Replacement Engine project

[peteracs]

Ok, I offered up the sump pan I was aiming to use onto a 2l block with 2l oil pump installed and yes it does not fit, ie it must be 1600 one, so went to my ‘storage facility’ for various oily parts probably not required, ie next to shed under plastic sheeting and recovered two sump pans. Both were 2l and yes they are approx 1cm or so deeper to cope with the additional pump height.

I think I will continue modding the 1600 and add it to the Spider as it is very noticeable that the oil pressure dips on cornering which has meant my spirited driving has had to be tempered to suit the engine, hopefully this baffled sump will restored some chuckability to the car without worrying every time…… the sump on the 1600 has to come off as there is a weeping of oil around part of the gasket.

I have picked the better of the two 2l ones and started cleaning, not my favourite job as as much oily muck on the outside as in.

Peter

[peteracs]

Back to the crank after having it sitting around for many weeks. GC recommends putting a teardrop relief into the main journal oil feeds to the con rod journals (see his book for details). I did this with some trepidation and thankfully largely succeeded using a small oval shaped burr. Not the easiest job and I still have to make sure that there are no rough edges to wreck the bearings! GC recommended final polishing with Scotch-brite pads and oil. He used the grey ultra fine which I did not have, so ordered a couple and will post some photos with the finished job, hopefully looking all pristine.

Peter

[peteracs]

Hi

A bit more work to do on the crank, so not yet finished, mainly cleaning before I put the new bungs in.

The other job that I have been on with for months, spending a bit of time on it every so often is tidying up the head and replacing the valve guides. The only other head I have modified was my old Mini head in the 70s, which went quite well given all I had was a couple of books by a guy called Clive Trickey (still have them). I had knocked out the old valve guides  and gleaning info from GC’s book, I set about tidying up the inlet and exhaust ports. The VX head has good sized ports already, so minimal amounts of metal needed removing is my understanding. After this a clean up of the chambers best I could without again removing much metal.

Then onto the valve guides. I sourced these bronze ones from AE Car (https://www.aecar.co.uk/) who also have various parts for the engine, bearings and head bolts etc. I discussed fitting of the guides with Jon at Stanwood and he gave me some useful pointers. First up was measuring the protrusion of the guide top from the head using a n other head. Having done this a suitable set of washers were found to give the correct amount. Also a set of washers were sorted to pack out the section on the guide where the valve stem seal fits. This was to avoid putting pressure on and hence damage to the that portion of the guide and to just put pressure on the shoulder below where the seal sits. Finally the same punch which I used to remove the old guides was to be used.

The next job was to make sure the holes where the guide fits was not too small for the new guides and hence cause the head to split when inserting it. Jon suggested approx 1 to 1.5 thou smaller than the guide diameter. I had bought a set of small diameter hole gauges which arrived damaged, but decided to go for a slightly more expensive and comprehensive set to hopefully get the holes as needed. All the holes were on the slightly small size thankfully and I used a small diameter flap wheel on a drill which was the perfect size for the 14mm hole to ‘hone’ out the hole to the size needed. After some cleaning to get rid of the dust etc, it was now time to see if I had got it correct.

It is interesting GC preferred installing the guides at room temp for both guide and head, just using lubrication, others suggest heating head or freezing guides. I decided the GC method sounded sensible and I proceeded with the first one with great trepidation…… I should not have worried as all went in ok, a couple were a little more tight than the others, but all went in ok. I used a hammer in preference to using the press as lining up the guides in the press would have been a pain and the amount of hammering was not excessive, unlike the original removal…..

So happy days, I now need to get a volume reading from the chambers as a start of working out the requirement to achieve the around 10.5:1 CR.

Peter

[WestonE]

Hi Peter

Impressive work and more than I have ever attempted as I paid GC for this.

Eric

[peteracs]

Jon at Stanwood has finally bored, honed and faced the block. A fair old wait to get this done, but at least now I can look to get it mounted on the stand and start dry building to see how it all fits together. Still have a bunch of things to be machined/balanced, but at least I can get on with some of the jobs I am down to do.

[peteracs]

Hi

Long time since I posted and in reality not much has happened until recently.

So, managed to mount the block on the engine stand using the standard mounting hardware and using the rear screw holes so I can access both ends of the block.

The other job I have done is to sort out a decent set of cam boxes and exhaust cam, I have a brand new GC3A inlet. The cam boxes, cam and assorted bits have been cleaned in the parts washer which was a long winded job as one cam box was particularly oily on the outside, never mind the inside. The cam box covers were also cleaned and have been etch primed and painted (on top not inside…!).

Next job was port matching the inlet manifold to the head which turned out to be quite an enjoyable one. Just used a battery drill, rotary burrs and slowly removed what I needed. Just need to give it a final polish with flappy wheel.

Peter

[peteracs]

I spent some time over the last few days cleaning the 2l sump I selected to use. Then proceeded to remove the existing baffling in readiness for the baffle kit I bought from Mark. This involves a bunch of spot welds. I tried using a spot well drill, chisel and a grinder with a flappy wheel. The most effective and causes less damage was the grinder which worked really well after as much excess metal has been cut away as possible. I do have one or two repairs to the old spot welds using a welder, then will be ready to weld in the baffle kit.

[WestonE]

Hi Peter

It will last a lot longer with this oil control. The OE sump is hopeless and strange that they built the Monte with a baffled sump but not the Beta.

Eric

[peteracs]

This is very much a whilst I am in their item, but seems to be as Eric says, well worth doing long term.

I finally ordered the crank bearings and head bolts from Mark the other day which arrived yesterday. The rod bolts need a Ribe socket, so will have to buy a set. I have wanted to see what clearance there is on the crank/block, so out with the Plastigauge and was happy to see that there was 2 thou on all the mains.

I also bought a set of conrod bearings which are for 16V delta, as the rods were listed as 16V items from Maxpeeding. Hopefully they should be correct and should arrive this week.

Last bit of purchasing is a pair of K&N dcnf air filters, second hand off Ebay. K&N do not now sell a dcnf filter, so when I saw these, I tools the plunge. I think they will need a little bit of modifying as the gap between the two pairs of throttle bodies is possibly smaller than the width of the two filters, but nothing a hammer and patience cannot sort out hopefully…….

Peter

[peteracs]

Hi

Conrod bearings arrived today and appear to fit perfectly in the rod.

I will get around to checking the clearance, but on a quick offering up to the crank they look to be a good fit as well, so happy so far.

Once happy with the bearings I will get on with attaching a piston and see what the height difference is between the block and the top of the pistons.

A quick calculation of the compression ratio appears to put me in the 10.5:1 area which is pretty much where I wanted to be.

Peter

[peteracs]

I took one of the rods and piston today and fitted it to the crank which was at tdc. The good news was that the big end bearing clearance was 2 thou based on plastgauge. Also the piston sits nicely at the top of the bore and does not need any machining to reduce it based on deck height. I may however need some additional clearance after fitting the head and checking the valve pockets.

Also had the K&N air filters arrive and they will do nicely once they have been tweaked as they are slightly too wide to fit to two dcnf style throttle bodies, ie the throttle bodies on the manifold are a cm or so too wide.

Peter

[HFStuart]

Peter,

For the CR what compressed thickiness are you assuming for the head gasket? Indeed what gasket will you use?

I remember asking Guy Croft what the thickness of one of his Astadur type gaskets was and he replied 'Haven't a clue' which wasn't especially helpful!

[peteracs]

Hi Stuart

I am going for a MLS gasket, according to Darren, who supplies them, they are available in varying thicknesses, so when I have the final values after the head skim etc, I can then decide which is best.

I am using the CR calculator at Summit Racing which makes it simple to get a value and to vary the parameters.

See

https://www.summitracing.com/newsandevents/calcsandtools/compression-calculator

Peter

[WestonE]

Hi Peter

I love the compression calculator link. Note MLS gasket compressed thickness will be close to a vernier slide tight on the gasket. I commissioned the design of these Cometic MLS Gaskets and was deeply involved. Note Delta MLS gaskets have the coolant flow control ports reversed.

Eric 

[peteracs]

Back from France and trying to get on with some jobs.

First up was to get the head, crank and clutch over to Jon at Stanwood to get him to

1) Check valve stem is not too tight a fit in new guides and then cut the seats as per GCs spec. Finally check volume of the chamber.

2) Get the crank, flywheel he has and the clutch all balanced.

Hope to get this lot back for early next year now.

Also on with sorting the air filter housings and adapter plate, more on that to come…

Peter

[peteracs]

Right, air filters….

I had been musing over this subject for a long time. My first thought was to get a custom 3D printed air box made, second was use an off the shelf air box married with cone filter, large oval filter or foam type filter body with custom base plate. I am a fan of K&N filters after seeing/reading an article by David Vizard on them, so was keen to use their filters.

In the end I plumbed for dual K&N DCNF individual filter units. The only problem being they do not sell them anymore…… So a quick EBay search revealed a guy selling a pair which were on a Capri(?), no idea which one, but anyway they were what I needed. I thought it would be a straight forward job to then just fit them, how wrong could I be.

First up, the cutout on the filter for the DCNF is for the original carb, the Jenvey throttle body has the same mounting holes, but the area around it is smaller, so there are gaps, not so useful for an air filter. So a filler plate needs to be made. As well as this the two filter housings are a few mm too wide to mount next to each other, so each one would need the mounting holes moved approx 1cm to allow them to fit side by side. I ordered some stainless sheet and started to make one, then realised my second problem, the butterfly spindle arm on the throttle body which attaches to the accelerator cable protrudes above the height of the throttle body which means this arm interferes with the base of the air filter housing.

So we are now needing a 10mm spacer instead of a simple plate. I ordered a pair of high temp nylon sheets and set to drilling the spacer. That was when I hit the last problem which I had completely missed as the throttle bodies are new and not made up. Attached to the throttle body are the two injectors and a fuel rail above the injectors. This all protrudes well above the top of the throttle body and hence the air filter body and spacer have to not only be moved to separate the two filter housings, but also have to be offset from the fuel rail. I had already drilled one spacer and the two housings before I realised this, so another spacer sheet was ordered and more holes put into the base of the filter housings. As the housing had been moved so far from the normal position a fair amount of metal removal was necessary to remove obstruction from the inlets. The final spacers were drilled and the inlets shaped slightly to avoid a sharp edge. The end result is not so pretty, but should be functional.

All this took an age to do, satisfying in the end, frustrating at times. To finish off the job I ordered some stainless fixing bolts and for the top of the filter housings, knurled stainless nuts as the ones they came with them were not so pretty…

I am aiming to baffle the hot air from radiator away from the filters and also baffle the cold air towards them when I get to installing the engine bay parts.

Photo is of one of the filter housings modified with spacer plate.

[WestonE]

Hi Peter,

I feel the pain and have lived it! You can get shorter injectors Bosch EV14 Ford spec. Please check bonnet clearance, because it can get tight. Hopefully not too smart ass from me!

Eric

[peteracs]

Hi Eric

Not at all. I have EV14 injectors, but the throttle bodies are not as tall as carbs, so rails sit above top of body. I did measure the gap and I should be ok even with old style bonnet we are using.

Thanks

Peter

[squiglyzigly]

Hi Peter,
Nice work. I’m going through some similar problem solving exercises as I have decided to include injection during the VX HPE restoration. Lots of head scratching trying to get things right when you’re doing something new for the first time. After the hiccups come a sense of achievement.
A word of caution regarding the use of stainless fittings on top of carbs and throttle bodies. I found out the hard way that using stainless nyloc nuts to hold the air filter to the carb are not without fault. If you fumble and drop a small m5 nut down the throat of said carb, they are not magnetic and difficult to retrieve without strip down. I now only use mild steel (plated) nyloc nuts in this location.

Ian

[peteracs]

Hi Ian

Good call, to fasten the air filter I am using button head bolts with washers and mild thread locker, but all stainless planned so will keep the plastic blanking pieces Jenvey supplied with the throttle bodies handy to avoid that problem.

Peter