wondersparrow

Well, mostly back together now, just waiting for the manifold studs from MSA. Poking around doing a little reading this evening and I noticed that the torque specs for the head bolts changed significantly between the '72 and '73 fsm's. The '72 one says 32.5 then 47 ft-lbs and in the '73 it says 29, 43, then 47-61 ft-lbs. I went to 61 since that was the book on my table at the time. What do you guys recommend for head torque? Why the difference? Do the ARP studs require a different torque yet again?

I like the idea of grinding down wrenches, never even thought of that. I bet I have a half doz that would work great. Good tip.

Since noone else stepped up, here is a pic of my engine bay early last year. Its certainly not the prettiest one out there, but its my favorite One day i'll get around to redoing all the electrical and my rushed brake line job, then it will be much cleaner.

With regards to the water injection, I am more interested in the possible compression or power increases than the cooling. I am thinking more along the lines of using the expansion properties of the water to get a bit of extra power, say, 3/4 of the way down a long straight. It was stumbling across the Crower 6 stroke design that got me thinking again. Injecting liquid water into a hot cylinder will cause it to expand. Does the expansion of this water equate to more power? Does the inclusion of water/vapor affect dynamic comression? It is effectively taking up volume... Does the power gained outweigh the reduced combustion efficiency? Let me explain my thinking a little more specifically. First off my main thoughts are with the water. Adding alcohol to the water will just help out with potential icing/corrosion issues. I am not really interested in the power created by burning the alcohol, but more the regular expansion properties of water/steam. Really, stealing oxygen from the gasoline to burn the alcohol should have a bit of a negative effect, no? Anyhoo, at some point in the near future, when funding allows, I would like to pick up a set of the sexy looking Extrudabody ITB's (and some Megasquirt). They have secondary injector bridges that can be placed outside the airhorns. If one was to use them to spray water, and use it only when under full load for more than a couple seconds. In my mind this would be shortly after getting into top gear. Would you or would you not expect to see a significant torque increase as well as the added bonus of cooling your engine a little shortly before slowing for a corner? A few of the sites I researched imply that aircraft have used water injection with the goal of momentarily increasing power output. Can we do the same with our engines?

A couple of different threads have led me to a couple of questions and I didn't want to go hijacking. Is there such a thing as too high an octane rating? I mean in realistic terms, with our beloved L6 engines. I know many say that running a higher octane is a waste, some say its cheap insurance. If you were using high octane fuels (like 116-120) would you advance timing to get more power? How far would you push it? I am sure there is a point, detonation or not, that power decreases with timing advance. Any thoughts on where that is? While looking around to find info on that, I stumbled into an old rainy day muse. Methanol/Water injection... What would the effects of using (possibly manually activated) water/methanol injection system be on a high performance engine? In my head I see it lowering temps all around as well as increasing overall combustion chamber pressures. If thats the case, I would expect to see fairly significant power gains, probably decreasing slightly as everything cools. As well, as much as I generally prefer my engines to be n/a, I am curious about what that would do to a turbo system. You could obviously significantly increase exhaust volumes, so I bet the turbo would spool up a fair bit quicker, etc.

I don't know if the po had some reason for the e88 head, but the only spare parts that came with the car were wheels and a completely stock/stripped e88 head. I know he dealt with a local shop , Sumaru's, that specializes in Z cars. Sumaru does do race car prep and has one serious Z himself. He also has some really nice fiberglass molds. I think they may be the 280yz molds if rumors serve. I have stopped by the shop a few times to inquire, but never seem to be there when anyone helpful is around. Anyway, from the little bit of history investigation I have done the past week, I bet Sumaru did the head. He did a lot of the work on this car including suspension and roll cage.

Here are a couple pictures of the ports. The intake ports are just over 38mm dia at the outside edge.

I have a few sets of gear wrenches, yes they are fantastic when you can get them on and have room to move. What I need more than that is a 12mm (I am pretty sure thats the size, I haven't had coffee yet) wobble head socket. I find if u use a normal socket with a wobble adapter, its still too long. the ones where the swivel is on the socket work better. That again brings me back to needing shorter studs

I'll take a picture of the ports later today (its still below freezing in the garage and I am still in my pj's). I know they have been worked on a fair bit as I needed to open up the holes in the gasket last time. I don't think I am going to do rings just yet. Hopefully that can wait till next winter and I'll do bearings at the same time. There really is no indication that there are any problems with the rings at the moment. I guess I was just fearing the worst when it started burning so much oil so suddenly. I'll probably get the valve seats done later too. It looks like the intake port on #1 has a very slight leak. I left the head upside down and poured some varsol into the chambers. When I came back a couple hours later, there were a couple of drops underneath it. I need to start accumulating spare parts and gaskets. Things like comp pan gaskets that are hard to come by. I would like to take the pan off and see what stories the bottom end has, but its not leaking and I don't have spare gaskets.

Well, the car sat all winter. I finally got around to pulling the head the other day. No major defects in the gasket. I think I would have been happier if I saw a big void in the gasket indicating how it failed, but no point in being too concerned. There were a couple of coolant passages blocked with some crusty black crap. Maybe rust, maybe something stupid like stop leak. After cleaning everything up, I realized that the head has had some serious work done. It says its an E88, but its not like any E88 I have seen. The chamber is largely welded up. I took the head in to get resurfaced and had a couple chambers cc'd. They turned out to be 40.2cc. The pistons come up about .75mm above the deck and have some pretty deep (2.7mm) fly-cuts. It also looks like it has been bored out to 84mm. Note that I don't have any proper micrometers, these measurements were taken with digital caliper. All in all, I was pleasantly surprised when I cracked into my engine. I pretty much just bought it, changed the fluids and ran it. I see no markings at all on the cylinder walls. There is no crosshatch left, but no scoring either. I picked up a set of arp studs and I think I am going to just toss in another felpro gasket in and see how it goes. I don't know what caused the head gasket to go in the first place. Was the head gasket and the crud the cause of my heat issues, or will that still be an issue. I guess time will tell.

Nice, I'll check on the price of shipping tomorrow.

Well, I put them on, not tight in any way obviously, then tightened after the intake was installed. I also don't really mind replacing them. My car is a track only car, I have only had it a couple of years and I will be replacing them for the third time ( got new header, wrapped new header, and now a head gasket). Out of curiosity, where do you get your studs, what size, etc. The ones I tried last time were a generic pack I got from napa. They are ~2" long and have a 6mm hex head on em. They seemed great at first, but they were lock nuts on them. It took more than 8ft-lbs just to turn the nut on, so it was hard to get a proper torque. That, and, they were just too long. There is no way to get a deep socket over at least 2 of em. Following true to the thread, I find even the carb bolts to be a pain in the arse at times. With the 45's at least, you barely get any turn before you have to readjust the wrench. A tricky feat for sure, in the dark, at the track, after your trouble light has run out of batteries. That being said, once it is all in, its one of the best sounds out there and totally worth it One of my favorite quotes... "Its takes a team of top engineers to put a bolt where no man can put a wrench"

I am in the same boat. I inherited a bit of a headache that way with my track car. Once together everything works great. With the crappy (pacesetter i think) header I have and a no name intake manifold for triples, getting them that way is a pain. It seems I need to replace 3 or 4 studs every time I take it apart. It always appears to go together nicely. No leaks, torques down fine (well the ones I can get a socket on). For some reason I find it virtually impossible to get them undone cleanly. While undoing nuts, sometimes the socket slides against header tubes or intake runners. Things get bound up, tools get stuck, i get ignorant, and studs get bent. This time I am really going to shop around for a set of studs that are the right length. I want to find something that only has 4 or so threads sticking out once its all tightened down. I am also going to look for some thinner washers. The 1/4" beasts it came with are a little much I think. I know the washer has to be strong so it can clamp both the intake and exhaust, but there has to be something better out there.

That reminds me, I was wondering... How long do you figure an O2 sensor would last with leaded fuel. After I get my engine back together, I want to do some much needed testing and tuning on my track car. Problem is, I like to cut my fuel 50/50 with VP 109. Its got a pretty high compression ratio and to keep the timing up there, I need more than pump gas can offer. Would an O2 sensor last 10 mins? an hour? days? It sounds like an egt sensor should be on my shopping list as well....

lacquer thinner is amazing at cleaning carbs. Its oldschool stuff, I wouldn't use it without a proper mask, goggles and gloves. Which are good to have around anyway. When I rebuilt mine, there was no way I was getting the accelerator jets out. Like you, tried everything. One of the guys at the track suggested soaking the carbs overnight in lacquer thinner. So I did. Presto, the hard to clean gunk brushed right off and the jets popped out like butter. It may be hard to find, it is nasty stuff. Around here, most hardware stores still carry it, but you have to ask for it. They can't have it on the shelves.

http://www.racetep.com/weberX.html#websynch Thats where I got mine. $45 seems like a good deal.

http://www.turboxs.com/more_info.php?ID=212 not that pricey and solves the rpm/noise issue.

I would check your float levels. Every time I have had fuel coming out of the horns it was because of the float levels or a vacuum leak. That being said, my car idles around 1200rpm, so balancing your carbs at slightly above idle is probably easier.

Ah yeah, this is for my track car, so random gauges and indicators arent as annoying, hehe. I am pretty sure mj has an advance correction thing that you can calibrate. Usually used for things like water temp. I see no reason you cant just put in some sort of nob in place of a temp gauge that outputs voltages in the appropriate range. It appears it can be calibrated as well, so should be a snap. a 0-1v knob should be easy to find.

I guess at that point, I don't see the need to have it actually hooked up to the MJ system. I plan on putting a wideband on mine as well, but I am just going to get an autometer gauge for it. I was thinking of using a led for knock, but if i can figure out how to actually have MJ retard the timing when there is knock, that would be preferred. I wonder if one could just put in a rheostat or knob that would allow you to advance and retard the timing manually from inside the car. That could work too. Have a wideband gauge and an indicator light hooked up to a knock sensor. Then just let the driver (me ) control the timing manually. Gears turning....schemes developing....

Are you actually adjusting the spark using the wideband? I wonder which would be more valueable, afr or knock? knock seems like it would help under a more varied range of conditions as opposed to just rich/lean. Though knock seems like it might be a bit trickier to program. I may be wrong in my assumptions, but a knock sensor seems like more of a digital sensor. There is either knock or there isn't. Does anyone know if a knock sensors output is analog and therefore can detect the severity?

That site implies that the outs are just that, outputs. I am assuming they would be used for things like external fans, indicator lights, things like that. I guess the aux in would be the one to use.

Something John C said a while ago has me intrigued..... I am really enjoying working with my triple webers in my track car. It has been an interesting challenge as they really are the first carbs I have worked with. I have been planning on installing an EDIS system and a wideband over this next winter (once the catastrophic oil burning issue is fixed). I had planned on using a megajolt system, but now I am wondering if there is a way to add a knock sensor. I have run into the Polestar ignition systems for Minis. I haven't yet inquired if they will work on a 6 cyl yet, but they seem prohibitively pricey anyway. Has anyone seen megajolt augmented with a knock sensor before? Does anyone know of other ignition systems that support a knock sensor? I know, I know, efi would be cheaper and more reliable in the long run. It is inevitable, but as long as I am still a noobie at racing and not jockeying for the top spots, I don’t mind taking the time to do things in stages. Maybe I enjoy the tinkering, hehe. When I decide to get rid of the l24, I will go efi for sure. Thanks in advance for entertaining my curiosity

I would be extremely interested in hearing about that one day. Is megajolt capable of doing that? If its not that complicated, I would really be intrigued enough to try that...