Thread: Thoughts on a full race motor setup

Here is some details. The sleeves were installed by a well respected machine shop. Although we should have just sent it out to darton to have done being this machine shop does not use a torque plate (found out later) although they have done sleeves for v8 blocks and other honda 4cyl blocks. They are darton sleeves. The specs from darton were given to the machine shop so all block specs could be done. The pistons are custom cp 12:1 compression pistons and ring gaps were set to specs for n/a or nitrous settings as per cp. cant remember off the top of my head what they were exactly.

Neways the system pressurized fine but was getting air into the system slowly. Then when enough air would get in to where the radiator or thermostat would not flow it would start to slowly heat up and then more evidence of white smoke would come out the exhaust. I pulled the plugs to check and sure enough the #1 had a puddle of coolant in it and the rest had evidence of rust coloration on top of the pistons.

I gave it one last shot and drained the coolant again, and performed a retorque on the head and it did no good at all. There is no reason for that mazworx 250.00 headgasked, full grommet the one they are using on their 1400 hp sr22ve build to go. We were using brand new oem headbolts as well being this motor wasnt going to go anything crazy so no need for headstuds plus i would never use the arp's unless i could be for certain they were the new designed ones but i have yet to see any sets out yet. Again all torquing was done per fsm just as the headgasket also stated to torque to as well. Nothing wrong with using factory headbolts being this motor would have never seen over 350whp on nitrous but again, never got that far.

It is obvious that the sleeves, all of them sunk down upon torquing the head. Not much else to say other than they were not installed correctly. The guy, if he felt like he couldnt do it, he should have just said so and we would have instantly shipped the block to darton. But we trusted him because he said oh i can do it no problem. So we went with it. When the head comes off Im sure it will be evident when the sleeves are sitting lower the block deck. Oh well, never going that route again.

yeah i have heard soo many sleeve stories. If i was in the states i would just get mazworx to do it or send to darton or benson directly.


as for Porting and polishing on my build, a fair wack of attention was payed to the ex side, bout 2-3 mm inlarged ports with most attention payed to the bowls and flowing them to the throats. The intake has been left pretty much alone and a 3 angle valve grind performed.

Mrslappy do you think it would be worth it porting the intake side as well? And where would you pay your attention to? The reasons why we left pretty much standard is because of the huge difference between intake and ex already on the ve engines, the intake already flows well standard, the rougher intake surface can help with fuel swirl, and it is for a turbo set up so we are forcing air in their anyway.

I believe ashton was using the CP Pistons made for my motor
Here is what they look like:




Here is my headwork the valves were back cut and swirl polished along with a 3angle valve job and port matching the Tbody, manifold and head






I also had issues with coolant in the cylinders but it turned out to be an issue with the cometic headgasket since i had my block sleeved by Benson

Joels' car had a lot of headwork done, but it hasn't been dynoed yet.

He also used alot of one-off parts, so I'm now sure how valid the comparison between his and other motors might be.

Ashton, Glad to see you were using stock head bolts. The ARP's i have seen far too many problems with them. If you used new stock headbolts, then there are a few steps in between what the service manual says. You must make sure you pre torque the headgasket atleast 2 times with a NON FACTORY type. This means a Mazworx, P12, and any other non factory gasket. I say P12 because these motors do not come made with a multi layer gasket from the factory. you should pretorque the head gasket atleast 2 times. 30lb ft then 60lb ft. then loosen then all. then do that again. then go to 30lb ft and then angle TQ with a DIGITAL wrench or digital angle gauge. none of that "1/4 turn give or take" crap. I do NEW stock head bolts to 110 deg then LOOSEN all the way again and go back to 100-102 deg. if they are used bolts I will go right to 100-102. Dont forget these motors are 2 angle TQ settings not 1.

You should be able to re-use that gasket is the sleeves slipped but it is possible that it is damaged beyond use.

Donttazemebro, nice stuff. I have had a bad incident with a cometic head gasket as well. didnt last a week. I machine stock p12 headgaskets out up to 92mm but with the mazworx gasket out, i may not do that as much.

Joels build looks good. not too much info about it though. The header is pair'd wrong though.

1/4, 2/3 pairing is actually mainly to keep exhaust temps constant in the manifold for even heat expansion as well as keeping the exhaust pulses constant for fast cat warm up. For performance, a 4-2-1 needs to be 1,2 or 1,3 and 2,4 or 3,4. This is for optimal scavenging. You only gain the maximum benefits of this type setup if the header length is correct. if it is too long or too short you will loose a lot of power.

-Ted

Its within .25" of the computed length, so I hope it works out.

mrslappy what is your view on 4-2-1 headers with 1&2 and 3&4 merging?

I'm going to use a 4-1 stepped header for now, but I plan on changing to the 4-2-1 setup above.

Yeah its definetly not the headgasket thats the issue, That mazworx headgasket is beautiful, the next best would be the cosworth, another very very nice multilayer gasket. But that full grommet design is second to none. There is definetly a problem with the sleeves.

My buddy talked to the machine shop and the guy was more than willing to work with him and reimburss the money for the parts and labor if it is a fault with his work. He already stated he was kinda skeptical once he actually started working on it and seeing how difficult it really is on these blocks. There is alot of precision involved in alot of areas. So he told us to take the head off and he was gonna swing by and take a look to see if the sleeves did slide down from mis installation. If so the block is no good and neither are the sleeves. So thats where we sit soo far.

We are going to order a DE motor for now and throw all the parts minus pistons and rods onto it, So ve head onto de block 2.0L, ve front cover and oil pump, pullies and we will use the Cosworth headgasket for now until we get another 90mm sleeved block done. So Thats where it sits. Hopefully once he sees the sleeves are obviously wack he'll just pay up. That will make everything smoother. Again they are insured through Napa so i dont see why it would be a big deal to just take blame under obvious evidence.

Neways i agree with the torquing as well although both the cosworth, cometic, and mazworx gasket say to just follow fsm torquing procedures. No more no less no extra. So thats what i did. And even the retorque that we did which the machine shop recommended to try as well after we already did was a good idea but again it was a no go and didnt make a difference on it at all. Still acted exactly the same. But it will be back again. But probably bigger and better. I think we are going to go with a 91mm stroker crank as well and have mazworx do the sleeves and blockwork for the crank. No more playing games. Its not that we tried to cut corners because the cost was the same had we sent it off to them to begin with. It was just what it was stated.

With a "mild" setup, being within 1" will not kill performance at all. For a 4-2-1 setup, the correct pairing will affect performance more than being within 1-2" of equal length. Most big cam motors will respond and make more power with a 4-1 over a 4-2-1 for more of the power band if designed and built correctly.




Is this for a DE motor using C6M cams? These cams are pretty big and the header will make or break the power the engine makes. Pairing the cylinders correctly is critical for scavenging. Of all the headers I build, I RARELY have a 4-2-1 header that makes more power than a CORRECTLY WELL BUILT 4-1. The design of the header is highly influenced on the size of the camshafts, the amount of overlap, the exhaust valve opening, the R/S ratio, B/S ratio, the Piston speed over the RPM range of the powerband the header is designed for, exhaust valve size, flow and a few other complicated ones...

For Max power I would keep testing and designing for the optimal 4-1. If you have space constraints, ground clearance, and other fitment issues, then I would go for a 4-2-1 setup.

-Ted

^^ The headers I speak of are from the local satcar series. So the cams were not as wild as the C6M cams. However, I have the full detailed specs for this header, and it's pretty big. ITO performance, the guys tried the touring car headers from japan and the uk and these 4-2-1's made around 10whp more iirc.

I'll post up some pics shortly of the 4-1 I'll be using for now.