer1.jpg)
Given no real advantage, I'm going to remove the spacer because that will keep the intake setup from sticking out of the hood so much. I also did some investigations on the crankcase vacuum over the last few days, including pressurizing the crankcase, and didn't find any real significant leaks. The ones I did find I was able to seal up, but even after that I'm still pretty far away from where I want to be for crankcase vacuum. The peak I saw on the dyno runs tonight was about 8 inches, and that was sporadic; during most of the pull the vacuum was only about 4". This is actually pretty disappointing, because I was counting on the Peterson pump to deliver 14-15 inches of vacuum in the crankcase. There's 20 HP there for sure, but I'm not seeing it. Either I have a vacuum leak I don't know about, or that pump is not working like it should.
The major issue I see right now with the engine is the idle speed. I fixed several problems in this regard over the last week and a half, including a throttle linkage issue and a couple of minor leaks in the intake manifold, but despite this I've been unable to get the engine to idle down much below 1500 RPM. It just flat dies at 1300. This is a lot different than the other EFI engines I've worked with, and the cam is not a lot more aggressive than the one in my big SOHC, which idles at 800 RPM. Maybe it is the intake manifold, or maybe I have more tuning to do, or maybe the engine will idle better on pump gas. Or, maybe its just going to be a high idler, which will make it real tough to live with on the street :( I'll do some more tuning on the engine in the car and see what happens.
After running on the dyno tonight Steve and I got the motor off the dyno. Joel and I will be assembling the trans to the engine tomorrow night, and Saturday morning it goes into the Mach 1. I'll post some photos of that in my Drag Week blog later this weekend.
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I am sure you have tried this already but sometimes I look beyond the basics. Possibly the blades are not sealing to the throttle body bores well enough or there is some other vacuum leak in the manifold or gaskets. Have you covered the throttle bodies to see if the idle drops?
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Had the same idea. The engine not pulling crankcase vacuum and it's inability to idle below 1,300 rpm seems consistent with a fairly large yet undetected vacuum leak. JMO.
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I could see potentially a vacuum leak in the crankcase that I haven't found, but that wouldn't affect the idle. If there was a vacuum leak in the induction system the engine would still idle when the throttle plates are closed. It won't; as you back off the idle adjustment screw and close the plates, the engine shuts off. This is also with the plates still partially open; they are not completely shut. If I shut the plates all the way and the engine still idled at 1400 RPM, I think a vacuum leak would be the culprit; unfortunately that's not what is happening.
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Jay, three things, two air, one fuel
1 - What is your TPS value at idle, and what is it showing when you try to idle it lower? Wondering if for some reason the ECM thinks that its completely closed and shutting off the fuel
2 - Have you considered trying to close one TB completely at idle and idle off the other? If your dual TBs are so large that the 1500 rpm idle has them almost closed, by lowering idle even more, you could be closing them completely and shutting the air off. By closing everything but a single pair of "primaries" they will be farther open and allow some airflow
3 - Could you put some sort of IAC on the manifold? Then you could close the blades and make it back up with an IAC that adjusts as required.
Finally, how about some sort of log at idle? Start at 1800......log INJ PW, O2 sensor output, TPS voltage, RPM, fuel pressure if you can, and then log for a 30 seconds or so at 1800, 1500, 1400, 1300, etc until it dies. There would have to be information that will steer you in the log.
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You're absolutely right Jay. The two events are independent; my bad for a poorly-worded reply. Still,
427 may be onto something. Hope you figure it out and quick!
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Jay, three things, two air, one fuel
1 - What is your TPS value at idle, and what is it showing when you try to idle it lower? Wondering if for some reason the ECM thinks that its completely closed and shutting off the fuel
2 - Have you considered trying to close one TB completely at idle and idle off the other? If your dual TBs are so large that the 1500 rpm idle has them almost closed, by lowering idle even more, you could be closing them completely and shutting the air off. By closing everything but a single pair of "primaries" they will be farther open and allow some airflow
3 - Could you put some sort of IAC on the manifold? Then you could close the blades and make it back up with an IAC that adjusts as required.
Finally, how about some sort of log at idle? Start at 1800......log INJ PW, O2 sensor output, TPS voltage, RPM, fuel pressure if you can, and then log for a 30 seconds or so at 1800, 1500, 1400, 1300, etc until it dies. There would have to be information that will steer you in the log.
Those are good suggestions, Ross. On the datalogging thing I've been having trouble with the log viewing software that is used with the MS3X, and that has hampered my efforts to debug this problem. Once I get that working the solution may come. Also I will check the TPS reading; I did re-calibrate the TPS yesterday when I did the testing, but maybe it was not done correctly or something. I'll find out more when I get the engine up and running in the car...
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Is there a way to dump log output to a .csv or other flat file format? Microsoft Excel, or Open Office Calc can read quite a few formats, and perform nice graphing functions.
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Those are good suggestions, Ross. On the datalogging thing I've been having trouble with the log viewing software that is used with the MS3X, and that has hampered my efforts to debug this problem. Once I get that working the solution may come. Also I will check the TPS reading; I did re-calibrate the TPS yesterday when I did the testing, but maybe it was not done correctly or something. I'll find out more when I get the engine up and running in the car...
If you want to send me a log for an experiment my program says it can read *.csv, *.dbf, *.DB, and *f1p
Of course I am not sure what I will see when I open the file, I'd be happy to give it a shot
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I would put a good meter on your O2 sensor and look at the voltage. If you have a vacume leak they are going to show lean. I have used to use Propane to try to find vacume leaks also. You also can enrich your fuel mixture to see how the O2 sensor reacts to see if it is working properly.
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Jay, I had to fiddle extensively with the throttle blades, both primary and secondary on both TB's to get the closed throttle idle in a range that we tune with the fuel table. I'd like to run the IAC's as Doc McIntyre does, but we got it working without it(them). MY TB's are 2200 CFM dominator pattern units from Accufab with four 2.25" round blades each.
My secondaries are progressive, but the link between the primary side throttle arms is a very precise 1:1 so I did the final fine adjustments on the secondary throttle blades, a few dgegrees of turn makes a huge difference.
With those adjustments we can get it to idle below 1000, but I prefer to keep it at around 1200 to kepp the roller lifters happy and well oiled. With the 5700 stall converter I don't find the street manners to be an issue and I thinks its helped by the AOD that is set up for full automatic function when the full pressure/OD lock out solenoid isn't enaged. The car just oozes along on the street at low throttle openings.
On the vacuum side I'm a bit mystified and would suggest a call to Peterson. That said the benefits between 8 inches of vaccum and 12-15 are small even with narrow low, tension ring packages designed for vacuum pump use. I limit mine to 12" to avoid drying out the wrist pins as I don't have pin oilers.
How are you measuing crank case vacuum? I had been using a basic mechanical Autometer Boost/Vaccuum gauge. With the MS3X I added a standard GM 1 BAR (~15") sensor. The datalogs to date show a rising(?) crank case KPa as I haven't got it calibrated yet based on actual voltage output to read as plus or minus inches of Hg.
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A heads up on the TPS function in the MS3X, it's only used for accel pump shot. It doesn't control the fuel in the defaul tune that I set up.
IMO, the problem is most likely going to be air distribution at idle. With 8 O2s or EGTs you'd likely see as you get lower in RPM, the EGT/O2s will vary wildly cylinder to cylinder. The "shut off" point is the point where more cylinders are misfiring, than those firing.
I think working with the plates as CDMBill suggests is likely the best approach. I'm not sure why you're having an issue with the datalogging, it's very rare, but we can always get on the ms-extra web forums and ask about the problem you are seeing... meanwhile, keep an eye on the Ignition Advance gauge and the Pulsewidth gauge. If either of them do something strange when the engine shuts down, then there would be a problem with the tune. There might be a better combination of fuel and ignition timing than what's in there now, to run below 1400rpm, so it might be that as well.
Meanwhile, once the engine is in the car, the idle tuning will be largely different than that on the dyno, as the dyno loads the engine at low RPMs somewhere around 20-50hp, versus in the car with no load other than the accessory drive. You might have a much easier time tuning idle in the car then on the dyno.
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Had the same idea. The engine not pulling crankcase vacuum and it's inability to idle below 1,300 rpm seems consistent with a fairly large yet undetected vacuum leak. JMO.
This is interesting and I hadn't thought it through, but a leak from the crank case into the intake tract would potentially explain both sets of behaviors. How that is possible given the valley pan etc. is a different question but it gives you some routes to testing should it be worth the time.
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Had the same idea. The engine not pulling crankcase vacuum and it's inability to idle below 1,300 rpm seems consistent with a fairly large yet undetected vacuum leak. JMO.
This is interesting and I hadn't thought it through, but a leak from the crank case into the intake tract would potentially explain both sets of behaviors. How that is possible given the valley pan etc. is a different question but it gives you some routes to testing should it be worth the time.
Disable the evac system. If the leak is in the crankcase, the idle should go further north, as the ΔP increases between the crankcase and the intake ports and unmetered air flow increases with it.
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IMO, an outside source of vacuum should be plumbed to the crankcase for troubleshooting purposes. Like that vacuum pumps the HVAC guys use to evacuate a refrigerated system. Draw a vacuum on the crankcase and bump the motor around a few turns maybe...... Check your relief valve settings too......
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Had the same idea. The engine not pulling crankcase vacuum and it's inability to idle below 1,300 rpm seems consistent with a fairly large yet undetected vacuum leak. JMO.
This is interesting and I hadn't thought it through, but a leak from the crank case into the intake tract would potentially explain both sets of behaviors. How that is possible given the valley pan etc. is a different question but it gives you some routes to testing should it be worth the time.
The only possible route between the crankcase and the intake tract is where the port plates I built bolt onto the heads. I've already checked that; while the engine was on the dyno I pressurized the crankcase with the intake off and looked for leaks in that area, as well as everywhere else that I could see. For the crankcase leak (if it is a leak, and not a problem with the Peterson pump), it must be in an area where I can't see very well, like the seal behind the cam gear or the rear main seal or something. As far as a vacuum leak goes, I just can't see how that could be a problem, since the engine shuts off with the throttle blades still open somewhat. But I'll check more thoroughly for vacuum leaks when I get the engine running in the car this weekend.
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Do you have an oscilloscope view of the waveform for the crank trigger? A couple of the setups I've worked on were extremely sensitive to air gap between the sensor and the wheel, and behaved spuriously until it was just right. If you've got a scope and can see the output, it might be worth looking at.
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Can you see injector PW while its idling?
Spit balling here, but I wonder if with big injectors it cuts it back so much that it either just dribbles, or cannot spray any lower.
Maybe an increase in line pressure to allow a better spray pattern, or load a different injector slope if you have that option
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Yes, the MS3X gives you a look at the crank trigger output waveform on one screen, and I can also see pulse width of the injectors. Looking at those are both good suggestions; I haven't spent any time doing that yet. I will try to look at that this weekend when I have the engine running the car; should be Sunday...
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Jay, I didn't catch if you are looking at logs from the USB output direct to your PC and the datalogging in the software, or are you using the SD card in the MS3X. Something I learned the hard way is that you have to configure the SD card logging functions input by input and you are limited to 32 channels. Some of these require calibration such as the external MAP sensor and fuel pressure sensors. Because there is no internal clock function in the MS3X (unless you added one) all logs come out with the same date/time stamp plus a sequential number. After each SD card log the software set up the next log file so whenever you eject the card and go to convert it in Tuner Studio you'll have the last log as a null that can't be converted.
If you get in the habit of pulling the card after each session, day, whatever and converting the logs sequentially, you'll get a date stamp of the time of conversion-input into your Project/datalog file. That can help keep them in order for later veiwing and re-labeling. Then delete all the log files inlcuding the null and reinsert the card with the system, same goes for removal, ony eject when the MS3X is off.
Happy tuning and driving!
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Thanks for the tips, Bill, so far I've been logging with the PC direct from the USB port so I haven't run into that issue yet. I'll make sure I have some time to work on those issues when I start using the SD card - Jay
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It's been so much fun reading about this build... and seeing the pictures too! A question: if you wanted to run the 1 coil per plug, crank trigger ignition with no dist., but didn't want to go with external oiling what are your options? Does anyone yet make a distributor "stub" that will drive the stock-type internal oil pump? I was thinking that would be a relatively easy thing to do... You could even hold it in place with the stock dist hold down. Thoughts?
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You are exactly right, all you need is a little stub distributor. In a pinch, you could use the whole distributor and just not connect anything to it. In fact, that has one advantage, and that is that you can install a cam sensor in the distributor for full sequential efi. Of course, you can install a cam sensor somewhere else, too.
What I did when I ran the stock oil pump on my SOHC with the individual coils was to cut an MSD distributor up and use that. I cut the body off in my lathe just above the groove for the seal, and then cut the shaft off about 3/8" higher than that. Then I machined a little disc that would bolt to the top of the distributor stub, that was about 3/4" thick. I counterbored it for a bearing that was 1" OD and 1/2" ID if I recall correctly, and then bolted it onto the top of the distributor hub so that the shaft inserted into the bearing. That way the shaft is supported by the bushing at the bottom of the distributor housing, and the bearing at the top. Then the whole thing just drops in place into the engine and clamps in place with the stock distributor clamp. It was really pretty easy, but of course I have a lathe here.
I'd post some pictures of this thing but currently it is in my big SOHC engine, so I can't. But don't let that problem stop you from running the individual coil efi system; that little stub distributor just isn't that difficult to make.
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Jay, I was also thinking it would be nice to have a way to grab that stub dist if it get s a little stubborn and won't come out when needed... Maybe a little ring on top to help rotate and pull? Could be a special cap that fastens to the top when removal is required.
Also, for anyone to reply: what are the main advantages of the 1 coil per plug, distributorless ignition? I could see where it would probably be more stable than a distributor setup, getting its signals from a crank trigger and the coils would have more cycle time between firing since there are 8 of them working instead of one. Am I on the right track? What other advantages are there?
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Bruce, the screws that I used to hold the cap on the stub distributor make a good way to pull it out. I think I used 10-32 screws, and they could just be unscrewed, and a long version installed to give you something to pull on. And regarding the advantages, you are on the right track. With a 36 tooth crank sensor the timing is much more stable at all engines speeds, and each coil has a whole bunch of time to charge compared to the coil in a standard ignition setup. On my big SOHC I picked up 30 HP switching to the individual coils, so if you are going to be running at a fairly high RPM, I think there's a big advantage in that setup. See the link below, if you haven't seen it already.
http://www.fepower.net/dyno_results.html
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Jay,
On the aluminum backing plate that holds the seals for the Danny bee belt drive, I was wondering about the oil drain back home from the lifter Valley. I'm making my own and I can see there is some clearance between the plate and block but can only guess as to be much. I'll have 3/8" of clearance on my home made plate and was wondering if you think that's enough for the oil drainage from the front of the block. ? I'm thinking it should be as it doesn't seem like the Danny bee has even that much.
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I think that should be more than enough clearance, Keith. I can't look at the Danny Bee setup at the moment, but I'll bet you are right that it is less than that...