|
|
If you haven't seen the video: it's right here.
It's still here, and pretty bad... If i'm just idling, and i rev it up high in neutral, a decent sized puff of smoke will follow. It's worse than it ever was with my other motor... My plan is to get a new .030 headgasket, and swap heads with the F head that's been resurfaced and redone with new valves and components. What do i need to do it? Can i just get away with a new head that has the rocker assembly on it or do i need to go more in depth with it and get new lifters or anything else that would make it a bigger pain in the booty?
What do i need to do to swap heads? I remember we took my old engine's off, just to see what was going on in there, but i can't remember if we needed to take off the rocker assembly and pushrods like we did.
I want to take it to the drag strip before the year's over, i should've gone the day i dynoed it, but i backed out.
Now i want to strip it, balance the carbs, change my intake setup, and put on an engine fan. That after i get the head swapped, and only if i do. If the head swap requires more than just a headgasket for me to easily perform, screw it, i'll save my money. Also, will i be able to reuse the intake/exhaust manifold gasket that i just installed a couple weeks ago? Or do i need a new one? Hopefully i can figure out why i have an exhaust leak at the same time.
About the engine fan ordeal, I picked up a fan from a 89 Mazda 626 from a j/y, and was going to use it. But then i looked at how hot my engine gets now when just sitting at a traffic light. At PIR there's quite a bit of sitting... I don't know if the 10" fan will be up to it, this engine seems to run hotter than my other engine ever did, even though it read a lower temp when it had the integrated manifold on it... Do you think the 10" fan will work if i keep my hood up when at the track, and just turn the car off and push it up to the line? I might think about shimming the hood's hinges so the back of the hood doesn't sit flush with the body and allows hot air to escape when i'm not moving...? Ideas? Or does anyone have a fan sitting around that i can borrow or use? =D
--
Kyle - '68 Volvo 142 w/71 b20b and m40...
|
|
|
|
|
i think i'm not really going to do anything about my car, and just race it on friday with Tony... I'll go up to portland, strip my car, and mess with the carb's balance, and possibly try the electric cooling fan... Not sure yet, but probably won't use it. I want to mess with the intake setup, but that's doubtful as well, due to me not wanting to spend money that i don't know i have or not...
As far as fixing the head and that crap, i'm just going to forgo it for now because i'm going to be taking the insurance off of my car soon, because i'm not really working anymore...
And stuff.
Oh yeah, SO DOES ANYONE HAVE ANY WHEELS LYING AROUND FOR ME TO BORROW? Of the lighter variety, such as Coronas with whatever crap tires on it, or some aluminum tires hanging out somewhere? Actually, i should go try and pump up the tires i have in my closet, see if they'll hold any air...
--
Kyle - '68 Volvo 142 w/71 b20b and m40...
|
|
|
|
|
Hey Kyle -
Screw Portland! Come to the VCOA thing in California this weekend!
Ah, but I can see the appeal of racing. If I weren't going to be out of town, I'd loan you a set of race slicks on 242GT alloys to use at the strip.
... or d'you just need some 'normal' wheels?
Was fun to hang out with ya at the dyno day. I'd sure groove on seeing my runs as the camera caught 'em!
Best,
Cameron
Rose City
|
|
|
|
|
Yeah, we've got some footage of your car on the dyno i think, it's just a huge file and we don't have it up on the web quite yet... As far as VCOA thing this weekend, there's no way i'm going to drive my car all that way... =P 4spd, no money for gas... And my car still cuts out randomly(no electricity) and today it did it and i was in the middle of the street stopped for about 30-45 seconds, and there was a car behind me for a little bit... It still cranked though, which it didn't use to do when i had the old battery. Now with the new battery i can just crank it over until it'll start.
And yeah, it was definitely fun hanging with you! =D
--
Kyle - '68 Volvo 142 w/71 b20b and m40...
|
|
posted by
someone claiming to be Rhys
on
Sun Oct 3 06:17 CST 2004 [ RELATED]
|
|
Kyle the smoke is probably stuck oil control rings. If the engine sat for any length of time, and I would think it has, then they are not conforming to the cylinder walls properly. The compression can still be high, but the oil control poor.
My general thought is not to piecemeal the engine or band-aid it. What's wrong will a little oil smoke? If it runs well enough, then change the oil a few times and the oil rings may very well free up. Valve seals will not make much of a difference. A rebuild will, but I know time and money are against that. So save your money and drive the thing. It also doesn't need a valve job if it is pulling those numbers on compression.
Rhys
|
|
|
|
|
Well, the engine never did it until more than 1k miles into using it... And only after a long highway drive finished off with an 85 mph sprint at the end... And then once i could get my car started, followed by a few dyno runs, and now it still does it.
We weren't going to mess with the Valve seals, we were just going to swap heads with a rebuilt b20F head that's been resurfaced with a whole new valvetrain, it has about 5k on it i think, or was it 500miles, can't remember...
But yeah, i guess i can leave well enough alone, if you really think it isn't worth the time and effort and about $30... It seems like a lot of smoke though and is kind of embarrasing having a big plume of smoke follow you after you let off the gas on the highway, or in between shifts when accelerating fast, and so on...
--
Kyle - '68 Volvo 142 w/71 b20b and m40...
|
|
|
|
|
Yeah, you gotta pull the rockers but that is nothing compared to the manifolds.
Manifold gasket may still be OK but no guarantees. I put a thin layer of
grease on mine and it keeps them from sticking so bad.
I forgot - how are the rings in this engine? If it is just valve guides and
you replaced them it should help. When you get the head off look closely at
the cylinders and the tops of the pistons for indications of problems.
What makes an engine run hot or cool is all in the radiator and the air that
flows through it. There is plenty of room around the engine and the firewall
for the air to escape out the bottom (unless you have a belly pan). Leaving
the hood loose at the front is a definite hazard, and at the rear you never
know what might come outta there and get on your windshield.
BTW do you have a fan shroud? or do you just have an electric fan?
--
George Downs, Bartlesville, Oklahoma, Central US
|
|
|
|
|
Right now i have the stock direct engine fan. The fan that i got from the Mazda is a pusher type... And i'm thinking it won't be enough to cool the engine. There's only water in the cooling system currently actually, do you think that when i get a 50/50 mixture back in it the temperature will be more stable?(i forgot to mention that the coolant is one of the things i still need to do...)
So If i pull the rockers, do i need to swap parts over? Or can i just leave the pushrods that are in there now and install a complete (different)head on top of everything and use the rockers and stuff that's already installed on the different head?
The rings on this engine should be good, we'll find out if there's carbon built up in there when we take the engine off. Last time we checked the compression(before the dyno day) it was 165 180 180 180. Pretty good compression, and the lower 1st cylinder might have had something to do with my valves being in need of an adjustment, which we(read Cameron) did before i ran on the dyno.
The hood wouldn't be loose at the front, i'd just install a few washers between the hood and the hinge's mounting points so as to raise up the back of the hood a little bit to allow the rising hot air to escape when the car isn't moving.
Thanks!
--
Kyle - '68 Volvo 142 w/71 b20b and m40...
|
|
|
|
|
Rhys is right.
Water cools better than water + anything else. Coolant is for corrosion and
freeze protection, but does not have as high a heat capacity as pure water.
(Didn't have PChem yet?)
Whatever you do you'll have to adjust the rockers so if I were you I'd use
whatever components are best.
With the fan working the air WILL escape and only the air going through the
radiator will help unless the air is hotter than the engine. The space
around the engine going down under the car is MUCH bigger than the space
you will make at the back of the hood, so my guess is that you won't be
able to tell any difference at all. And whatever difference there is will
be a lot greater at speed than while standing still.
--
George Downs, Bartlesville, Oklahoma, Central US
|
|
|
|
|
If your rockers don't have adjusters on them, how do you set your valve
lash (clearance)? Should be a ball-end 5/16" UNF bolt through each of them
with a screwdriver slot in the end and a 5/16" UNF locknut (½" hex)to hold
it in adjustment. The ball end fits into the end of the pushrod.
--
George Downs, Bartlesville, Oklahoma, Central US
|
|
|
|
|
George, I must respectfully disagree that water alone cools the best.
Although the coolant in the radiator stays below boiling (we hope), it actually does boil in the head, locally around the combustion chambers which are sitting at around 700-1000 degrees F. The coolant definitely bubbles where it's in contact with that, and the bigger the bubbles, the less heat is transferred and the hotter the metal gets. Good anti-freeze keeps the bubbles smaller and improves cooling -- it's a matter of surface tension.
The dramatic power-to-weight increases in water-cooled aircraft engines approaching WW-II was largely due to the invention of ethylene-glycol additives for the coolant; in other words, anti-freeze.
Racers often can't use anti-freeze because nobody wants it all over their racetrack in the event of a wreck, so many use products that have a similar affect on surface tension -- there's a popular one called Water Wetter.
|
|
|
|
|
Your respect is appreciated. However I think that maybe the increase in
heat transfer is as much because of the raised boiling point of the mix as
in the bubbles. Raised boiling point gives a one-for-one increase of heat
transfer with constant temperature air - same reason you are less likely to
overheat in cool weather.
There may be something to the bubble theory - That is why they went to brine
quenching for hard-to-harden alloy steels - the particles of salt formed when
the (1600°) parts were stuck in the water tended to break up the insulating
steam blanket formed around the part. I've seen photos of plain water quenching
where the steam blanket was a couple inches thick.
However I would think that any substantial bubble formation would probably
cause the coolant reservoir to overflow because the vapor has hundreds of
times greater volume than the liquid. Admittedly there is some expansion
but not a lot.
I have some trouble accepting that the cylinder head surface runs 700-1000°F
for a couple reasons. One is that the piston is not as well cooled as the
cylinder head (oil spray only) and so it would probably run quite a bit hotter.
While pistons occasionally melt, it is not a common thing. Aluminum alloys
have essentially no strength above about 800°F and melt at 1100°. More alloying
elements make the alloy stronger but reduce the melting and annealing points.
Also carbon deposits on the head make it hard to believe it is that hot.
Carbon will not stick to any surface over 700°F. That's one of the ways
aircraft accident investigators check engine status on crashed aircraft.
I would think to make it bubble very much you'd have to run at full throttle
for quite a while (like a racing boat, for example). The heat is only applied
to the interior surface about a quarter of the time, certainly not more than a
third of the time and the incoming charge does a LOT of cooling because of the
evaporation of the gasoline, a pretty good refrigerant.
So I (at least partially) respectfully disagree with your respectful
disagreement. If you supercharge, and especially if you don't intercool,
all bets are off!
--
George Downs, Bartlesville, Oklahoma, Central US
|
|
|
|
|
George,
You're probably right that the metal inside the water jackets isn't 700 F., but I'm positive it's plenty hot enough to shock the coolant into bubbling, and that anti-freeze (and Water Wetter and some other products) causes the bubbles to be smaller. There was a good article on this in Grassroots Motorsports a while back, although I don't have it near at hand.
--Phil
|
|
|
|
|
I've used water wetter before, it's some good stuff. And here in texas where it rarely freezes you don't really have to worry about Anti-Freeze. I told Kyle about using some of it and then just draining his radiator come winter time and filling back up with some antifreeze and water mix. Though I guess its nearly winter up there =) It's still in the 80s and 90s down here. What with the dirty dirty radiator he had I'm sure an occasional flushing will help anyway.
--
|
|
|
|
|
