Sportruk

Why the mains. There's nothing wrong with those.
I called the engine builder, but he was at a car show today, so I'll have to wait till Monday to talk to him.

Bad as L

I wasn't interested in the bearings....I was curious about the parting line surface.

Sportruk

Well, things aren't getting any better. It looks like I got the same batch of valve guides the Dennis had in his AFR185's. The 1st valve I pulled has massive guide clearance. The hole measures .375" while the stem is .340". That is the worst one and all the others range from a couple thou to .020". Half the seals were floating on the stems.
I highly doubt AFR will do anything about them, because they are 2 years old, so it looks like I'll be paying for guides and a full valve job.

bones93

thats crazy. Have you talked to your engine builder/machinist about the cylinder situation?

badpony93

how was the motor running before you tore it down? good thing you caught all of this before it caused some serious damage

Sportruk

It was running great. I'd say the best since installing 2 years ago. I had an emissions test last fall, so I had to retune it after the test and it was running strong.
Hopefully I can talk to the builder tomorrow and hope he's not to busy, that he can get things done up soon.

badpony93

hopefully, my engine guy took almost 3 months to build my 408

Sportruk

I dropped the heads off and my engine guys, Mike and Wayne, were amazed at the guide wear. They figured it must be a bent valve but he threw it on the grinder and it was dead straight. They don't know what's up and all they can do is put new guides in them. He said I was lucky it didn't drop the valve, it was that bad.
He was surprised to see the seals were basic rubber and he will be putting in teflon seals.
On the rod bearing, detonation was more than likely the cause for the wear. Just putting in new bearings. I know it had some detonation before I got the wideband and fixed up the carb tune.
I got a better look at the cylinder wear and it's actually a highly polished spot. I figure it's caused by the Napier hook second ring. The slightest bit of piston rock would put the sharp edge of the ring against the wall. I can still see some crosshatching in the polished spot, so it's not deep by any means. Mike said the rings are in perfect condition, so he isn't concerned about a bit of cylinder wear.

I'm going to stay with my present cam. I don't want to take away the drivablity I have now with it. I have some port work I want to do to the exhaust ports. The intakes are pretty much bang on.

When I dynoed it a year ago, it made 331rwhp at 4600 rpm. At that point, both TQ and HP dropped. It was around the same RPM range on all 3 pulls. I suspect it was the stock fuel system for a shortage of fuel. Once I get the tanks done up the way I want, I'll get it back on the dyno.

StruckBy

Shawn this is a great thread. I am glad you are getting your engine all fixed up the way you like.
Man I would love to do this same teardown on mine.

On an interesting side note......
My FI 410 made almost the same HP and TQ numbers as your carbd combo.
I am not sure if we have the same cams?
Just an observation is all
Good luck on the project
EE

Sportruk

The cam isn't big enough for the builders, but they are big time race engine builders and nothing is ever big enough. It's a 224*/230* at .050, .513"/.513", 110* overlap roller cam.

marc2000gt

I don't understand the low lift numbers. I am running .605 lift in my 383 with SD.

__________________
1994 Red Lightning #1134 383ci by PSI, S-Trim, Trick Flow T/W heads, Trick Flow Box intake, 60lb injectors, Struckby Two Pump Trick, MSD 6AL, Flexalite 295's, Pickrel Magnaflow Exhaust, Art Carr 2800 stall converter, FTVB, LFP Traction Bars, Struckby mass air wiring, PMAS HPX Mass air sensor. Tweecer RT, Wideband Commander, Binary Editor, EEC Analyzer.

Sportruk

There isn't much choice when it comes to small base circle retro fit roller cams.

marc2000gt

I did not know that.

__________________
1994 Red Lightning #1134 383ci by PSI, S-Trim, Trick Flow T/W heads, Trick Flow Box intake, 60lb injectors, Struckby Two Pump Trick, MSD 6AL, Flexalite 295's, Pickrel Magnaflow Exhaust, Art Carr 2800 stall converter, FTVB, LFP Traction Bars, Struckby mass air wiring, PMAS HPX Mass air sensor. Tweecer RT, Wideband Commander, Binary Editor, EEC Analyzer.

Sportruk

It only took a week turn around for new guides and full checkup. He resurfaced the head, a valve job with the new guides and seals, and checked spring pressures and all is good. There is a new set of bearings in the connecting rods as well.
What's with quality control these days. I used the spider and dogbones kit from Comp Cams. I found one of the dogbones was badly machined and the lifter support was cut 1/16" to wide and allowed the lifter to turn a fair bit. Not Good.



I got out the carbide burrs and tried my hand at portmatching the exhaust. The header tubes have a lot of weld overhang into the port so I cleaned them up.



AFR is offering a Competition porting and part of it is raising the port 1/8" and squaring out the corners. I trimmed the roof of the port up 1/8" and now it meets the top of the header. I didn't want to shorten the guide, so I did some dressing around that.



The intake gaskets, Felpro 1262, turned to mush around the water ports and any other place there was silicone. I'm trying the FRPP A50 steel laminated intake. It has Printoseal on both sides and I'm going to try it without extra silicone. Just Right Stuff is used across the ends.

95sporty150

shawn your scaring me. looks like i might have to pull my motor apart just to make sure my 185's don't have the same issues you and dennis had. Isn't it nice drop 1300 dollars on heads that need to be rebuilt a couple of thousand miles later!?

Is AFR aware of these issues?