rage2

Instead of dragging out a thread over the entire winter (this stuff takes time), I waited till the project is near completion before posting about it... with what was being planned, we knew it'd take a hell of a long time. Since the majority of the time consuming work has been completed and the fact that tons of local people know about this secret project now... well... here it is, my winter project.

Last 2 years was a great learning experience... mastered the art of standalone tuning. By the end of 2002, I made pretty impressive HP with the car and a stock bottom end, but it required 103 octane fuel, not readily available everywhere (especially on weekend track days). So the goal was to make 400rwhp at 3700ft elevation way up in the mountains here, on 92 octane pump gas.

First step in making big HP on pump gas is displacement. There is no replacement for displacement. So here's the 2.8L big bore saga over the last few months.

Used 951 block, cylinder walls scored, perfect candidate for the job :


A quick note. John Anderson was awesome in getting me these parts, none of the other shops would sell me this stuff, they wanted me to ship my block down for them to do instead, which wasn't an option.
2.8L sleeves, pistons, etc. from John Anderson:


Preparing the block for the sleeves:



Sleeves installed:



Sleeves o-ring'd:

rage2

Engine cement poured and cured:



My "new" Rothmans 951 Tranny (I'll be selling my stock LSD tranny soon):


The completed block:




There's a few more toys that's going to be installed to make the 400rwhp goal. I have a Aquamist water injection kit sitting on my desk, and I'll be picking up the Speed Force Racing front mount intercooler very shortly. Guru Racing will be providing me with intake pipes, and a proper "non cheap" blow off valve will be installed.

As for installation, just waiting on the arrival of rods and rings from John Anderson before the car goes under the knife. Hopefully there'll be a progress report in a week or two.

shaheed

sweet...you planning on selling the current engine?

rage2

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Originally posted by shaheed:
<strong>sweet...you planning on selling the current engine?</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Probably keeping it as a spare... I don't think I can get much for a 180k stock bottom end.

Perry 951

Very cool... keep snapping the pics! Should be a beast. <img border="0" alt="[cheers]" title="" src="graemlins/beerchug.gif" />

streckfu's

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

streckfu's

"My 2003 951 Mod Story"

There making the 951 again. cool!

David Floyd

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

Good work Rage.

What did you use to block off the waterpump area when you poured the block filler and is that the only area you blocked off ?

IanM

Rage,
Looks great!! Now you've gotta come out West to a track day this summer...I've got to see your beast in action.

fast951

Cool project, keep us posted.

Is this a track car? If not, how do you intend on picking up the speedometer signal. The new tranny is setup for mechanical (cable) speedometer.

Jeff Lamb

Rage, you've got a very nice project going on!! Grouting the 2.5 liter block sounds like a great thing to do to stiffen up the block and cylinders without the complexity of all the machining required to fit a block brace / deck plate / etc. However, I have some thoughts and questions about the grouting of blocks that I posted under David Floyd's thread and I am posting it here too:

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, another concern would be the grout around the base of the cylinder preventing the cylinder from expanding normally and thus reducing 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 (due to the incredible amounts of heat generated by our turbo engines) 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

adrial

What exactly is a "Rothmans 951" tranny?

Different gearing, stronger overall?

sybelix

one word - wow - <img border="0" alt="[thumbsup]" title="" src="graemlins/bigok.gif" />

Luke

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Originally posted by adrial:
<strong>What exactly is a "Rothmans 951" tranny?

Different gearing, stronger overall?</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">steel synchros'.

stjobs

Awesome project

stjobs