clarkspeed

I will post this again. PMC your short posts and pictures are worth a 1000 words.

Yes, good thread. The take-away for me is you can never be too careful on new engine start up. Like Tony mentioned, I also use a modified air tank to flood the bearings and cam on first crank. I previously thought it might be overkill.

My head always looks like that when I get it back from the builder also. But after a dozen test fittings and mutiple rotations for clearance checks it gets rather dry again. I always give it another good coating before starting.

Question for MadKaw: When you did your experiment with both cam and spray bar oiling did you enlarge the orifice in the block any? My understanding is the orifice maintains pressure on the lower end in case of catastrophic failure on the top side. By doing so it limits the volume of oil that can be pumped into the head.

RL MT90

What is a good source for the S15 boxes? I did some Google searches and didn't see many options.

All good ideas from above. Hope you can drive this to root cause. I've never seen this and I have torn up a few cam/rockers in the past. After my last build , I found 2 of the spray bar holes were clogged (cam not drilled). I ran 2 hours on track before it was discovered. Some cam discoloration and light scoring but no damage. There is a lot of oil sloshing around up there.With those light valve springs I would think you have more margin before damage. I always coat the cam with high zinc assembly lube and use a zinc additive in petroleum based oil on breakin. High zinc synthetic thereafter.

Another poor man's option is to cut off the spring perch and reweld it lower.

I now use an digital angle finder on the control arms to set my ride height.

Check the water temp sensor. Resistance could be off. It triggers the cold start enrichment. Just a guess.

I gapped mine to the Ross piston specs. My normal engine builder said it was way too much.

You are really doing some great stuff down there. Thanks for sharing and participating in these forums.

The large body Bosch pumps are a great upgrade. Such good quality, I don't have a problem buying used ones off ebay. Most of the part numbers are for different inlet/outlet configurations. So if you adapt to you pump, you can order the same part number again.

I actually bought some 1/4-20 aluminum bolts for interior pieces and such.

I saw a formula SAE car once with variable runner length on 4 trumpets. A simple trumpet tube sliding in a custom intake runner. The trumpets were mounted on a movable wall of a plexiglass box with linkage and a servo controlling. I think the box prevented leak by on the tubes. It looked pretty cool when they reved the engine.

Did you take the piston/head clearance back to 023?

Your piston to head to clearance is fine, but the valve to piston clearance with cam at desired setting also matters. Usually checked with a pre-assembly. Even so, the one time I missed timed a cam the tapping went away after a few revs when the valves made there own pockets in the pistons and slightly bent. Then it showed with comp check.

Might have one in our shop in Orlando. Want to drive that far?

Mine basically had all the doubler plates cut out around the perimeter and the hinge supports. And vents installed.

My race car had a chopped up hood when I bought it. It weighed 26.5 lbs. It eventually began to crack apart after years of abuse. I replaced with FG shell I reinforced myself. It weighs 11.5. I was going to cut up a hatch in similar fashion, but ended up buying FG instead.

Pickup points can vary greatly from car to car. Especially the strut tops. Not too hard to measure. I leveled the chassis on jack stands and plumbbob points to tape on the floor. Took about 3 h ours ea. Front and rear.

I'm using the SusProg3d. I played with the demo version for awhile before I bought. Works ok once you get used to it. You can learn a lot just playing with it. I was amazed how sensitive roll center was to ride height and camber on strut suspensions. I now try to set my ride heights to the millimeter. And you can figure out what is BS and what is not on this forum. I wish I had bought years ago instead of copying others.

Good luck. I was reading an article about the Toyota F1 engine program. They had a dedicated building and about 25 engineers working on their fuel delivery system. Seems the pumps were very hi-tech.

I say invest in a geometry simulation program. I've been playing around with one for a few months now along with re-reading many books. You can change that spacer, lengths of CA, inner pivot points, etc. and see the results in 2 minutes. Some things have a big effect, others do not. It will point you in the right direction.

I say buy the pre-flaired lines. Available locally in most any size you need in 3/16 Dia. Standard unions for long runs and standard tees easy to get. Just buy some standard to metric adapters to convert the ends. Save yourself a bundle. Unless you are restoring to concourse level.