5.0L track motor build is finally done!
05-05-2008, 11:23 PM
#16
Addict
Rennlist Member
Rennlist Member
Thread Starter
Thanks Constantine!
Tim, Rich, Charley & Brian - I'll see you on Saturday at SITP. You'll get to see & hear it. I won't be running it too hard during break-in but I'll still be on the fun drive, bringing up the rear.
Tim, Rich, Charley & Brian - I'll see you on Saturday at SITP. You'll get to see & hear it. I won't be running it too hard during break-in but I'll still be on the fun drive, bringing up the rear.
05-05-2008, 11:39 PM
#17
Rennlist Member
Congratulations Dennis, Jim and Bill! 
Look forward to seeing you Dennis at Sharks in the Park! 
Look forward to seeing you Dennis at Sharks in the Park!
05-06-2008, 02:50 AM
#18
Rennlist Member
Looks awesome Dennis, congrats on the successful build
Regarding the pan gasket, was there particular reason you chose to install one rather than doing a direct seal between the pan and spacer?
Any chance on sharing the info regarding the lifters you used?
Nice work overall!
Regarding the pan gasket, was there particular reason you chose to install one rather than doing a direct seal between the pan and spacer?
Any chance on sharing the info regarding the lifters you used?
Nice work overall!
05-06-2008, 10:47 AM
#20
Rennlist Member
anyone can go out and bang doors. Its the skill that will serve you best to race agreesively and not touch!
Dont get me wrong, there are a lot of good spec miata guys out there, but i think there is something to be said for racing hard and rarely touching. and believe me, we are racing as hard as anyone. probably harder.
mk
Dont get me wrong, there are a lot of good spec miata guys out there, but i think there is something to be said for racing hard and rarely touching. and believe me, we are racing as hard as anyone. probably harder.
mk
The thing is that if I go racing, I don't want to care too intensely about the condition of the car. In Spec Miata, I had no problem w/ someone bump-drafting me or if they put a donut on my door. I enjoyed returning the favor. SM's are like tissue paper. Once you're done w/ one, you can pull another one of the box quite easily. I liked racing aggressively and I wouldn't feel right doing that in this car.
SM's are like tissue paper. Once you're done w/ one, you can pull another one of the box quite easily. I liked racing aggressively and I wouldn't feel right doing that in this car.
05-06-2008, 12:12 PM
#21
Did you guys CC the bore and head to see what CR you have after shaving the heads? I'm curious since the GT's are supposed to be 10:1 exactly.... Congrats on a great build..it will be nice to see what numbers it is putting out.
P.S. I've been running the 24lb Ford injectors since I removed the rear turbo on my car and the stock brain handles them fine. I'm sure there is some fine tuning I can do with the Sharktuner to free up so HP too....
P.S. I've been running the 24lb Ford injectors since I removed the rear turbo on my car and the stock brain handles them fine. I'm sure there is some fine tuning I can do with the Sharktuner to free up so HP too....
05-06-2008, 12:32 PM
#22
Rennlist Member
Congratulations. Great photos of the build process. That is one shiney engine.
With the new cams, drilled crank, scraper and windage tray, where do you expect to redline her?
Bet it is gonna be hard to REALLY stick your foot in it the first time. Then hopefully easy after that - cause you know you did a great job putting her together.
With the new cams, drilled crank, scraper and windage tray, where do you expect to redline her?
Bet it is gonna be hard to REALLY stick your foot in it the first time. Then hopefully easy after that - cause you know you did a great job putting her together.
05-06-2008, 01:12 PM
#24
Three Wheelin'
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 1,663
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Tom:
The heads were shaved to restore the cylinder pressure as close as we could to the S4 given the cams used were longer duration with the intake valve closing later after BDC than the S4 or GT cam spec.
Tony:
For cleaning the aluminum parts, we used a combination of "HistoClear" to soak / dissolve the oil and other petroleum based stains, followed by Simple Green detergent wash. If you have some patience, the process works well, even on cosmoline.
The heads were shaved to restore the cylinder pressure as close as we could to the S4 given the cams used were longer duration with the intake valve closing later after BDC than the S4 or GT cam spec.
Tony:
For cleaning the aluminum parts, we used a combination of "HistoClear" to soak / dissolve the oil and other petroleum based stains, followed by Simple Green detergent wash. If you have some patience, the process works well, even on cosmoline.
05-06-2008, 01:46 PM
#26
Nordschleife Master
that is one hell of an engine hoist! Damn, you have the car on 4 jack stands, and the engine hoist still has plenty of room.
I am curious about a oil pan spacer. Is the pan now very close to the crossmember? I would think that you now have to be very consistent on checking your motor mounts and replace them every few years. If they fail then you could seemingly crack the pan and loose all the oil very easily. But isnt this car more of a track machine, so do you also have solid billet motor mounts, in which case failure is a non issue.
The car's a GT right? Why did you decide to go with 88 heads and not later production S4 or GT heads?
Cool stuff!
I am curious about a oil pan spacer. Is the pan now very close to the crossmember? I would think that you now have to be very consistent on checking your motor mounts and replace them every few years. If they fail then you could seemingly crack the pan and loose all the oil very easily. But isnt this car more of a track machine, so do you also have solid billet motor mounts, in which case failure is a non issue.
The car's a GT right? Why did you decide to go with 88 heads and not later production S4 or GT heads?
Cool stuff!
05-06-2008, 01:48 PM
#27
Under the Lift
Lifetime Rennlist
Member
Lifetime Rennlist
Member
Dennis is catching up on sleep after putting in some extra nights at work, evenings on the car, on top of his day work hours.
The lifters are a VW part number with the same specs as the stock lifters but lightened. Jim or Dennis may have more details. As I recall, they were identified together with Mike Simard and then sourced through Roger for a very low price. THANKS ROGER!
The pan gasket was used to get the full 3/8" pan spacing. The engine fits nicely and does not hit the crossmember. We do have to deal with the starter motor top bolt - not a biggie. Also, the gasket was factored into the spacer that Mike Simard made for the oil pick-up. There was more science in the decision to do this, but there was so much science in this motor, I can't recall the details of the decision to build with the gasket. The motor mounts are stock and like new. The motor rocks nicely, as you can see in the start-up movie. We might have spaced it with washers but we didn't have to. I don't expect any problem with pan contact.
Rest assured that the static and dynamic CR was calculated. Jim or Dennis will have the numbers.
Cleaning the block and all the other engine parts was very time-consuming. Jim uses a cleaner that does a remarkable job of getting oil and other contaminants out of metal, called Histoclear. It's a tissue fixing agent used in histology laboratories. Parts were bathed/soaked in this overnight or for days depending on how crusty they were until the crust was gone, then soaked in straight Simple Green, then rinsed. Repeat if not sparkling clean. The block came out looking like it was polished.
=========
Working on this engine was a true labor of love by all three of us. I learned a lot about engine performance/design issues from Jim but could only absorb a fraction of what Jim had to offer. Being able to spend time with Jim and Dema Elgin together at Dema's shop was like being a kid in a candy store. The process was full of those kind of invaluable experiences. I'm going to miss Wednesday evenings and Saturday afternoons at Jim's and the backroad runs up to Elgin's...but I think we will have other projects to come from Jim's fertile mind and fully-equipped home machine shop.
Yes, it sure sounded sweet.
http://www.vimeo.com/976589
The lifters are a VW part number with the same specs as the stock lifters but lightened. Jim or Dennis may have more details. As I recall, they were identified together with Mike Simard and then sourced through Roger for a very low price. THANKS ROGER!
The pan gasket was used to get the full 3/8" pan spacing. The engine fits nicely and does not hit the crossmember. We do have to deal with the starter motor top bolt - not a biggie. Also, the gasket was factored into the spacer that Mike Simard made for the oil pick-up. There was more science in the decision to do this, but there was so much science in this motor, I can't recall the details of the decision to build with the gasket. The motor mounts are stock and like new. The motor rocks nicely, as you can see in the start-up movie. We might have spaced it with washers but we didn't have to. I don't expect any problem with pan contact.
Rest assured that the static and dynamic CR was calculated. Jim or Dennis will have the numbers.
Cleaning the block and all the other engine parts was very time-consuming. Jim uses a cleaner that does a remarkable job of getting oil and other contaminants out of metal, called Histoclear. It's a tissue fixing agent used in histology laboratories. Parts were bathed/soaked in this overnight or for days depending on how crusty they were until the crust was gone, then soaked in straight Simple Green, then rinsed. Repeat if not sparkling clean. The block came out looking like it was polished.
=========
Working on this engine was a true labor of love by all three of us. I learned a lot about engine performance/design issues from Jim but could only absorb a fraction of what Jim had to offer. Being able to spend time with Jim and Dema Elgin together at Dema's shop was like being a kid in a candy store. The process was full of those kind of invaluable experiences. I'm going to miss Wednesday evenings and Saturday afternoons at Jim's and the backroad runs up to Elgin's...but I think we will have other projects to come from Jim's fertile mind and fully-equipped home machine shop.
Yes, it sure sounded sweet.
http://www.vimeo.com/976589
Last edited by Bill Ball; 05-06-2008 at 02:07 PM.
05-06-2008, 03:53 PM
#30
Addict
Rennlist Member
Rennlist Member
Thread Starter
Thanks all!
Re: lifters - Mike Simard found a 35mm INA lifter that is used by VW. Roger Tyson was able to supply them. The wall thickness of the lifter is visibly less. They were less than 1/4 the price of the OEM INA 944 lifters. Kind of important when you need to get 32 of the bloody things.
Re: compression ratio - we spent quite a bit of time making sure the dynamic compression ratio was adequate. The base S3 intake cams close 8 deg later than GT cams. On top of that, we were adding more duration w/ the Elgin regrind. Jim was able to get the Cam Doctor files with the exact profile of the Elgin 65-6 and the stock S3, S4 & GT cams. From all this data we chose to have the heads shaved. The measured stock static compression ratio was 9.5. After shaving it was 10.0. Dynamic compression should be slightly above stock S3.
Re: pan spacer & heads - The original motor was an 88 S4. The block was not reusable without re-boring. We were able to get a local 91 GT short block though Mark Anderson and that became the basis for the bottom end. No worries on the pan hitting the crossmember. I'll be under the car a lot for track prep so it'll be easy to keep an eye on. We wanted as much crankcase volume as possible to prevent windage.
Re: Histoclear + Simple Green - this combo was genius for removing grease & oil. Not particularly labor intensive and pretty safe to use. Just brushed the Histoclear on w/ a paint brush, agitate it a bit, let it sit, then brush on the Simple Green, agitate, then rinse. You need patience though. I think I did 4 or 5 of these cleaning cycles with the block, each time it turned out brighter and shinier. Compare these two blocks, one after 3-4 cleanings vs one after 1 cycle.
Re: lifters - Mike Simard found a 35mm INA lifter that is used by VW. Roger Tyson was able to supply them. The wall thickness of the lifter is visibly less. They were less than 1/4 the price of the OEM INA 944 lifters. Kind of important when you need to get 32 of the bloody things.
Re: compression ratio - we spent quite a bit of time making sure the dynamic compression ratio was adequate. The base S3 intake cams close 8 deg later than GT cams. On top of that, we were adding more duration w/ the Elgin regrind. Jim was able to get the Cam Doctor files with the exact profile of the Elgin 65-6 and the stock S3, S4 & GT cams. From all this data we chose to have the heads shaved. The measured stock static compression ratio was 9.5. After shaving it was 10.0. Dynamic compression should be slightly above stock S3.
Re: pan spacer & heads - The original motor was an 88 S4. The block was not reusable without re-boring. We were able to get a local 91 GT short block though Mark Anderson and that became the basis for the bottom end. No worries on the pan hitting the crossmember. I'll be under the car a lot for track prep so it'll be easy to keep an eye on. We wanted as much crankcase volume as possible to prevent windage.
Re: Histoclear + Simple Green - this combo was genius for removing grease & oil. Not particularly labor intensive and pretty safe to use. Just brushed the Histoclear on w/ a paint brush, agitate it a bit, let it sit, then brush on the Simple Green, agitate, then rinse. You need patience though. I think I did 4 or 5 of these cleaning cycles with the block, each time it turned out brighter and shinier. Compare these two blocks, one after 3-4 cleanings vs one after 1 cycle.