V-12 Engine into 308 Build, over on Grassroots

What is the problem with the nuts? (I am guessing they're under a edge requiring a crowfoot.)

 

They sit under the cam journal and there just isn't quite enough room to really hold them to start threading them...you have to kind of balance them, drop it, magnet, try again until you get it. You do need a special wrench to torque them but that goes pretty quick, its getting the threads started that is the bugger. Not sure if the 2v engines are as bad but for sure the QV and TR heads are buggers.

 

These are the tools I made to toque the heads. The longer one is from the QV engine days and mostly fit the TR heads too and the short one is for the 2 nuts on the chain end of the front/left head that I had to shorten 3/4" to fit the timing cover which left JUST enough room to toque the nuts using wretch shaped exactly right, which took me a couple tries to make work.

Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login



The engine stand works great for moving the engine around but not so great for torquing so I strap it to the big heavy welding table.

Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

This morning it was torque the heads down, then give the cams some love. First was just confirm that the lapping bar still fit and turned freely with the heads on, which it did. and since the bar is a little larger and stiffer than the cams, I now the cams will spin free were the valve removed.

My biggest concern was the journal sizing. Way back I borrowed a head reamer that look like this:

Image Unavailable, Please Login

All the welding I did warped the heads in both x and y...I forget...but 15-20 though each comes to mind. I welded up the journals then ball milled them straight but undersize and used the ferrari tool reamer that hits them all at the same time with the head torqued in place to finish it off.....but the reamer was a bit dull and I never actually checked the finished size, I just said "I reamed it, it has to be right!" which I know fully understand is not true.

With the head on the bench and no valves installed the cams didn't seem to really sit in properly so a few months back I lapped the journals and then the cams di drop in nice....but I really had no idea what size the journals now were because for a second time, I didn't measure them. Yes, I am that stupid it seems and its started to worry me a bit because if they were right before, after all I reamed them, so now Today I didn't measure exactly but I did at least plastigauge them and they were all in spec....which is great but I'm pretty sure means they were undersize before and they are using the full spec range but I hesitate to tighten up the loser ones because lose means the lapping was trying to straighten them out I'm pretty sure so I'm calling them good.

Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login

So now its sitting with the heads on and cams in. Tomorrow I'll measure to see if the crank will fit with the journals as-is so I can have a look at the timing chain while i wait for the lapping bar metal.

Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

The stupid bore gauge gave me a lot of bad news today....i do not like this tool

Last time when I went to assemble the engine the mains were pretty loose when I plastigauged them. I had the bearing coated and it was bettersih but..now I understand why. I had the block linebored and honed so I believed it to be correct.....my stupid bore gauge says they are 1-3 thou oversize, which of course explains the loose bearings. This is checking perpendicular to the bolts/split line, they are 0-1 over as close to the split as I can check. to be fair to the shop they didn't have the heads to install but to be fair to me, the average is still +0.5-1.5 thou over which is where they must have finished it. I'll deal with this once the lapping bar arrives I guess.

The other bad news is liner bores....they aren't round. I was told to expect 2 thou out and that is true for some, the worst is closer to 10 and totally unacceptable. hmmmmm.........the why things worked out the 12 liners that finished up the best was a set of 6 new and 6 old. The 6 new are much rounder than the 6 old over-all. I had 1 old left on the floor (I pitched the rest months ago) and 6 new to look at. A change that I remember making is the spigot OD...the new is 1 thou larger nominal and even at that it might be looser than it should be and the one old I picked up had some taper in the spigot too. So they are all tight at the deck which is easy enough to correct (remember I said they went in tight and I thought about fixing right then but waited to measure), and 6 have pretty loose spigots which seems like a job for JBweld since there is really no load, it just needs to fill the space and Amazon is bringing a pro size tube Thursday. Hopefully that correct this issue.

 

Popped the bearing caps off and remembered some super important work....a few of the sleeves that are supposed to stay in the block were stuck in the caps. No doubt this is related to me having to re-do them all way back as part of straightening out the block after welding the shot out of it. Probably makes no difference at all but just looks wrong and since I know I need to cut the caps to fix the bearing clearance now seemed the time to fix it. Anyway, locited into the block and tomorrow when that is full strength I'll make sure the caps slip on properly.

Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Rather than doing anything really useful yesterday I went ahead and let myself get distracted a bit by the EZ power steering threadt about quicker steering racks and electric power steering.....expensive though.....but a 308 at an autoX is a workout.....

On alibaba I found a pretty small 80Nm assist unit and they will ship a sample for $250

80Nm Power assist

That seems about perfect......and if I put a 2:1 steering quickener in front of it like this:

keyser 2:1 quickener

That's about $200 and the shortest I could find but there are $100 units too, just a bit longer which might be ok....it will be about space.

With this stuff I would have easy turning and about 1.6 turns lock to lock which seems about autoX perfect....so yeah....I order the sample power unit. Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

So the sample wasn't $250, it was $400 really and still mihgt not be completely right...... I'm going to try something different. I bought a use but new looking ford fiesta power unit
Image Unavailable, Please Login

and a little box that is supposed to make it work standalone. This might be ok but most likely I think it will end up on a shelf or back on ebay once I see what it's doing and I'll use the ECU to replace it and let me tune the steering however I please.
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

It is just amazing the things you do.

 

So far all I've done is order bits on ebay

I was planning to spend a couple hundred bucks installing a steering position sensor somehow.....but I'm pretty sure the steering unit is outputting that info to the CAN buss so money wise this could be near a wash $$ wise if I can make it work.

My thought at the moment is to basically build a new steering column from the dash to the first u-join to let the power assist sit right behind the dash. We'll see.

But for now, back to the engine. I dropped the crank in last night so I can start playing with the timing chain. When I torn it apart I dropped the timing chain drive and it broke.....I suspect it was already cracked and for sure I could have welded it but I had a weak moment a couple years ago and bought a replacement so last I swapped the bits over. It probably won't fit.....I remember having trouble with the gears being too tight and binding on the 1st assemble and using a mallet and a couple other "ticks" to sort it.....which is probably how the housing got cracked in the first place. 1st up today is make sure that's working right without involving any hammers to speed thing up. Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

I was reading the manual (I know, right!) and they talked about always replacing 4 o-rings I didn't know I had on 2 little tubes I didn't know I had

Image Unavailable, Please Login

My first thought was "what kind of a dipsh*t runs the oil the full length of the block and up through the coolant thru little tubes that have no obvious way to be removed?"

In a conversation about it, the intent of the system became clear... it has to be an oil cooler. The little tubes don't do much, but if you look, the oil is flowing the full length of the block down to the filter (that is what attaches to the little tubes), then say 1/2 length back (average) to feed the bearings surrounded by a nice rough internal surface (its cast) to stir and suck heat from the oil into a huge aluminum heat sink (block) with tons of area exposed to coolant in the galley. I suspect it probably works pretty well, not massive NASCAR oil cooler well, but way better than nothing. Now I'm happier about having to figure out how to change the o-rings

 

I installed the timing chain this morning and the engine refused to turn in either direction....it used to be it would only turn in the direction I fed the chain from during assembly which was weird enough. After a couple hours I found the issue hidden behind a chain guide in the timing cover....a groove worn in the casting

Image Unavailable, Please Login

That had to be there from the non-modified days, at least that's what I'm telling myself because I had the locking up from my first assembly which I assume was casued by things not laying exactly as they did and chain in groove turns, chain out of groove locks is the thought. Anyway, ground away the groove and the engine turns fine in both directions for the first time. Yay.

Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

forgot this bit...the new timing chain drive assembly popped right on with no issue at all....I'll bet ferrari fit the original with a hammer. I remember being really surprise there was an issue because the way the block warped meant I did no cutting at all in the front/rear mains and I was thrilled when I realized that would be the case which lead to shock when the timing chain drive didn't fit. But $100 part+zero effort and it does

The piston coating place ran my card so I assume they are done and on their way home but McMaster is saying the lapping bar will ship 3/15-3/22 so I have at least a week, time to go pull the cylinders back out and see if I can sort out whatever is wrong there while I wait....assuming I don't completely distract myself with power steering nonsense

 

Please leave the power steering. With covid and some of us being beyond middle aged, we want to see this driving before we die (and see you spank Rice Rocket Man on a timed lap!)

 

LOL. I know, just looking at it as fill-in work for now.

I'm not sure there will ever be a timed lap for my car....it is capable of pretty high speed so a cage would seem in order, but I have only limited interest in adding one to a car illegal in any class it could be competitive in so....autoX most likely hence my interest quicker steering.

Engine work is continuing though...its all torn back apart, I've taken a lot of measurements, I cleaned, roughed-up and re-cleaned and I'm just about to jbweld the spigots. I'd like to have them fitting right and re measuring by next weekend. At that point I go on hold for the lapping bar so I can fit the main bearings....well...it the pistons show up I can probably clay them before the final bearing fit. Those are the last of the projects before final assembly.

 

2 of the cylinder had spigots a little bigger than the rest and I think they were good but the other 10 got cleaned, roughed up, cleaned, jbweld. Who knew it came in tubes that big, 10oz! so I knew I'd have plenty. there will only be about 2 thou on the diameter on most when I'm done but a couple had a little taper and will end up with about 2-, which must be the ones that measured awful.

Image Unavailable, Please Login

Image Unavailable, Please Login



That needs 24 hours so on too removing those little oil tube with a slide hammer. The 1 came right out, the other needed a couple tries but its good its out as the hole is all corroded and looking like its on borrowed time.

Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login



Then on to cylinder flanges not fitting. I didn't cut the final sizes on the cylinder bores in the block a machine shop did, and I never measured then either, I just used the sheet they send me...I know..I know. The spigots are all pretty good and pretty close to each other but up top there is about 4 thou big to small and the 3 smallest the cylinder didn't real fit in....what to do? I decided that since they were so close and the cylinder do tap in that I could probably sort it with a bit of time and emery paper. Tap the cylinder in, see where it hit, sand it away, try again, repeat until sorted. On all 3 most of the issue was toward the front of the engine indicating the top holes were not completely in line with the spigot holes but its sorted now.

I'm a little torn about whether or not to torque the bearing caps on and recheck everything because I suspect the head studs deform things in the opposite direction.....this might be a sleep on it question.



Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

The fiesta PS arrived and while I can kind of see it up under the dash, the integrated control looks like a bugger to un-integrate which makes the toyoda units that have plug-on controllers look more appealing....not sure yet.

My thought is pull the stock column apart and modify the shaft on the PS unit to fit in then bolt the new unit in place.



Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Removing the controller is as simple as removing 3 screws. The making it remote is just extending wires of locating the connectors and making jumpers...extending wires looks easy though.

Image Unavailable, Please Login

Image Unavailable, Please Login



Once that is do the under dash still looks possible but almost certainly means cutting off the OEM column mounts and installing new



Image Unavailable, Please Login

Or it very much looks like installing it at the front bulkhead is doable. the piece sticking up is not actually the rack, its an extender that can be removed so the PS box can bolt to the bulkhead in its place and the lower column u-joint attach to the box. It means modifying the box but it should work. I think that's the go.

Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

I have been kind of mentally going around with the idea of also grabbing a yaris EPS unit because its pretty "clean" looking with no bits sticking out all over it like the fiesta unit.....but I think I'm going to stick with the fiesta.


The toyota stuff has about 5 wires it looks like going to the controller , 2 big to the motor and 3(?) small to the strain gauge. pretty simple.

The ford has 23 going from the motor to the controller. 23! I honestly have little idea what all the is doing but if my goal is a fancy system that steers magically I have to believe the ford unit provides more feedback to the ECU which gives me more control options.

But what I really need to do is fix the engine......

 

Enough steering, pistons!

Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

I went out to the shop to work on the cylinders. Tuesday I tried to cut the jbweld and discovered the spigot end was going out of round. I also discovered I can't machine jbweld to 1/2 a though thickness and I should have only coated the 4 that needed a couple thou....I'll need to just get it off the 6 its thin on.

Image Unavailable, Please Login



I made a support for the chuck end but it seems also needed one in the spigot. I made that tonight but it needs to be to a couple tenths so I had to let it cool to finish it....so I ripped apart the steering (sorry Derek ), pulled the peddle box so I can see behind it, found where a mouse had been living at some point, and realized all to vent hoses are disintegrating.

Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

I had a little mouse nest in my 308 (front trunk) and a family of fossilized opossums in the engine bay if my Alpine A110 Gordini that I rescued from a back yard in Canada.

 

Little buggers. It looks like they got in while in was in the attached garage which often sits with the doors open waiting for me to finish building the new shop. I have a few traps in the new shop and have never caught anything or seen any evidence of a problem....stucco walls are hard to chew threw and I keep the doors shut so all good so far.

the little steering hack box is sitting no my front step it looks like, just need the quickener now to really get going. The weekend plan is to get the cylinder fitting right so everything I can do on the engine is done so I don't feel bad working on steering

 

A bit of a double post just to keep things together here. EPS unit 1/2 way installed, now waiting on the steering quickener to see if there is any hope of fit it.

Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Hi Mark,
I’m trying to work out what that access panel is that in the first pic where the steering knuckle is.