Finally, the engine is back on the plane! Last weekend, we borrowed an engine hoist and trucked the engine back down to the airport. With the hoist, it was pretty easy to guide it into place and bolt it up. That was all we had time to do, though, but at least now I can …
After sealing up the engine guts, I had one more task to perform in the shop before the engine goes back on the plane. Based on what our bearings looked like, it was obvious that the lack of an oil filter had not worked to our advantage, to put it mildly. Deciding to add an …
This is it, the final post in the engine guts series! After I had worked out how to do all the rocker geometry setup, as described in the previous post, it only took a morning to do it for the other head. Amazing how much more efficient things are when you know exactly what has …
After setting deck height, it was time to set the valve geometry or, rather, the rocker arm geometry. The entire upper valve train is getting replaced, except the valves themselves. The valve springs have started rusting, and the engine also has dual valve springs which is way overkill for the cam and RPM we are …
(In case anyone wondered why there was a lapse in updates, it’s because of this little guy who arrived on January 28. It’s gotten a bit harder to find time to work on the engine since then, although it’s so close to the end I’m going to try hard to get it done.) Now that …
It’s finally time to close up the case. But first a little tidying up. There’s been a small amount of binding when turning the crankshaft with the Force One bearing mounted. Over perhaps 120 degrees, it was harder to turn than seemed normal. I had measured earlier that the prop hub had a runout of …
After dialing in the cam, I moved on to the final (I hope) grinding work that needed to be done before the case could be closed up: blueprinting the oil pump. I had to get a new oil pump because the old one had the external connections for the oil cooler, which we will no …
Continue reading ‘Engine guts 10: Blueprinting the oil pump’ »
One of the few remaining things to check was to “dial the cam”, i.e., to verify that the camshaft and crankshaft are timed correctly. In its most basic form, this is done by ensuring that the marked teeth on the gears on the crank and cam shafts are aligned, and if you were assembling a …
The balancing of the new connecting rods and the pistons is now done. They were within about 1.5 grams to begin with, so there wasn’t much to do. Neither the rods, nor the pistons, had balancing pads. On the pistons I could see where material had been removed around the skirt for balancing previously, so …
The second step in the “oil mods“, after boring the case to increase oil supply to the left-side (in the airplane) lifters, is to modify the lifters themselves to increase the oil supply to the head. As you can see below, the lifters have two circumferential grooves in them. One of the grooves has a …