The elusive 224/3.7 MerCruiser banger

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dennis,

I'm sure you know that you should not use the weight unless you add a second weight to balance it out because this engine used a zero balance flywheel and harmonic balancer.

I just wanted to be sure that no one tried to use a weighted balancer as it would certainly cause an imbalance.

The only way the weight could be used is if a second identical weight is fastened to the balancer directly opposit it to give a heavier overall weight and still maintain the zero balance. This isn't probably necessary but is an option that might solve some problem if one crops up.
.

Dick

 

It is pretty clear about the need for a zero balance dampener. I doubt that anything you said would be mis-interpreted. And it is always good to have 50 oz options.
I put in wrist pins today..had fun: heated the connecting rod to 450deg and chilled the wristpin in dry ice... the first one just dropped into place. On inspection, I found the piston defective[loose wristpin on one side] a new one is on its way under warranty. The others were much tighter, when cold wristpin and hot connecting rod touched they locked up. [I'm glad the pistons are flat sided making it easy to set up press blocks so I could finally press the wristpins down into position.]

 

dennis,

If you don't already have one get the Mercruiser 3.7 470 Technical Manual.

I can't find mine right now but will find it before I assemble anything.

There are some things that are unique to these engines that need to be addressed to prevent problems.

.
Dick
.

 

Look in the city library. My library has the manuals.

 

I just bought an old Ford 3 groove front pulley, it will add 4 lbs to the dampener. However, it was so big that I cut 1/3 of it away. a 289 pulley would have been better, but this one can be reworked.

I was also surprised to find that my old pistons were fine but their wrist pins were worn badly.

 

This shows the clearance hole in the bellhousing for the starter nose[slightly rusted]. I did not remove material from anything but the bellhousing [ a used bellhousing is much cheaper than a starter]. Clearance around the starter nose is about 1/32" in most places.

As the bellhousing is thin, and brittle and the hole is a large fraction of the bellhousing, I'm considering making a brace to bridge the hole. Is it actually needed? I think the two bolts adjacent to the hole should transfer loads in the bellhousing into the block.

A last note is that you can see where my die grinder slipped dinging up the edge. As the bellhousing is aluminum, it is important to avoid stress risers by having a smooth surface without scratches in it. One should sand out the scratches removing the stress risers, and contour the edge of the hole so it is smooth, rounded and even.
[ this block has had 5/8" milled from its rear surface.]
dennis

 

Now all my engine parts are back for assembly. It is balanced to 0.2 gram [ crankshaft, rods, pistons, flywheel /pressure plate assembly and vibration dampener.] Redline Cams did a very careful balance job on it. I can't say enough good about them. They've been very good to me. They enjoy doing these unusual jobs.

 

Not so hard...lol
For original equipment pics, Ebay is the best.
Car equipped pics are a little harder to find.

First pic with the little black gasket laying on top- that's mine a few months ago- threw a Hyundai 1.6 liter gasket on top for comparison.

The red tube frame car- that's a drag build out of Puerto Rica (lots of 4-cyl racers there). Don't have any times or stat's or other pics on it.

The blue framed build with white pannelling- that's a very current build- those pics are only a month or so old. The poster has threads open on a couple of "460" boards:
http://www.429-460.com/proven-builds-f4/460-four-cylinder-build-t5833.htm
and
http://www.460ford.com/forum/showthread.php?t=146801

 

Ok, a few more, mainly stock- guy's without one of these to eyeball in person might get a lot of out these- I had most or all of these saved as research before I picked up my motor. I'm super land locked here, and had to go up to the very NW corner of British Columbia to get my "free" motor. Most expensive free thing I ever got... lol

I have one issue with my shortblock, though- it's already 4.39, and a Hyper piston with too much clearance broke off the skirt (that's why I got it) and scratched up one of the walls pretty bad- a finger nail will stick in the deepest part of the grooves.
So any of you experts that still chime in, anyone go to 4.44 in one of these? Will I be seeing "shadows" on the cast in liners? I know, I know- just get-'er done and let you know. I suppose I can always put in a sleeve...? Just wondered if anyone knew what my odds are...?


Back to the photo show...

Bellhousing from the outside- you'll get views of this in later pics but these aren't showing much else, so I filed them under bellhousing. (BTW, if you collect pics for any reason, rename them in a way (usually alapebtically) so that they will come up in Windows in a useful order, keeps things tidy!)

I gave away my bellhousing... there's no transmission compatibility at all, and no real room for a clutch, obviously.
I bought a Jeep Iron Duke to T4 bellhousing, and as has been noted a Mustang 94-99 V6 or 94-95 V8 T5, has the right input shaft length for it to work just right- though you have to have a crank shop put a place in the rear flange for a bearing.
Then I took some pics if the deck. Yep, the cylinder walls are free standing... To me, a little scary, but Hondas, Alfas, a lot of super-reputation engines, do it this way. When you turbo a Honda to high boost, you either run an aluminum frame, called a block guard, or you "post" it.
Here's a link to what block guards look like:
honda "block guard"
http://www.google.ca/images?hl=en&source=imghp&q=honda+"block+guard"&gbv=2

and a couple to block posting:
http://www.google.ca/images?hl=en&safe=off&gbv=2&tbs=isch:1&sa=1&q=block+posting+honda

http://www.google.ca/images?hl=en&safe=off&gbv=2&tbs=isch:1&sa=1&q="block+posting"

Am I suggesting you need to do this? Nope, not at all, not unless you turbo and run more than 10-12 psi, and/or can't tune worth @#$%, or aren't smart enough to lower the compression just a bit and get the deck right before you do the above turboing.

The reason manufacturers design with walls like this, is so that the torque on the head bolts doesn't distort the cylinder walls. You don't need to have a deck-plate hone on anything built this way (Someone might choose to argue, but the main "99%" reason deckplate honing is beneficial is removed from the equation.) It's actually a nice way to do it.
I might as well venture into my opinion on cylinder head bolts... The 9/16" bolt which was inherited from the Ford iron block, is too much bolt. If, and it's a big if, you can get inserts that purcase a nice long amount of thread, you are better to go down to a half inch stud, or even a 12mm stud (and I hate metric, but that size is slightly closer -when you do the full math-to 1/2 than 7/16". It's the size used in medium trick (aka Ram) Cummins diesels, btw...! )
That's because you need to get the bolt to stretch a bit, so that when gaskets compress a bit, and thermal forces cause uneven expansion contraction, the bolt still maintains tension. If a 9/16" bolt stretches 2.5 thou on the torquing you give it on assembly, and the gasket crushes over time by 1 thou, you are down over 40% in force. If the bolt stretches 9 thou (I'm just picking numbers), you've lost only 11% crushing force.
Just saying my piece, my opinion... I don't have the funds to compare this scientifically, but my motor is not going together with 9/16 bolts. Probably with 12mm studs..

 

Pic one shows the AMC/Jeep bellhousing mounted. Note that there's some airspace up top, so not a perfect fit, and yeah I had worried about the starter pocket. Seems like an earlier poster came up with a solution for that- the International Harvester v8 starter off Ebay. Looks like that's a PMGR (permanant magnet, gear reduction). I'd be in, but I hate the sound of those gear drive starters- I like the relative silence when it's turning over, on the old school starters. I'd already planned to do a reverse mount off the passenger's rear, and have a starter of the correct direction of rotation for doing that.



Some more of the deck, and a couple distributor pics. Ford inspired, but not sure if any parts are in common with any Ford.
FWIW, Mallory still lists a brand new performance distributor for these motors. For me, stick a Pertronix in if it you must, and use that to trigger whatever you want...

 

Some views from the exhaust side- from "more or less fully dressed" to bare shortblock

 

Some of the front- you can see a bit of how things go together, though there were some things I didn't "get" until I had one to look at in person.

I've wondered about using a sturdy belt to drive the cam, thinking that there's some pretty major "ringing" going on in the crank, but it doesn't seem likely I'm going to experiment there. The idea would have been that belts don't transfer to-and-for "ringing" harmonics that go on in the crank. It's good if you can isolate those from the valvetrain, or at least from the camdrive. I hadn't thought of the tapping for the external cooling conversion, but I don't think I'll go that way, either. Too many bad experiences with the cheap aftermarket SBC electric water pumps...

 

Well I can skip H for HAMB, 'cause you guys already have seen those...lol

Let me see what's next. This is really tedious uploading these...

 

d for deck
e for exhaust
f for front
h for Hamb
I for intake

 

Yes, I'm cheating called the same photo rotated 180 degress two photos, but some times it helps to see it two ways

 

It's been observed that the oil pan is fairly shallow. That's true, but the block is quite deep which maybe makes up for it to some extent. If you planned to really whing thing this thing, I'd do a bigger, deeper box pan. OTOH, it's been proven with BigBlock Mopars and Ford FE's that is the block is deep enough, then windage and the associated ropes of oil is all happening up too high for the pan to help much.
Crank scraper might be an idea, too.. again, only when racing, I think.

 

R is for Randy, who played with these motors for longer and (debateably, according to him) more successfully than any of us here, certainly than me.

186 at Bonneveille, I think he was saying earlier in this thread?

I think these pics are all from after the new guy (who sold them shortly after) bought the parts, or maybe they were taken by Randy as a classified ad photo set. Anyhow... they ended up with me, because I was chasing down "info" on these motors at the time.

 

DO NOT GRIND ON A 112 LC,keep it as wide as you can,115,116,117 or more.
This is not a 460,it has a 460 head and pistons,it will not run good with a 460 grind.
This engine has pulses like you have never even heard of,you need a wide LC to keep the reversion down and to help even out the pulses.
Trust me on this.

 

Some playing around with photo editing pgrograms to see how some of the "built" V8's might look, turned so only the driver's half is visible.

Also a "before and after" photo-edit of a tall aftermarket V8 manifold into something that I'd put a 305 Chebby TPI throttlebody on and hook to a Boss head.
Length would be just barely long enough-- you want something a bit long for street torque....

 

Randy's got some strong opinions on this one...

I'm in no way saying I can disagree with his findings, and I'm going in here "gently" if I may, to try to present the other side.
Why I want to do this is that, while I don't have experience with these, I do have experience where closing the Lobe Separation by 11-12 degrees along with a slightly shorter rod, and shorter duration cam, grew torque in the midrange by almost 20%...

So, I took it to the experts... JonSchmidt that posted on here did a lot of the engineering for one the the most respected high end custom crank makers, ...before joining the Honda Indy effort.
You need a membership to view these replies, but the summary was: it's a distant factor, but LSA doesn't directly correlate to vibration in the crank.
http://speedtalk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=6181&hilit=lobe+separation

I know when my cam goes in for regrind it will be with strict orders to take the time to calculate where there's enough material to fit (when regrinding) the lobes that I want, on the close side: if it's 107, 108, 109 then woo-who. If it's 110 or 111 which is more likely, that's fine too.
Incidently the supposed Elgin OE-duplicate's grind is online here, and it does show 114 advanced 3 degrees, both of which are like a lot of OE cams for V8's:

http://catalog.elginind.com/app/Engine_tech.asp?part=E-1583-S&category=Camshaft

 

additional somewhat random pics
bearing numbers might be handy, though I keep hearing use Cleveland ones and redo the tang-notches

 

Some further ones. The top three are actually from very old threads on here, and haven't been posted in this thread.

The side drafts are Carter YH's.. probably when posting here to the HAMB I don't need to tell anyone that. They were on the original 1953 Corvette and on many Corvairs.

The old filter on these seems to be bashed in a lot of pics. I almost thought this was the same motor as one of my ebay-sourced pics when I saw that.

BTW, the oil filter is GM, not Ford. Probably because Mercury Marine dealers already had their own uniqued coloured (and maybe uniquely spec'd) GM-style filters on the shelf

 

the LC has nothing to do with crankshaft vibration,it has everything to do with intake manifold pulses.
Not many engine builders or cam grinders have ever messed with a 4 banger this big.

You guys ever heard of Ed Pink?
I called him up and talked to him,i told him i had a 240 inch 4 banger,he started laughing and asked me "does that fucker shake? does it have some pulses?hahahaa!"

Heres all i'm going to say,use a mercruiser head gasket,from mercruiser,not napa or anybody else,they are different.
Don't grind it LC closer than 115.

I ran 186MPH with a 183 inch mercruiser,and i was running under strict orders to NOT run over 200MPH,Bonneville tech did not like my front tires and put the speed limit on me.
We were turning the engine at 5000 RPM to run 186,with a 6500rpm redline.

I know what i was doing wrong and i know i can run faster now,if i wanted to run the mercruisers.
I ran those engines for 6 years,setting many records at Maxton,i ran them in 2 cars,a lakester and a comp coupe,all of which were built in my backyard shop.

I admit that i had the wrong cam LC's,will you?

 

You're saying then, that you'd go wider yet?
I vaguely remember, either on the Nailheads or early in developing the 430/455, Kenne Bell used to sell what I think was either a 116 or 118 LSA cam... so do some of the late model LS engines use somwething hugely wide, the supercharged LS_ is 117 or so, IIRC.
Not saying it can't work, but you'd be leaving huge midrange (and likely significant top end) on the table in a naturally aspirated motor.

To be fair, I'm looking at 220/226 duration @ .050, so I won't have the reversion you did...

But, I contend it's got very little to do with intake pulses or power pulses, unless they are giving you misfires.
Cramming air and fuel into a 4 cylinder so it makes 125 hp a hole (500+ horsepower) is done by lots of turbo tuners. Many of the Honda's, Mitsubishi Eclipse's doing so are un-canny smooth, even when they have very low rod ratios, and are on the edge of detonation with very rough, nearly uncontrolled combustion events. You've said yourself in emails that the engine was rough without a load on it.
So, rough with without a load, and rough with a load-- tells me not intake tuning, not combustion events... it's the mechanical secondary imbalance of a 4, multiplied by the relatively big bob weights and long stroke.

But, I'm all ears...

 

Here's a pic from about 4-5 years ago of Ed Pink's place running a Toyota 4cyl Midget. They were pretty dominant for a couple seasons.
I think Chevy's scratch design Midget motor with the cam on the opposite side, kind of superceded them?, but that doesn't reflect badly on Ed. He is one of the all time greats, that we can agree on. There was a Car and Driver biography in the magazine around 2006 that really covered his career well.

Keeping it on topic, the original poster is doing a 30's-era Indy car that his motor's going in.
Any Pics?

 

Again trying to stay on topic, here are some (oocasionally modified) ideas from the experts at one of the 460 boards (460Ford.com) as to the 'ranking' of all the 40 odd different head designs made for a 460.

Next group:

Then the Hemi families of heads

Some NHRA/early IHRA? rare rare pieces, probably not relevant here,

BTW, I priced one complete new Boss9 head incl valve cover, rockers, valves & valve springs, through Kaase Racing engines- $3185 plus extras... like spark plug wires and header flanges

 

the stock cam is ground on a 117,so said Isky when i sent them a cam to grind.
He also wondered why it was so wide.
I can tell them.
My newest 4 banger is a mazda b6,1600 cc.
it will be faster than the big mercruiser.

My engines didnt have an in balance problem,they have a pulse problem,and yours will too.
Look over the motor mounts on the mercruiser,take them off the side of the block and look at those rubber bushings,look at that front "C" mount and the rubber in it,the mount that bolts to the head.

The vibration is a vertical vibration,its caused by big bore,big stroke engines,4 cylinders sure as hell don't help.
Ed Pink said a balance shaft would fix it.

If you still don't believe me,check out all the big 4 cylinder diesels,they all have a balance shaft,or in some cases a huge oil pump with a balancing shaft thing built in,look at Case and John Deere,those pumps weight 30-40lbs..

I don't have a dog in this fight,but i have screwed with these things for a long time,and i talked to all the smart V8 engine builders,they don't know shit about a big 4 banger,except for Ed Pink.
He asked me this question:how many car engines have you ever seen that were bigger than 2.5 litre?
How many small engines have a balance shaft?
even the 2.5 chevys have a weird balancing oil pump (later years).

I wish someone had told me about all these issues,i would have run a tiny V-8.
The big mercruiser will be a blast in a street car,with a wide LC,and very soft engine mounts,the mount i would use is the ones used on a cummins 3.9 4 banger,soft and they look like the ones for a slant 6,and they may be the ones for a slant 6.
You guys have no idea of the shit i did to these engines,way to much to write about,i had plenty of money to spend and plenty of time when i was racing them,and i had a paid helper that worked on my stuff too,he now works for Joe Gibbs.

enough said,drive on!

Ohh,who ever heard of a vertical vibration? only one guy i ever talked to knew about that....

 

The imbalance is due to rod ratio.

The pistons accelerate towards and away from TDC a lot faster than towards and away from BDC.

At BDC, the big ends just swing sideways, and the piston hardly moves in the bore for quite a fair bit of crank rotation.

The idea with an inline four, is that two pistons go up, as two come down. But for any practical rod ratio, the piston motions will be very different around TDC and BDC. And that is what is the cause of the infamous "secondary vibrations" in a BIG four banger.

Big heavy pistons, and big heavy rods, and lots of revs, are bad news. The thing wants to bounce up and down on the engine mounts.
Now Porsche had this exact same problem with the 944 engine which is around 184 CID, but they fixed it with two balance shafts that run at twice crank speed in opposite directions. That is the theoretical ideal.

My ideas with a Mercruiser would be to fit big soft squishy engine mounts, and spread the mounts as far apart as possible to resist engine torque. But still keep them really soft.

As far as cams go, the stock cam looks pretty good to me, and Desktop Dyno simulation likes it too. Unless you are doing something really freaky, I might suggest that the original factory cam might be a very good starting point, provided that it is not totally worn out. You will gain far more by going to an aftermarket aluminium head, and working on the exhaust and induction, than just messing with a bunch of cams in a bog stock boat motor.

 

After all the above, somehow my "watching" of this thread got disabled, and the board software is set up so I have to reply to watch...

... Sorry, carry on, never mind me... lol ...

 

I do trust you, implicitly. My cam was ground on 115LC. Another benefit of wider LC in a street car would be reduced fuel consumption....

Fuel economy sounds silly in a performance group, but My previous car engine [4 cylinder 200 cubic inch Allis Chalmers] got 3 to 7 mpg and only had a 5 gallon gas tank. and probably had intake resonance problems its cam was ground at 112 degrees LS. I had a single cylinder 2 stroke engine on an ultralighht which had such bad reversion that it blew fuel out its carburetor. I contained the reversion with a longer intake tract, it made very little power for the amount of fuel it used.
I agree with you Randy. Resonances are not to be taken lightly.

As an aside, I found that an 80's ford smog-pump pulley is an easy adaptation to the dampener I bought.