Nikasil Liners. '85 and newer?

All 4 valve motors (started in 83) had the aluminum cylinders. 355, 456, 550, 360 went to the nickasil steel cylinders. 575 went back to the aluminum cylinders.


The aluminum cylinders lasted a very long time, much better than the old iron in the 2 valve motors.

 

What I've always wanted to know, can Nikasil liners be reconditioned? Iron liners can be bored/honed to eliminate damage (and/or increase displacement), but can the same be done to the Nikasil? As I understand it, it's an aluminum sleeve that is plated with a coat of nickle on the piston (ID) side, so obviously it's very thin and once bored/honed away, it'll need to be re-nickled. At that point, it's best just to get a new liner?...

 

my 89 328 definetly has shrunk in aluminum/nikilsil cylinders...

 

I know Millennium Technologies is real big with Nikasil plating on motorcycle/motorsport engines, and can build up and finish to what ever size you need within reason, i.e. plate back to specification bore. I suspect they wouldn't care what your liner came from as it'd be all the same to them.

Might not tell them it's from a 308/328. I've heard about the 'Ferrari' discount.

Rick

 

I don't know if Nikasil is plated aluminum, or nickle/silicon impregnated aluminum?

Interesting that it's supposed to be long-lived, as when BMW used Nikasil for it's V8 engine blocks in the early 90s, the sulfur content in US gasoline at the time resulted in rapid wear of the Nikasil cylinder walls, to the point of engines losing compression and BMW having to implement a secret extended warranty program for all the Nikasil V8 engines. Their solution to the problem, for new production and warranty replacement engines, was to switch to Alusil, a different aluminum alloy composition.

 

Not to say I'm an expert but I've seen 3 or 4 open Ferrari engines with > 80.000Km with very, very little wear on the cyl. liners. I bet they will triple that mileage!

 

The aluminum liners were very high quality and are the reason so many of those motors are still running on original parts.

 

Yes, and I am looking for two of them.

Hard to find.

Edwardo

 

They can be bored and replated to any size you want. I just did that to my 328 motor but it is expensive.

This is my 328 motor. It was bored and stroked to 3.55L with 10.7:1 Wiseco pistons and Crower rods.
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Talk to fastradio. He has some. I just bought a used set on Ebay for spares. Keep an eye out there.

 

Yep...hard to find. I bought up all that I could find (24 liners) and used 16 for the for two QV engines I'm rebuilding. I've got 4-6 new ones remaining. PM me for details.

PS: Ferrari NA did have two in the US about a year ago....At near $600 per liner, I passed. Mine aren't cheap, but in hand and much more reasonable.

Best,
David

 

Has anyone obtained replacements from Westwood Cylinder Liners? They list the 308 in an extensive range of applications. Need new liners for your Maybach HL 230 V12 JagPanther? They've done those!

Rick

 

I never buy new iron liners. I just bore the ones I have.

 

Thanks. Sweet motor by-the-way...

 

Yes and no...

If the wear is minimal, yes they can be refinished. However, if they're badly scored, visibly distorted (wavy), pitted on the lower sealing surface where the block o-ring seals, or have any pitting or corrosion on the top surface which seals against the head gasket, no. There's not a lot of excess material at the bottom of the liner to work with. Although the top surface of the liner can be decked to clean up any imperfections, to maintain the proper liner protrusion, the deck surface on the block must be machined, as well. This will necessitate removal of the studs, which can be a daunting job in itself. Then, throw in the price of new head studs...and just replacing the liners starts to make more sense.

The question in my mind comes down to long term reliability and getting the rings to seat. The original coating is just a few ten thousandths of an inch thick. Just how thick can this (new) coating be applied and still maintain its integrity? Then again, we could just bore the liners to whatever size needed, reapply the thin coating and use over-sized pistons. This too will drive the costs up.

David

 

Same here...

 

wow. that thing is going to move baby. very nice there sir.

 

WOW! That is good to know. Thanks for the info.

 

Any dyno numbers on the new engine? How did it fail?

Ace

 

Wow, thanks for the candid reply... Much appreciated...

 

I am not going to dyno it because I really don't care.


What failure?

 

I trying to do the same but to my 308 qv engine. I have 360 liners, and previous measures I found is necessary to re-bore to block and use a ring. But at top is the my problem since flange of the 308 liners have 8 mm and the 360 liners have 7 mm. How you compensate that. Did you used another o-ring? I this case it is necessary to use 3 o-rings, two for the ring and one to the top?


Regards,

Mário Melo.

 

After measure all and do some basic calculation, I guess it will necessary a shim with 2 o-ring one in each face. At the top of block when reboring it should have a degree of 7 mm for the new linear. My question is how is the thickness of the o-ring after crushed to seal the linear and block?