My 347ci build
07-16-2013, 12:19 AM
#142
The cam is installed and timed, pistons were assembled and installed, oil pump aligned and installed.....starting to look like a motor finally.
Cam installation / timing:
To measure lobe lift - I used a water pump bolt, my crap-tastic fixturing, a stock lifter (well lubricated to prevent it from sticking), and one of the shorter head studs as a standoff between my indicator and the lifter cup. worked great and was very consistent.
The rest of the setup....opted to use a dial indicator to determine TDC as opposed to a piston stop. I'm also using a piece of M16 x 2.0 x 300MM allthread with a nut welded on the end to turn the crank, and a plastic **** to allow me to shift around the degree wheel without turning the crank (all available off the shelf from mcmaster for about $30).
Timing marks aligned at piston 1 TDC - using the "factory" keyway on the crank sprocket.
I used the 0.050 timing events as a means of setting the phasing - the Street heat stg 2 wants an intake open of 5 deg BTDC and close of 45 deg ABDC for a 110 ICL. Initially I was 4 degrees advanced.
After a couple iterations I was able to get it pretty damn close. When adjusting the cloyes, I found that you have to back it off further than your "desired" position to take out the backlash in the eccentric bushing, then creep back up on it.
0.050" BTDC intake open event:
0.050" ABDC intake close event:
By my math that puts me at exactly or extremely close to a 110 ICL.
I also "cam doctored" the cam - I verified all of my lobe lifts by shifting the fixturing around on the block...kind of tedious but figured it'd be good information to have / share. One data point anyway.
And because I was bored / interested, I plotted lobe lift vs. crank position for an intake and exhaust cycle just to see what the profiles look like. Intake is LSL lobes, exhaust is Extreme-rpm.
Piston assembly
With the cam installed I moved forward with the rest of the shortblock assembly. Spiralox (pin retainers) are easier to install if you stretch them out a bit beforehand.
Rings clocked per this diagram and installed in my ring compressor.
With the skirt of the piston exposed, the compressor self-aligns itself to the bore and you're able to install the piston by hand by rocking it back and forth. I found that using a deadblow or wooden handle is not necessary to install pistons and you could damage your rings if you force it in when something isn't right. All 8 were installed by hand - very easy to do.
Caps torqued
Glamor shot
Oil pump alignment:
This is something that I believe is referenced in the Potak book, but you don't see too much about it on here so figured I'd post it up. The idea of it is to center up the pump housing on the crank to prevent excessive wear between the gears.
Install the pump on the block and snug it down to allow you to remove the front cover like so:
Pull out the inner gear, and you're left with the circular bore that you'll be shimming against the crank.
In my case, I ended up using (3) 0.003" shims to take as much slop as possible out between the pump and hub. Your mileage may vary on what shim you need to use... but I'd guess it will range anywhere between 0.0015"-0.003".
Torque the housing to block bolts down before removing the shim, reinstall the center gear, and slather it in assembly lube before putting the front cover back on. I'm using ARP bulk fasteners for the housing to block bolts - their M8 torque spec is 24 ft-lbs but going into aluminum I used the recommended 18 ft-lbs with thread lubricant to prevent galling.
Couldn't find a torque spec on the oil pump cover bolts so just installed by feel with thread lubricant again to prevent galling
-------------------------------------
Also welded up a standoff for installing the crank damper when I get to it. Just a piece of 2" pipe with an oversized M16 washer on top. Either my wirefeed rate was a little high or the weld is a little cold or both - but it'll work. Just need some more seat time with welding I guess
All the critical stuff on the shortblock is done - the rest of it is just bolting **** on. Will now be focusing on getting the valvetrain setup - wipe pattern / shimming, pushrod length, and then PtV. First will be checking the wipe pattern on the valves and shimming the rockers as necessary to get it centered up. I need to figure out how to mount an indicator on the valve retainer before I do it "for reals" but prelim sweeps showed I will definitely be needing to shim - probably has to do with the significant head milling that went on to get the chambers down to size.
At any rate.....checker springs installed on one head, waiting for me to figure out the indicator fixturing before I can proceed. Dry erase marker seems to work great for marking the valve tips with.
Hopefully more coming soon. I pulled the trigger on an SDPC oil pick up tube primarily because it gets rid of the one-bolt / o-ring design in favor of a proper metal gasket and two bolts....no risk of pinched or deteriorating o-rings that a decent number of guys seem to have had problems with. Also supposedly improves oil flow but that was a secondary benefit.
http://schumannsdynamicperformance.c...d/131438/LSPSF
I'll also be running the improved racing oil pan baffle along with it - hopefully with the tube, baffle, and ported pump it'll provide for a pretty robust oil supply setup.
That's all for now, sorry for the long post fellas
-Chuck
Cam installation / timing:
To measure lobe lift - I used a water pump bolt, my crap-tastic fixturing, a stock lifter (well lubricated to prevent it from sticking), and one of the shorter head studs as a standoff between my indicator and the lifter cup. worked great and was very consistent.
The rest of the setup....opted to use a dial indicator to determine TDC as opposed to a piston stop. I'm also using a piece of M16 x 2.0 x 300MM allthread with a nut welded on the end to turn the crank, and a plastic **** to allow me to shift around the degree wheel without turning the crank (all available off the shelf from mcmaster for about $30).
Timing marks aligned at piston 1 TDC - using the "factory" keyway on the crank sprocket.
I used the 0.050 timing events as a means of setting the phasing - the Street heat stg 2 wants an intake open of 5 deg BTDC and close of 45 deg ABDC for a 110 ICL. Initially I was 4 degrees advanced.
After a couple iterations I was able to get it pretty damn close. When adjusting the cloyes, I found that you have to back it off further than your "desired" position to take out the backlash in the eccentric bushing, then creep back up on it.
0.050" BTDC intake open event:
0.050" ABDC intake close event:
By my math that puts me at exactly or extremely close to a 110 ICL.
I also "cam doctored" the cam - I verified all of my lobe lifts by shifting the fixturing around on the block...kind of tedious but figured it'd be good information to have / share. One data point anyway.
And because I was bored / interested, I plotted lobe lift vs. crank position for an intake and exhaust cycle just to see what the profiles look like. Intake is LSL lobes, exhaust is Extreme-rpm.
Piston assembly
With the cam installed I moved forward with the rest of the shortblock assembly. Spiralox (pin retainers) are easier to install if you stretch them out a bit beforehand.
Rings clocked per this diagram and installed in my ring compressor.
With the skirt of the piston exposed, the compressor self-aligns itself to the bore and you're able to install the piston by hand by rocking it back and forth. I found that using a deadblow or wooden handle is not necessary to install pistons and you could damage your rings if you force it in when something isn't right. All 8 were installed by hand - very easy to do.
Caps torqued
Glamor shot
Oil pump alignment:
This is something that I believe is referenced in the Potak book, but you don't see too much about it on here so figured I'd post it up. The idea of it is to center up the pump housing on the crank to prevent excessive wear between the gears.
Install the pump on the block and snug it down to allow you to remove the front cover like so:
Pull out the inner gear, and you're left with the circular bore that you'll be shimming against the crank.
In my case, I ended up using (3) 0.003" shims to take as much slop as possible out between the pump and hub. Your mileage may vary on what shim you need to use... but I'd guess it will range anywhere between 0.0015"-0.003".
Torque the housing to block bolts down before removing the shim, reinstall the center gear, and slather it in assembly lube before putting the front cover back on. I'm using ARP bulk fasteners for the housing to block bolts - their M8 torque spec is 24 ft-lbs but going into aluminum I used the recommended 18 ft-lbs with thread lubricant to prevent galling.
Couldn't find a torque spec on the oil pump cover bolts so just installed by feel with thread lubricant again to prevent galling
-------------------------------------
Also welded up a standoff for installing the crank damper when I get to it. Just a piece of 2" pipe with an oversized M16 washer on top. Either my wirefeed rate was a little high or the weld is a little cold or both - but it'll work. Just need some more seat time with welding I guess
All the critical stuff on the shortblock is done - the rest of it is just bolting **** on. Will now be focusing on getting the valvetrain setup - wipe pattern / shimming, pushrod length, and then PtV. First will be checking the wipe pattern on the valves and shimming the rockers as necessary to get it centered up. I need to figure out how to mount an indicator on the valve retainer before I do it "for reals" but prelim sweeps showed I will definitely be needing to shim - probably has to do with the significant head milling that went on to get the chambers down to size.
At any rate.....checker springs installed on one head, waiting for me to figure out the indicator fixturing before I can proceed. Dry erase marker seems to work great for marking the valve tips with.
Hopefully more coming soon. I pulled the trigger on an SDPC oil pick up tube primarily because it gets rid of the one-bolt / o-ring design in favor of a proper metal gasket and two bolts....no risk of pinched or deteriorating o-rings that a decent number of guys seem to have had problems with. Also supposedly improves oil flow but that was a secondary benefit.
http://schumannsdynamicperformance.c...d/131438/LSPSF
I'll also be running the improved racing oil pan baffle along with it - hopefully with the tube, baffle, and ported pump it'll provide for a pretty robust oil supply setup.
That's all for now, sorry for the long post fellas
-Chuck
Last edited by ckpitt55; 07-16-2013 at 12:45 AM.
07-18-2013, 12:29 AM
#144
forgot to post up my camshaft endplay....ended up at 0.0065"
It's been a pretty interesting week so far. The Johnson lifters are going back to be rebuilt because it was discovered that I had an older version with a thinner internal metering plate that's prone to breaking in some situations. One of their engineers reached out to me addressing his concern and had me take it apart and check. Had he not done this, odds are extremely high I would have installed these in the engine none-the-wiser and experienced a potential failure. To his knowledge, my set are the last floating around out there affected by this - so they're going back and he agreed to rebuild them with the updated internals free of charge. Great when a supplier takes care of you like this, especially with a problem that hasn't even surfaced yet! You don't hear much good press on here when someone does something right, so I felt that sharing this was warranted. A blurb from his explanation of the problem (and solution) to me:
In other news, I'm starting to setup the wipe pattern pretty much following Vettenut's procedure to a t.
Without shim:
With 0.140" shim:
Looks like I'm going to need a little north of 0.140" of shim - though I'm limited to what I can test at the moment because all I've got are the shims that YT provided to stack up and use - so my adjustments are made in increments of 0.048".....doesn't allow for much finesse. I guess the current plan is to order a couple thinner shim sizes to allow me to creep up on the optimum value that lies somewhere above 0.140", then once that's set I'll order the final shim as a singular piece (or as close to a single piece as I can get).
It's been a pretty interesting week so far. The Johnson lifters are going back to be rebuilt because it was discovered that I had an older version with a thinner internal metering plate that's prone to breaking in some situations. One of their engineers reached out to me addressing his concern and had me take it apart and check. Had he not done this, odds are extremely high I would have installed these in the engine none-the-wiser and experienced a potential failure. To his knowledge, my set are the last floating around out there affected by this - so they're going back and he agreed to rebuild them with the updated internals free of charge. Great when a supplier takes care of you like this, especially with a problem that hasn't even surfaced yet! You don't hear much good press on here when someone does something right, so I felt that sharing this was warranted. A blurb from his explanation of the problem (and solution) to me:
Originally Posted by Johnson Lifters
The problem is almost exactly as you described. Most of the issue is with the multi-viscosity oils and valve accel/decel. When the disc does shatter, it happens almost 100% of the time on the closing ramp of the cam. For a brief moment, there is separation between the components. This separation creates a high pressure area and fatigues the disc once it slams back on base circle. I opened up the holes, reconfigured the ball seat, and changed materials. After another 3k+ hrs on the SpinTron, we're no longer seeing any failures and haven't had a single issue in the field since. These were put in severe applications...almost .700" lift, 260s duration, and 600+lb springs.
The symptoms for failure are one of two things. The lifter will lose hydraulics and oil control to the top end. Which exhibits a dramatic change in noise, and usually floods the top end causing oil leaks. The other is if the pieces are small enough, they'll make their way under the check valve causing the piston to stick down. Also, causing a dramatic change in noise.
This design has been implemented for years. I've shipped millions of these things to Comp, Crower, Scorpion, etc. Until recently, it's never been an issue. But that just shows the evolution of camshafts and cylinder heads. I'm almost glad we found this issue...allowed for me to come up with something even stronger. I've got guys running these short travel 2116's with 8-900lb springs and spinning 8k plus rpm.
The symptoms for failure are one of two things. The lifter will lose hydraulics and oil control to the top end. Which exhibits a dramatic change in noise, and usually floods the top end causing oil leaks. The other is if the pieces are small enough, they'll make their way under the check valve causing the piston to stick down. Also, causing a dramatic change in noise.
This design has been implemented for years. I've shipped millions of these things to Comp, Crower, Scorpion, etc. Until recently, it's never been an issue. But that just shows the evolution of camshafts and cylinder heads. I'm almost glad we found this issue...allowed for me to come up with something even stronger. I've got guys running these short travel 2116's with 8-900lb springs and spinning 8k plus rpm.
In other news, I'm starting to setup the wipe pattern pretty much following Vettenut's procedure to a t.
Without shim:
With 0.140" shim:
Looks like I'm going to need a little north of 0.140" of shim - though I'm limited to what I can test at the moment because all I've got are the shims that YT provided to stack up and use - so my adjustments are made in increments of 0.048".....doesn't allow for much finesse. I guess the current plan is to order a couple thinner shim sizes to allow me to creep up on the optimum value that lies somewhere above 0.140", then once that's set I'll order the final shim as a singular piece (or as close to a single piece as I can get).
07-18-2013, 11:47 PM
#148
Chased my tail a bit tonight. Figured I'd try to measure up the rocker pedestals and arrange them into "matched pairs" to help ensure that each rocker is installed at an equal height once I add shim.
Ended up discovering that each pedestal is flat to a little north of a half thou on the seating surfaces, making my measurements meaningless.
Once I saw this though, it lead me to check the pedestal seating more carefully on the heads. Ended up discovering that some of them would rock back and forth very slightly which suggested that there were some high spots. So I sanded both faces of the pedestal on that hunk of granite in the same way I sanded the main caps to make that mating surfaces flat(ter) - for both the heads and the rocker shaft. Used #800 grit wetordry with a bit of oil.
The pedestals no longer rock around. A small detail but figured having parts that "fit" together is better than having parts that just bolt together.
Ended up discovering that each pedestal is flat to a little north of a half thou on the seating surfaces, making my measurements meaningless.
Once I saw this though, it lead me to check the pedestal seating more carefully on the heads. Ended up discovering that some of them would rock back and forth very slightly which suggested that there were some high spots. So I sanded both faces of the pedestal on that hunk of granite in the same way I sanded the main caps to make that mating surfaces flat(ter) - for both the heads and the rocker shaft. Used #800 grit wetordry with a bit of oil.
The pedestals no longer rock around. A small detail but figured having parts that "fit" together is better than having parts that just bolt together.
07-22-2013, 12:23 AM
#150
Chuck,
The design at the pump is a winner (two bolts being utilized is a noted perk), BUT the large screen opening at the pick-up is a loser.
The reason you want a "finer net" is to stop larger debris from screwing up your oil pump.....it doesnt see filtered oil (the oil is filtered directly after the pump on the pressure side). The only "filter" the pump essentially has is that screen.
To be honest, I would rather see you run that stock pick-up than go with the SDPC unit. The simple one bolt O-ring deal has been working for millions of engines for the greater part of a decade (going on two)....dont over engineer and create a potential real issue or liability in an attempt to remove an issue that really isnt an issue if that makes sense.....LOL
Modify something or go stock is my advice on this one....the screen opening on the aftermarket piece is retarded. It may as well not have a screen because if you have a piece big enough to not fit thru that screen you likely have bigger issues to worry about already (exaggerating slightly but you get my point I'm sure).
-Tony
The design at the pump is a winner (two bolts being utilized is a noted perk), BUT the large screen opening at the pick-up is a loser.
The reason you want a "finer net" is to stop larger debris from screwing up your oil pump.....it doesnt see filtered oil (the oil is filtered directly after the pump on the pressure side). The only "filter" the pump essentially has is that screen.
To be honest, I would rather see you run that stock pick-up than go with the SDPC unit. The simple one bolt O-ring deal has been working for millions of engines for the greater part of a decade (going on two)....dont over engineer and create a potential real issue or liability in an attempt to remove an issue that really isnt an issue if that makes sense.....LOL
Modify something or go stock is my advice on this one....the screen opening on the aftermarket piece is retarded. It may as well not have a screen because if you have a piece big enough to not fit thru that screen you likely have bigger issues to worry about already (exaggerating slightly but you get my point I'm sure).
-Tony
07-22-2013, 12:40 AM
#151
Chuck,
The design at the pump is a winner (two bolts being utilized is a noted perk), BUT the large screen opening at the pick-up is a loser.
The reason you want a "finer net" is to stop larger debris from screwing up your oil pump.....it doesnt see filtered oil (the oil is filtered directly after the pump on the pressure side). The only "filter" the pump essentially has is that screen.
To be honest, I would rather see you run that stock pick-up than go with the SDPC unit. The simple one bolt O-ring deal has been working for millions of engines for the greater part of a decade (going on two)....dont over engineer and create a potential real issue or liability in an attempt to remove an issue that really isnt an issue if that makes sense.....LOL
Modify something or go stock is my advice on this one....the screen opening on the aftermarket piece is retarded. It may as well not have a screen because if you have a piece big enough to not fit thru that screen you likely have bigger issues to worry about already (exaggerating slightly but you get my point I'm sure).
-Tony
The design at the pump is a winner (two bolts being utilized is a noted perk), BUT the large screen opening at the pick-up is a loser.
The reason you want a "finer net" is to stop larger debris from screwing up your oil pump.....it doesnt see filtered oil (the oil is filtered directly after the pump on the pressure side). The only "filter" the pump essentially has is that screen.
To be honest, I would rather see you run that stock pick-up than go with the SDPC unit. The simple one bolt O-ring deal has been working for millions of engines for the greater part of a decade (going on two)....dont over engineer and create a potential real issue or liability in an attempt to remove an issue that really isnt an issue if that makes sense.....LOL
Modify something or go stock is my advice on this one....the screen opening on the aftermarket piece is retarded. It may as well not have a screen because if you have a piece big enough to not fit thru that screen you likely have bigger issues to worry about already (exaggerating slightly but you get my point I'm sure).
-Tony
EDIT: oem screen removed from the old tube, ready to be retrofit into the retrofit.
Last edited by ckpitt55; 07-22-2013 at 01:21 AM.
07-22-2013, 01:11 PM
#152
Sounds like another Chuck project.....LOL
Good deal....that other screen was useless.....not sure what they were thinking there!
-Tony
Good deal....that other screen was useless.....not sure what they were thinking there!
-Tony
I was concerned about that too - unfortunately they didn't offer a configuration of this that combined the two designs. I'll probably grind off the current screen and weld on something similar to the OEM grid size.
EDIT: oem screen removed from the old tube, ready to be retrofit into the retrofit.
EDIT: oem screen removed from the old tube, ready to be retrofit into the retrofit.
07-22-2013, 03:01 PM
#154
I could see the benefits of the 2 bolts and maybe the opened screen. Buuuut, thats a stretch on the screen they have. How much more flow are you really getting? If I had to weigh the marginal extra flow vs. something going through those openings and into the pump, I will side with the stock mesh screen as I see you are about to do.
agreed, definitely a nice piece for handling the less precise measurements.
Last edited by ckpitt55; 07-22-2013 at 03:36 PM.
07-25-2013, 10:50 AM
#155
haven't had a whole lot of time this week but I've been working on setting up the rocker arms for proper wipe.
got the passenger side head done, they all seemed to like .130" shim.
Started on the other head, and found that in general they didn't need as much shim. Also, there seems to be a bit of a mismatch in valve height - you can see a little of that going on in pic #3 above. It seems that .125" is a bit too much for the intake valve (right), but not enough for the exhaust valve (left).
Not much I can do about that - I might be nitpicking but really just want to try and set these up the best I can. I ordered some thinner shim (.093") to use as a slightly thinner foundation to build from.
Also got my lifters back from Johnson yesterday so I'll be ready to check pushrod length and ptv as soon as I finish setting the wipe.
got the passenger side head done, they all seemed to like .130" shim.
Started on the other head, and found that in general they didn't need as much shim. Also, there seems to be a bit of a mismatch in valve height - you can see a little of that going on in pic #3 above. It seems that .125" is a bit too much for the intake valve (right), but not enough for the exhaust valve (left).
Not much I can do about that - I might be nitpicking but really just want to try and set these up the best I can. I ordered some thinner shim (.093") to use as a slightly thinner foundation to build from.
Also got my lifters back from Johnson yesterday so I'll be ready to check pushrod length and ptv as soon as I finish setting the wipe.
07-25-2013, 10:04 PM
#156
Chuck, its safe to assume your using valve specific rockers and pedestals, right? Maybe you could swap the rockers on the uneven wipe guys? Youre that kind of sick, right? Just injecting a little more engineer into the thread, you sick bastard. You trying to outgeek RezinTexas' thread? This is cool.
07-26-2013, 05:19 AM
#157
TECH Fanatic
Chuck, its safe to assume your using valve specific rockers and pedestals, right? Maybe you could swap the rockers on the uneven wipe guys? Youre that kind of sick, right? Just injecting a little more engineer into the thread, you sick bastard. You trying to outgeek RezinTexas' thread? This is cool.
07-26-2013, 09:15 AM
#158
Chuck, its safe to assume your using valve specific rockers and pedestals, right? Maybe you could swap the rockers on the uneven wipe guys? Youre that kind of sick, right? Just injecting a little more engineer into the thread, you sick bastard. You trying to outgeek RezinTexas' thread? This is cool.
Initially I attempted to match the pedestals but it was a fruitless endeavor because of the machining tolerances - I was seeing almost a thou flatness / parallelism error between the two faces. If you make several measurements around the circumference of the part with a mic, there's a variation there - enough that some of them wouldn't sit flat on the heads before I sanded down the high spots. Don't get me wrong, those tolerances aren't bad by any means but I'm just used to dealing with parts that are ground to less than a tenth of flatness every day. If you think about it though, pedestal height doesn't really even matter because you can correct any discrepancy with shim.
All I can really shoot for on this is achieving proper and even rocker installed height. Of that, shim thickness and pedestal thickness is all I can really play with, though I must say I'm tempted to disassemble the rockers so I can measure shaft land-land thickness just to see what it is. Whatever wipe pattern I'm left with after that is something intrinsic to valve installed height. Short of having valve tips ground (which I'm not going to do) it is what it is.
I'll be the first to admit that I'm over thinking this but I can't help myself. It's what happens when you have no deadline for motor completion.
Getting the thinner shim today so the wipe should be over and done with pretty soon.
Not sure whether that's a good or a bad thing lol
Last edited by ckpitt55; 07-26-2013 at 09:23 AM.
