BRAAP

In simplified terms, the block of metal that is to become the crankshaft is left long so as to grab it past both ends. As rudypoo mentioned, the crank is offset to machine the rod journals, and the part is spun slowly. The overly large size and mass of the lathe helps absorb the forces of the spinning offset crankshaft. Once the machine work is done, those "ends" are cut off. One approach as the Washington FSAE team used, was to rough machine ALL the journals, rods and mains, in a mill, (they may have used a CNC mill). They are square, but in their approx location as shown in the bottom picture here. With the crank being left long, on a single plane crank such as this, there are 3 “centers”. On each end that will be used in the lathe. The middle “center” is for machining the mains, the other 2 “centers" are for locating and machining the rod journals about the center of that stroke to make those journals round. Some lathes will use a 4, 6 or 8 jaw chuck on both ends which allows the part to be offset from the spinning axis of the lathe itself so the rod journals can be turned. Another approach is to use a single four jaw chuck on the driven end of the lathe and “live” or “dead” center on the other end. The crankshaft would then have a hole in each of the “centers” for that live/dead center to locate into, while the four jaw chuck allows offsetting the driven end. There are couple other approaches for machining a crankshaft by hand. With CNC, there ways to machine a crankshaft are even more diverse. Billet stock and rough shaped crankshaft; Courtesy of Brian Crower This video shows a crankshaft having its rod journals ground. Illustrates how the offset works when working the rod journals. Interesting Video showing the mains being machined… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=be4N1tkPZao Note the rough machined crankshafts… Courtesy of the Washington FSAE team

Woldson, (Donning the kid gloves…) Not knowing the Honda head you are referring to, I am going to assume the cam line was machined in to the head, i.e. it did not have “removable” cam towers. In that instance, with the cam line machined into the head itself, with a warped head, one method to truing the cam line is to align bore/hone the cam line. In that case, I recommend performing some form of heating/bending-straightening procedure to true the head as much possible first, then bore/hone the cam line. Again that procedure applies to heads with the cam line integral with the head. Thank you for the compliment Phred. That means a lot to me coming you.

YEAH BABY!!!! Just glanced through every page admiring the crapsmanship.. Good stuff… Got a few new ideers I wanna try.. :lmao: I really like the clutch disc mod.. So Prox? You gonna step-up to the plate and be the “Cheers from HybridZ” rep in that thread? Yeah, you probably should. Love the remaining pits on the valve face… Holy gonna burn the valves Batman!

WOWZERS! The paint is gorgeous. I like your emblem alterations as well. Total bummer regarding the ankle/fibula. We are praying you'll soon be reunited with your Z.

Keep in mind, when these cam towers were originally bored, they were bored while attached to a “true flat” head. So be sure the head you are working with is “true and flat” on both the bottom chamber side AND top deck surface! If the head is warped, the entire head warps and just surfacing the bottom leaves the top bowed and the cam line through the cam towers is follow that bow! Align boring cam towers to correct that situation is ludicrous as the towers will now be oval and too large on the tops and bottoms of the offending towers. Generally, if the cam can be spun by hand, even if it is a little sticky, the oil wedge developed around the circumference of the cam journal while the engine is running is sufficient and journal/tower wear will be negligible to nil. Cam tower to cam journal clearance is pretty forgiving. Here are a few ways to deal with slight sticky spot while spinning the cam by hand. Having one spot during each cam rotation that sticks is usually indicative of a bent cam AND out of round cam tower/s or a nick on the camshaft journal and or tower bore. if a nick is found, carefully dress the high spot of nick and then buff the journals of the cam with scotch-brite by hand, and be sure to wash/flush the cam thoroughly afterward. Same goes for the towers. Another approach. With the cam tower bolts just loose, i.e. a little tighter than finger tight, rap on the top of the towers lightly with a soft faced hammer, (rubber faced will work, but a hard plastic is preferred), then torque cam tower bolts back to spec. Another approach is with the cam towers all tight, using that hard plastic mallet, lightly tap the individual towers fore and aft, while rotating the cam by hand. You’ll feel the cam get tighter and/or looser as you do this. I said tap "LIGHTLY!" That will usually free up a slight sticky spot while rotating the cam as you are “setting” the cam towers while tapping. If a head was dropped upside down on the cam tower/s, the cam tower is most likely oval. Don’t bother align boring as the cam tower will still have an oval tower. Also, regardless of how many times you align hone it, it'll still be too large. Last resort. Just replace the cam towers as a set. The new cam towers should be stamped as to their position before they are removed from the donor head and reinstalled in that same position. I have a few sets of matched stamped cam towers, (I’ll need to verify if they are for the internal or external cam oiling). External cam oiling towers can be used with internaly oiled cams. You can use the spray bar or plug the oil ports for the spray bar. Hope that helps. Paul

Short answer is, YES. Timing noise if gear driven will add a noticeable whine, but the Ferrari “exhaust” note would be duplicated with the same exhaust components and overall pipe lengths matched or close in length. The number of valves and number of cams does not affect the exhaust note. It is the timing of when the exhaust pulses are let out of the cylinders as they meet up in the rest of the exhaust system, and the over all length of the exhaust system from the valve to exhaust tip, that will affect the exhaust note and its pitch. Shorter overall length, higher overall pitch.

TOTALLY COOL! My only skepticism is how the valve event looks when graphed out against crankshaft rotation, i.e. valve lift under the curve? It would be nice to plot out the valve lift at various crankshaft degrees. The picture shows a round eccentric which to me indicates the rate of lift, amount of lift, etc is entirely dictated by the amount of duration, i.e. offset of the eccentric. Also would indicate a lazy valve opening and closing. Most of the performance/efficiency loss is probably offset by the lack of valve spring, question then becomes how is the power band compromised due to that? Wonder if TonyD has any experience with this or would care to offer his opinion? This seems right up his alley... Pic courtesy of decuirenginetechnologies.com

Cool! Thanks again. Cool pics.

Thanks for sharing. You have some real nice photos there. Were you there on Business? Are you a game designer/builder?

As I posted earlier with pics of the 3 mile long water flume my daughter and I hiked a few weeks back, today they started flying out those section of the flume in 30 foot sections, staging it in the NW corner of the what used to be Roslyn Lake. Flume sections are approx 12 feet wide, 8 feet tall and 30 feet long. Being as our house so close, (on the NW corner), the big picture windows in our living room resonate with each "wump wump" of the those huge twin rotors each time he comes in... (pretty cool…) Here are a few shots…

Saturday drove up the Columbia River Highway, scenic Birthday drive for a new family member. Also stopped by a viewpoint just above our place for a few pics of Mt. hood as well.. All pictures taken with Nikon D70s, (needs the CCD cleaned real bad), NO post processing other the resized. Lower section of Multnomah Falls; Horse Tail falls; Forgot the name of this one, sorry; Lower section of a smaller fall; Inside the Vista House; Mt Hood; Mt Hood, Moon and clouds; Mt Hood, Moon and valley below;

COOL!!! Thank you for the news.. That is good to know.. I agree the 180 degree header would be the better way to go in that it allows the smoothness of the dual plane crank, (and cost since they are so plentiful). That video definitely a smoother note than the typical domestic V-8 exhaust for sure. Has a growl to it, sort of like the VG30DE and American V-6’s, just missing that high pitch whine we hear in the Ferraris note. In digging for more 180 degree header sound clips, I found quite a few Panterras, original GT-40’s as well as kits, and all of them have a smoother exhaust note for sure, not the crisp high pitch BRAAAP of the single plane Ferraris. Somewhere half way between. I would think if the primaries were equal length like those on the original GT40’s, the exhaust note should be exactly the same as the single plane crank variants. Maybe we are also hearing the induction sound loud enough mixing with the exhaust? With a dual plane V8 intake on dual plane crank, the induction sound would be smoother, with the single plane intake, the induction noise could carry that coarseness.. . At any rate, this SBC with a 180 degree header, (to my ear), came the closest to the note we are looking for of the videos I listened to. If this one revved 1-2k more RPM… Hmmmm…..

More inspiration… Formula SAE project. Entire short block and transaxle built from scratch! 554cc V-8, single plane crank, 16,500 RPM, Kawasaki 250cc four cylinder heads. I posted several more pics of the engine over in the Exotic Sounding High RPM V-8 thread… Pics courtesy of Western Washington Universtiy F-SAE team. “Small” video of it running on the dyno… http://dot.etec.wwu.edu/fsae/videos/vik30dyno.mpg

Here’s one for you guys.. Formula SAE project. Entire short block and transaxle was built from scratch! 554cc V-8, single plane crank, 16,500 RPM, Kawasaki 250cc four cylinder heads. All pics courtesy of Western Washington Universtiy F-SAE team. Trans axle; Video on the dyno; http://dot.etec.wwu.edu/fsae/videos/vik30dyno.mpg V-12?!?! COOL!

Do you mean the emblems that are on the car itself?

GarageRatt, First, welcome to HybridZ. The internets extreme performance Datsun/Nissan Z car forum. (I like your username…) Secondly, this is a common conversion and has been documented in detail on almost every Z car forum. This conversion has most likely been documented in greater detail on forums such as http://www.zcar.com, http://www.zdriver.com, http://www.classiczcars.com. On those forums as well as this forum, for most questions regarding common conversions such as this, the search feature will be your best friend. This link will help get you started in your search.. http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=125970 Also, please take the time to read our Rules and Guidelines. Understanding those will help make your transition into our family of extreme performance enthusiasts, a smooth enjoyable one. http://forums.hybridz.org/announcement.php?f=135&a=2 Welcome to HybridZ. HybridZ staff.

Bryan, Hmmm.. This is good to know… If you don’t mind, I have a couple questions? Approx how many hours are involved in manually turning a V-8 crank? What material have you used and do you prefer to use for a custom crank?

For my particular project, I prefer a manual trans and I’m thinking Borg Warner T-5, WC probably, though a non-WC might hold up just fine. With the small displacement, this engine wont produce gobs of torque in N/A trim, allowing the use of lighter trannies, i.e. don’t need a T-56 or ZF-6 for strength reasons. The thought of the Datsun 5 speed also crossed my mind. It would hold up to this engines torque level, (in N/A trim at least), and with a custom crank, the flywheel flange can be machined to accept pretty much any flywheel. In not using a GM or Ford tranny, we would have to build an adapter or modify the bell housing for that tranny to bolt it up. Another option, (great topic for a different thread, NOT this one), is using an automatic tranny converted to semi manual, (manual-matic), with paddle shifters or a slap stick style console shifter.

"Everything he said in that post..."

Tannji, Cool engine, 2.4L, 12,500 RPMs?!?! YEAH BABY!!!! I could be very well be wrong, but when listening to that video, the exhaust note has a coarseness to it, like a high RPM dual plane V-8. It spins to 12,500 RPM, though it doesn’t sound like a typical 10,000+ RPM single plane V-8, nor even a 8500 RPM single plane V-8. The videos aren’t very clear, but to my ear anyhow, the Synergy sounds more like a dual plane Nascar V-8 on steriods, albeit revving a bit higher than the NASCAR V8. I found another dyno video of that same engine, linked below. Dual plane V-8 exhaust notes takes on a smoother tone as the R’s rise, but still not the same crispness of the high pitch single plane. In this video of the Synergy on the dyno, to my ears any how, it clearly sounds like a dual plane V-8 rumble/growl, as it pulls to 10,000+ RPMs, more so in the lower revs... (nice sound, just not that crisp sharp braaaaaaaaaap…) Here is high RPM dual plane V-8 that sounds very similar to the Synergy, just not as many RPM’s.. Here is a Dodge NASCAR V-8 pulling to 9000 RPM on the Dyno also for comparison; Here is single plane V-8 with a redline of only 8500 RPM, though it sounds like it is revving MUCH higher than even the Synergy V-8 which spins to 12,000;

Found some more inspiration ... And its Red line is only a 8500 RPM!?!? Ohhhh.. Full body chilll...

That is EXCELLENT news 351freak!!! Thank you and keep us posted… When Windberg calls back, would you do us a favor and ask them a question regarding the LRLR vs LRRL crank? (I will fully understand if you prefer not to.) As I understand it and illustrated earlier in this thread, the LRLR design seems like it would suffer from a fore-aft rocking couple and the moment of that couple would be the bore spacing. With their experience building both styles, is that true? (maybe direct them to this thread, in particular that post)? Again thanks for sharing your leg work. Looking forward to reading more about your project… I’m assuming that being this deep into the project, you are very much aware of the tradeoffs/compromises of single vs dual plane V-8 cranks. For those reading this who don’t know what compromises are made regarding single plane vs dual plane, I’ll line out the pros and cons for both as I understand them. Single Plane; Pros; 1) Exhaust pipe length tuning due to the even pulses per bank of cylinders, (on a 400 HP engine could be worth 5-10 HP). 2) Exhaust note, (this is more of a personal taste thing) 3) Lighter weight crank due to less mass needed in the counterweights for a given stroke. Faster revs, though not as smooth. 4) It’s different! Cons; 1) 2nd order harmonics. Those harmonics are exaggerated with displacement, rod to stroke ratio determining how much 2nd order vibration, as well as how much stroke impacting the amplitude of those harmonics, (buzzy like big displacement four cylinder engines). 2) Cost of the crank and slightly more cost for the custom cam. 3) Complexity added to the project. Dual Plane; Pros; 1) Much smoother from a vibration/harmonics standpoint. 2) Readily available. 3) Exhaust note, (this is more of a personal taste thing) 4) Longer stroke/larger displacements without added buzziness. Cons; 1) For given stroke, has more mass in the counterweights. Slower revs, but smoother. 2) For me anyhow, the exhaust note is a con. (Again, this is more of a personal taste than a performance aspect) Quoted from the GT40s forum 351freak linked us… Thought you all might appreciate the humor…

a Request regarding the universal design... Add 2 more ports, please? (8 cylinder)...

Saw the same thing happen, Jesel “sprint” application shaft mount rockers, in an endurance application. Rocker broke on the push rod side. Between 150-250 CID, (2.5L-4.2L) 4” bore, with 1 ½"- 2 ½” stroke.