TonyG

Danno

I would think you could remove the water pump from the car, and do the "grout job" with the engine still in the car (obviously with the car up on an angle).

But I've never really thought about it, and I've never looked into where the water pump bolts on that closely.

Mike B

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Originally posted by rage2:
<strong>With the engine concrete, it should already reduce cylinder/sleeve movement significantly. Coupled with a metal headgasket with an o-ring holding it tight, it should provide for a very strong block without the extensive work involved in a custom block brace. That's the theory anyways .</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Rage2...I saw your "next upgrade" at Marc's shop today ( <a href="http://www.alpineautowerks.com/" target="_blank">Alpine AutoWerks </a> ) ...Looks good...Certainly better than when I dropped it off...

All I can say if we thought Rage2 had a fast car before we are in for an awakening <img border="0" alt="[thumbsup]" title="" src="graemlins/bigok.gif" />

rage2

haha damn, the secret's coming out... still waiting on a few more bits before I'm dropping off the car for the final "swap".

Jeff Lamb

Grouting the 2.5 liter block sounds like a good thing to do to stiffen up the block and cylinders. However, I am wondering how the differentials in expansion rates between the grout and the aluminum block / cylinders will interact? Will the expansion differential eventually cause the grout to crack? Or, cause the block or cylinders to crack? Or, is the expansion differential between the two different materials very similar and thus no expansion / contraction related problems will show up?

My intuition says that the grout will expand and contract less than the aluminum. But, I factually don't know this. If the grout does in fact expand and contract less than aluminum, could the grout around the base of the cylinder prevent the cylinder from expanding normally and thus reduce the piston to wall clearance potentially to the point of seizing the engine? In other words, the piston would be expanding at its normal rate but the lower section of the cylinder (with grout around it) would be prevented from expanding at its normal rate thus potentially pinching the piston.

Please keep in mind that I have no factual data to support or disprove what I am thinking about. I just wanted to throw out my thoughts for debate.

If my thoughts do have some merit, one solution might be to run a slightly larger piston to wall clearance as a safety margin.

Jeff

David Floyd

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica"> Grouting the 2.5 liter block sounds like a good thing to do to stiffen up the block and cylinders. However, I am wondering how the differentials in expansion rates between the grout and the aluminum block / cylinders will interact? Will the expansion differential eventually cause the grout to crack? Or, cause the block or cylinders to crack? Or, is the expansion differential between the two different materials very similar and thus no expansion / contraction related problems will show up?
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Good point Jeff,

Moroso states there block filler has a similar expansion rate to cast iron.

So those of us with the 106 mm chromolly sleeves have an added metal to the mix.

Danno

"However, I am wondering how the differentials in expansion rates between the grout and the aluminum block / cylinders will interact?"

There are different grout mixtures based upon the type of block you have. The hyper-eutectic Alusil alloy used in our engines expand a lot less normal low-silicon aluminum. Also on sleeved engines like David's and mine, I'm going to assume that the cylinder walls don't take much of a lateral load from expansion or combustion because the expansion-rate of steel liners is lower than the surrounding aluminum. As such, the original aluminum cylinders really serve to locate and center the sleeves over the crank. Anything you can do to stiffen them up and have them perform that function better will help.

Jeff, you know about the new Mahle pistons that just arrived?

Jeff Lamb

Regarding the expansion / contraction issue, I think Danno makes a good point that the steel sleeves probably bring the ratio back to something that works well with the grout. Does the grout have enough "flex" in it to resist cracking or otherwise breaking up from the repeated heat cycles?

Regarding the new Mahle pistons, yes, I had heard about them a few months ago. The only problem is that I don't think I will be able to consider using them for my application. I was told the new Mahle pistons (designed with turbocharging the 3 liter engines in mind) have been sized for the 104mm bore. Unfortunately, since I am building my car for the PCA GT3 class (which has a class limit of 2.615 liters) my bore needs to be smaller than 102.7mm (when using the 2.5 liter 944 crank with 78.9mm stroke). When I called the Mahle Motorsports guys, they didn't think it would be safe to turn the 968 pistons down to something in the vicinity of 102mm. Plus, I was figuring that I could get a very nice CUSTOM set of piston for LESS money than the fairly high priced Mahle units.

After some thought, I decided to go with a 3 liter block with 104mm bore and use steel sleeves to bring the bore down to 4.0 inches (101.6mm) so that I would have access to the many piston forgings made for the 350 chevy engines. Not sure if this is the best approach but it is the path I am planning to follow.

Jeff

Danno

Ah yes, forgot about that. Another big benefit to the domestic pistons is that we'll have a much, much larger variety of rings to choose from as well.

David Floyd

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica"> After some thought, I decided to go with a 3 liter block with 104mm bore and use steel sleeves to bring the bore down to 4.0 inches (101.6mm) so that I would have access to the many piston forgings made for the 350 chevy engines. Not sure if this is the best approach but it is the path I am planning to follow.

Jeff </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Hey Jeff, sounds like you sold the yellow Huntley engine and started a new baby ? Cool

You deboring a 3 ltr block kinda like the Norwood 600hp monster in Excellence ? Lucky dog

<img border="0" alt="[burnout]" title="" src="graemlins/burnout.gif" /> <img border="0" alt="[burnout]" title="" src="graemlins/burnout.gif" />

TonyG

Jeff Lamb

That doesn't make sense.

If you're going for a 2.6 liter engine, why not simply use factory over sized 2.5L pistons with the 2.5 crank/rods?

It seems like it would be a lot less hassle (and probably more reliability anyway).

Jeff Lamb

Tony, unfortunatetly, alot of things I do "don't make any sense" to many people!!! I guess we will not know if I am following the right path until after I have first hand experience with the actual results of my project . . .

Jeff

Jeff Lamb

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Originally posted by David Floyd:
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Hey Jeff, sounds like you sold the yellow Huntley engine and started a new baby ? Cool

You deboring a 3 ltr block kinda like the Norwood 600hp monster in Excellence ? Lucky dog[/QB][/QUOTE]

Yes, I am basically "parting out" the yellow 2.5 liter Huntley engine that I never ran. This gets back to the "not making any sense" theme that I mentioned in my prior reply to Tony.

I have no idea if my new engine project (de-bored, steel sleeved 3 liter block with 16 valve head) will have been the right thing to do until after I have run it for awhile to see how it actually performs. You can be sure that I will share some dyno charts with everyone after I get the engine installed and "broken in" a bit.

Jeff

TonyG

Jeff Lamb

Sorry I should have been more clear.

When I said "didn't make sense", I wasn't implying that it wouldn't work, etc...

I just didn't know what you'd be gaining going that route.

Now that I see you're running thet 16v head, it makes sense.

dmoffitt

damn you all and your extra 8v.... *grumbles*

David Floyd

Jeff, Where are you mounting the turbo ?