FLATCAD RACING Bonneville 2011 Build

Engine ***embly - Rings 101

I'm sure most of you know this stuff, but I thought I'd share what I do with those that don't. If this is boring - then just skip the detail . . . thought it might help a few.

1) Rings in General: There has been vast improvements in ring technology over the last 10 - 20 years. Given that this a blown motor, we wanted to use rings that were designed for the higher temperatures and more extreme racing conditions of Bonneville and boost.

I did quite a bit of research into modern ring packages and have heard a lot of good things about Akerly & Childs. I've used them with other engines and their service/support is fantastic. We designed the pistons/bore for using Ford Mod-Motor rings - for a 3.551 bore engine. The rings are 1.5, 1.5, 3.0 mm and the top ring is what is known as a HTD (High Tensile Ductile) or "Hellfire" (Speed-Pro) ring package. These rings are used on blown and nitrous applications, they're not Moly - and really hold up well (at least we hope so!).

2) Ordering Them Oversize: I always order my compression rings to be .005 oversize - then I 'file to fit' them to the bore. This is a really common thing in racing - pretty much the way most race rings come these days. The size ordered was 3.556

3) File to Fit: I use a hand operated diamond wheel ring filer to hand file the top two compression rings for every bore. I size and place them in the bore they will reside in - just to ensure the right rings go on each piston.



It takes a little getting used to as far as how much to crank the handle - versus how much ring to remove. The top HTD ring is much harder than the cast-iron second ring - so you need to pay attention to what you're doing.



4) Breaking the Sharp Edge: I always take a hand file and just round the sharp edge off a bit - helps to prevent the ring edge from scoring the bores. Just do it a little bit - as shown in the ****py pictures.



5) Ring Indexing on the Piston: You should always index the compression ring gaps to be opposite one another - about 180 degrees. On a relieved flathead, you should index them so the ring gaps are NOT in the relief area. If you don't, then it is a real ***** to install the pistons as the ring ends will pop-out into the relief. Pay close attention, as if this happens it is really easy to break a ring as you're tapping the piston into the bore.



6) Ring Compressors: There are many types, I've been using the good ole' tempered "blue steel banded" versions for years. Whatever works for you and you know how to use.



7) Gaps: Every ring manufacturer will recommend ring end gaps. The key thing to note is your application. Blown/Gas/Fuel applications normally use the widest ring gaps. Ours are like this:

a) Top HTD Rings: .008 per inch of bore . . . or .028
b) Second Ring: .0065 per inch of bore . . . or .023

8) Pay Attention To Ring Gaps!
It is usually better to have TOO wide of gaps, than too narrow! The reason is that when they are too narrow (especially in a blown/nitrous situation), then when the ring heats up and expands, then the ends will **** and cause a ring to bind to the bore -- breaking them, ruining pistons and maybe the whole dang engine.

9) Piston Ring Expander Tool: Buy a piston ring expander - they're cheap and well worth the money. They save time and help prevent scoring of the edges of the piston and/or breaking a ring with manual methods (though I must say, I did it the manual/hand way for years).



Which Way is Up Brother?: Also, make sure you pay attention to which way the rings go on the piston! I always install the oil rings first - pretty simple stuff. When you get to the compression rings, you need to know which side goes up! In this case, the 'dots' on the rings were always up -- though the bevel was down on one ring and up on the other. It is easy to get distracted and put them on upside down - not a good idea.


Well, there you have it - kind of boring stuff . . . but maybe it will help somebody who has not done this before and wants to understand the details.

Okay - onto piston and rod installation . . .

 

Rod and Piston ***embly:

Spelling Out the Details - Time to Babble On!: I'm going to talk too much here, maybe preach to the choir once again - but who knows, maybe some guys can use this information? I know that a bunch of HotRod mentors helped me learn this stuff - without them I would have ruined a lot of expensive parts! (Thanks Uncle RK Stanley, Joe Reath, T. Willy, Joe Hunt, Joe Mac, Snuffy, Ed Isky, etc).

1) Rod Orientation - Sides Matter!: On most racing crankshafts - and even many stockers, the rod journals have blended radius fillets on the outside. When we ordered this crankshaft we specified 1/8" radius journals -- as it greatly increases the strength of the crankshaft to have a nice blended fillet/radius on the edges of the journal. When you're using this type of crankshaft, the rods need to have a corresponding fillet/radius on one edge. If you install the rods with the wrong orientation, then the sharper (inside edge) of the big-end will rub on the crankshaft and potentially cause a catastrophic failure.

Rod Side With Fillet - Goes Toward the Outside of the Journal:



Rod Side with No Fillet - Goes Toward the Middle:



Note the two sides of the rods - the fillet goes to the outside of the rod journal. When you ***emble your pistons/rods, you really need to pay attention to this to get the piston and rod in the right orientation. Hell - I end up checking my work multiple times.

2) Using a Rod Vise: I can tell you, if you build more than a couple engines - invest in a professional rod vise. They not only make it easy to ***emble rods/pistons, but they are really nice when you're putting rings on, tightening down ring compressors, etc.. This one was less than a $100 -- not cheap, but worth it.



3) Check Clearances - Before You ***emble Everything: If you're the guy ***embling an engine, then it is up to you to know exactly what your bearing, piston-to-bore, rod side clearance and ring clearances are. I never trust any part or machine work from any manufacturer - as they ALL make mistakes . . . or maybe you just ordered the wrong part? If you're going to do this work, then you need an accurate set of inside/outside micrometers and you need to know how to use them.

FlatCad Clearances:

a) Mains: Front/Middle - .0035, Rear .004
b) Rods: .0025
c) Rear Thrust: .006
d) Rings: .028 and .023
e) Piston to Bore: .006

When I was young and couldn't afford all the mics I needed, at least I used 'Plastigauge' on the crank - BUT . . . it is not accurate to say the least. It may give you some idea, but it can easily be off .001 to .0015 (which can be fatal in a race engine).

Also, write down ALL your clearances - such that you have an engine build log for everything. You may need this someday!

4) Lubrication for Bearings, Rod Pins, Bores and Pistons: I use specially formulated ***embly lubricants for all critical surfaces. I have an ***ortment of about 3 - 4 different products that I use.

a) Crankshaft, Bearings and Rod Pins: I use some stuff from Redline - here is the link:

http://www.redlineoil.com/product.aspx?pid=77&pcid=17

b) Bores and Piston Sides: I've used Torco stuff for years - they have a set of 'MPZ' products that I like. It is a fairly thick red lubricant - I apply it from top-to-bottom on the bores and all over the pistons - working it into the rings as well. I always use just my bare hands - as they are about the cleanest surface you can use. Once I start the lubrication and ***embly process - I stay with it and keep my hands clean the whole time. I've used this stuff for every engine I've ever ***embled - guess it works for me.

http://www.torcousa.com/torco_product/mpz_engine.html

5) ***embly Lubrication for Rod and Main Studs, Nuts, Bolts: If you want an accurate torque reading , then it is imperative that you use the correct lubricant on your rod and main bolts/nuts. I use the heavy black/graphite stuff from ARP. The Crower rods come with it all over the bolts, but I still add more. I also use it on all the main stud nuts - again, to achieve accurate torque readings:



6) Rods and Pistons - Ready to Go: Here are the nice Crower billet rods (all 8.75" of them!) with the coated Venolia forged pistons. The pistons were a custom pop-up design (to match our custom heads). They pop up about .187 and have a flow-ramp for the valve relief area. Venolia didn't make the flow-ramps, I did that part by hand (too hard to explain the details to them). After I cut/polished the flow ramp areas, then I balanced the pistons -- then our sponsor Finish Line coatings ceramic coated the tops, put a dry-film lubricant on the sides and a heat barrier on the insides. They do REALLY nice work. They do look very nice - would like to just keep them on my desk and look at them!





7) Cutting Block Rod Reliefs: I had to hand grind the bottom edges of the bores to clear the rods - as we're running a stroker crank and the rods a a bit bigger than stock. No big deal - folks have been doing this stuff for decades.



8) Final ***embly Shots: Here are some final shots of the deck surface, piston flow areas, etc..







----------------

9) Parting Shot -- Those ******** Spiro-Locs, Sons-za-*****es!: God I hate installing these damn things! I don't know about you guys, but these just work the **** out of my hands/fingers . . . there MUST be some special tool that I don't have. (Yeah, I know . . . guess I should just buy one!) I dread the installation of these -- every dang time! I guarantee that there is NO way in Hell I could remove them - without a tool . . . hopefully I won't need one for the FlatCad!




All in all . . . a fantastic FlatCad weekend! Buddy is coming by in a couple weeks, I need to keep hauling *** on this!

Be back shortly . . . stay tuned . . .

Same Flat Time, same Flat Channel . . .

Duhdaduhdaduhdaduhda Duhdaduhdaduhdaduhda Duhdaduhdaduhdaduhda . . . Flat Man! (see who knows that jingle! Guess I'm showing my age!)

Okay - who has it?

 

Neil Hefti's Batman- WTF do I win??


Great job Dale!

 

Thanks Bored&Stroked, that was a great read.
May the speed demonds on the salt be kind to you and the team.
Concentration is everything when putting engines together.
Keep up the good work.

 

Damn you Buddy . . . us old *******s know all the same stuff! I can just see the end of Bat Man in my mind -- 'Socko', 'Blamo', etc . . . too damn funny!

Okay - you win a used blower gasket and an oily rag! Just kidding yah! Now -- that wasn't nice, now was it! Guess I'm a bit punchy after a great day in the shop . . .

 

Who you calling old? Lol!

The real problem with the song is, once you hum it once, you'll be doing it for hours!

 

Thanks for posting the build process. I learned a lot through trial and error, and one of those was making sure the rod radius pointed towards the radius on the crank. We ***embled my brother in laws motor and for the life of us couldn't figure out why there was zero end play between the rods and the thrust on the crank. After pulling them out again and looking it dawned on me that they were binding on the crank radius because we hadn't installed them correctly. Oh well. Glad we caught it before we ****oned up the rest of the motor.

Keep posting your build progress. I'm loving it!

 

Gotta agree with grovedawg, while I really like the whole thread (and have the tee shirt to prove it), by far the best part to me is the detailed steps posted by Bored&Stroked. I've built quite a few engines over the years but there is always something to learn. Just wish I could see this beast run in person. Looking forward to the videos!

 

Thanks for all the kind words guys - makes it worthwhile to pen these large dang posts! Wish you could all be there when we fire it . . . that initial startup is about the most exciting for me. We'll be sure to have a video!

Stay tuned . . . more to come . . .

 

Dale with all the time patience and expertise you have shown on this build I'm sure you will be rewarded with all you expect. Great job and great thread. I too can't wait to hear the Flat Cad making some smoke and sweet noise!!!................

 

And thanks again Dale for you time and detailed engine build. It’s a big help to all of us “not so professional” back yard engine builders who aspire to building better engines.

 

Secret spy photo of the ports!

 

Ok Patman, now 'splain to all of us how I'm s'posed to get the beer back out of my iPad.


"Porting I learned on the Internet" good god I hope that was junk when they started.

 

Man thats gonna take a LOT of lapping compound!

 

Thanks for all the support we've received- it's been wonderful!

As we are trying to finish this project up, and get to the dyno, I'm going to throw the support shirts and prints up again!

You can get them from Keeper's site, www.flatcaddy.com

 

Buddy, That drawing of the car with blower scoop sticking out of the hood is *****IN' ! ! ! ! Going to be one mean Hot Rod.

Dave

 

The good news is that the actual car will look very similar . . . only more bad ***!

Chris 'Wizwheel' Daniels and I worked on the motor all day today -- on the gear drive, cam thrust setup, timing covers, etc..

It is coming along REALLY well and I'm totally geeked and ready to hear this thing fire. That poor old Cadillac block has no clue as to what is in store for it! I'll post again tomorrow - stay tuned, you'll now get a chance to see what the last 1.5 years of engine design and building are all about.

KowafrickinBunga Baby!

 

Nice...............

 

Go Dale Go!!!!!!!

 

Busy Weekend - Water Block Off Plates - Timing Cover Plate

Going like mad - too much to do . . . too little time.

We're not using the standard water pump - needed to make a block off plate. I don't have a band-saw, so I used my "poor mans version" - an electric hand saw with a metal blade. Actually I use it for all sorts of metal work - kind of like the way it works for anything up to about 1/4".

Whacked this out of 3/8" aluminum plate, drilled holes and counter-sunk them for the angle-head allen bolts . . . worked out nice:







Not too bad for a hand "whittled" chunk o' aluminum.

Then, I mounted the timing cover adapter plate - it is a 1/2" plate that adapts the Donovan BBC gear drive to the FlatCad. The gear drive "thinks its on a BBC", the plate does the translation.

Hmmmmmm - was pondering the pressurized oil p***ages out of the cam nose (which I tapped to plug them) and as I was looking at the front of the engine, I realized . . . where the hell is all the oil going to go? I had not thought about provisions for oil drain-back holes to the pan. So where the hell is all that oil going when it comes out of the cam bearing and drains down to the front . . . . good question?





Another example of one step forward, one back. Took all of that back off - ruined my hand-made gasket and started over.

I took the timing plate and put in on the mill to cut a drain-back trough at the bottom. This trough gives the oil someplace to go -- otherwise it was probably going to pool up and come out the front seal!





Here it is mounted once again - notice the oil drain areas at the bottom:



This whole drama cost me about 5 extra hours . . . that is the way it goes with one-off engines . . . always something to deal with that you didn't contemplate when you designed all these parts!

Okay - onto other things . . .

 

As always.... beautiful work Dale.

Vergil

 

Weekend Update #2 - Cam, Gear Drive, etc . . . and aggravation!

Once I had the timing cover plate remounted - time to get into the cam, gear drive, thrust setup, etc..

Keep in mind that the whole front of the engine is custom - not one damn thing that should belong there! This makes the ***embly process and the details all the more important.

Here is about 1/2 the **** that goes on the front of the motor:



1) Cam Snout - @#%@#$#

I'm going to ***** a little here . . . we had the billet cam blank done by a guy who does a lot of 8620 billet cam blanks - and believe me, he is NOT cheap. I gave him a complete engineering drawing of everything we needed - told him we needed a standard BBC cam snout (3 holes, dowel pin , etc).. You would think this would be a no-drama situation. As he is very experienced in cam blanks - didn't think there should be an issue. But as this **** usually goes - there are multiple issues I've had to deal with today, not a happy cam camper.

a) The 3 holes should be 5/16 NC - he tapped them for 5/16 NF . . . not a big deal except all the standard BBC Donovan hardware I have won't work. Now - I can tell this is heading a bad direction already . . . you can smell it in the air . . .

b) Standard BBC Snout - How Hard Should it Be? When I spoke to him months ago, he seemed a bit nervous about the BBC snout - that should have been a warning. In hindsight - he obviously was not setup to drill the snout of a cam (so why do cam blanks - hmmmm?). You have to have the equipment and jig to drill these accurately - can't do it in a vertical mill, need a horizontal setup. When I attempted to ***emble the Donovan gear drive - things were just not in alignment.

I took a close look at the holes and put some long bolts to see the angles. I was a bit pissed - because it was obvious he didn't have a horizontal mill to drill the holes and did them by hand. They were not straight, the dowell pin was about .010 off and the gear flange did not fit/center - had .012 runout on it. Now this ****s in a big way!

Here you can see how the gear flange holes were tight on one side and had space for the red lock***e to get behind on the other two. There should have been no lock***e around any of the three holes (the other stuff is redline lube). @#%@#%



I had to take some fine tool-n-die makers files and hand rework the Donovan gear flange to deal with the snout issues. This took another 3 hours of hand dressing. Now that I had to 'scwag' it to fit - it will only work on this cam . . . they're now best friends. (cam is done - you can't fix it).

After a whole bunch of monkey-****, managed to get the gear flange to fit a lot better - reduced the runout to about .004 . . . best I can do. I'm not too worried about it in that the mag-drive extension runs in a front bearing - so the runout will hopefully be controlled by the front roller bearing. Guess I'm just plain damn mad about poor workmanship - I get tired of fixing other folks F___ Ups (especially when they were paid very good money to do quality work!).

Okay - I feel better now . . . got that *****ing off my damn chest!

2) Cam Thrust: A standard Donovan gear drive uses a big br*** washer for the thrust surface (.060 thick). I designed the front system to use a .195 Torrington needle bearing. Chris and I worked yesterday to setup the front/rear cam thrust to be about .005. The Torrington bearing controls the rear thrust and a roller bearing in the 90 degree mag drive controls the front thrust.



Here is the completed front setup - with the gear drive flange and mag drive spud installed . . . looking kind of cool hugh?



I used a dial indicator on the rear of the cam to measure the thrust - then used my surface grinder to precision grind shims to set it. Without shims we had .015 thrust - once the shims are in place to control front thrust, it has .005. Normally you want about .005 to .010 or so of thrust (if you control it at all!). The good news is that this setup is exactly what we need for a roller cam . . . whups - did I just say that?



3) Cam Oiling: The stock FlatCad had two oiling holes in the snout of the cam that delivered oil (under pressure) to the stock thrust plate. I tapped the stock holes such that I could put a allen plug to block them off. We don't need pressure to the thrust - as there is no metal-on-metal situation - all roller bearings. Also, didn't want to bleed off oil pressure from the mains.



4) Snake Pit: Here is the front of the motor - with the 6 snout support extensions in place. Once I finish the front of the motor, you'll see our "4th Main bearing" and the front snout support system. This was pricey stuff, but Fowler, Crower, Buddy and I all believed it was necessary to help reduce crankshaft "whip" from the blower belt. We only have 3 mains, so this front system acts like a 4th and is very important for crankshaft stability.



Okay - done for now . . .

 

Man, are you gonna have trouble picking up stuff for this at AutoZone...

 

You think? Lol!

Dale, the level of detail is always amazing!


On another note, Dale and I were chatting today. Due to some unforeseen cir***stances, we've decided to put off the dyno until March. We are still scrambling to make El Mirage in May, though!

There will still be lots of build to see between now and then!

 

Dale once again amazing workmanship. Wow this has and is one build for the books my friend .............

 

I don't care who you are. That right there is ***y.

 

Monday Night - Degreeing in the Cam:

Decided to get my mind off of some tough family stuff and head to the workshop after work.

I recently bought a new Moroso degree wheel from Jegs - along with a BBC degree wheel hub that goes over the crank snout. It uses the keyway and has a place for a 1/2" breaker bar to turn the engine over. Makes it easy to move the crank backwards/forwards without using a crank snout bolt. It is a really a nice setup - and since our crank snout is BBC, seemed like a good idea.

Well - as my luck usually has it, I didn't think about the 6 crankshaft snout support rods . . . they were right in the way, so I couldn't put the degree wheel on. **** - foiled again! There is no way to take them off at this stage - without pulling the whole timing system back off . . . then you can't degree the cam anyway.

So, I decided to make a hub extender on the lathe - with dual threaded ends and tigged it all together. Now I have someplace to mount the degree wheel).

Then I went to put the steel hub over the crank - **** again! The crank has dual 1/4" keys - the hub has a standard 3/16 BBC key. Okay - onto the surface grinder to make a 'combination key' - half 1/4" and half 3/16".





Okay - can finally start the degree process (2 hours later).

For those who don't really know how to degree a cam, here is how I do it.



1) Use a dial indicator to locate TDC on #1 piston - then set your degree wheel to TDC on the pointer. Then I rotate the crank .100 down both before and after TDC (to validate that I've truly found TDC). The degree wheel should show the same number of degrees on both sides of TDC. Adjust as necessary.

2) Then I rotate the crankshaft the number of degrees past TDC that represents the camshaft intake centerline. In this case - it was 112 degrees.

3) Then (leaving the crank at 112), put the dial indicator on the intake ramp of the cam (with zero lash) or on the valve on a flathead and rotate the cam in the running rotation until the intake valve is at peak lift.

4) Then you put the gear drive upper gear on (being careful to NOT rotate the crank or cam). If you have a vernier type of cam gear, then you find the set of holes that are closest - so you can just slip the gear on. Lightly tighten the gear bolts. This should get you CLOSE to the mark - but you're not done yet.

5) Then backup the crankshaft (counter-rotation) and watch your dial indicator until you are exactly .050 DOWN from the peak lift. Write down your degree wheel settings. (In our case, 69).

6) Then rotate the crankshaft in normal rotation - past peak valve lift until you are .050 down on the closing side of the lobe. Write down your degree wheel settings once again. (In our case 152).

7) Add the two numbers and divide by two. This is your true intake centerline. If you have less degrees than the advertised centerline, then the cam is advanced -- if more, then it is retarded.

8) You'll probably need to now remove the cam gear and swap another set of holes to advance/retard the cam to get it correct. I like the Donovan setup - as the gear is a vernier style - so you can move it anyplace you want by just rotating the gear to another set of holes -- to advance or retard it.

9) On our Donovan gear drive, I was at 110 degrees (2 degrees advanced). I then tried two more gear locations -- one gave me 112.5, the other 111. I opted for the 111 setting - this is one degree advanced.

10) I always validate the timing tag as well - to see if the .050 off of base circle numbers are correct and/or very close. The FlatCad came in at exactly the BTDC number of 24 degrees and the close was at 66 ABDC degrees instead of 68. Pretty dang close . . . better than I typically see. Bullet did a nice job on delivering what the timing tag says - the lift was exact, the timing events where they should be, etc..

11) Write down your numbers and cam settings - in case you want to screw with it later on!

That is it for this evening - will be mounting the crank hub and support system shortly.

B&S

 

Wonderful read Dale, isn't it always like that you go one step forward then two back before you can go forward again.........

 

Beautiful work Dale!

I would like to see TRJ devote atleast 8 pages on this build!
Or one hole issue


Br
Kjell

............................
Taildragger&fenderless

 

Well, I had the wind taken out of my sails today!

Chris had made a prototype head chamber, so that Joe Abbin could do the initial flow test.

Garry Odbert has been porting and testing his Caddy flathead, and getting 185-187 CFM at .500 lift, with a stock head, with the valve pockets cut to allow .500 lift. Garry offered to flow our head, for comparison.

Here are the numbers-intake side at .100 lift 64cfms lift, @.200- 123cfm, .300-150cfm, 400-163cfm, .450-166cfm, and .500-166cfm.

Garry reported a good, smooth airflow, which was about the only positive news!

In addition to disappointing flow, Garry did a dye test, and it looks like fuel is all in one 2'' spot, centered over the exhaust valve, unlike some heads, we placed the spark plug over the intake valve! Garry is going to send a pic this evening.

So, I'm pretty confident that no matter what the engine does on the dyno, we've left some HP out of the engine. Garry's port are not identical to ours, but that is only part of the equation- the 'race' head flowed 20 cfm less that the stock freakin head!

We'll get it on the dyno, but I'll still be feeling disappointed in not getting more testing done prior to getting parts made. Ideas are good, but I'm kicking myself for not doing more testing! I'm definitely going to look at other piston/head options, for a major redo this fall.