FE Power Forums
FE Power Forums => FE Technical Forum => Topic started by: jayb on July 10, 2021, 10:17:27 AM
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It's been mid winter since I've run the dyno mule with my cylinder heads, and despite having several tests that I've needed to run, work on getting the head package into production has taken a bunch of time so I didn't get back at the dyno testing until this week. All along my friend Royce B has been mercilessly hounding me to get back on the dyno LOL! Royce is a dyno junkie, and wanted to come up to help. Finally on Wednesday this week my schedule opened up, Royce arrived and we got going again with the testing.
It had been quite a while since the last test, so the first order of business was to baseline the dyno mule again. The unported SE cylinder heads and the 8V intake with two Dominator carbs were on the engine, and the cam was still the same cam Brent Lykins got for me last winter. Previous best was 861 HP with this combination. After debugging an electrical problem we got the engine running correctly, and I was happy to see some even better results; the engine peaked at 869 HP and 730 lb-ft of torque.
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/SE8VB.JPG)
Later during the analysis I discovered that I had left the RE timing spec in the EFI software, which was 30 degrees total instead of 28 degrees total as I had originally run with the SE heads. So that little tweak to the timing probably explains the slight improvement. Nevertheless, we were back to baseline and ready for more testing.
Over the last several months I've been designing some new intake manifolds to use with my heads. I'm actually quite happy with the performance of the 4V intake, but the 8V intake isn't working as well as I'd hoped. I tried to design the 8V intake as something similar to the tunnel wedge for use with my heads, but in the quest for power I kept the runners straight, and it ended up not looking like a tunnel wedge manifold at all, and not having the plenum volume and design of a modern sheet metal style intake either. So I went back to the drawing board and the 3D printer, and ended up designing two more 8V intakes in the more traditional sheet metal style. Also, in speaking with a few of my cylinder head customers, some of them had hood clearance concerns, so I elected to do an 8V intake design that was lower, and did look like a traditional tunnel wedge manifold. Finally, I also wanted to do a lower 4V intake, and after making some measurements I concluded that using a low profile EFI throttle body, I could actually make the intake work with a shaker or ram air setup.
My 3D printer has been balky over the last few months, and I've had to make some repairs and part replacements to keep it running properly, but after a few false starts I finally got all four of these intakes printed. This is the low version of the 4V intake, sitting on an intake adapter:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/Plastic 4V1.jpg)
The photo below is the low version of the 8V intake, designed in the tunnel wedge style:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/Plastic TW1.jpg)
This one is one version of a sheet metal style intake, with short runners and a lot of taper:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/Black Beauty.jpg)
This is the other version of a sheet metal style intake; this one has longer runners and less taper, and is shown mounted on the engine:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/Red Devil.jpg)
I've been thinking about running these plastic manifolds on the dyno for a while, and one concern was if they were going to be airtight or not. Before the dyno session I had briefly considered painting them all to try to make sure that the external surfaces were all leak free, but I didn't get around to that before the dyno session, so I decided to just bolt on the red sheet metal style manifold and try to run it. Unfortunately, when we started the engine it was obvious that there was a big vacuum leak, and a few seconds after starting the engine, it backfired and broke the plastic manifold. So, it was clear that some sort of sealing on the external surfaces of the 3D printed intakes was going to be required. The joys of R&D...
At that point we decided to swap over to the RE heads. We had not yet tested the RE heads with the Lykins cam, and since that cam had picked up the engine with the SE heads substantially, I was anxious to see how it would improve the performance with the RE heads. Pretty much all day Thursday was devoted to the swap, since in addition to just changing the heads, all the valves and springs had to be swapped from the SE heads to the RE heads also. We finally got the engine all back together with the 8V intake at the end of the day on Thursday, and started it up to make sure that everything was OK. The engine sounded good, so we were primed for a good dyno session on Friday.
Friday's dyno session did not disappoint. After a couple of checkout pulls, we ran the engine to 7000 RPM, and much to my surprise, it appeared to be still climbing in power at that point. I really didn't want to run past 7000 with the RPM crank that is in the engine, but we decided to make a 5300-7300 RPM pull and see what happened. We were rewarded with just over 881 HP, and again the engine still appeared to be climbing at 7300 RPM:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/RE8VB.JPG)
Next step would have been running to 7500 RPM, but as the engine came out of the pull on the previous run, Royce and I thought there may have been some valvetrain noise. So out of an abundance of caution we decided to pull the valve covers and check the lash. Sure enough, the #6 exhaust lash had increased from .016" to .030", and that was probably what we had been hearing. We immediately suspected a lifter was going away; the Crower roller lifters I've had in this dyno mule have been around for a while and used in different engines, and we've had to replace a few of them during the course of this testing. So, reluctantly we pulled the intake and carbs, and opened up the plate in the middle of the intake adapter so we could pull the #6 lifter. However, checking it there were no obvious problems. Next I disassembled the rocker arm pair from #6, and again everything looked fine. I don't have an explanation for the increased lash, unless I just didn't tighten the adjuster enough when I set it.
At this point we decided to just go to the 4V intake, since we were happy with the results of the 8V. We installed the 1150 Dominator carb on the intake, and ran again. Previous best with the old cam had been 857 HP, but the new cam bumped us up to 873 HP, and also a bit of a torque increase:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/RE4VB.JPG)
One thing about the 4V intake was that it did not appear to be making power all the way to 7000 RPM. In fact we ran two pulls to 7300 RPM, and in both cases the power did not increase, and in fact the engine seemed to miss a little past 7000 RPM. A look at the air inlet data gave a clue on this, as the engine was requiring very close to the 1150 cfm of air that the carb was rated for. We saw vacuum levels of as high as 1.6 inches with the 4V intake and carb, where vacuum levels for the 8V setup were zero through the whole RPM range. So obviously the engine liked the 8V setup better.
Thursday I had taken the time to paint the exterior of the remaining 3D printed intakes, to try to seal them up. The 8V tunnel wedge intake also had some gaps in the plastic that the paint wouldn't fill, so Royce took a caulk tube of The Right Stuff and attempted to seal up those holes. By the time he was done, he had slathered about 2/3 of the intake with that stuff LOL! It was ugly, but we hoped it would seal. We decided to do that intake next, so Friday afternoon we bolted it on the engine with two 660 center squirter carbs, and tried to run. But again, it was obvious that there was still a vacuum leak; the engine would burn through the pump shot and then die. We didn't want to risk breaking that intake with a backfire, so we stopped the testing.
As a final experiment with the plastic intakes, we took the low 4V intake and sealed up the carb pad with a plate, then taped off the runners on one side and filled the intake up with water. We were very surprised that despite being painted to seal it up, it was still leaking like a sieve. We had water dripping out of the bolt holes, the bottom of the plenum area, and some of the runners. So obviously just painting the intake with Rustoleum was not going to get it sealed. This week I'm going to be working on a better sealing procedure for the 3D printed intakes, and also a test rig so that I can test them for leakage with a few psi of air, prior to actually installing and running them on the engine. I'm sure that they can be run if I can fix the sealing issue, and it will be good data to have before deciding if I want to proceed in production with them or not.
Regardless of those issues, I'm very pleased with the power numbers from the existing 4V and 8V intakes. I'm close enough to 900 HP now that with some tweaks I'm sure I can reach that goal with this engine, which I think is pretty cool with heads where the ports are still rough cast. I'm not running much crankcase vacuum, only about 7", so I may increase that somewhat to pick up some power. Lykins thinks I should run some shear plates under the carbs, so I may try that. I may also try a bigger primary tube on the headers; I picked up substantial power going from 2" to 2-1/8", so it may be worth building a set of 2-1/4" headers just to test on the RE heads. When I have more data I will put it up here; I'm particularly looking forward to running the single piece crossram intake, which is ready to be cast as soon as the foundry can open up a slot to pour it. Stay tuned...
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Jay, did we pick up the averages on the RE heads as well?
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Yep Jay nailed it.. I am a dyno groupie... Thoroughly enjoyed myself even when we were down and doing tedious stuff.. Was hoping to see the plastic fantastic manifolds shine but as Jay said more development work to be done.. Knowing Jay he will find a more elegant solution than daubing Right Stuff all over the exterior. Notice he did not include a picture of that ugly duckling.. I think there is 19 horsepower with a couple more tweaks.. Stay tuned for 900..When these heads get ported then watch out...
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Jay, did we pick up the averages on the RE heads as well?
Yes, as follows from averages of the 5000-7000 RPM pulls:
RE heads, 8V intake, Old cam: 792.4 HP, 696.0 lb-ft
RE heads, 8V intake, New cam: 804.1 HP, 705.8 lb-ft
I can't compare from 5300-7300, because I didn't run the old cam in that range.
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What's the process Dove, and others, used to seal porous aluminum castings?
Could that be adapted to plastic intakes?
Maybe full immersion, under pressure, instead of painting and slathering?
Or, take a lesson from woodworking, veneering. Slather on glue/sealer and put it all in a vacuum bag?
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Another way would be to seal the ports, then hook a shop vac, up to the carb flange, then paint it while under vacuum with a heavy paint, like maybe latex.
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good idea Frank...
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That is a good idea, I may do that. I was talking to John S this morning about this and he suggested garage floor paint, which is a two part epoxy that is impervious to fuel. I happen to have some of that, I'll probably try it...
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Another vote for some epoxy
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I would think fiberglass resin or even furniture polyurethane would work.
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3rd vote for epoxy, just test it on the blown up manifilold first in case it does not play well with whatever plastic you are using in your printer.
Have you looked into the carbon strand reinforced filaments at all? Few guys on you tube are using it to print intake manifolds ( I think it’s ABS with carbon ) , and claim it works very well.
Have to use a hardened steel or ruby nozzle, as the carbon pretty much chews up regular nozzles in no time.
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POR15
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Jay, what material are you using in your 3-D printer? Before I retired, I had considerable experience with Stratasys/Fortus Titan and MC-900 FDM machines, mostly making aircraft production shop aids and jigs/fixtures. Polycarbonate was our material of choice most of the time but we had about 6 - 8 materials to choose from. We would sometimes paint the parts with Featherfill primer; it was thick enough to hide most of the ridges. I've contacted a former co-worker who is still running the FDM lab at Lockheed Martin to see if Featherfill was effective in sealing the leaks or if he has any suggestions. I'll let you know what he says if you are interested.
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Not sure what impresses me more,
The fact that it made 800HP at 5750 rpm, or how long it pulled with 850+.
800 at 5750 makes a guy wonder what could be possible with a mild “street or street/strip” cam and some decent compression….
Going to loose some power with a lower CR, but a 750hp pump gas truck motor might be in the cards.
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I forget, how many cubic inches, and what is the compression ratio of the Dyno engine?
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It is 510", 13:1.
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Jay, what material are you using in your 3-D printer? Before I retired, I had considerable experience with Stratasys/Fortus Titan and MC-900 FDM machines, mostly making aircraft production shop aids and jigs/fixtures. Polycarbonate was our material of choice most of the time but we had about 6 - 8 materials to choose from. We would sometimes paint the parts with Featherfill primer; it was thick enough to hide most of the ridges. I've contacted a former co-worker who is still running the FDM lab at Lockheed Martin to see if Featherfill was effective in sealing the leaks or if he has any suggestions. I'll let you know what he says if you are interested.
I would be interested in what he says, thanks. I also have Featherfill on hand here. I don't know how it will respond to fuel, that would be the only concern.
My printer uses PLA filament (Poly Lactic Acid).
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So the printer is potentially Lactose intolerant?
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If memory serves me, it’s 504 cubic inches at 13:1.
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Wow, great progress!
Curious if the porosity in the manifold would be an issue on a dry manifold fitted with injector bungs? What do you imagine a SEFI intake would look like for these heads?
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Jay, what material are you using in your 3-D printer? Before I retired, I had considerable experience with Stratasys/Fortus Titan and MC-900 FDM machines, mostly making aircraft production shop aids and jigs/fixtures. Polycarbonate was our material of choice most of the time but we had about 6 - 8 materials to choose from. We would sometimes paint the parts with Featherfill primer; it was thick enough to hide most of the ridges. I've contacted a former co-worker who is still running the FDM lab at Lockheed Martin to see if Featherfill was effective in sealing the leaks or if he has any suggestions. I'll let you know what he says if you are interested.
I would be interested in what he says, thanks. I also have Featherfill on hand here. I don't know how it will respond to fuel, that would be the only concern.
My printer uses PLA filament (Poly Lactic Acid).
Well, I'm not going to be able to help you much. He said the best way to make a leak-free manifold would involve a machine other than a typical 3D printer. It would require an SLS (selective laser sintering) machine with Nylon-CF as the material. Another option would be an SLA (stereolithography) with a high temp material. I would suggest you call your printer manufacturer and see what they say about sealing but can suggest a few things for you to look into.
We used a Devcon 2-part epoxy called Plastic Welder to glue large parts together. This stuff might work to fill any larger voids, cracks, etc. that you might have. It might also work as a sealer but that would involve a lot of work, especially inside the plenum and ports. I'm not familiar with PLA so you would need to check compatability. I believe Plastic Welder is solvent resistant but it would be worth contacting Devcon to verify.
We used our FDM machines to build a wind tunnel model with built-in surface pressure ports and it was a nightmare trying to leak-check each of the ports due to the porosity of the material. We could not get a good seal with the suction head.
Edit: I've asked my former co-worker if he can suggest anything to seal an existing part (rather than build it with another machine/method). Still waiting for his reply.
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Cool updates! Just looking at TQ results since HP is also a function of RPM I am seeing general categories as below. My sample size is only 9 dyno results and there are certainly exceptions but....
FE Power heads/induction unported ----> 1.4x ft-lbs per CI
Other aftermarket heads/induction ported ----> 1.3x ft-lbs per CI
Factory ported or aftermarket unported heads/induction ----> 1.2x ft-lbs per CI
Seems reasonable to get into the 1.5x realm with a ported FE Power setup. :)
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Cool stuff Jay! I bet that backfire was an exciting moment >:(
It seems that vacuum impregnation is the way to go for getting an airtight part. You could make up a fixture and apply an epoxy or silicone compound to the PLA manifolds. Seems like a fair amount of work, but then you'd have awesome capability!
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Bill, The backfire WAS exciting... ;D
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Yes, wish I'd had a camera rolling...
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What was the talk about chikencoop live cam.
Just awesome!!!!
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Jay, I heard back. Featherfill might work but multiple coats would probably be required. How smooth is the surface of the manifold? Can you build a test square, spray with featherfill, and pull a vacuum on the surface using something like a brake bleeder? Another product to look at would be Eurofill Gold body filler if the surface is rough. Once you get a test square sealed with either featherfill or Eurofill or both, put some gasoline on it to see if it is resistant.
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Bill, The backfire WAS exciting... kinda like when Curt Johnson's intake blew off in the pits at a nhra race , no nos of coarse ?
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It is 510", 13:1.
Wow ... 1.72 hp per cubic inch from an FE at 7,200 ! !
Nice job Jay.
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" I've been thinking about running these plastic manifolds on the dyno for a while, and one concern was if they were going to be airtight or not. Before the dyno session I had briefly considered painting them all to try to make sure that the external surfaces were all leak free, but I didn't get around to that before the dyno session, so I decided to just bolt on the red sheet metal style manifold and try to run it. Unfortunately, when we started the engine it was obvious that there was a big vacuum leak, and a few seconds after starting the engine, it backfired and broke the plastic manifold. So, it was clear that some sort of sealing on the external surfaces of the 3D printed intakes was going to be required. The joys of R&D. "
How was the one manifold printed differently that the other ?
Nitrous bust panels might be a good idea for the future. If not mounted to the manifold end then burst disks in the carb spacer(s)
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Jay, did we pick up the averages on the RE heads as well?
Yes, as follows from averages of the 5000-7000 RPM pulls:
RE heads, 8V intake, Old cam: 792.4 HP, 696.0 lb-ft
RE heads, 8V intake, New cam: 804.1 HP, 705.8 lb-ft
I can't compare from 5300-7300, because I didn't run the old cam in that range.
Cam specs ?
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The cam is a solid roller, 305/317, 276/288 @ .050", 0.800" lift, 111 LSA, installed straight up.
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that is one STOUT FE...
just as a comparison the cam in my 13:1 A-460 headed 565 ( we were going small on this cam and it ended up 3* smaller than ordered )
306/315 - 275/277 @.050 - @ .200 196/186 .455 -.421 lobe lift @ 1.8 rocker (net intake lift .805") 113* Lobe sep
Pk trq 5,900 -, 6000 772 lbs ft 993 hp @ 7,300 1,003 @ 7,600
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Just sitting here re reading this post and I got thinking how exciting a back fire would be if it was a port injected intake and the top blew off…..
That would sure test the RPM limits of the valve train and bottom end!
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Saw this, same results might be had with a heat gun,
Though it probably would not be as easy with a full intake and all the little nooks and crannies…
https://youtu.be/RdvvZ1R8nns
And I can’t find the videos now on the car id reenforced filaments, thing it was ABS OR nylon, higher temp stuff but still printable with a general hobby 3D printer.
The carbon actually helps with the warping issues these materials usually have if they are not printed in a heated enclosure.
I really want to start playing with this stuff, the ABS and nylon stuff has a higher melting point, and should survive under hood temps much better than PLA, and evidently, the carbon strands makes it really, really strong. My worry though is it will still be week in the plain it was printed in as it is still just relying on the layer to layer adhesion.
Joe
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Would be nice to again see the Dyno results of the engine with conventional FE heads before your SE and RE to show the overall impact of your heads and cam changes. That would be a good base to show for our amazement.
I checked a couple of earlier result threads back into late 2020 and couldn't find the graph.
Wanted to do a copy and paste of the original dyno graph but struck out.
Richard>>> FERoadster
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Would be nice to again see the Dyno results of the engine with conventional FE heads before your SE and RE to show the overall impact of your heads and cam changes. That would be a good base to show for our amazement.
I checked a couple of earlier result threads back into late 2020 and couldn't find the graph.
Richard>>> FERoadster
Good idea! Here's another one: I'd like to see a 6-71 or 8-71 GMC blower mounted and run up with dual carbs. Bet Jay's heads would score 1,200+ hp w/o a crazy set of pulleys, say 18-20 lbs. of boost.
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Saw this, same results might be had with a heat gun,
Though it probably would not be as easy with a full intake and all the little nooks and crannies…
https://youtu.be/RdvvZ1R8nns
And I can’t find the videos now on the car id reenforced filaments, thing it was ABS OR nylon, higher temp stuff but still printable with a general hobby 3D printer.
The carbon actually helps with the warping issues these materials usually have if they are not printed in a heated enclosure.
I really want to start playing with this stuff, the ABS and nylon stuff has a higher melting point, and should survive under hood temps much better than PLA, and evidently, the carbon strands makes it really, really strong. My worry though is it will still be week in the plain it was printed in as it is still just relying on the layer to layer adhesion.
Joe
I asked the guy who printed my 3/8th scale model (A-460 tunnel ram) on his little home unit. He works for the DOD. He told me some of the PLA stuff they use with their $250k machines for prototyping are " ULTEM 1010 ( good to 415*), Antero 800NA good to 300*" " Both are quite strong, around 85Mpa, about 1/2 the strength of aluminum. They require a high temperature extruder to print. Melting point is above 500* F. You could also look for a material called PEEK"
(https://hosting.photobucket.com/images/aa150/Sleepercp/IMG_4330.jpg?width=590&height=370&fit=bounds) (https://app.photobucket.com/u/Sleepercp/a/e270eea0-14be-4a48-9b63-bd20c16995a2/p/6d91596f-476d-42b0-afc2-22f0108d5006)
(https://hosting.photobucket.com/images/aa150/Sleepercp/IMG_4241.jpg?width=590&height=370&fit=bounds) (https://app.photobucket.com/u/Sleepercp/a/e270eea0-14be-4a48-9b63-bd20c16995a2/p/b5be7774-c555-4408-8cb3-95ab05fe51bf)
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I don't think the issue(s) he's experiencing are due to low temp, or even really materials. It's the process that lays down a layer at a time, leaving tiny gaps between the layers. Porosity is the issue,.
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Understood.
The silver material we printed the top with is more dense that the black material. It is heavier. There's also the ability to print slower which might have an affect on any porosity issues.
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Sitting here taking a break from moving thinking……..who’da thunk that one day we would be thinking about FEs and 3D printers in the same sentence.
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Use a torch and slightly melt the outside of the plastic. There are video's on YouTube.