The 24 Hours of Lemons Forums → Bench Racing → OTHER crap can races?
I'd have to say that resurfacing is pretty good... but I would love to see before and after pics of you porting some heads.
Haven't seen anyone hand lap a Mini's valves in 25 years...
Fj40Jim,
Nice job on the head. I have sanded down things like that before but never a head.
I did lap the valves on the Z.
The machine shop will resurface my head for $40 so it's probably worth it.
Growing up in St. Louis, a lot of parts houses did machine work. I think I had a 4 banger aluminum head checked for cracks, resurfaced and got a valve job for like $65. Not quite the same here in Houston.
Regarding your pressure plate job, we completely lost the friction material on one side of our clutch disc twice. I'm just not sure how or why we didn't screw up the flywheel surface in the process.
I'd have to say that resurfacing is pretty good... but I would love to see before and after pics of you porting some heads.
No way. Can't do it. Tried once 8-10 years ago and I think I actually made the head worse.
Riktor wrote:I'd have to say that resurfacing is pretty good... but I would love to see before and after pics of you porting some heads.
No way. Can't do it. Tried once 8-10 years ago and I think I actually made the head worse.
I don't want to give away any "secrets" but the eyesore guys have a really good way of resurfacing a head with sandpaper. We took our head to a machine shop to get looked at and the guy said we didn't need to re-surface it... which works out because we weren't going to pay him to do it anyways.
I'm just saying that the more I see, the more I am convinced that the winners are EPIC-LEVEL cheating ( >$500 over budget). Not in the power department, but in the reliability one. In order to win the damn race, you need to be there at the end and I'm sure that every team that has won has looked at the Achilles heel of their car, fixed it, and found a way to hide the fix. I'm willing to bet that every team that has won has had the engine out of thier car. And once it's out, what do you think they are doing with it?
So you think that a smart cheater would take their outwardly crappy motor and spend $1000 giving it new gaskets everywhere, new bearings and seals, maybe new rings, resurface the head, get a known good clutch, known good radiator, new syncros, etc?
And that all of this work will make a noticeable difference in avoiding mechanical breakdowns while being impossible to detect during the BS inspection?
It certainly sounds plausible, but I don't know how you'd do anything about it. Give the BS judges a compression tester so the can spot check potential cheaters looking for near-stock compression numbers? Pull the oil pan and check a rod or main bearing?
There'd be no catching them.
HA HA HA HA HA HA HAAAAAA!
You've yet to meet our See Snake.
See Snake? Is that what the doctor uses for a colonoscopy?
Bearings and rings mostly get you more reliability. Whether you re-ring your motor is up to you, re-gasketing and re-torquing a motor can give you some cheap insurance. I'd suggest Loctiting rod and bearing bolts.
Rings and bearing aren't that expensive. On small block Ford and Chevys, rebuild kits are just cheap.
Holy Crap - new gaskets, locktite, new bearings ! Who has time or budget for that kind of stuff?
What ever happened to 'buy a piece of crap and race it until it breaks then try and fix it'?
All that prep works just leads to inflated budgets, pissed off wives / girlfriends, and in the end a) you are still going to break b) your knuckle head teamate (yours not mine) will hit someone and spend an hour in detention.
It's Lemons not Lemans !!!
Holy Crap - new gaskets, locktite, new bearings ! Who has time or budget for that kind of stuff?
What ever happened to 'buy a piece of crap and race it until it breaks then try and fix it'?
All that prep works just leads to inflated budgets, pissed off wives / girlfriends, and in the end a) you are still going to break b) your knuckle head teamate (yours not mine) will hit someone and spend an hour in detention.
It's Lemons not Lemans !!!
When the block looks like THIS when you get it, you gotta do something...
We did use new rings, However, we reused many of the gaskets and also reused the rod and main bearings to stay under budget. No loctite, however. Probably shoulda.
Looks like an 850/997/998 BMC A-series....if you used new bend-over lock tabs you won't need Loctite....I remember oil holes and the holes in the bearing shells were a poor match, especially at the front main...I used to use a ball stone and a Dremel tool to put a slight chamfer in the gallery hole. Seemed to help, but stock bearings looked very soft...but if you started with this, you're likely LBC experts...
all i can think about when i see that pic is lapping compound, wet sanding with 80 grit, and a gallon of CLR.
When the block looks like THIS when you get it, you gotta do something...
http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k213/ … 1258044283
http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k213/ … 1258044312We did use new rings, However, we reused many of the gaskets and also reused the rod and main bearings to stay under budget. No loctite, however. Probably shoulda.
Jesus Christ! Of course the $100 donor head I picked up at the salvage yard didn't look much better until it was all cleaned up.
The 24 Hours of Lemons Forums → Bench Racing → OTHER crap can races?