John Veninger

Bob broke that crank.

Scott M.

FBIII;

Do you have a scanable version of that article?? Would love to peruse it.

Scott

FBIII

Bob broke a lot of things. He and Lucky Eckman pioneered 928 engine development and broke a lot of things along the way. I don't think they had come to grips yet with the oiling flaw inherent in the 928 crank. Welded cranks are a proven way of increasing engine stroke.
Fred

FBIII

I can make a copy of the article but I'm not sure about scanning and emailing it? The article is pretty incredible. He was taking blocks and completely boring out the cylinders and pressing in steel liners and epoxying them in place. He had one hell of a time coming up with a "system" to keep the oil out of the water and vice versa. He developed an electronic aftermarket injection system for the engine and he also developed aftermarket camshafts. In its final configuration I think he ended up with 6.8 liters and supposedly 720 horsepower. He and Mark Anderson would try things and develop the car through trial and error. I think the article is truly fascinating when you consider a couple of pioneers stumbling in the dark and compare it to the work that is being done today. When Bob Devore was doing his work people laughed at the idea of modifying a 928 or seeing a 928 on a road course.
Fred

Lagavulin

Wow, sounds like a gold-mine of an article! I'm sure lots of people on this board would greatly appreciate it if you were able to take the time and effort to scan and post the article.

FBIII

If some one has the capability of scanning to the computer, I'd be happy to mail or fax them a copy.
Fred

Fastest928

Hi Fred,
Bob welded crank efforts resuted in 330 cu in, 5.5 l engine, of which one failed and one which is still fine.

His later efforts which resulted in 700 plus hp, had limited longevity ... due primarily crank failure. Fortunaetly, Bobs notes were exceptional, and after some efforts, we identified the weakness in the cranks and fixed the crank part of the problem!

Another of Bobs 928 engine efforts, and elegant by nature of its simplicity, was the dry sump system! Using the native pump as the pressure and adding an external scavenge stage was genius. Other racers of the time were frustrated by the costs of dry sumping a 928, but Bob figured it out beautifully.

I still have one of the old "steel sleeve tied into the block walls" block. Bob loved cubic inches, so did Lucky, and obviously, so do we! And the honda folks thought that they had done it first ... ooops

Bob led the technical charge for the 928 and occaisionally shared some of his efforts with other racers. Most took a wait and see approach, and often thought that his efforts were a waste of time and far too costly. But eventually, they copied his successes.

There are technical leaders and followers, Bob was the original "leader of the pack"!

Every day, we work hard to continue that heritage of technical excellence with every product and service we offer.

Respectfully,

JE928Sx4.

Hey...what you have against JE?

Regards,
JE

JE928Sx4.

You buy me a round trip ticket to Helsinki on Iceland air....put me up for a couple days....and then I bring it over as a "gift". That's how! Ask Thilo about his "gifted" A/C compressor, brought through Frankfurt.

Several of us have brought "gifts" over when we go to Euro 928. Standard practice for us now. Jon H. has done the same when attending the Frenzies, and brought back "gifts".....or was that his miraculous ability to win lots of Door prizes.

FBIII

Marc,
After reading the article hundreds of times I have always wondered why you, Devek, never continued to offer the steel linered blocks. In the article Bob seemed to stress the idea of using readily available pistons and rods as a method to keep costs down and in the article he seemed to infer that his system was reliable.
Aston Martin uses a very similar arrangement in their DB4- AMV8 series cars. They press steel liners into aluminum blocks. The difference with their method is that they run two grooves around the outside of the base of the liners. The grooves were about one half an inch apart. In these grooves they run large o-rings that cause an interference fit into the block. One o-ring is to keep the water from getting down into the sump, and the lower o-ring for keeping the oil out of the water. I had a DB4 that was being rebuilt that had some corrosion in the area where the o-rings sealed and instead of fitting the o-rings my engine builder set the liners into a bed of RTV silicone. It worked beautifully.
Fred

Vilhuer

Steel liners sound ideal fix for block were cylinder(s) are broken. Fred, how long has DB4 engine been together with RTV? Will it last decades?

How much bore can heads take? 104.5mm works as it has been done but how about 106, 108, 110...?

Vilhuer

Does it have to be Iceland air? Wouldn't some cargo plane carrying live reindeer work for you? I hear they have really cheap passanger seats at the back.

JE928Sx4.

Aren't we talking about the same airline?

FBIII

I sold the car 10 to 15 years ago and the engine, which was built to race specs was sold separately from the car. I have no idea where it is today. The engine builder when doing a complete rebuild always replaced the o-rings with silicone. He felt more confidence in the silicone than the o-rings.
In my last posting I failed to add one final aspect of the "Aston system." I mentioned that there was a half inch between the two o-rings on the liners. In the center of that half inch, they drilled a small weep hole into the block that would allow any oil or water that got past its o-ring to escape. You could determine the health of your blocks sealing by inspecting the weep holes. If the block was starting to discharge "a lot" of liquid you knew a rebuild was due shortly.
Fred

Vilhuer

Oh no, Iceland air is luxury carrier in these parts. They serve ice cold meals and warm beer.