308 V12 conversion begins

Ummm…clearly not meant to come apart. It looks like the only way they come out is broken. I’m thinking I’ll leave 2 in place for now and go from there.

 

OK, the new swicht I ordered for the grinder came today and fixed the grinder.....so I can grind ports again in the morning.

 

Oh I had so much fun grinding this morning.....I'm getting close on head 2 but it's going to need a little more touch up welding mid esction on the bottom of the port than head 1, but they both need it....this is where I couldn't get to with the big touch.

 

I just about finish the rough grinding on head 2 this morning and the new welding torch parts showed up today. Good timing and I'm thinking I'l be ready for the flow bench early next week it the new valves show up.

 

for those interested here are a couple pics of the various torches
A WP-20, 300A
A WP-24, 180A
A WP-125, 125A (they say 160A with a 3/32 electrode and quartz cup)
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

I spend my morning hour fixing Wil’s mini-torch with the parts I got yesterday so nothing cool got done and Lana says I need to do the taxes this weekend

The WP-24 torch is just a little too big to work don near the seats in a 4V port it look like, I bet it would be just fine in a 2V port though.

 

I measured the chamber in a hurry so I’ll re-check this weekend to be certain…..I was thinking about dome height but I just got this from JE

“Since this requires a dish I would suggest doing a zero deck so the dish depth is minimized.”

We were talking about deck height.....and dished pistons popped out. I hadn’t even looked at the numbers, but a 23cc chamber and 8cc for the head gasket on a 453cc cylinder means 15.6:1 with a flat top piston. I only want 10.5:1 so I need a dish… I expected a dome. Re-measure.

 

No hp for you! Get out!

 

I re-checked the chamber....I measured right. I think I'm going to have them add 3ccs to the number though to give me more margin in matching all 12 chambers.

I'm going to ask for the deck height to be +.010" , or .010 above the deck. this will get the piston to within .045" of the head which makes a nice squish zone. Also I’ll ask that the dish be only under the actual chamber and not the flat head areas to keep the chamber to keep the chamber as compact as possible while extending that squish zone which together in theory should help make turbulence in the combustion chamber meaning it will need less ignition timing and make more hp……maybe.

 

15 years ago I was runnig .030", but that was with steel rods. the piston guy said they don't like to go under .040".

 

I finished up the rough grinding on head 2 tonight. Hopefully tomorrow I can get the touch-up welding done.

 

I got 2 ports touched up this morning. I tried the wp-24 but it's just too big for the 4V ports. Hopefully I'll get the rest later.


Completely unrelated to ports, the desing fo my MAP sensor is done so I'll be ordering the board Monday. This set-up will use 1 MAP sensor per cylinder then selected the strongest signal (which will be the cylinder in intake) and pass it to the ECU. I was worried about exactly how to get the ECU to worl well at very low power with my monster TBs and I'm pretty sure this multi-MAP set-up will do the trick.

 

Touch-up welding complete. After they cool a bit I'll do a quick clean-up then I guess I'm holding for the valves......or maybe I'll get going with the valves I have and hope because I want the heads done and I hate the thought of setting them aside.

 

Head #1 is ground. I just realized when I was welding I bugger the bottom of some of the guide holes so the heads will need to go back to the mill to re-bore them quickly once the grinding is done then they are ready for the flow bench.

 

More grinding this morning....almost finished on head 2, just 1 port left.

I need to make new temp guides to go with the new 5mm stem valves vs the 5.5mm I had. Then I need to make the actual guides, I guess I'll get the material so I can move on to guides until the valves arrive.

 

I ordered the guide material. I decide to go with C630 bronze (ampco 45) for the guides. It appears to be pretty commonly used for valve guides. It’s about 80% copper for heat conduction and 5% Nickel and 3% iron for wear, and 10% Aluminum so they are good and light….no, I think the Al helps the hardness bit.

Making guides will take some time so I’ll get going on these while I hold in valves. I need to make the intake manifolds too, but I want to get the ports pretty close to right before putting manifolds on because it’s much easier to work in the short ports as they are now than it would be in the long port/manifold combo (the manifolds are going to be welded on because I lost the mounting flange in the port move)