Chuck's Engine Build

[cdigerlando]

Well, I finally got all of my parts back from the machine shop. My cylinder clearance are on the big side, due to some cylinder wall corrosion that I had. I'm running about 4 thousands, which should be fine.

I tried to be slick like Mike and cage the bearings, but my readings were not very repeatable, even with less precision than his instruments, so I decided to just check everything with plastigage. My rod bearings all hit dead nuts on 1.5 thousands clearance. This is with swain coated ACL tri metal race bearings. My main bearings varied from 2 - 1.5 thousands. My runout on the last bearing was less than 1 thousanth, so with that I'm going to go ahead and assemble this thing. I will probably start nights on Monday. I should definitelly have the long block assembled by the end of next weekend. I need to do a bit more clean up of the water jackets, and port the oil pump entry hole to improve oil flow, since there are no aftermarket pumps greater than our stock 12 mm pump for subaru motors. I'm also going to order a new oil pan since the cleaning process did a job on the interior paint, and I'd rather not take a chance on problems associated with paint flakes in my oil.

I'll take pictures along the way and post them. I'm sure it will not be as precise as mikes motor, but there are a few differences. I semi-closed the deck for one, but I have not had any porting or port matching of the heads done. I also have not done any coatings, other than my bearings. I'm running a bit more clearance on my main bearings, but using a coated ACL tri metal race bearing instead of Mike's aluminum bearings. I think my bearings will be able to handle a lot of power, but may not have the longevity of the Mike's bearings. I'm also installing cometic head gaskets instead of OEM. Hopefully they will hold up well. I'm thinking of using copper spray to help with sealing, as I've seen a few nasioc builders doing this.

If anyone is interested in using the machine shop I used, let me know. He is pretty busy, but said that he would be interested in doing another motor some time in the future.

[Boxersix]

Originally Posted by cdigerlando

I'm thinking of using copper spray to help with sealing, as I've seen a few nasioc builders doing this.

Don't use the copper spray......instead go buy a can of Mopar(dodge chrysler) head gasket sealant. It is specially formulated for MLS steel gaskets and works well with all after market. Sprays on as a tacky clear yellow fluid but thins out very quickly and displaces with torque. More importantly it goes on even.

The problem with the copper spray is it's uneven layer and inability to thin out. If you let it stand too long you'll end up with uneven layers of sealant which over time can blow out and leak. Best not to use it.

I've built hundreds of motors in my life and the Mopar stuff is excellent.

[cdigerlando]

Originally Posted by Boxersix

Don't use the copper spray......instead go buy a can of Mopar(dodge chrysler) head gasket sealant. It is specially formulated for MLS steel gaskets and works well with all after market. Sprays on as a tacky clear yellow fluid but thins out very quickly and displaces with torque. More importantly it goes on even.

The problem with the copper spray is it's uneven layer and inability to thin out. If you let it stand too long you'll end up with uneven layers of sealant which over time can blow out and leak. Best not to use it.

I've built hundreds of motors in my life and the Mopar stuff is excellent.

Thanks I'll give that a try. Where do you get it?

[longassname]

Hey Chuck,

I know you have some of the 1st gen ARP head studs. The short studs in that "kit," the ones that go under the cam gears, need to be torqued in otherwise they will rub on the cam gears. I think I put all my studs in at 13 ft lbs. Anyway, pay attention and make sure you have the studs under the cam gears in as far as they will go. I changed the specs with ARP after my build so in the future the short studs will be 6.70 instead of 6.75".

When I did the write up on my build I forgot to mention the process of breaking in the studs. With the gasket set up you are talking about you will want to do this with your old gaskets before you install your heads for real with your new gaskets. With your old head gaskets go through the whole torque sequence and then fully loosen the nuts up and do it again. Do that 5 times. That breaks the studs in so that from then on the clamping force associated with a given torque will be reliable and repeatable.

I suggest you not use maximum torque for the fastners. You'll have to check my post in my engine build thread but I think I settled on 73 ft lbs of torque. Because of the differences in thermal expansion between the aluminum block/heads and the arp2000 studs it's best to leave yourself as generous room for stretch before reaching yield as possible while still getting the clamping force you want. If you troque them all the way up to close to yield and then thermal expansion stretches them past yield then they stay stretched, your head gasket goes bad, and you start running around trying new gaskets and closing decks etc not realizing the studs are just toasted.

[longassname]

Chuck,

How much less than .001 run out do you have? You only have run out on 7 and not 6? What # journals are you spinning the crank on when checking for run out?

For your build you should really get zero observable run out. Factory specs will let you run something crazy like 14 tens run out but that kind of stuff has no place in a performance build. You want to be able to run high loads at high rpms with complete confidence.

[longassname]

Chuck,

Get your piston skirts coated to close up those sidewall clearances. You should be able to get 2 tens or 4 tens thick coating. With those measurements get the 4 tens coating. With 4 thou sidewall clearance you will get skirt slap when the engine is cold. The 4 tens coating will narrow that down to .0032 sidewall clearance which will run much more smoothly and quietly.

[cdigerlando]

Originally Posted by longassname

Chuck,

How much less than .001 run out do you have? You only have run out on 7 and not 6? What # journals are you spinning the crank on when checking for run out?

For your build you should really get zero observable run out. Factory specs will let you run something crazy like 14 tens run out but that kind of stuff has no place in a performance build. You want to be able to run high loads at high rpms with complete confidence.

I only checked 7 and 1, running bearings on 1 and 5. My equipment I had access to would not fit between the crank lobes. Ran about 7.5 tens on the runout. 0 of course on 1. I was pretty happy to just be able to check 7, but it would have been nice to be able to check journal 3.

[cdigerlando]

Originally Posted by longassname

Hey Chuck,

I know you have some of the 1st gen ARP head studs. The short studs in that "kit," the ones that go under the cam gears, need to be torqued in otherwise they will rub on the cam gears. I think I put all my studs in at 13 ft lbs. Anyway, pay attention and make sure you have the studs under the cam gears in as far as they will go. I changed the specs with ARP after my build so in the future the short studs will be 6.70 instead of 6.75".

When I did the write up on my build I forgot to mention the process of breaking in the studs. With the gasket set up you are talking about you will want to do this with your old gaskets before you install your heads for real with your new gaskets. With your old head gaskets go through the whole torque sequence and then fully loosen the nuts up and do it again. Do that 5 times. That breaks the studs in so that from then on the clamping force associated with a given torque will be reliable and repeatable.

I suggest you not use maximum torque for the fastners. You'll have to check my post in my engine build thread but I think I settled on 73 ft lbs of torque. Because of the differences in thermal expansion between the aluminum block/heads and the arp2000 studs it's best to leave yourself as generous room for stretch before reaching yield as possible while still getting the clamping force you want. If you troque them all the way up to close to yield and then thermal expansion stretches them past yield then they stay stretched, your head gasket goes bad, and you start running around trying new gaskets and closing decks etc not realizing the studs are just toasted.

I have the 6.75" in studs. I'll give the break in a try with my old gaskets. Thanks for the advice. I think that ARP recommends approx 73 ft lbs on these studs.

[cdigerlando]

I finally got a good bore gauge. I found a couple of issues. One I have a spot at the top of one of my cylinders about 25 tens deep. The piston was honed out to a clearance of about 37 tens, so I don't want to go much more. I would rather not scrap the block, but I also don't want to take a chance that this would be a problem in the future. I'm thinking about doing a swain heavy skirt coating which adds about 40 tens to the diameter. This might not even be enough to hone out this spot though, so I may need to go to 45 tens total clearance with the coating. This would mean honing another 50 tens clearance. I'm going to talk to my machine shop and see if they will let me camp out next to the CNC machine with my bore gauge.

Also my other bores varied from 15 to 25 tens clearance. I would prefer to have them all closer to 35 tens. Also the cylinder that was bored to 37 tens showed a lot better roundness and less taper. One cylinder I measured did not meet subaru's taper tolerance, so it definitely needs more work.

This would leave me a bit lopsided though. I don't know if I should just coat one piston or do all of them. If I do all of them, I'll have to see if one of you guys wants to trade my cut rings for your uncut rings. Could save you the bother of doing it. It's basically set up to run the same clearances that Mike ran with a 35 tens clearance. Slightly smaller would probably not matter much.

Another option that I am considering is sleaving. I have a call into AR fabrication to see how much that would cost. They typically charge about 1850 for a 4 cylinder so I'm thinking for a 6 cylinder he is probably going to charge me after honing and decking about $3000. I'm not too happy about that.

I know that when I talk to chris about the spot he is not going to think it is a problem, however I just don't want to take the chance. I'm also not too happy about the taper in the bores.

Fun fun stuff.

[longassname]

Got any pictures? The quality of the machine work doesn't sound very impressive so far so I'd be interested in seeing the cyllinder finish. I'd also be interested in seeing what this spot you are talking about is.

cnc machine? He's not using a real honing machine?

Originally Posted by cdigerlando

I finally got a good bore gauge. I found a couple of issues. One I have a spot at the top of one of my cylinders about 25 tens deep. The piston was honed out to a clearance of about 37 tens, so I don't want to go much more. I would rather not scrap the block, but I also don't want to take a chance that this would be a problem in the future. I'm thinking about doing a swain heavy skirt coating which adds about 40 tens to the diameter. This might not even be enough to hone out this spot though, so I may need to go to 45 tens total clearance with the coating. This would mean honing another 50 tens clearance. I'm going to talk to my machine shop and see if they will let me camp out next to the CNC machine with my bore gauge.

Also my other bores varied from 15 to 25 tens clearance. I would prefer to have them all closer to 35 tens. Also the cylinder that was bored to 37 tens showed a lot better roundness and less taper. One cylinder I measured did not meet subaru's taper tolerance, so it definitely needs more work.

This would leave me a bit lopsided though. I don't know if I should just coat one piston or do all of them. If I do all of them, I'll have to see if one of you guys wants to trade my cut rings for your uncut rings. Could save you the bother of doing it. It's basically set up to run the same clearances that Mike ran with a 35 tens clearance. Slightly smaller would probably not matter much.

Another option that I am considering is sleaving. I have a call into AR fabrication to see how much that would cost. They typically charge about 1850 for a 4 cylinder so I'm thinking for a 6 cylinder he is probably going to charge me after honing and decking about $3000. I'm not too happy about that.

I know that when I talk to chris about the spot he is not going to think it is a problem, however I just don't want to take the chance. I'm also not too happy about the taper in the bores.

Fun fun stuff.

[cdigerlando]

Originally Posted by longassname

Got any pictures? The quality of the machine work doesn't sound very impressive so far so I'd be interested in seeing the cyllinder finish. I'd also be interested in seeing what this spot you are talking about is.

cnc machine? He's not using a real honing machine?

I'm probably not using the correct wording for his equipment.

The finish looks good. I'll take pics before I put it together.

Looking at the numbers it is obvious to me that the cylinders needed much more honing due to the engine's age. The greater the clearance honed, the better the roundness and taper of the bore. Well within spec. The question is how much honing will I need to do to smooth out my corrosion pit. I won't know that until I hone the cylinder. I'm hoping that the skirt coating will increase the diameter of the piston enough and require a large enough bore to open up this area. From the numbers I saw looking at the bores, I'm confident that his machine is true. I will pick my largest diameter piston following coating and use this in my problem cylinder 3. Hopefully the new required diameter will not require too much clearance. With the skirt coated piston I may actually not go with 35 tens clearance if I can help it. I may keep the clearance somewhere closer to 20 or 25 tens with this coating on the piston. I don't think that would be enough boring though, based on the pit depth. Whatever I need to take off around the pit I have to take off the other side so the numbers would double. So for 25 tens of pit I would need to take off 50 tens of diameter. Since I am only adding 40 tens of diameter from the coating, and already have 37 tens of clearance I may be short of my goal.

[longassname]

Maybe it would be easier to use different pistons with this block or a different block with these pistons.

Originally Posted by cdigerlando

I'm probably not using the correct wording for his equipment.

The finish looks good. I'll take pics before I put it together.

Looking at the numbers it is obvious to me that the cylinders needed much more honing due to the engine's age. The greater the clearance honed, the better the roundness and taper of the bore. Well within spec. The question is how much honing will I need to do to smooth out my corrosion pit. I won't know that until I hone the cylinder. I'm hoping that the skirt coating will increase the diameter of the piston enough and require a large enough bore to open up this area. From the numbers I saw looking at the bores, I'm confident that his machine is true. I will pick my largest diameter piston following coating and use this in my problem cylinder 3. Hopefully the new required diameter will not require too much clearance. With the skirt coated piston I may actually not go with 35 tens clearance if I can help it. I may keep the clearance somewhere closer to 20 or 25 tens with this coating on the piston. I don't think that would be enough boring though, based on the pit depth. Whatever I need to take off around the pit I have to take off the other side so the numbers would double. So for 25 tens of pit I would need to take off 50 tens of diameter. Since I am only adding 40 tens of diameter from the coating, and already have 37 tens of clearance I may be short of my goal.

[cdigerlando]

Originally Posted by longassname

Maybe it would be easier to use different pistons with this block or a different block with these pistons.

The thought of getting a new block crossed my mind. Hence why I asked my machinist to do number 3 first before semi closing the deck. I think I'll be OK with the coating though.

Different pistons? Who sells them?

Anyone want to trade uncut rings for my precut rings? Would save you time and save me money. If there is an issue I would be happy to compensate, but they are set to run at 35 tens. If you run less clearance you would just have to file a little more.

Mike how much for a 6 new set of rings?