progress on the banshee...

[ericjon262]

I picked up a stoopid cheap(175 shipped) differential for the car, it's an OBX knockoff of the Quaife. I've heard that the older versions needed work to make them functional, I'm not sure of the differences yet, but I plan on taking this one apart either way, as it needs to be cleaned before I will put it in a car.

note the burrs around the openings for the gearsets



and the gritty/hairy looking junk around the bolts...




I'm also told that this ford part number fits the now discontinued bearing cap that goes in the bellhousing of F23's.

Ford # 1311152

I haven't been able to find that in the states, but I was also told this number is the same thing

EAI seal EC52x7

https://www.amazon.com/EAI-Seal-EC52X7- ... B07FWQGJMZ

I'll probably order a couple of them and see how they look.

I'll update the thread as I start tearing into the diff.

[ericjon262]

Unfortunately, I haven't touched the differential yet, work was a disaster last week, and I don't really have time to think about that kinda stuff at home.

I did have some thoughts fairly recently, while slamming the 350 together. I still need to finish the windage tray for the car, when I had this short block put together 15 years ago, the shop that messed with it said the windage tray wouldn't work, I simply trusted them, and haven't tried installing a stock tray, if I can find time Monday, I might try and snag a windage tray from the junkyard if I can find an engine already on the ground, which is pretty common, if I can, I'll try it out and see if it works, or I can make it work, if I can, I might send it off for an oil shedding coating or something so that I can get this show on the road.

I'm also working on a cam position sensor that would match an LS1 sensor, but not require modifications to the cam, this would allow me to run the LS1 wheel decoder in the MS3, and not the workaround that i have been using. I know I have a xfe cobalt trans in the garage, but I can't remember if the transmission that was in the grand am was the only metric bell f23 I had, I would like to assemble another transmission before putting it in the car, so hopefully I have a second bell housing.

[ericjon262]

I build the cam position sensor, but unfortunately for me, a measurement error means I need to remake the shaft... erg. I have more stock for the shaft, and will try and get it made up later this week.

Differential teardown:

viewtopic.php?t=22144

[ericjon262]

I went to the junkyard today and found a couple of windage tray, one of the great things about working on an engine nobody cars about, is that you can sometimes find them sitting on the ground and it's easy to get parts off, today, there were three sitting on the ground, two LZx engines, and one LX9. The LX9 was completely taken apart, down to a bare block, I looked all over, and didn't see the windage tray, on a whim, I opened the trunk of the car next to it, and there it was!

Then I pulled an LZx windage tray, the engine was pulled an upside down already, 5 minutes later, I have the tray!

I took them both home, and found why the shop who assembled the engine years ago "couldn't make it work", the stock windage tray attached via studs in the stock main cap bolts, these studs are smaller than the bolts. the studs, are the same diameter and don't fit through the holes in the tray... the LZx tray however, has the same setup, but the nuts for the tray are captured on the tray, and if you punch the washers that capture the off the tray, the tray slides right over the main studs, however, the LZx tray isn't a full length tray like the LX9 tray. in the picture below, you can see the tray doesn't cover the rear two cylinders, the oil pump also occupies this space to some degree.




I'm considering getting another tray cutting the front portion off, and welding it on where cylinders 5 and 6 go, but I'm not 100% set on that plan.

I like the LZx tray design better than the LX9 design, even if it's not a full length pan, the tray is louvered in several location for each pair of cylinders, unlike the earlier designs, which only have 1 louver per pair. I'm also giving some serious thought to further baffling the pan, the stock pan has almost no baffles, and there have been several people who have documented problems, or reduced oil pressure in high G cornering, will my car need all of that? good question, I hope to make it handle quite well under all conditions eventually, but for now, it would probably be overkill.

[ericjon262]

note for me, lifter bore centers .96"

[ericjon262]

yesterday, while I had a brief moment, I checked and found I do have 3 F23's in the garage, 1 XFE trans, 1 metric bell cavalier trans in ok shape, and 1 metric bell cav trans that was in the Gran Damn, but is damaged. so I guess it's good news that i have a pair of transmissions I can put together.

I called Crower, on their website, they list custom link bars as being available, which also implies they sell the lifter attachment hardware.

https://crower.com/link-blade-custom-made.html

Peter at Crower got back to me and told me to send them a print and we'll go from there, I wonder if he understands the kind of idiot he's dealing with? The link bars will be for the Johnson lifters I bought and modified ages ago (probably 6 months to a year) hopefully all the parts will work together, we'll see.

[ericjon262]

I got some parts in from Crower, new lifter link bars, and the hardware to attach them to Crower lifters... The fortunate part, is that the link bars look like they will work, unfortunately, the hardware is very different. Crower attaches the link bars to the lifter via a small screw, I'm sure with copious amounts of loctite and proper tension and they would be fine, however, the holes in the Johnson lifter for the rivets Johnson uses to hold the link bars on are too large for the screws. Monday morning, I intend to try and contact Johnson again, and see if they will sell me the hardware, at this point, I'm not holding my breath, but I'm also running low on options for getting the Johnson lifters working in this engine.

[The Dark Side of Will]

Thick wall threaded insert or helicoil in the Johnson lifters?

[ericjon262]

Thick wall threaded insert or helicoil in the Johnson lifters?

while not impossible, there are two reasons I don't want to do that.

1. thread engagement would be minimal, at best for both the insert, and for the screw, I would be concerned about one junction or the other failing and a lifter rotating in the bores. Peening the threads would be an option, but difficult to accomplish based on the geometry of the parts.

2. Machining the threads, or more specifically indexing the lifter body so the screw is centered, and radial, and perpendicular to the lifter body would be pretty difficult, I wouldn't dare call it impossible, but it would also be easy to mess up, especially when I would need to do it right at least 12 times.

[pmbrunelle]

Is it feasible to make flats in aftermarket lifters to use a stock-style anti-rotation plate rather than link bars?

I suppose that lifters are fairly hard, but could this be doable on a surface grinder setup?

[ericjon262]

Is it feasible to make flats in aftermarket lifters to use a stock-style anti-rotation plate rather than link bars?

I suppose that lifters are fairly hard, but could this be doable on a surface grinder setup?

Probably not impossible, but again, my preference leans towards getting the parts from Johnson if at all possible.

[jdv]

Super Dave did a upgrade on his lifters in his lx9. I think he used lt1 lifter parts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTZswasza-M

[ericjon262]

at one point, I had performed similar modifications at one point, although neither myself, nor superdave have sufficient documentation to support that the modifications were truly successful.

I drew the Johnson parts I need in CAD today, now its just a matter of finding someone capable of manufacturing them.

[The Dark Side of Will]

Instead of profiling the head of the rivet (screw?) can you use a wave washer?

[ericjon262]

I'm not sure a wave washer would provide sufficient support. The thought did cross my mind that I could make the head of the rivet flat, and then make a washer to fair the rivet to the lifter body, from a manufacturing standpoint, that would probably be easier, from a strength standpoint I imagine it would be slightly weaker.

I'm wondering if I should just stop screwing around and put solid lifters in it.

[jdv]

Eric if you did go with solid lifters what type of rockers would work with the 3500?

[ericjon262]

I hadn't gotten quite that far yet, my initial thought was to just set lash via pushrod length and shims under the pedestals, the unfortunate part is that this would also require me to get different pushrods to make adjustments.

[ericjon262]

at one point, I had performed similar modifications at one point, although neither myself, nor superdave have sufficient documentation to support that the modifications were truly successful.

I drew the Johnson parts I need in CAD today, now its just a matter of finding someone capable of manufacturing them.

Xometry and rapid direct offer instant quoting, both of them offered a similar price, unfortunately, both were significantly more than I would prefer to spend, literally costing more than I paid for the complete set of lifters.

10-32.

so, I'd rather not dump a ton more money into the lifters, so this means I need to come up with another solution.

what do I have to work with?
-Crower link bar assemblies
-16x 10-32 screws
-16x washers
-16x stepped washer retainers
-8x link bars
-Johnson lifter parts
-16x lifter bodies
-16x washers
-16x rivets

the Johnson retainers were more or less destroyed when i started this project, as were the Johnson stepped washer retainers, it would be possible to just make new stepped washer retainers, and weld them as described in a previous post, I could also potentially make them myself. it wouldn't be easy though.

threaded inserts in the lifter bodies like Will suggested could potentially work, but I'm not wild about it.

what other options? well, I googled "Crower roller lifter" and saw this picture.



the parts were shipped "put together", I assumed that was the way they were supposed to be installed, but now I see that's not the intent.

I reassembled the parts on the Johnson lifters and this was the result:



Close, but not quite right, the big issue here, is that the inside bore of the lifter isn't spot faced for a bolt to seat. spot facing the bolt is a potential option, but it requires very careful setup in the mill to get it right, and it needs to be right at least 12 times, but now I have something I can more readily work with.

as is, there isn't a ton of room to work with, but a solution is available, I can make a small plinth with a countersunk screw hole in it. by using a countersunk screw, I maintain clearance to the pushrod.



The massive benefit of this design, is that I have the means to produce it locally, and relatively easily. turn a piece of steel to 19.1mm diameter, clamp it in V blocks, mill it to thickness, then drill and countersink the holes, then it's just a matter of parting off 16 of them and bolting together the parts. I think this is probably the most practical solution to making these lifters work, with minimal further expenses.

[ericjon262]

I need your thoughts.

The car runs and drives, so I intend on leaving it alone for the most part until I have a new engine ready to go in. it does need work, the valvetrain sounds like death, and the cam bearings are shedding little bits of themselves into the oil...

I see 3 ways this could go:

-build the LX9 I have in the garage, go for broke, pistons, rods, solid roller lifters ect.

-a more stockish LZ9 with a my turbo.

-a "built" LZ9 with my turbo.

I eventually want to put a 3900 in the car, with functional VVT. However, there are no camshafts available for the VVT engines, that retain VVT, which means I have to figure that out myself, either via a reground stock cam, or other terrible ideas.

building a LX9 will be about as much work as building a LZ9, and be short .4L of displacement with not quite as awesome of a cylinder head. if I wanted to get really crazy, I could have the LZ9 crank ground and build on the 3.9L to maybe over 4.0L, but I don't think that's in the cards. And if I want to put an LZ9 in the car, why go through the extra trouble of putting another 3.5 in?

I need to meet one of two conditions to trigger a new engine swap.

-Failure of the engine or transmission that requires removal from the car.

-a new engine and transmission(wanting to put a quaife in) is built and otherwise waiting for install.

I'm not even sure I want to pull the engine until it lets the smoke out, and I'm fine with taking it to the track and torture testing it until it does.(will need to invest in a engine diaper before that...)

it just doesn't seem to make sense to me, to take the intermediate step of running another LX9, and I welcome the thoughts/opinions of the rest of the RFT gang on the matter.

because I haven't found meds that work, this is dancing around my head again... the engine in my car still has metal in it, and I need to do something about it, a stock LZ9+turbo sounds very appealing especially because a 3.9 is in the end goal plan for the car.

Minimum things that need to happen to accommodate an LZ9,
-engine mount
-coolant lines
-exhaust manifolds and turbo hotside
-intercooler and charge piping.

on the plus side, I have an extra trans, and an extra cradle that I could assemble everything on, and begin the build process on. this could also allow me to prototype my own LZ9/F23 mount kit if I desire to do so,

Eventually I want a cam in a LZ9, with VVT, I think the most viable plan for this will be to cut the nose off of a stock LZ9 cam, and grind the end down on a performance 3x00 cam, then bore the nose of the LZ9 cam to make it a press fit on the 3x00 camshaft, maybe with some green loctite or something. then the first journal is a stock LZ9 part, and just run spacers and 3x00 bearings on the other 3 journals. there's also the option of sending a cam in for a regrind, I'll explore this option as well. either way, I'll need to pay careful attention to PTV clearance to make sure I don't royally screw myself right out of the gate.

[The Dark Side of Will]

Eventually I want a cam in a LZ9, with VVT, I think the most viable plan for this will be to cut the nose off of a stock LZ9 cam, and grind the end down on a performance 3x00 cam, then bore the nose of the LZ9 cam to make it a press fit on the 3x00 camshaft, maybe with some green loctite or something. then the first journal is a stock LZ9 part, and just run spacers and 3x00 bearings on the other 3 journals. there's also the option of sending a cam in for a regrind, I'll explore this option as well. either way, I'll need to pay careful attention to PTV clearance to make sure I don't royally screw myself right out of the gate.

GM assembles the cams... why can't you?

Each journal, including the VVT hub, is just a piece of steel with a precisely jig ground ID. Each lobe is rough cut by a wire EDM, then the ID is finished with a jig grinder. The lobes and journals are shrink fit onto a piece of precision ground rod.