Hi Guys:

Sorry I disappeared...First...I finished my GTO valve spring change(7 broken springs) and then had a series of typical nightmare hassles that made me barely make it to race 200 miles away, (not the least of which was a seized caliper on my first 120mph blast)...(I also found out why my springs were breaking...for the first time in twenty years I let someone else do my heads!...needless to say, many hours machining custom valve trains parts and a different type of spring, and it runs like a champ now)...so I drove it the 200 miles and it ran awesome, clicking off some 1/8 mile times in the 7.50's at 95 in 85 degree humid air at 3000 feet elevation(on street radials)...then I had to go to SF because of family issues, and when I got back, I found out I have children!

OK, not mine, but I have to take care of them for a couple months and it was not part of my summer plan two weeks ago...so I have been too busy to even think about sitting at the computer.

That said...I have been busy on some slant six stuff...machining trick suspension components for which I will start a thread in that forum today or tomorrow...

And, I got my first /6 build underway...I picked up my block and head from being hot tanked and set it on the floor with a die gringer next to it. Whenever I walk by, I try to spend a moment or two grinding some casting flash or what have you...I figure in a week or two it will be looking really nice.

Anyway...the first thing I noticed (and I wasn't smart enough to take a before picture) was that in the water pump recess in the block, there was a significant casting ridge that would impede water flow, and water flow path to the entrance of the block was kinda ugly.

Since the more and faster the water can flow, the better the cooling, I set about doing what I do to all my Pontiacs (and my 600 horse 448" engine idles in rush hour in 100 degree weather at 170 degrees) and that is to port the water passages so the water can get around easily.

So here is a couple pictures of the cleaned up water pump area of the block. Anyone building a slant should look at the casting here, because this is a significant issue and is really easy to fix.



This is not a critical thing like porting heads so I just whipped it out in a matter of minutes, but it sure looks better than it did and should help make sure I have no cooling issues...although thats not really a problem as my engine now runs at 155 degrees all the time.



You can't see it in the pictures and was hard to reach with the grinder, but down inside there was also some left over casting flash blocking flow just a little, so I got that as well...

More to come

Gearhead
AKA Karl

_________________
64 GTO...10.80's@122 on street radials
Destroked 455, Qjet, stock ign, 2400 stall

64 Valiant
Old 225, 4spd, 2.92-8.75, 2bbl, headers
dual 2.25"

I went ahead and filled a pattern into the area I was talking about on one of my pics...



The water needs to change direction rapidly to enter the block...the way this casting flash was across the port, and my pattern fill doesn't really show that the flash was pointed inward toward the center of the pump at about ten degrees or so (just enough for the factory tooling to miss it) and not just along the outside edge, it would tend to keep the coolant moving torward the impeller, the opposite of what we want. Also, the block machining from the factory didn't help and I have no way of showing you that since I ground it all away.

When I build the engine, I will set the water pump impeller depth for minimum backspacing so as to limit cavitation. This may seem like nit-picking to some, but once you build your engine for more power than stock, that means more heat as well...and a little work here and there can add up to a huge difference in the big picture...and doing it later to help solve any cooling issues is basically not going to happen.

I also found some very interesting stuff while radiusing the oil passages. I will post pics and descriptions of that later.

I must go to work now...

Gearhead

_________________
64 GTO...10.80's@122 on street radials
Destroked 455, Qjet, stock ign, 2400 stall

64 Valiant
Old 225, 4spd, 2.92-8.75, 2bbl, headers
dual 2.25"

I like nit-picking.....

When you have things apart, might as well do thing correctly, and make the small improvements.......... (which is why it sometimes takes me awhile to get started on a project.... it's going to take me awhile to get it done)

I had to change the timing cover/chain and oil pump on my toyota truck (stock crappy plastic guides broke, and chain jumped 2 teeth), kit replaced with metal/rubber guides and double roller chain. While doing this I added a oil cooler and remote filter (upgraded to stainless lines, rather than rubber they give you)

I radiused and contoured all the oil ports and nipples I could get to. Make you wonder how oil flow at all with all the restrictions, ledges, sharp turns, etc that's in the system.

And I did the same thing you're doing with the water pump well that was in the timing cover... Can't prove it helped, but water trying to flow around protrusions, and mismatched ports can't be good.

_________________
Ed
64 Valiant 225 / 904 / 42:1 manual steering / 9" drum brakes

Now this is the kind of tech stuff I like reading. Every little detail that one can incorporate into an engine can only help. Keep it coming Karl, even if only for the documentation.

Roger

Oil passages:

Now this block has had a rough life...even though it is still standard bore, I got it for free and dissassembled it because it had two spun rod bearings. On the under side of a few of the cylinders, you can see where even before the bearing failures, the engine suffered a catastrophic failure of some kind and beat up the inside of the block from some parts flying around...not real bad, the block is very usable...so that said...interesting it was never bored though.

I'm happily deburring all the edges of the block and internal machined sufaces to rid the engine of any left over machining burrs that might someday break loose or even just catch a rag while wiping the engine of stuff during assembly...when I happen to take a good look at the oil passages...

Where the oil pump bolts to the block, there is a main gallery passage spreading out to each side and it is a very sharp, harsh turn for the oil to make, and if you run your finger across the bores, you can feel small particles that scratch your finger from when the gun drill broke thru to the cast in oil pump passage.

So I thought I would radius and clean up this whole area...port it if you will...to help the oil make the turn, and to limit the risk of a particle breaking loose. Now this of course is not a new idea or rocket science...why I bother to bring it up is that I noticed in one of the cast-in pockets that sand from the block mold was stuck in the bottom of the cavity. This is very common and you can see little areas like this in nooks and crannies of most any block.

Here is a pic:



This is the top view of the pass side of the block where the oil pump bolts on...

Here is a closer shot of the oil passage, and the beginning of my work radiusing the entrance:



Here is another that shows the sand particles as they begin to break apart. Once the surface of the mass is broken, the sand breaks away easily:



And last is a very closeup shot of this same area:



I bring this up for no other reason than to bring attention to the fact that if you're doing even a stock rebuild, the block should be inspected for this sort of thing. Often, the sand trapped in these little pockets is not solidly bonded (and sometimes its really strongly bonded), and I like to grind this away from any easy to reach spot where I know I can get it all.

But in this case, it is the first time I've seen a block that had an area where it could be inside of the oil passages...needless to say, I don't want to take the chance this would ever break free and kill my engine.

So when I am done grinding, there will be no trace of this sand anymore, and the entry to these passages will be ported smooth and radiused as well as I can.

Next on the list is the burrs where the cam journals intersect the main bearing oil feed passages...I will use a ball end grinder to deburr these. I hate to think I would install the cam bearings and break these burrs loose (although as a fanatic block cleaner before assembly probably not an issue.). But, what if installing the bearings bends or loosens these burrs without breaking the particles off...well they might get broke off later by highly turbulant, high pressure oil rushing past and go straight to a mian bearing. So I will smooth those as well for safety sake.

More as find interesting things

Karl

_________________
64 GTO...10.80's@122 on street radials
Destroked 455, Qjet, stock ign, 2400 stall

64 Valiant
Old 225, 4spd, 2.92-8.75, 2bbl, headers
dual 2.25"

Here is a trick I use on my cam bearings, this lets more oil by that restriction point.
DD