Guest snowman Posted June 10, 2004 Share Posted June 10, 2004 I've been looking at this idea a lot, and have gotten quite a bit of conflicting feedback. The search here yielded little but that one person said the machine shop ran into the main oil galley when trying to bore for liners. I was told on zcar.com (I know it's been a jungle over there lately, but this was from one of the more reputable sources) that 3.5L bores had been achieved via deisel liners before. There isn't a lot on the topic overall, and not a lot of people looking into it either as far as I can tell. Has anyone else had actual experience with using liners (also called cylinder sleeves I believe)? What's the truth about maximum bore size before new walls are installed? So far the only verifiable limit I've come across is head bolt spacing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
preith Posted June 10, 2004 Share Posted June 10, 2004 IMHO I wouldn't think of going anything larger than the 89mm bore for the KA24 pistons. I've heard that even this can stress the block a bit. It just seems like sleeves in an already stout cast iron block is taking a step back. Put your energies elsewhere if your looking for that killer street engine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest snowman Posted June 10, 2004 Share Posted June 10, 2004 The point of the sleeves would not be to strengthen the walls, but rather create new walls after I bore past the old ones into the water jacket. I'd thought of the 89mm, maybe even 90mm with testing, and that's what I most likely will end up doing if I can't figure out the liners. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony D Posted June 12, 2004 Share Posted June 12, 2004 The HKS 3.5 Liter Kit also contained a custom crank made by Crower, and was sold "exclusively" through HKS in Japan only. If you could get the specs on the crank, you could back-calculate the bore diameter used. I looked through my notes and found the Diesel Liners were used more to Bore L20A's out to L28 specs, so maybe the HKS kit didn't use liners. I can't find my old brochure in the closet--- But taking an old block and running six big bores at the maximum diameter possible will only cost around $120 at most shops, so you could sacrifice a block (maybe one with a "hole" in it already, say...around #5 rod area... there are more than a few out there) and find out what you run into. I have not heard of any shops here in the USA doing liners for an L-Motor except for service replacement... Intersecting the oil gallery isn't that big a deal, as a rifle drilling and sleeving of the gallery would restor it once the liners were set in place... This is high-end machining, though---few places of automotive grade will be willing to do it, but in general heavy industry they do stuff like this all the time. Mid America Machine does some amazing restoration work on centrifugal compressors and their passages. If I lived in West Kentucky, I would start talking to them more intently. Out on the west coast I would talk with Powers Brothers Machine in paramount (L.A) or Santa Fe Machine. The guys at Santa Fe have been workgin miracles for years... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest snowman Posted June 12, 2004 Share Posted June 12, 2004 Thanks Tony. I'll make some calls out there this week. I've yet to find a heavy-duty shop around DFW, but I'm on the lookout. I didn't know that there was actually a KIT for a 3.5 liter... Want to pick one up for me next time you go to Japan? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ToplessZ Posted August 28, 2004 Share Posted August 28, 2004 Did you ever find anything out about using the sleeves. Im not too far from the place in ky a few hours. Im in Ohio. Ive been trying to plan an l28et build that ill be happy with but so far no dice. Trying not to spend a ton on the motor. Im trying to figure out how to use longer rods and not have to buy custom pistons I have heard fj20 rods and vg30 pistons may work with my l24 crank. See post below. Trying to get some more ideas that will work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest snowman Posted August 28, 2004 Share Posted August 28, 2004 Unfortunately life's been busy, so I haven't had a lot of time to put into the dev of my new motor. I didn't find any usable sleeves, but I'll post here when I make some progress. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob_H Posted August 29, 2004 Share Posted August 29, 2004 I'll be your sense of reason here. Anything over about 89-90mm will not really be possible. The whole "diesel liner" thing is a myth. The LD28 block had a 84.5mm bore. Those that have actually taken the LD block and tried to get a "larger" bore than the L28 block were only successful in getting it out to about 88-89mm, or nearly identical to the L28 blocks capabilities. Now they may be talking about general liners for a generic diesel block... So unless I'm missing something, your still only going to get out to about 89-90mm. If you take a whole bunch more out,(there are posts which indicate about how much is left when they did some sonic bore testing on 89 and 90mm bore blocks) - and ad a liner back in, you are about the same overall size, maybe just a mm or two bigger. I guess you could push it out to 90+mm, and there is one guy I know that did run 91mm, (had the block originally bored to 89.5, they messed it up and did it at 90, then he screwed up the block and had to get it bored out again). He ran it for a while, but it never made much power as the walls were so thin, it was assumed that they were deforming under power and allowing a lot of blow-by, i.e. not good sealing. Remember, thin is a relative term here..... I have never heard of a 3.5L kit for our motors and I did a lot of research before I built mine and wrote the Datsun workshop,(which is somewhat dated now). plenty of 3.1 and 3.2L, but not much beyond that. Food for thought. -Bob Hanvey Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest snowman Posted August 29, 2004 Share Posted August 29, 2004 While boring it out as far as possible and inserting liners to raise the strength in the walls would get me very little gain, I was talking about cutting past the walls and into the water jacket, then using cylinder sleeves as new walls. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob_H Posted August 29, 2004 Share Posted August 29, 2004 That is what I understood. But I still don't think your going to gain much in overall bore dia, making it a very expensive option for minimal gain. Why do you want that much bore? You never said your original goals, i.e. NA, turbo, power levels, what you are doing with it, i.e. daily driver, autox, road racing, etc.. I have seen a 3.1L with 250+ rwhp and 270+ rwhp. Granted the second one is John Coffey's Old Rusty Datsun which has a straight cut gearbox so it sees less losses. But the 250+ rwhp is Dan Baldwins and he does drive his on a somewhat regular basis but does a lot at the track. I have driven his on the track and on the road, and it has great power with really good delivery even at low RPM's. Anyways, my 2 cents is it is not worth it. -Bob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest snowman Posted August 29, 2004 Share Posted August 29, 2004 Right now I'm looking at NA, high compression. If I find out it's going to cost me more than a few Gs I'll probably find another option, but I love the L engines and I'd love to get the most displacement I can out of one. I've still got a lot of research to do and a lot of math to work out, so we'll see how far I get. Even if my power gains are minimal, it's going to be a great project, that's for sure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony D Posted September 2, 2004 Share Posted September 2, 2004 Bayport Machine, Laporte Texas. Harold Steiffel was the shop foreman when they resurected my Elliott ET18 Turbocharger casing with a machined insert so trick, even the OEM decided to send a broken casting in for them to reverse-engineer their fix! Like Harold told me: "We can fix anything, just a matter of how much you want to pay!" For the record, they repaired a broken casting that Elliott wanted $22,000 and 26 weeks leadtime. Their repair cost $2200 dollars, and was done in a week, and on the engine running before Elliott could even confirm their production schedule! Since you mentioned DFW, I figured Bayporte would be the place to ask... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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