Artie's Engine update

[S4Esprit]

The crank journal on cyl 4 is about .007 out of round

Nobody? Nobody has a remark about this? Nothing?

[Artie]

The liners are aluminum and nikasil coated in the non chargecooled cars. The piston dish is a different shape slightly from the chargecooled engines, my pistons were definitely forged Mahle pistons, but no evidence of a chrome top. The problem with the chrome tops is they start to flake off at higher mileage, I think Travis noted this in his engine disassembly from last year. I am pretty sure the iron liners were inthe G body cars, and the nikasil entered service in late 85 or so.

The crank will be ground to .010 and new oversized bearings will be installed. The crank is already en route to Tulsa OK to an FAA machinist to do the machining and also Nitride the crank for strength as well as magnaflux it to find any cracks if there are any.

Artie

[910Esprit]

One more thing to consider with keeping the engine gas tight at ultra high combustion pressures. You may be able to strap the head down, but at the expense of forcing the much smaller foot of the liner into the block, presumably resulting in gasket failure again. I recall seeing in Gary's workshop some special flared 'feet' he had machined that slipped on the bottom of modified liners to deal with that issue.

Regarding the Nikasil liners, they corresponded with the introduction of the HC engines, so the later G cars had them, but I assume no Stevens has ever had them fitted.

Steve

[Vulcan Grey]

Regarding the Nikasil liners, they corresponded with the introduction of the HC engines, so the later G cars had them, but I assume no Stevens has ever had them fitted.

Steve

Of course they all had the forged aluminum Nikasil coated liners. My SE does, the S4, S4s, Sport300, X180-R, GT3... they all did.

Now the V8, that is a different story, they have cast iron liners.

[Artie]

Travis,

What's the status of your engine? I was hoping to have your guide by now for my rebuild!

Artie

[Vulcan Grey]

Slowly starting to work on it again. I have one less distraction now. No more girlfriend as of last friday...

[910Esprit]

I was, of course, meaning iron liners were discontinued with the HC engine....

[Artie]

Oh I see, I'm in a similar situation. Getting a divorce! Now of course she thinks I owe her the equivelant of my cars in cash! Where do they come up with this crap?

[lotus4s]

Hey Artie,

Am I the only one that can't enlarge your pics? It just goes to the ImageShack homepage when I click them.

[Artie]

I don't know if you can enlarge them. I can email them to you if you like Jim.

Artie

[Esprit Aviation]

Artie,

Hope the progress is rapid! While the crank is out you might want to see if they can lighten it up a bit. It has been 4 years since I built my engine, but I recall that either 3 or 5 lbs came off the crank. Definately worthwhile! I think it was 3lbs saved collectively on all 4 rods and 5lbs off the crank for a total of 8lbs reciprocating and rotational mass eliminated!

BTW, I really like the Wilwood brakes!!!!

Regards, Lee

[rogerch]

Oh I see, I'm in a similar situation. Getting a divorce! Now of course she thinks I owe her the equivelant of my cars in cash! Where do they come up with this crap?

Must have gone to the same school as mine, I ended up buying my Elan twice!!

Roger

[Artie]

Nice Roger, sucks they think we owe them something when they want out!

Lee,

Glad you like the brakes! I will see if we can lighten the crank up, it's being ground to .010 for oversized bearings due to the bearing failure so they ought to be able to remove some material. The rods and pistons will save over 4 lbs alone!

Artie

[rydning]

That crank is pretty big heavy...

Its probably why this stock cast crank can take 500bhp...

I asked a buddy who work with ourhauling engines/restroking cranks and he sayd that was the most solid 4 pot cast crank he had ever seen.He sayd that he would think something else would lett go before that crank would snap.

Ligher pistons and rods will also help to get less stress on that crank.So you will be goog..

But as I have mention earlier this engines weakest point is the loose liners and zero suport/open deck.

I belive we might can get 600bhp out of this engine with out spending big bucks on it....Nobody knows...since nobody have tryed...I know this forged Malhe pistons is used in other type engines up to 800bhp.

And we know that Garry have got 850-1000bhp with the new blockcastings.

Edited September 13, 2008 by rydning

[Artie]

The crankshaft is definitely beefy! I'll check into lightening it up. I was looking into knife edging it when Michael Motorsports had the engine but I abandoned the idea in hopes of getting the thing put back together in a reasonable time frame. I'd be sure with the new pistons and rods with a more solid top end you could easily get 600hp or more. Heck the stock pistons should net upwards of 750hp!

Artie

[Tony94S4]

any update Artie,

r u planing to run oil thermostat on the engine after ur done

that may prevent premature bearing failure,

not sure on the se but on the s4 cold weather on even not to short trips

I couldent push the car at all couse the low oil temps would never

get close to water temps

[Stefan Ertler]

Oh I see, I'm in a similar situation. Getting a divorce! Now of course she thinks I owe her the equivelant of my cars in cash! Where do they come up with this crap?

Artie

I know this is slightly off topic, but I know how you feel. Best of Luck with your engine rebuild

Stefan

Edited September 22, 2008 by Fandango

[t70]

Tony... One thing to note about the temperatures on the guages in the S4... I don't know about yours, but Johns S4 guages are out to lunch. The oil temp and water temp are never close to the same on his car, This tells me that there is a guage innaccuracy. Now, the first reason for this was that the radiator was completely plugged with sand, leaves and bugs. Once I cleaned the radiator, I also changed the thermostat, and once I did that, the water temp never went over 70 degrees according to the guage (which is wrong by about 20-25 degrees).

[Tony94S4]

yep on mine water temp guage was allways few degrees higher

than what freescan showed

not sure the accuracy of oil temp guage,

with those vdo's im sure they r little off,

but but on mine seemed to operate fine

but probably few degrees off

[Artie]

I don't plan on putting an oil thermostat in, hasn't been suggested. The car is not an SE, I converted the plenum, chargecooler, nozzle, secondary injectors and electronics and computer/ecm to the SE ecm a couple years ago. The oil cooler was originally in the front over the ac condenser. I relocated it to the rear of the car, which isn't ideal and plan to relocate a newer, more efficient 15 row setrab cooler to the front for better oil cooling. I will also know the condition of the engine considering I'm watching it go together now and will always run full synthetic AMSOIL oil in it!

Artie

[t70]

Not for engine break in I hope

[Tony94S4]

deffenetly not synthetic for break in,

I use wallmart super tech cheap oil & filter

magnetic drain plug

I do oil filter @

1st change

couple cycles of idle cold to hot

2nd 100miles

3rd 500m

and synthetic

1500m

I may be over doing it just cheap insurance

I never go thicker then 30w for break in since u wont c temps past

100C

amsoil is great oil but synthetic oils absorb less heat so they actualy

takes much longer heat

I never rev my car past 4k rpm if my oil don't pass the water temp,

even 0-xx weight oil is to thick below 80 degrees C

if u upgrade ur cooler will definitly recomed u thermostat

especialy with kansas city winter weather on the way

just my opinion

also any progress?

[Artie]

not a whole lot of progress this week. Crankshaft is in Tulsa OK for regrinding/nitriding. I'll pick up the liners and new pistons tomorrow to send to Lesco for matching and rehone to match the liners/pistons. The engine is completely torn down and now just waiting on crankshaft, pistons, liners to return from machine work to reassemble. Will keep everyone posted!

Artie

[Tony94S4]

Artie,

not sure if u mentiont anywhere, how many miles did u have on ur engine,

also how was the wear on the other bearings

[Artie]

The other bearings were pretty well in need of replacing. Some were down to the bronze. There were 79,000 miles on the engine. The liners, pistons, rods, rings etc were all within spec, so honestly could have gotten away with a new set of shells and reground crankshaft!

Artie