hello fellas!
Sorry I've been away for a bit, its good to see a little activity on the mopar board again.
I've tried to post a pic of the Ram-Tough Custom tractor on here, but don't seem to have the combination to do so. If I could lean on Carlo's pictorial expertise, I sent him some pictures via e-mail and would allow him to post them here if he would. I don't have any good action shots of the tractor as yet, but I hope they are soon in the coming.
It may be hard to believe, but this was an actual production tractor made of Dodge 2-ton truck components. Including the little L-230 industrial.
By the way, on the valve spring question from above. I have been pretty amazed at how much the stock valve springs will take, they have hit 6000 rpm on the track in a pull but they do want to float out around that rpm. I really don't know if I want to turn anymore than that right now. Dad pulled it twice last week and the ole girl can still hit those high notes without a hitch. He did pop the front up far enough to allow fuel to spill over the main air bleeds and cause it to smother a bit (need to adjust those wheelie bars a tad).
I am very interested in contacting the Edgy head man and having a discussion with Him regarding the area just above the piston. I appreciate that info very much Kcc!
On the rods issue, in the same block family, the longer the stroke - the shorter the rod. conversely, the shorter the stroke - the longer the rod. The rods will interchange in the same crank/block family with the smaller block crank journals being generally .125 smaller than the larger block cranks. I've seriously considered Del's mention of the longer rods being a source of popping up an "off the shelf" L-230 piston for doming purposes by simply radiusing off the piston edge. This also brings the top ring (depending on piston mfg. and distance of the top ring from the piston deck) nearer to the block deck which is supposed to aid in gas sealing, but necessitates a wider ring gap due to increased heating and expansion.
Another unresloved issue from the previous flathead thread was the use of sleeves in these engines. Bo had offered two of his blocks for exploration and the sleeve topic came up when I went to haul them away. Lo and behold, one had sleeves - the other didn't. My question now is, just how thick are the cylinder walls in each of these blocks? I know the sleeves at .060 thick almost allow a .125 overbore when taken out. However, I just don't know how much thickness is left beyond that, nor if the block alloy is sufficient to handle cylinder duty.
Carlo, if you still have those pics you can post the ones you consider appropriate, Thanks!
Hudson
