Many, many thanks to Cal and Russ, and the SoCal folks

[Skullver]

Damn, sounds like quite the job! Would have loved to have been there to see all this magic and maybe learn a little bit!

Cal and Mike finally made it up with the motor around 6:00 pm Sunday, and we got the manifolds and accesories bolted on and got the motor stabbed. They left around midnight. I still need to hook everything up.

According to Cal and Mike, if you look up the word meticulus in the dictionary, it has Russ's picture there.

The time and care he took to put everything together to the tolerances that he wanted is totally amazing. Even the valve cover uses ARP studs, as well as the pan, and ARP bolts in the head and the rods. They installed the later model crank girdle, which had to be clearanced for the stoker crank, the pan needed to be clearanced for the Hesco race spec oil pump. Hearing Cal talk about the detail work gives me a woody. The head came ported and polished, then Cal spent more time on it to make it really good, then Russ looked at it and spent a few more hours making it really right. The combustion chambers look like mirrors. When Russ was putting the bottom end together, they called to ask me what weight oil I like to use, so he could make the clearances accordingly. When the bearings were installed, he first weighed them to make sure they were all exactly the same, then he slightly beveled the edges of each one so the oil and would flow better and any junk in the oil could flow out, then he checked the clearance in multiple places around the bearing, then in multiple positions of the crank, to make sure the clearance was true in every position. Amazing! You should hear Cal talk about installing the rods and pistons.

I have a lot to do yet to get it all buttoned up, and I have my kids getting here for Christmas today and tomorrow, and I work all next weekend, but it will be ready for JV on New years. I AM TOTALLY STOKED!

Thanks, thanks, thanks.

 

[cal]

ok. Now that I'm at my desk, had some coffee, and had a chance to replace the cell phone I dropped Richards head on sunday morning.

First, Thanks Russ! You busted your ass and made a mess of your shop, but got the engine done sorta within our deadline. Much Apprciated!

Thanks to Mike Finch (willy51). He was there every day helping, and probably drove 600 miles running my errands.

Cal: "Hey, run to Sequioa's and pick up his 99 shortblock, I need a part off of it." Mike: here you go Cal: "Great! now run to Kyungs and do the same thing."

He's a trooper.

Thanks to Kris Tholke, Sequioa, Kyung and a few others for chipping in parts. Some were pretty minor, a few were far from minor.


For those who want to know

4.2 12cw crank
KB 944 forged pistons
4.0 rods
7120 head ported/polished
mopar performance 30ab cam (Thanks Kris!)
mopar performance valve springs/keepers/shims
late model main brace
cloyes timing set
Hesco high volume blueprinted oil pump part M167HVS
Clifford Performance blueprinted water pump
a lot of custom machined stuff
a lot of arp stuff
a lot of one-of russ stuff

I'm tired, the numbers are a big blur in my head, but iirc Russ cut about .060 out between the deck and the head, we're in the 10.5 cr range and around .045 quench

An entire day just building rods.

The KB pistons could have a better dish, but no time for custom.

This is one heavy crank, and it uses every bit of room available to it.

In fact, it uses so much room we had to make custom spacers to fit the main brace. Don't try this at home! Later, we had to clearance the oil pan both for the brace and high volume hesco oil pickup.

Oooh pretty!

I dropped the head on my 3 day old $500 cell phone just after that picture, so that was the last one I took. I'm sure Russ can chime in with more details on the motor at his leasure, but right now strokers are probably the last thing on his mind.

-C

 

[Jump This]

You built two didn't you?
I will need one for my buggy.

 

[Carol.92124]

ok. Now that I'm at my desk, had some coffee, and had a chance to replace the cell phone I dropped Richards head on sunday morning.
--------------------
I dropped the head on my 3 day old $500 cell phone just after that picture, so that was the last one I took.
-C

My condolences on the loss of your phone! That sucks. But the second sentence (at the end of the post) helped me figure out what happened. I was envisioning you trying to lift Richard's head up, and then dropping him face first on your phone =).

The project looks fun, shiny, solid, and like it has a lot of hours of love into it. I look forward to hearing more!
C-

 

[XJ_ranger]

4.2 12cw crank

I dont know much about motors and going fast, but when I was looking at making a stroker, the 8cw crank looked appealing to me, being a lighter crank - lighter than the stock 4.0 crank by about 8lbs IIRC...

and with all the drag race guys cutting rotating assembly weight, this looked like the way to go -

what did I miss?

 

[Goatman]

I dont know much about motors and going fast, but when I was looking at making a stroker, the 8cw crank looked appealing to me, being a lighter crank - lighter than the stock 4.0 crank by about 8lbs IIRC...

and with all the drag race guys cutting rotating assembly weight, this looked like the way to go -

what did I miss?

4 counter weights.



While we are racing this thng, it's mostly a rock crawling buggy, and it seemed like the heavy crank would be better at maintaining low rpm momentum. With the auto trans, I like keeping the rpm right where the torque converter stays hooked up. Really, I don't think any of us would ever be able to tell the difference between a light crank motor or a heavy crank motor, we chose to go with the heavy crank.

 

[IslanderOffRoad]

wow. nice work everyone!

is the valve cover going to be yellow to match the rig?

 

[cal]

I dont know much about motors and going fast, but when I was looking at making a stroker, the 8cw crank looked appealing to me, being a lighter crank - lighter than the stock 4.0 crank by about 8lbs IIRC...

and with all the drag race guys cutting rotating assembly weight, this looked like the way to go -

what did I miss?

We discussed this -at length-, but we decided the additional strength and dampening of the heavy crank would offset the slightly faster acceleration we would get from the light crank - at the end of the day the 4.0 cam shaft will limit your RPM's and not the crank (vibration) so it really didn't matter.

But if you want to boil it down even further, I had a 12cw crank sitting here, and not a 4cw crank. I had a clifford water pump, and not a stock one. Hesco oil pump, and not a stock one. The only thing we purchased for this motor was bearings, gaskets, pistons and valve springs (oh, and a f-load of ARP bolts) - everything else came from either my parts bin or very kind naxja members chipping in.

 

[cal]

wow. nice work everyone!

is the valve cover going to be yellow to match the rig?

I wanted to paint the whole motor yellow, but Russ wouldn't have it - coloured motors look good for the first picture, and look dirty forever afterwards.

 

[Russ Pottenger]

It's been a long week.
Hats off to Cal, and Mike to start things off. In the time we had to get this engine done with the few set backs that we had, we couldn't have pulled it off.
To give this project some perspective. Most of the parts and pieces in this build came from Cal, and was originally designated for his own stroker engine. Thumbs up to Cal. Other examples of generosity are as were working on the engine, Cal is getting phone calls from members of offering to kick in some bucks to help with the some of the expenses of the project. How cool is that

I'm tired, and starting to ramble a bit, but my point is that its good to see members of a club/community pull together to help achieve a common goal.

 

[Monkey55]

HOLY SMOKES!!!!!!! (Do you think that engine will fit in my '55 Chevy.. )

You guys have A LOT of work in that thing.. Good Job.. :thumbup:

You have to get some video of the first time you guys start it up..


Keep up the work..

E

 

[gptrilik]

Looking forward to hearing about it run!

Congrats to all involved so far.

George T.

 

[nosigma]

You probably know this already but......

Put some time and thought into how you are going to break in the cam and then seat the rings when you first start it up and run it. What happens in the that first 10 minutes will decide the cams fate and how you load it up in the next 30 minutes will decide the fate of rings and their seal.

Built two identical MG race motors years ago, first one fired right off, idled on the hose to break in the cam (timed RPM changes) and then drove it at varying loads and rpms (building over time) to seat the rings. Motor was very, very strong. Next engine I botched the set up of carb and timing, it took a long time fire it off and I wasnt able to street or track drive it long enough to seat the rings properly before racing (piss poor prior planning). Motor was dog, cam wore out fast, had blow by and used oil early.

John

 

[willy51]

Goatman was very concerned with proper break in proceedure. Im sure that he will take every precaution to make sure that it is done correctly. After seeing Russ at work there is absolutly no doubt in my mind that this motor will be a fire breathing axle twisting monster.

Richard, sorry i couldnt stay longer but i had to get up to the folks for the holidays. And its still snowing with flakes the size of cat paws.

Best of luck and hope to see you for the test run at new years, if i can get shoveled out

Mike

 

[Goatman]

Did the cam break in thing on the stroker in the XJ. Now that oil doesn't have the necessary ZDDP (zinc and phosphorous) I got a couple bottles of GM EOS which is what many recommend for cam break in. Hopefully it will go fine. I'm also going over everything with a fine tooth comb to make sure there are no glitches on start up........hopefully. Found that for some reason the new throttle body didn't close all the way, and found that the linkage didn't allow the throttle to open all the way. I had to change a vacumm fitting and clearance a little on the linkage, now it's fine. Might have had something to do with top speed since the throttle couldn't quite open all the way.

The motor install is going slow, as I'm finding little things here and there to make it just right, plus the holiday and family visiting. I'll probably be up late a few nights getting ready for JV on New Years weekend.

 

[willy51]

Goatman, i will shoot you an email when i get back. Hopefully i will get back in time to give you a hand with the finishing touches.

Mike