308 V12 conversion begins

Oh I don’t know, now you’re confusing me

There are quite a few aluminum bronzes out that with properties that are all pretty different. C630 or C63000 has a lot of nickel and iron in it and is supposed to be pretty good. This is the material that kibble-white (the company I got the valves, springs, buckets from) for their guides.

Manganese bronze has quite a bit better heat transfer than nickel-alum bronze but doesn’t have the wear resistance. I see SI is claiming they add something for wear but I’m not sure what exactly.

I am using tiny 5mm stems and was thinking wear would be my main concern……I don’t know. This is the same stuff I used in my QV engine and never had any hint of a problem so I’m hoping for similar results here.

 

JE says they are rolling and the pistons will be complete in 3-3.5 weeks. I succumb to peer pressure and changed the deck height to +.015” (piston .015” above the deck) which gives a piston to head clearance of .040”, the closest JE recommends.

If I stay on the pace I'm on I think the engine might be going together in the summer.

 

Oh come on....I'm tryin to stay positive

 

It might be of interest to the v8 guys but it's no help to me, it's got 16 too few fuel channels, 4 too few ignition channels so I would need 3 of them and even then the new expanded 16 x 16 VE tables are only very marginally aquiquate.

 

I finished up the rough port work this morning. I still need to clean up the guide hole though, tomorrow. I ordered a couple reamers to make the job easier, one that will be finish size and one .005" undersize to use for now. I also ordered a longer boring bar so I don't need to use an end mill in the boring head. That stuff was all from mcmaster so it should be here today and ready to use tonight/tomorrow

Yesterday I called the valve people and asked then to send the lower spring seats, stem seals now instead of waiting for the valves to come in and sending it all together. I also asked for 1 suzuki valve guide. I realized I can't make the guides if I don't know what the parts they need to work with look like. That stuff all shipped yesterday so tomorrow or maybe thursday it will be here and I can get rolling on the guides. The C630 is coming from mcmaster so it should be here today

 

ECU related, I’m getting a bit nervous about the custom ECU. I’m pretty sure the start player on the team is doing his part and something will pop out that the rest of us can run with….but I don’t here an awful lot from him.

Someone mentioned a holley dominator ECU that was due out a while back, and it appears it’s out now and priced at $1600. 12 ignition, 12 fuel, 2 wide band O2 sensors and it says cylinder tuning (which could just mean trim and not really tuning), several staged injection options. My guess is I’d need 2 to do 24 injectors full sequential but it might be a good fall back plan so I can run this think when the engine is done. I emailed for more info.

Motec is still not selling the fancy new M190….maybe still some hope to beta that. I read somewhere the actual price would be up around $10k.

 

I know this thread has been picture poor lately so here is something at least. 12 ports ready for the flow bench. It's all I have. I'll start cleaning up the guide holes in the morning.


I've exchanged a couple emails with the dominator ECU guy and while it sounds like a pretty good ECU I don't think it will give me the type od control I was after without some changes. I asked him if he'd be willing to work with me to fix it but I'm not real hopeful......
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Progress is always good.....I just want it done at this point.


I setup the 1st head to re-cut the guide holes and idicated it all in nice......them dropped a baring bar down one off the guide holes and could not get it out now that I closed up the hole into the oil galley. So, head back off the machine, pull out the boring bar, then back on the machine and re-indicate. Maybe tonight I can actually cut something.

I got an email back from ECU guy and he really doesn't have time to mess with changing stuff for me now as he is doing commercail launch at the end of the week.....maybe after things settle down. So that option as a fall back plan doesn't look too good.

 

Soon but I want to get the port flow close first....while it's easy to get into the ports with the grinder and welder if required.

 

I got some cool stuff today and I took some wieghts. The valves are blanks with long stems so they will get lighter when I finish them.

--------------old-------new
Buchet&shim--67.94----38.28
Ex Valve------47.75----35.00
In valve------46.15----43.25
Retainer&keep 19.94----7.07
springs-------53.24----38.21

Total In------160.65---107.7-----33% reduction
Total Ex------162.25---99.45-----39% reduction

(we only count 1/2 the spring in the total becasue 1 end doesn't move)

Oh, the new intake buckets are 35mm vs the stock 33mm. The exhaust buckets will stay 33mm, but I don't have those yet so I used the heavier intake bucket in the total.
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The stems are 5mm. I was was going to go 5.5mm (stock in honda cars) so I knew they would last but I couldn't find an off the shelf shim-under set-up to go with them. Motorcyles range 4, 4.5, 5mm stems with the size heads I have.....so I went conservative at 5mm. The parts that I have are pretty close to stock suzuki 1300 hayabusa and I am 2000 rpm under their redline so I can't see where there will be any problems.

I think motorcylces are a50k mile design vs 100k in cars, that might be how they figure it's ok to reduce the wear surfaces so much.....but I know that parts work in motorcylces and the springs are rated to .460 lift so I think it's all good.

 

Yeah. ….this first time I get to do mine with the heads on the bench though so it should go pretty quickly I think. I bought a set that has 3each of all the sizes 1.20-3.50mm then bought refill packs to give me another 15 each for the sizes 2.40-2.65mm and will shoot for 2.50mm when I cut the valves to length…so I think I should have everything I need when the time comes.

These shims are less than $1 each…much nicer than the OEM shim prices

 

The intake manifolds bring an important point of no return with them and I’m thinking I’m going to blink and reverse course.

To refresh everyone’s minds I have been planning to run 24 injectors, 12 mounted on top of the TBs, 12 mounted in the manifolds. That set-up would provide optimal fuel control and air/fuel mixing over pretty much the entire operating range……but there is currently no single ECU that can actually control it. I’ve been planning to build the ECU and have several people signed up to help….but the whole project really hinges on 1 guy who is handling the core operating system. I think is working on it…..I’m pretty sure he is…. He had an engine on a dyno running with a basic version (which I haven’t seen)but I don’t hear from for months on end and that scares me…… a lot.

So, over the past couple days I’ve decided that what is important is getting this d*mn thing running and I’m not willing to take a chance that the engine will be done and I still will not have an ECU that can run it. That means either the manifold mounted injectors or the high mount injectors need to go to get me down to 12 and available ECU options. I’m thinking it will be the manifold injectors that are out because there isn’t much room in the V and the high mount injectors are very very cool looking. If 4 or 5 years from now I regret the decision then I can address it at that time, but in the mean time it will be running.

I’ll be hoping a deal turns up on a motec M800, it not the new dominator ECU looks workable and a LOT cheaper.

I’m not sure what else is going to get moved to the “I’ll add it or fix it later” list, but I expect that list to grow in the coming months. It’s time to wrap this project up.