all Aluminum 2point8 prototype race engine???

p8ntman442 · Post by **p8ntman442** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 7:33 pm

I took the crank, rods, pistons, and flywheel to the machine shop today. I made a special trip to kick hill b4 droping it off to pick up a flywheel. The machine shop neglected to mention I needed a ballancer and pulley to ballance the assembly. WTF I could have picked that up when I was down there, now I have to get it shipped out from kick hill cause Im not gonna be home for 2 weeks. GRRRRRRRRRR. Here is my oil pan powdercaoted reflective chrome. I think its gonna look good on the engine with a good polish job on the block. I also started removing the paint from my lace wheels in order to powdercoat them.

The Dark Side of Will · Mon Apr 25, 2005 8:11 pm

p8ntman442 wrote:The machine shop neglected to mention I needed a ballancer and pulley to ballance the assembly.

Tell them to suck it. Race engines need to be internally balanced.

If they have to add weight to the crank to get it to balance, it will be expensive. I don't remember and don't feel like looking... is you block small journal or large journal? If it's large journal, you might try finding a DIS 2.8 crank, as those are made to be internally balanced.
If your block is small journal, you might consider having the machine shop cut the journals out to large journal size, align boring in process.

Shaun41178(2) · Post by **Shaun41178(2)** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 8:41 pm

Will, either way they need the balancer and such.

When I had my old 3.1(internally balanced crank) setup built, I gave them the flexplate, crank, rods, pistons, dampner and crank pulley. all that spins as one unit so should be all balanced as one. it was out of balance by 14 grams when he started. Got it down like 1 gram on the front and 2 on the rear or something like that. it was so long ago I dont' know exactly but it was down there.

If you remove material at the back of the crank you might need to remove material from teh balancer slightly to balance it out. When I got my rotating assembly back there were small bits taken out of the back of the dampener.

Trust me, you want to take the balancer and everything that spins on the crank to be balanced. yea the balancer is neutrally balanced from the factory but balanced to within factory specs. If you want it to be trully balanced with your particular parts, then you need to balance it all as one unit.

The Dark Side of Will · Mon Apr 25, 2005 8:45 pm

No, the external parts should not be balanced with the engine.
If you do that, you can't change balancers or flywheels without tearing your engine down to have it rebalanced.
I agree that the balancer and flywheel balance need to be checked, but the crank balance should NOT be dependent on these parts.

Shaun41178(2) · Post by **Shaun41178(2)** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 9:13 pm

Well when I did mine, I wasnt' planning on tearing it down. If I was going to tear it down it would be because something had broken. Which means parts woould need to be replaced, which means all new balancing.

if you do have to replace the flexplate/flywheel or the Damper, it will only be off most likely by a few grams. Sure it won't be precision balanced anymore tot he gram, but it still shouldnt' vibrate your fillings out either.

My thoughts on it anyways.

The Dark Side of Will · Mon Apr 25, 2005 9:39 pm

What if you'd gone from iron flywheel to aluminum. The aluminum flywheel would be neutrally balanced, but because it wasn't used to balance your crank, your engine would then be out.

The degree to which it would end up out of balance would depend on your components... If you're using rods than knock 100g/rod out of the rotating weight, then your balance is going to need a lot of material removed to correct it... if much of that came off the flywheel you just replaced...

p8ntman442 · Post by **p8ntman442** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 10:32 am

well I just got off the phone with the guy from the machine shop, Im looking at 500 to balance the thing, and resurface the flywheel. That includes removing the pistons and replacing them. Go ahead bring out the fiero owners are cheap parade, I dont care, im not cheap, but I am broke, and have a kid on the way, and am in college, so Basically im getting the right flywheel for the combination, and getting it resurfaced. The thing was already balanced, so it should be ok, I cant afford to make sure unfortunatly. I will put that 500 into rebuilding my current engine in case of failure with the new one.

on another note, id like some input on the idea of using an electric water pump on a 2.8 and having it, and the radiator fan run until the temp at the intake drops to 180 degrees after shut down. Im thinking this may be necessary for the aluminum sleeves and everything to keep it cool when I park the car.

Shaun41178(2) · Post by **Shaun41178(2)** » Thu May 12, 2005 8:01 pm

status?

p8ntman442 · Post by **p8ntman442** » Thu May 19, 2005 7:08 pm

well, its all in the car and ready to start, but unfortunatly the extra webbing from the block being aluminum interferes with the stock starter selenoid housing, I hacked a chunk out of it with a cut off wheel (the plunger housing not the block) and tried it, but I cant get the starter to fit right anyways, so it gets stuck on the ring gear and and keeps cranking after I turn the key off. My starter guy is on vacation till sunday so sunday around 12, I should have my hands on a sbc mini starter that I will make fit. I started my new job on monday so Im making the coin now but its also a 1hr commute each way, and Im not too motivated to get into the shop after I get home. Also my digital camera dropped off the shop roll around and now wont turn on, Ill pull the card and try to get the pics some time soon (did some creative powdercoating on the intake).

Doug Chase · Post by **Doug Chase** » Thu May 19, 2005 7:19 pm

p8ntman442 wrote:I cant get the starter to fit right anyways, so it gets stuck on the ring gear and and keeps cranking after I turn the key off.

Sounds like you just need to shim it a hair. You can buy shim packs at your local auto parts store for pocket change.

p8ntman442 · Post by **p8ntman442** » Mon May 23, 2005 7:44 pm

well, the new style starter did the trick. It ran real well. The small valves in the heads and the shitty izuzu 5spd really slowed the car down though.

But on the other hand blowing both head gaskets today, that really really slowed the car down. I feared this happening when torquing down the heads, I was pulling threads on two holes and let off at 40 ft lbs, deffinatly not enough to seal. So I got some antifreeze in the oil, looks like a new set of bearings and more helicoils. Did I mention every hole in this engine has been helicoiled?

Looks like Im buying a 96 lumina commuter/family car this week. The fiero will be on the back burner indefinatly, Im so sick of this shit. Next will be the paddle shifted 4t60e with this alluminum engine.

begine laughing at me now.

Shaun41178(2) · Post by **Shaun41178(2)** » Mon May 23, 2005 8:19 pm

I am not laughing man. things like this happen and when they do royally suck umm dude I wouldnt' have even started the car with only 40 ft lbs on those heads however.

If you didn't run the car for long with the bad head gasket and get the dirty oil out pronto and new oil in pronto the bearings will be fine. You cant' leave it for 3 weeks though man. gotta do it right away.

If you could feel the threads pulling when torquing down the heads then something is wrong there. I am guessing they didnt' feel the same as the rest which is how you knew it wasnt' right. Might need new helicoils there or something. might haev to go back to the machine shop.

yea those heads aren't great for performance. But very rare indeed which is cool.

good luck

The Dark Side of Will · Mon May 23, 2005 9:14 pm

p8ntman442 wrote:But on the other hand blowing both head gaskets today, that really really slowed the car down. I feared this happening when torquing down the heads, I was pulling threads on two holes and let off at 40 ft lbs, deffinatly not enough to seal. So I got some antifreeze in the oil, looks like a new set of bearings and more helicoils. Did I mention every hole in this engine has been helicoiled?

In the Northstar, helicoils are completely ineffective for repairing head bolt holes. They just don't hold the kind of torque that a head bolt needs. Go with time serts instead. In fact, for the Northstar, Time sells two kits... standard insert for a virgin hole and bigger insert for 2nd repair after helicoil pulls out.

www.timesert.com

Doug Chase · Post by **Doug Chase** » Tue May 24, 2005 1:31 pm

Serious bummer. No laughing here. Pulling a motor is much less exciting the second time in a week.

The Dark Side of Will wrote:In the Northstar, helicoils are completely ineffective for repairing head bolt holes. They just don't hold the kind of torque that a head bolt needs.

Would they work if you used studs?

p8ntman442 · Post by **p8ntman442** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 12:29 pm

well, Im back, but only for a few mins. No updates, But I will now torque the heads more to see what they will take b4 removing them and redoing the threads (time inserts you say?) Any recomendations on what is gonna hold them down safely (stock hp and CR). Im gonna have to get motivated here, and spend a free weekend pulling the engine again.

The Dark Side of Will · Thu Jun 09, 2005 1:33 pm

Go to the torque spec for the iron block. That will be the clamping force necessary to keep the gasket from blowing.

www.timesert.com

p8ntman442 · Post by **p8ntman442** » Sat Jun 11, 2005 8:18 pm

ok, UPDATE TIME

Pushed the car into the shop and puit it on the lift. (that means Im actually gonna do something, cause the gf is gone for the night)

I drained the oil, and pulled the top end. The good news is that the oil was not teribly contaminated, and serious damage (besides the head bolt threads) is not expected. It seems that the compression of the engine pushed air into the coolant system and some coolant got into the oil creating the milkshake in the valve covers. But , the oil was very clean and had very small traces of coolant in it.

The bad news is that now that I know the heads are coming off to put on new gaskets, I decided to increase the torque on some of the bolts to see what the good holes will take. 65 ft/lbs was the answer. The bad new is I tried 70 ft lbs. I will definatly need to rethread some of these holes atleast 4. The two holes that caused the problem have no more threads in them at all. there all attached to the bolt now. I did however learn that they were in fact the original threads, i cleaned them off the bolt and they were not magnetic.

now to solve the problem. The engine has to come out, no biggie. And completely stripped. This means that im not putting that shitty 5spd back in. GRRRRR slow tall gears. Back to 4spd with a good rebuild of the linkage. For the HEAD BOLT THREADS I looked at the timeserts, and they have an upper lip that I dont know about, but probably wouldnt interfere with the head gaskets. Anyone got any ideas on what these things cost? I think I should do all the holes so Its done right the first time (second but whos counting). Is there a reason I shouldnt use helicoils?

The Dark Side of Will · Sat Jun 11, 2005 10:13 pm

The lip is an integral part of the time sert process.
The insert is held in place by expanding the bottom of it. When it is made, the last couple of threads on the bottom are purposely left incompletely formed. The installation mandrel fully rolls these last two threads and in the process expands the bottom of the insert against the walls of the hole to hold it in place. This obviously requires a good bit of friction, so the lip is necessary for the insert to seat against to provide the friction necessary for the installation mandrel to finish forming the threads.

Time sert tool kits provide stepped drill bits for this process, however I'm pretty sure that there isn't a kit specific to the 60 degree V6, so you may have to adapt a generic kit.
Not sure what a generic toolset might cost, but the one for the Northstar head bolts is $300 and the one for the main bolts is $250 or so.
The inserts themselves are on the order of $2 each.

p8ntman442 · Post by **p8ntman442** » Sun Jun 12, 2005 1:41 pm

$$$$$OUCH$$$$$ did I mention the new baby on the way?

IF the old threads pulled out what will keep thetime sert from pulling out?

donk_316 · Post by **donk_316** » Sun Jun 12, 2005 1:57 pm

Why not sell that block to someone who can do something with it?