Been a bit of a wait for the next instalment! Work has been busy and what with holidays and the like not had a lot of time for the engine. Still finally got some time so have been making steady progress with the engine build. Had a few parts to order so these have also added to the delay but they have now arrived so I can progress.
One of the things I was waiting for was the sleeve below. This had proved invaluable and made assembling the piston assemblies a relatively simple process.
Piston No 1 in. The rest will follow in short order.
All in and correctly torqued to the ARP specifications using plenty of the assembly lube as directed.
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| All con-rods correctly torqued |
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| Pistons all in and complete. |
Next I added the cam retainer plate making sure it was the correct way round and with plenty of assembly lube on it as this will not be run for a while.
After this the next job was to assemble the timing chain assembly. This was quite a fiddly job as the centre distance is very tight ensuring no slack in the chain assembly once assembled. I carefully aligned the camshaft this the fuel pump eccentric dowel at 6 o'clock and the crankshaft with its woodruff key (which took quite a while to fit as this was very tight and needed a little adjustment to make it fit correctly) at 12 o'clock and also with piston no 1 at TDC. When all was double checked, I aligned the marks on both pulleys separating them as much as possible whilst sliding both pulleys onto their respective shafts at the same time. All went OK apart from one thing. The crankshaft was supplied with 2 different length dowels. Naturally I chose the slightly shorter one as I didn't want it protruding past the end of the pulley interfering with the washer and bolt. One thing I forgot was that this dowel also drives the fuel pump eccentric so off it had to come and in with the longer dowel. 2nd time went a little quicker.
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| Timing chain fitted |
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| Make sure the dowel protrudes for the fuel pump eccentric |
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| Fuel pump eccentric now on and torqued as specified. |
It was at this stage that I intended to temporally fit the heads and measure for the pushrod length, but basically I forgot and got a little carried away by fitting the timing cover and then the mass damper.
I had waited 3 weeks for the crank nose adaptor to take the camshaft timing wheel so now won't be needing that (as I'm not pulling the damper off!) but will now need to make a new adaptor.
Oh well, more haste less speed!
The next pictures show the engine with the timing cover and mass damper (Fluidamper) fitted. Tightening the damper was pretty hard work as this needed to be tightened to 110 ft/lbs (as per ARP instructions) but at the same time having to stop the crankshaft rotating. Still, no issues. All fitted well first time.
Meant to say I coated the fuel pump eccentric with graphogen and liberally coated the timing chain with oil before fitting the timing cover.
I have opted to use Driven HR1 15W50 mineral engine oil in my engine as this is highly recommended by Peter Knight racing and as they will be setting up and running in my engine it would be rude to ignore their advice.
The timing cover was fitted using high modulus gasket sealant on both sides. When the bolts were tightened to the correct torque after carefully aligning the timing cover with the sump face and getting the best alignment for the crank seal. The seal was liberally lubricated before the damper was fitted to make sure there is oil there on initial start up. Excess sealant was carefully removed so all is clean and tidy.
Now it's time to move onto the fuel pump and pickup. Did a trial fit with the all assembled (including gaskets) just to make sure that all is OK with the sump. I was pleased to see that all fitted perfectly so now to the final fitment. First the oil pump was fitted with its gasket and then the two fasteners were torqued to the correct value. The process was then repeated for the sump pickup. Gasket sealant should not be used for these two gaskets. The torques were then re-checked before moving onto the sump fitment.
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I am using a FelPro one piece sump gasket. I have heard really good reports about these and it was really easy to fit. Make sure all is really clean before you start. Lay the gasket on top of the block making sure that the 4 little tags fit into their respective pockets at the corners where the front and rear seals protrude into the sump. When all is correctly aligned screw in the 4 locating pillars and carefully locate the sump pan onto these and slide into position. These are a really great tool for aligning the sump pan whilst the peripheral screws are loosely hand tightened. When the 18 shorter screws are all in simply remove the 4 pillars and replace with the 4 longer screws. At this point it must be noted that there are 2 different torque settings for the different screws. The last thing you want is to over tighten these as you can either strip the threads of damage the sump flange. I was advised to carefully tighten all the screws in several stages to the required torque. This took quite a long time as there are a lot of screws. I will leave these screws to settle and go back next week to check all is OK and probably re-torque as I am sure they will have relaxed a little.
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The sump pan is a Miloden large capacity baffled sump. This one however is exactly the same sump depth as the standard Ford sump pan so as not to affect ground clearance. It's all nice and gold too! Well, that's pretty much all I have time for at the moment. It's been really great to make some more progress. Bottom end complete.
Heads next and sorting pushrod length and checking the timing of the cam.
