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Originally Posted By: Xea I.I. #5390
Sorry, should have said throttle body. What is it from?


I'd have to go look at the box for the exact size, but it's for a late-80's early 90's 5.0L Ford engine. It was given to me, new in the box, a year or two ago by a friend when when I proposed building this intake.

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Contacted the E-bay shop and a throttle cable should be in the mail, but I'm going out of town for the next two weeks so no progress will be done for a while when it gets here. Being as it's still -12ºF outside at 8:30am, I'm less than inclined to go out to the shop to work today as well. But the elbow piece for my air filter setup arrived yesterday. Just need some clamps and it should be good to go. I trimmed about 1/4" off the throttle body end and it clears both the radiator and radiator hose without issue. Gravity is pulling it down a bit in this picture but clears everything fine when seated properly.


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Nice looking good!

Hey is that your video on line of the dakota digital guages with the data streaming in it?


Josh
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No? I don't have a dakota digital gauge set up.

In the background of things I've been working on trying to make a reasonable attempt at checking the flow of these heads using my spare block and David Vizard's shop vac setup (http://www.musclecardiy.com/cylinder-heads/build-flow-bench-port-flow-testing-cylinder-heads-part-3/) and if I get reasonably repeatably result I'll see about having a cfm calibration plate made, but in the mean time I've wanted to work on a proof of concept as well as see if the $8 USB camera would work well enough to "watch" wet flow. Today's tests were interesting to say the least!

I'm still trying to figure out how to best seal the bottom of the chamber with the shop vac. My first, and only, test so far was with a cut up nerf foot ball with a hole sawed hole in the middle for the shop vac fitting. Because I wasn't looking for specific repeatable numbers yet I just stuck the camera cord through the hole too. When I got it reasonably positioned and turning the vacuum on I learned a few things. One it simply sucked the whole thing to the top of the chamber and two the test valve springs I am using are not strong enough and both the intake and exhaust valves are pulled off their seats. So I need stronger springs and to work on the seal still. The second thing I learned is the camera isn't quite good enough to see how water mist flows into the chamber when spraying water at the port. And the third thing I learned is when the shop is 10ºF, and the block and head probably is too, ice builds up! LOL! I'll call this a "COLD flow test" lol.


The test set up.


Now the ice may have been as much a blessing as a curse as it has there frozen the water (fuel?) spray direction/pattern.


So you can see why I opened it up on the sparkplug side of the intake valves (old photo).


I found it interesting that there was no ice build up on the cylinder wall side of the intake port or chamber. Basically confirms everything I've read.






A better view of the sparkplug. The ice had built up enough to keep the intake valve from seating.


I tried taking some video's of the water flow, but all of them have water hitting the camera and blurring out (possibly icing up the camera..). So I decided to put a cam housing on with a 1bbl cam in it and video the valve action. The chamber is already iced over but it's still kind of neat to see. The overlap between the intake and exhaust is very minimal.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8FAxhOTcx0


I've built a 8ft tall manometer with $15 worth of tubing and measuring tape and a spare piece 8ft white baseboard trim, but I won't put water in it until I'm sure of the rest of the test rig AND I know it won't freeze up!

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Josh
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Ah, yes that is me. Its a car computer and a display behind the dash running Megasquirt's Tunerstudio software.

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I appreciate your approach. Learn by doing. Good work.

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How did you do that that is so freaking cool man i'd love to do that


Josh
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How did you do that that is so freaking cool man i'd love to do that


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After a couple week vacation I went back out to the barn today and hooked up the new throttle cable, then instead of doing the other work required (like hooking up the TPS or exhaust...) I decided I wanted to fire it up, lol.

So I did =D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q146q1bw_00


So it seems my IAC is directional, and how I had it mounted was backwards initially causing the idle to be around 2,500rpm, so turning it around knocked the idle down to ~1,200rpm, and with the TPS disconnected it's not going into closed loop idle and giving it low-mid 20's ignition timing when normal ~600rpm idle is usually 5-8º of timing. After the exhaust is hooked up and the timing lowered back down (via TPS being wired in) I may still have to chase a small vacuum leak here or there, but will cross that path when I get there. Otherwise, stoked it fired up and doesn't leak fuel!

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right on man that thing sounds killer!!!


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A few post updates from over the last couple weeks.

I heard from one of the NAPA guys that the Eureka airport where I ran the car last summer posted up they are having a run whatcha brung event on Friday May 6, so I may try and make that. I'm supposed to work that day but can likely get it off.

http://www.eurekacarshow.info/drags.html

Drove the car and it really seems to have quite a bit more power from the seat of the pants feel. I had initially re-used the fiber gasket because I liked how thick it was, but it really hadn't come apart clean, so the vacuum leak at the manifold wasn't surprising at all. I replaced it with a new thin tin one from NAPA and it still has a little vacuum leak issue, which isn't surprising given I never had the intake flange surfaced, but it idles down to 600-700rpm in neutral so it's not too bad. So I pulled the intake again, it only takes about ten minutes since the bolts are easy to get to and it's only the intake, cleaned up the surface of the bit of copper RTV, which clearly showed some failings, and put a bead of Right Stuff around the port and then skimmed it off with a metal putty knife, leaving a coating of the Right Stuff in the low spots. I let that sit about an hour and then ran a bead of Right Stuff on the outer edge of the tin intake gasket's raised grooves. So the bead should contact the intake flange first and anywhere the gasket isn't enough the Right Stuff should play filler and shouldn't squeeze its way to the runner. Then let it sit for a couple hours even though Right Stuff says it should be able to go right back into service.

It seemed to have worked. Unfortunately after about a ten minutes of run time it started to leak fuel at two injectors. I the repeated removal and installation of the fuel rail had compromised a couple O-rings which I found upon inspection. Found two of them nicked, this one was the worse, but I replaced all of the upper o-rings just to be sure. The risk ran when removing the fuel rail a few times. The injectors usually stay with the rail, but sometimes they stay with the intake and I had to re-install them into the rail, that's how this happened. I just didn't take enough care installing it last time.
[url="http://s42.photobucket.com/user/TheSilverBuick/media/Firebird%202/IMG_20160307_132143570_zpsopyyjw73.jpg.html"][/url]


It still has an audible vacuum leak, and it appears to be narrowed down to between the ports, where I wasn't able to effectively coat the welds in epoxy... I used a screw driver to attempt to paste in some Right Stuff between the ports, but only had marginal success. So the intake may yet come off again... Got to love R&D, if it was easy everyone would be doing it =P Prototype #1 is about done.

[url="http://s42.photobucket.com/user/TheSilverBuick/media/Firebird%202/IMG_20160307_143146887_zpsnutugor9.jpg.html"][/url][/QUOTE]

I tried using a high speed datalog to see if one cylinder has a greater leak than another, but no such luck. The only thing that came out of it was it "appears" cylinder three pulls the most vacuum, but is likely just a result of the vacuum port being right across from cylinder 3's runner entrance.

The for some reason log is read right to left (as determined by as time increased the logged value was to the left).
​

Just to compare numbers. I am still contending with some vacuum leaks, so the new intake having a higher manifold pressure isn't surprising, but the test is also ran at around 100rpm lower than the first test. So I may dial the target rpm up to 825rpm and run the test again to see how it compares. The extra rpm "should" pull a bit more vacuum and really compare the two charts.

The stock manifold, with the short runners and comparatively small plenum volume runs about 3kPa from low to high, and the new intake ran 1.5kPa from low to high, which I is expected from the much larger plenum volume** combined with the runner length. When I re-run the test at 825rpm I don't expect the variances to change, just shift the wave to a lower pressure range (higher manifold vacuum). The average shift is ~4.75kPa more pressure or 1.4inHg less vacuum.

**The new plenum volume is approximately the same as the engine size, not counting the runner volume.

Test 1 from January 2015. ~825rpm, ~34kPa - ~37kPa


Test 2 from March 2016. ~713rpm, ~39.5kPa - ~ 41kPa.

Last edited by TheSilverBuick; 03/08/16 02:46 PM.
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My wife might kill me when this shows up, but someone apparently is re-producing new OHC cams, offering the hen's teeth "H" cam which is basically the same cam that is in my Firebird except with something like 10º more duration on the intake and exhaust (was only offered one year and only on the manual trans cars), AND a new semi-finished cam!

I bought a semi-finished cam that supposedly has a lot more material on the lobes than my last semi-finished cam that I had ground with low overlap and a turbo in mind. The pictures and description make it sound like the unfinished lobes are larger than the support journals so have to be ground down to at least that point and probably some base circle reduction wink I'm going to hang on to it for a while before getting a grind put on it, but I'm seriously thinking of when I do get it ground to simply tell the grinder to take the bare minimum off for the maximum amount of lift and duration the semi-blank will allow, with consideration of what the LCA options are.

I'm very curious to see what show's up as I didn't think something like this would ever come available.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Pontiac-OHC-6-Semi-camshaft-/301912199120

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They wasted no time sending it out! Not one bit of paperwork with it, but its not like I expected cam spec's or anything anyways. Payment was to long time OHC parts supplier Woodland Motorsports in Utah, but it was shipped from Delta Cams in Washington.



Lots of room for grinding!

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I thought I'd drop my spare 250 crank into my 230 block to see what clearances I have for possibly rigging up piston oil squirters (to cool the pistons when I put boost to it) when I ran into an unexpected hiccup... The counter weights tag the oil baffle mounting tabs, d'oh! In the 250 block the two mounting tabs have been replaced with a single one in the center to clear the counter weights. So I ground the rivet head off, punched out the remainder and removed the baffle and ground down the tabs to clear. I'll make new baffles and make new mounting points, likely to the side of the block.

That's not supposed to hit...


Or there....


When I turbo the engine, because of the cast iron head and the relatively poor chamber design (by modern standards) I want to try and use every trick in the book to keep detonation at bay. I've already started with reverse flow cooling so the head get's the cool radiator water first, and I've separated the exhaust manifold from the intake to keep heat transfer down, and I'll be using an intercooler and possibly a water/meth injection system, but one other trick is to spray the underside of the piston with oil to help cool the piston and prevent it from being a hot spot in the chamber. It's common in many modern high compression and boosted engines. My thought was to tee off the external lash adjuster galley line and run it to an internal oil rail that would have squirters at the bottom of the cylinder bore. Now that I've re-mocked up the crank in the block, I'm not so sure I can fit a system in there.... =/

Those Pontiac engineers packed every thing in there pretty tightly! I don't think I could get even an 1/8th inch line between the block and counter weights and I think I'd need at least a 3/16th line to have a meaningful impact. That bulge next to the drain back hole (running parallel to the block) is the oil feed line for the mains.




Going to the other side may be possible by drilling a hole to the exterior of the block right at the base of the bore and running a line from the outside to each cylinder. I need to mock up with a connecting rod in place to really see how much room would be available. I'd also have to contend with the exhaust heat as the line would be between the block and exhaust manifold/header and running an oil line to the other side of the engine where even with the turbo I'm going to try and keep all the oil lines on the passenger side. I'm becoming less inclined to try it, at least at this stage.





The other thing I noticed was how poor the oil drain back set up is. The size of the drain back holes are more than adequate, but their location is right above a counter weight that is in it's upwards throw, so it would seem to me that a fair amount of excess oil is getting flung around as crank windage. Not sure what I want to do about that yet. Again it's a room issue, but if I can find a way to extend the drain backs past the crank, I think that would be best. An extreme measure would be to tap and plug the drain backs at the bottom then tap the drain backs from the outside of the block and run a line to the oil pan or even the block's oil filler cavity. This would maximize oil control below. Alternatively would be to build a baffle that carries the oil up against the side of the block, shielding it from the crank windage.

This picture again. Like grind out the hole to flow towards the block wall, then put a baffle between the hole and crank. Even if it covers most the hole, if it's been opened towards the block side it should still flow back reasonably well. Securing the baffle in place I think would be the real challenge.


The 4 vertical ribs going down the side of the block are the oil drains. I would only need to tap into cylinder 3 and 6 and make them drain back to the oil filler cavity, one already drains to the oil fill cavity and I think #5 could be drilled to connect internally to the oil fill cavity. Only really needing to mess with two make this option sound more appealing.

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Why not have the crank turned to clear?


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Certainly possible, but at some stage I am likely to trash a crank or four(etc.), so at this stage I rather keep the cost of the crank work down to the standard clean up of the bearing surfaces and ensuring it's still neutrally balanced.

I think I will re-route the oil drain backs. Looking at the block again, I only have to run two external lines and tap into one of them from the oil filler cavity. I check my taps and the hole size is perfect for a 3/8th NPT tap. I think the returns are 9/16th and the tap asks for a 37/64 bit, which 36/64 reduces to 9/16, so plenty of meat to tap into.



I didn't have a 3/8's plug on hand, but this adapter shows it'll work well. I'd probably use some loc-tite on it and likely drill the tiniest of holes in the the plug just so oil doesn't permanently backup in there and cook.



I need to get a 37/64 or 9/16 drill bit to tap the block externally at the base of the returns and to be able to thread the appropriately sized fittings to it. Then I'll drill and tap corresponding fittings to the oil fill cavity.

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Finally got the intake sealed up well enough I'm ready to really drive the car around. I had some issues with between the runners not being sealed up, but it also had a gasket alignment issue. I got a standard tin intake/exhaust gasket on it and with the intake and exhaust being two pieces now it had sagged down towards the rear. loosening the exhaust manifold and shifting the gasket back up and then tightening the manifold back down seemed to do the trick.

The engine is running at a cold high idle (~38ºF CLT temp), but fired right up and is running well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_eAOO-iBAA

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Finally removed the spoiler from the deck lid. I've never liked it. It's more of a Camaro thing. The paint under it is a bit rough, so going to try some paint cleaner on it. I'm going to simply RTV in some black plugs in the bolt holes to seal them up for the time being.


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Pay close attention to your quench/squish. My understanding this is a major factor toward reducing spark knock. Whether that applies to detonation with your boosted plan or not I can't say but it probably does.

Note that a hotter block (coolant routed to head first) means a hotter piston. Much of the heat transfer out of the piston is through the rings and skirt into the cylinder walls. Also, I would be a little concerned about the coolant flow paths in both the head and block with reversed flow. For example, is there an intentional flow path with increased velocity up from the block near the spark plug to keep it cool in the factory configuration? I have no special knowledge, just some formal education on these subjects. I applaud your efforts. Comments are meant to be encouraging!

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I'm much more concerned about the temperature of the valves (giving adequate cooling to the exhaust seats) and that the cylinder head is iron and more likely to retain heat and have hot spots versus the piston that is aluminum and will better distribute the heat through the whole piston and be less prone to hot spotting. If my tune and EGT's are in control, I won't be overly concerned about piston temps.

I don't run any kind of restrictor or thermostat in the cooling system, so speed should be relatively good. The coolant passages in the head deck are between the cylinders and don't appear to have any special direction to them. I intentionally went with two inlets into the head to try and create pressure in the head to keep the typically hot spots around the exhaust ports from boiling, which of course is to keep cooling the exhaust valve. I eventually plan on having a 55gpm water pump on it, so should be able to set the engine temp where ever I want it to be on most days, if I feel I need lower bore temperatures, then the head would just be lower, and that wouldn't be a bad thing. I already have it programmed to run full flow, regardless of engine temp, when ever the engine load is medium to high (above 60kPa MAP, or 70%TPS) and that will work even better with the 55gpm pump.


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I finally went and got actual plugs for the oil drain backs. I was concerned about oil being trapped, and cooking/sludging, at the plugs so I took the tiniest drill bit I had and made a drain hole, then to promote sticking it to the wall of the block rather than drip onto the rotating assembly. I also numbered them to the corresponding cylinder to make it easy to re-install them after I remove them for the actual machine shop work.





I also drilled the first two holes in the block to re-route the return oil. The first one was a difficult angle to achieve (why the oem didn't do it!), but I finally got the drill bit to bite and have one re-routed internally to the oil fill cavity. So this one will drain back behind an oil baffle. I'll probably run that baffle a bit below the oil pan rail to be sure it clears the crank.


The last hole I drilled today, and tapped, was the first drain. There is a nice block in the casting where the passage changes direction so I centered up and drilled a 9/16th hole there and tapped it for a flared fitting. I will add a corresponding fitting in the oil fill area to drain too. It will likely "disappear" from sight when the fitting and line are painted Pontiac Blue.



I need to drill and tap one more return line for the rear most drain. That one is a bit more complicated due to the casting ribs from the bell housing, but should still be able to make it work.

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Been still working on minor vacuum leaks around my crap welding around the flanges and injector bungs. Not surprising though, given this was my first attempt at something like this. I think I got it to a reasonably sealed up point and the weather finally cleared enough to drive it to work yesterday.

Driving home I noticed it was smoking quite a bit, like before I hooked up the crankcase vacuum to help the rings. Also was seeing some oil pressure instability at higher rpm. When I got home I checked the oil level and was dang near two quarts over full. Not sure what I was thinking when I changed the oil two weeks ago, but clearly wasn't counting bottles.

So I pulled it into the shop and disconnected the external oil line return and using a spare distributor as an oil priming tool quickly pumped out around 2 quarts.



Then driving to work this morning, I wound it up some. Pulled to 5400rpm, with no indication of laying over, but was starting to see some oil pressure instability again so I lifted to get it to shift and then put the pedal back down until ~4,800rpm in second.

These oil instabilities are why I'm working on external return lines on my next engine as I'm pretty sure it's oil aeration causing the issues. There is a sweet spot for the oil level to be at that it seems to like and I must not have it right yet after yesterday's oil volume adjustment.

The white line is RPM, I was in 2nd gear then it downshifted into first and ran up to 5400rpm and I lifted to get it to shift into second early and hit the throttle again. I need to look at my sensor lag settings as it shows the TPS and MAP signals falling after the RPM, which should be the opposite case.

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Since I'm getting ready to go to the track tomorrow and test for any improvements, I thought I'd review the data gathered from last year passes for review. The answer is it doesn't look promising for an improvement from my intake.....yet! I've plotted the rpm acceleration rates in first and second gear from my tests two days ago against the drag strip passes from last year. The soild white line is with the new intake and the shadowed white line is from last year's passes. The caveat is where I'm really expecting the improvements to be is in the 5,500+rpm range. It's the rpm range I built the runner lengths around. The engine before started to nose over around 5,500rpm and really choked around 5,800rpm, so it will be interesting to see if I've overcome that. I still have some oil pressure flutter as of this morning, so I'm going to pull more oil out of it tonight and hopefully be able to sneak up on the right amount (if I don't get it right tonight) tomorrow by adding a little at a time. I know there is a happy medium, I had it at last year's event.




I also finally got the Raspberry Pi 2 running the dash setup on boot up. It's roughed in right now as final shaping and arraigning of the gauges will be done on the small screen in the car. The boot time is around 45 seconds, which is down from a minute and twenty seconds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sv-PvD5NMw

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Due to weather running the track was a bust. The wife and I did drive 90 miles out there only to find the guy who owns the timing equipment had cancelled the night before. A few of the organizers were there and still tech'd some cars in and did some flag drop 1/8 mile grudge racing and whatnot until the rain started, which was about 30 minutes afterwards.

I made one pass and the car pulled cleanly to a data logged 5700rpm, oil pressure was good but still had some issues with vacuum leaks and the rains came as I was going for a second pass.

All dressed up and ready to go.


Put 190 miles on it in one day and drove cleanly out and back. The air temps hung around 55-58ºF and some rain.


The Firebird is parked over on the right and the engine drew plenty of attention from the 10am gate opening to the 11am run time.


My wife took this picture of me reviewing the datalog after my first pass. Rain drops were just starting to fall.


So we went into town for lunch before heading home. We walked the main street looking at the various cars out. Got in just before it started to rain again.



I'm going to put the 4bbl EFI intake back on, and start work on the new intake. One of the local hardware stores is closing down and I bought all their sheet metal for 50% off so I have the materials ready to go, just need to find the time.

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Does the ms adjust timing under boost or do you still have to get a timing controller?


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Also forgot to ask what's a raspberry pi? Processor for an in dash or what?


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Mega Squirt does full timing control, at idle, at cruise, WOT, in boost, out of boost, modifies/pulls timing if the intake air temperatures are climbing, richens the fuel mixture up if the engine is loaded up over a certain amount of time to cool off the EGT's, has a few over boost protection options, etc.

The Rasberry Pi is a $35 Linux based computer that runs on a 5volt microUSB power cord (cellphone charger). Uses a SD card for a hard drive so has no moving parts to fail from vibration. Just program it and hook it to a screen to show what the Mega Squirt is seeing.

What's up with the Firebird at the moment is I'm waiting for some intake/exhaust gaskets to show up and I'm going to re-install the old intake while I work up a new one, which may simply be a new flange and short length of runner and graft the custom intake to a better flange set up.

This is what I've been up to on my Skylark, the Firebird will likely eventually get this treatment when it has traction issues or if I want a digital speedometer before installing the 4L60E.

Quote:
Thought I'd take some time today to install a hall sensor on the front right wheel to hopefully help me launch the car off the line. The premise is I have a vehicle speed sensor on the transmission letting the Mega Squirt know how fast the rear wheels are turning, and by adding a wheel speed sensor to one of the "un-powered" front wheels the Mega Squirt can compare the two and if the rear wheels are turning faster than the fronts by a programmed amount over a programmed period of time, then it starts pulling timing by programmed amounts. Pulling timing (to as low as 0º) effectively kills the horsepower production of the engine, but it'll pull it and give it back as fast as needed to keep the two wheels spinning at nearly the same rate. Basically it'll allow a ~5-10% slip differential so the rear wheels can be turning slightly faster than the fronts to keep acceleration going.

Many folks have been having luck running the sensor in the brake backing plate or on a bracket and reading the backside of the wheel studs, but it looked like to me the wheel studs on my car don't stick out far enough to get a reliable signal (I didn't actually try..). But I did notice there was a casted lug between each stud, and I checked another rotor I have on the shelf and it had the same casting, so hopefully it's a reliable feature to use if I change rotors down the road. What I needed to do though is bend the backing plate a bit to angle for the lug. That was simple enough just used a cut off wheel to make a tabbed section, bent it, then put a couple spot welds at the joint to stiffen it back up. Drilled a hole in the tab and welded one of the sensor nuts to the tab so the sensor threads in and the second nut becomes a jam nut.


A while ago I started getting away from using the corrugated wire covering, but figured this is a good place to use it to protect the wires. I trimmed out a small plate to hole the wiring in place and used the extra threads from one of the bolts on the ball joint to secure it.



Here is a short video of me testing the sensor before finishing the wiring up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvIFuRjDqE4

The smaller "mph" number is the front wheel. Appears to be working as intended.


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I tell you what man you do some really bad ass electrical stuff I like it it makes me really want to do such things as well


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Went and picked up the mother load of "stuff" this last weekend. There is so much I'm not even sure what direction I'll go first, but I'm leaning towards staying the course with the block I'm working on, but possibly using the pistons on the rods and crank I have. Then get one of the heads ported and set up, or may continue on with my current head project and save ALL the good stuff (except the forged pistons) for when I have the turbo R&D completed. To say I am excited is to under state it!

Got a u-haul trailer of stuff! Including 6 blocks, a couple heads, some cams, two '69 Firebird core supports and lots of miscellaneous parts including a random Atlas 4.2 head.


Used a ramp, and some help to get the engines in, but didn't have too much trouble with a sheet of plywood and the engine hoist.


A snap shot of most the stuff. The engine stand came with the engine! There are accessory drives, starters, pulleys, tubing, misc. hardware, couple oil pans, etc.


A couple of cams. They may or may not be high-performance, but will check them out later. I already have my turbo cam for my main engine goal.


Cleaned up 250 head. Basically the same head that is in my Firebird now except it has nice new seats. I did get some valves so have to decide how I want to proceed from here.


This head has beehive springs on it. The stems measure ~.100" above spec, so would need to be cut down. I am considering just shaving them ~.050" and with my turbo cam needing ~0.050" taller stems, would put them right in spec. I'd have to come up with 0.050" shims for under the lash adjusters to keep the geometry good. There is probably some wiggle room on the lash adjuster side though.


This is the beehive head, I believe it's a 230 1bbl head. Pretty high compression on a 250 engine, but I think if the chambers are modified the compression with a felpro gasket may be right where I'd want it for the turbo engine. I've been working with a 1bbl 230 head already, so I have something to test with first.


A fully machined block and crank. A set of pistons and rings for it as well. I have a good set of OE rods with arp bolts already. I may confiscate these pistons for the block I've been modifying.


An engine just waiting for a good head... This is just going back into it's wrapping (and maybe more wrapping) and will sit in the corner until I'm pretty much done with all my turbo R&D work. Not sense in risking it on stupid tuning or other mistakes. It has a nice set of forged rods in it, and may even be a stroker engine (off set ground journals with longer rods).



Three of the engines, including the machined bare block, have all the cross bolt bosses cast in. It would likely take a TON of rpm and boost to require cross bolting, but if I ever reach that level of eccentricity I could have main caps made to take cross bolts. 7 mains is already pretty hefty though.
[img]http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e313/TheSilverBuick/OHC%20R%20and%20D/Block_zpsie7bpxqd.jpg[/img]

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Wow, that's a nice haul! A little jealous up here.


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The last photo isn't coming up for some reason, so trying again here.


Three of the engines, including the machined bare block, have all the cross bolt bosses cast in. It would likely take a TON of rpm and boost to require cross bolting, but if I ever reach that level of eccentricity I could have main caps made to take cross bolts. 7 mains is already pretty hefty though.

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Looks like a great score Randal. You'll have OHC parts for life now.



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I've started putting one of the "core" short blocks to use. I took the junkiest looking 230 in the collection and decided to use it for some piston oil squirter experimentation. I had kind of walked away from the idea, but since I now have something like 34 spare connecting rods, I figured I could sacrifice three or four for testing, and likewise for the cast 230 pistons. Another motivation is I'm starting to get nervous about piston pin oiling as I'm pulling a fair amount of crankcase vacuum and with at least one block I'm pulling the return oil completely away from the crankshaft, so to throw some oil up that way would help in that area.

Taking this idea and trying to implement it on the OHC engine. The thing I like about this design is they are always pointing at the bottom of the piston, aka parallel to the rod. However I am skeptical of their effectiveness since they are essentially after the oil is cast off from the rod bearing I am unsure how much pressure it will actually have there to make the distance to the piston. After some more googling, I was shooting for ~1/16" notch since I really want volume for cooling the piston.



The second step is to actually be able to see how effective it is, so I took two pistons, drilled a couple holes in the crown then saws-all'd the openings larger so I could see how effective the spray pattern is at different oil pressures. So I've modified one rod, the other is for the next test, and by the time I smoothed out the cut edges the opening was a bit bigger than I wanted, but will see how it performs anyways. It does not intersect the bearing shell at all, so I didn't have to modify the bearing. Unfortunately when I went to test it the oil pump wouldn't take a prime so I primed it and then oil leaked around the oil pump base, so I tightened the bolts on the base plate and the gears wouldn't move. Turns out it's a pump I've disassembled and didn't put a gasket back on. I have a stack of pump gaskets, but at that moment I didn't feel like making an oily mess pulling the pump plate off so called it the day. Maybe today or tomorrow I'll get back to it. I will likely also have to replace the pressure relief spring to get over 35psi of pressure, but since it's external its an easy modification.

Looking down through the piston. I put the notches on the front side, figuring as the vehicle is accelerating the spray will move rearwards. No getting around those physics. Interestingly enough this block has the old style small "Chevy style" rods in it. Still forged, just less material around the big end.
[url="http://s42.photobucket.com/user/TheSilverBuick/media/OHC%20R%20and%20D/IMG_20160528_124357900_zpsmvmt6eqi.jpg.html"][/url]

[url="http://s42.photobucket.com/user/TheSilverBuick/media/OHC%20R%20and%20D/IMG_20160528_124318469_zpsotwfi9cf.jpg.html"][/url]

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Another more effective method is to put some pin oiling holes in the pistons. This is an option that many custom piston companies offer as an upcharge, but its worth doing to ensure you have positive pin oiling at all times. Having slots or even spit holes in the rods doesn't really do a good job because the rods are constantly oscillating and never really directing the spray where it needs to go. Another alternative for spraying oil to the underside of the piston crowns for cooling is a method that Porsche used in many of its 24 Hour races at LeMans and other long endurance races. It was basically similar to a gas jet in a Holley carb that intersected the main oil galley in the main bulkhead of the block. It was fixed at a slight angle so it constantly sprayed oil at the underside of the pistons throughout the entire 360° of rotation and is never blocked or obstructed by any of the other engine components. They stated that it cooled the piston crowns temperature by over 400°F, and saved many engines from failures during these races where the engines endured those long hours of constant full throttle high boost situations.



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I've actually looked it up a fair amount, but I guess never really posted that info up here, just mentioned it a bit a few posts back.

Going off the mains is what I'd really like to do, like this, but I'm not willing to trash a block to test how thick the casting is around the main passage. If I accidently trash a block or break one down the road I'll use that opportunity to check it out.
[img]http://forums.drom.ru/attachment.php?attachmentid=926597&stc=1&d=1269782157[/img]


This method is clearly cruder, but it will at minimum promote slinging oil towards the piston on the upwards stroke, but volume will be needed for significant cooling, but a slight spray will be adequate for pin lubrication.

Since I have these pistons with window's now, I'm going to review running a tube "second" oil main for piston oilers. The perk to running a second external line is a pressure valve could be installed so it only pressurizes up when the rpm's/pump is wound up so it's not bleeding oil pressure at low rpm's/oil pressure, but space is limited in the crankcase.

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Here is kind of the follow through on the Skylark's front wheel speed sensor for traction control. Which I'm hoping some day to need on the Firebird.

Needs some fine tuning, but I have a baseline to work from. As a reminder, Buick 455(462) with a manual transmission, 3.89 gears.
Quote:

Finally turned the traction control on for some testing. No significant speed testing but tried five or six burnouts and datalogged two of them. It's a weird feeling, it's not missing like a rev limiter cutting spark but you can certainly feel the power being pulled down, softly. I datalogged the most extreme case which is sitting on the 2-step limiter and just dumping the clutch, which usually sends the tires up in smoke and the rpm's to the moon. One caveat to this though, I didn't try laying the pedal to the floor due to where I was driving, but in a normal circumstance, that throttle position should of produced a much much longer burnout.

I annotated the datalog a bit. I have a minimum threshold of 5mph set so it won't do anything until the car is over 5mph, and once there traction has to be over 5% different (check), and it took 0.21 seconds after the first reading above 5mph for the timing to be pulled down to 11.5º. I have just some guesstimate numbers plugged in, so I'll probably pull the timing down faster and lower. I have some noise in the rear wheel speed sensor when I'm on the 2-step, so until I cure that I can't really lower the 5mph minimum threshold. Overall, I'm glad that it's doing SOMETHING and can work from that baseline. It was just under 0.4 seconds between the rear tires spinning and the front tire registering speed, then another 0.21 seconds before the traction control kicked in, and ignition timing was reduced for 1.45 seconds.

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I put a gasket in the pump and it worked perfectly. First set of test show no oil coming out of those holes, at all. There is oil dripping through the sides (bottom?), but not out the top. Initially it had 30psi of oil pressure, so I stuck a Buick 455 high pressure spring in there and got over 60psi, and still nothing. I rotated the crank a bit and still nothing, but I have not tried rotating the crank while the pump is going due to an oil return line I don't trust...

I am thinking of naming this test rig "Grease Ball" or "Exxon Valdez" because how grimy it is. Gunk everywhere but the crank turns freely. The oil return line is just a scrap piece of 3/8th tubing I jammed into the oil passage that feeds up to the lash adjusters and cam housing, there is no positive hold down on it. I may weld a tab to it and bolt it down at the nearest head bolt or something. As kind of apparent, I had one "oops" where the line popped out and a geyser of oil shot up at least 5 feet and splashed on the ceiling, among other things.


Due to the line popping off once, I hold on to it while running the drill and observing, but out of curiosity I wanted to see how efficiently the pump moved oil and it seems pretty good. Using a simple hand ratchet it pumps pretty well to the top. Each pulse is a 1/3-1/2 rotation of the pump, so when the engine is going, plenty of oil is moving around.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKwQ8DD3ePc

And it seems some one else had tried to boost the oil pressure of the engine as I found a nut in the relief cap shimming the spring up, lol.

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Sent you a PM.


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Not quite front page news, but my home brewed intake manifold made it into the new'ish Pontiac magazine "Poncho Perfection". I'll have to order one or two.




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