Disi-MZResponse

looks pretty damn good for by hand. nice

 

UPDATE: Shortblock complete!

Why'd it take so long for so little completion?

Well, yesterday it was too windy (shit flying all over the place) and the chance for heavy rain was there (the carport gets standing water which isn't all that great to work in).

Today, we (me and my pops) spent a lot of time doing finishing stuff to the parts before they were assembled; the bores were measured four times, for instance (more on this after the pics). The rod caps were torqued to spec when they arrived and were a pain in the ass to break loose (50 ft-lbs) with the piston on there. The rods also had to have the edges filed so they wouldn't mar the back of the bearings. The clips for the piston wrist pins were a pain in the ass too; spent more time trying to find them outside the work area after having them fly away than we did assembling them. I also had to wait for the head to show up, since it had the main studs with it; the crank and shit was installed without them, but it wasn't torqued to spec until after all that arrived.

Oh, and I had a bit of a headache matching rods to pistons, since I misplaced my notes (more on this after the pics).

On to the pics!

Unboxing (sneaky Corksport plug):


Crank installed (it fit like a glove):



Pistons assembled with rods (more on this in a moment):


Those NASCAR bearings though:


This is what compression looks like:


Chrome on the dome:


Final pic; double-checked everything:




Amazingly, it took very, very little effort to spin this thing over; most of the effort needed was at a right angle from TDC/BDC:




Now, on to the sciency bits:

First off, the bores on the factory block are pretty impressive. Please correct me if I'm wrong but I'd bet that .0005 inches (0.0127mm) is pretty good. I measured all four cylinders about 3/4" from the top and another 2-3 inches down, at 12:00, 3:00, 6:00, and 9:00 at both depths; the variance between all measurements and all four cylinders was 0.0005 inches.

Secondly: weight matching.
Here's the piston weights as provided to me by my local machine shop (in grams; these numbers are weight variance from a randomly selected piston; the 0g piston):

0g, -0.1g, -0.5g, -0.4g

And again for the rods:

-0.3g, 0g, +0.1g, +0.2g

When you add these up, none of the piston and rod combinations equal out...until you factor in which crank throws they are on. Cylinders 1 and 4 are paired, as well as 2 and 3 on an inline four; when you factor that in, the weights per throw balance out to zero (cyls 1+4 = -0.5g, cyls 2+3 = -0.5g). This should help harmonics a touch.


Plans for tomorrow:

1. Measure combustion chamber volume on the head, and even it out if required.
2. Install the head if I remembered to buy a head gasket (parts, parts everywhere)
3. Fit the cams and measure bucket clearances, order new buckets to fit.
4. Move BSD kit over to new engine
5. Begin dressing up engine with new parts

I'm probably forgetting some shit but I'm tired so fuck it.

 

Im curious to the pistons with no provisions for DI. Glad this is starting to make headway!!

 

Guess it's just hard to do with that much dome and not create other clearance issues?

 

Are you referring to no teardrop on the crown?

 

Yes, id figure it would be beneficial, but seeing how high the piston is, it may just not have fit

 

I determined that the fuel efficiency gained from that design was outweighed by the similar gains from simply running higher compression, as well as the overall design goals. I fully anticipate at least stock MPG on full E85 without tuning for it, for example.

 

So, forgive my ignorance/laziness if you already mentioned it, but are using the IE internals alone solution? Or IE + Redline? Perhaps something else?? IIRC, the IE's had some fails/don't have the reliability of Autotechs. I didn't realize they're nearly $500 for the internals:

 

I only have Autotechs.

 

So Autotechs + Redline, eh? And that's proven to be a long-term solution if used regularly/in conjunction with the correct oil? I tried to stay updated on the other forum's thread, but honestly I didn't have a vested interest. Between E25 + 100% methanol, I have all the octane/knock protection I could ever want, yet still retain a lot better MPG than 100% E85.

 

Correct. I went over a year without issues/maintenance.
[doublepost=1479946395][/doublepost]Update: Didn't get much of anything done today; kinda had the wind taken out of my sails.

Started off by measuring the combustion chamber volume on cylinder 4, came back with 45cc; stock chamber volume is about 43.2 CC. This is a problem when you're trying to reach high compression numbers, and even more of a problem when you're trying to reach high compression numbers on a de-stroked engine.

So what happened? I'll start with what I've paid for; this is the list of what I wanted done:

1. Gasket matching both intake and exhaust ports; I suggested that just a horn style rounding over would be fine
2. CNC bowl work on intake and exhaust side (this is where gains are made)
3. Minor knife edging only on the vertical portion of the runner divider on the intake ports; meant to be more cosmetic only
4. Exhaust runner hogged out to match the gasket matching for flow; I'd actually imagine that just asking for a gasket match would imply opening up the runner because of the design of the hotside on our head.

What I got (after over a month of waiting):
1. Only the intake side was gasket matched, and not evenly at that. The exhaust side wasn't gasket matched because "it would probably not gain anything and likely lose power."
My response: Unfortunately, the exhaust manifold I have now is the same as the one I had before and it comes gasket matched so I don't really think that holds water. Besides, I paid for the work, and no money was taken off for not having it done. At the least they should have notified me that they wouldn't do this work because reasons and give me the option to have them do it anyways.

2. The intake runners were aggressively knife edged/feathered, and pretty unevenly. All of the runner dividers had differing degrees of recess into the port from being ground down too much.
My response: This isn't anywhere close to what I asked for; it's way, way more work than I wanted at that.

3. The bowl work was done but not real sure how much was done or how effective it was.
My response: Supposedly it was done on CNC but apparently it's common practice to "clean it up" by hand so I don't really know for sure, only have the machinists word on that. I don't really know what to look for in good head work, but I do know that the hand ported exhausts look like fucking art.

4. Heavily polished combustion chambers to the tune of ~1.8 CC.
My response: I didn't want this, and it partially fucked me. Gains of slightly over 4% combustion chamber volume resulted in a reduction of compression by a roughly equivalent percentage.


Assuming everything else was correct, this alone would take my engine from 12.5 (12.48) static compression down to 11.97; unfortunately, I've discovered another issue with the build. I've got more deck clearance than I should; some was built in to the rods, and followed up with more in the pistons. It's my own fault for not catching it, and it alone reduces my compression from the targeted 12.5 (12.48) down to 11.85.

Factoring both in, I'm down a full point on compression.

Right now, I'm working on finding out how far the head can be decked safely (to the tune of .026 to get me back up to my goal of 12.5:1), and seeing if that's an option going forward or not. I've got a local shop that should be able to do the work needed, but I probably won't be able to get in touch with them until Monday most likely.

 

UPDATE 11-28:
Finally got a chance to chat with the local shop which did all the balancing work, and they suggested taking it all off the top of the block vs the head (which would be more work for me, having to disassemble everything, etc, but also informed me of another oversight; I measured the deck height wrong (mostly). I had forgotten that the piston will rock back and forth in the bore slightly and measured it on the big side; the actual deck clearance is actually right about 0.032" which is *slightly* looser than stock (for good reason); thus, the clearance for the piston is actually in spec and right where it should be, but the head still is not.

Thinking about it more, I would be satisfied with ~12.35:1 (what the stock combustion chamber would get me) but that means another new head. I then checked over how this head would fare on stock stroke engine and found that with 10:1 pistons, it would have a static compression ratio of ~9.79:1 as it sits right now (but still be on the low side with stock pistons to the tune of ~9.36:1, which might actually be preferable for a high boost application); still, perfectly usable, but no where near what I wanted for my build.

So uh, anyone wanna buy a head?

 

You're offering head for money? Sounds like a good time.

A thought occurred to me today while washing my balls... Maybe it'll take your mind off bad head...

How did you pressure test the EFR BPV? I ask because I noticed they sell a high pressure spring for it, but is there a way of checking the pressure it can hold while assembled on the compressor?

 

Not really; you pretty much want the high pressure spring for the BOV unless you're running a 5 psi WGA spring.

 

damn, i was thinking about this thread an hoping for an update since i was getting some serious blue balls waiting for you to get the motor going



after that head work fiasco i kinda wish there wasnt an update............

 

Well, then you might like this new update.

Speed Solutions is going to consume the existing head and set me up with a new one, built *exactly* to my spec. This will put me back to ~12.3:1 compression and that's good enough for me. I'll be boxing up the existing one and shipping it back soon.

 

Speed Solutions is da real MVP

 

Who the hell is Speed Solutions???

 

These guys: https://www.facebook.com/speedsolutionsLLC/

They have excellent customer service, as you can see.. They did the hand porting to the hotside of this head, and you can see the quality of that in a prior post.
[doublepost=1480540111][/doublepost]Minor update:
Maximum piston to valve clearance is .308 intake and .263 exhaust at full lift and TDC. On the intake side, this is slightly higher than the lobe lift on my cams. This does *not* factor in valve sweep, but does factor in the piston flycut, the head gasket, the deck clearance and the static drop at the valve (to the best of my ability to measure by hand, anyways).

I'll still be claying the piston crown for checking intake / exhaust / spark plug clearances just to be sure though.

 

And i came!