308 V12 conversion begins

After looking at the 400 vs aftermarket 365 bearings and thinking a bit I think I can make them work. The 365 bearings have what looks like a 1/2+ mm chamfer so most of what I would want to remove and maybe all that I need to remove won’t change anything bearing surface wise and if I need to go more the oil groove can be widened to balance the bearing surface side to side.

So now I’ll call GT parts back and ask when they will have the right bearings in stock for me to buy.

edit: no more after market 400 bearing from GT parts ever....they sell way to slow for it to make any sense....so I will be machining it apears......

 

I don't want to call Brian...we'll scold me for even THINKING about machining on the bearings

 

There is a locating notch in the bearing the sets where the bearing sits. One side is correctly located leaving all the extra sticking out the other side of the cap. If I cut both sides of the bearing I would need to move the locating notch in the caps and block and I’d prefer not to do that.

 

probably.......

 

I got the inside around the ports welded on the first head today. Hopefully I'll have some time to get to the othert one tomorrow.

I noticed something odd about the wider 365 bearings....the appear to fit the 400 crank jounals as is. I'll have ot drop the crank in the block and see whats going on but I'm thinking I'll move the notches in the block and caps so it accepts the unmodified 365 bearings and say I need the wider 365 bearings to handle all the power I'm making and not say I was too cheap to just buy the right bearings

 

I finished the second head this morning. Here's a few pic. First comes grinding a weld prep so the fill material has some place to go, then comes melting the torch a bit by running about 50% over it's rated amperage....the teflon gasket was gone after 1 port but the gas cup last through 10, not bad. Then a couple of the finished weld. Next I'll give it a quick grind so it looks like a port then get going on the actual intake manifold.
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Not much time this morning....I got up late them had to load the Argon tank into the car, but I did get started grinding the welds on a couple of the ports.

The top and side seem good, but I'm not sure about the bottom....I'll need to look at it a bit more to figure out exactly where the cruve should be and whether I should weld more or grind more. The first thing I noticed was that I completely forgot to fill the nick in the bottom of the flange from drilling at the wrong angle, I'll get that after I decide on a bottom shape.
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That would leave the oil notch out of center so the short side would get more oil flow than the long side. I think I need to move the notches, but I'll take a good long look at it once I finish the intake stuff.

 

I got the top and sides of all the ports on the first head done and moved on to head 2. I decided to let the bottoms go for now and decide what to do when I start fitting up the manifolds and have a better sense of how everything wants to blend.

Tomorrow I'll finish grinding on head 2 and move on to the finish cut on the flange faces so I'm ready to bolt manifolds on.

 

Funny.

You know, when it comes to things like a lawn mower or daily driver I just use them. No modifications, no cool wheels or expensive tires, h*ll they’re lucky to get oil changes or tires with legal tread left….all my time and money to into the projects that matter to me and at the moment that is the V12.

 

I'm keeping the stock tanks.....I'm in get it done mode and just can't add anything new to the list.

 

There was some dicussion.....but that was mostly you guys trying to see if you could talk me into anything else foolish

 

Sep/Oct....or spring.