My Head Hurts

[FE3-323]

i dont' reccomend gasket matching. for the most part its a waste of time. and shortly you will be hurting port velocity & anti-reverberation.

[1st Gen]

I pretty much closed my eyes and went for it. If it felt smooth, I was done. There are still ridges in a few spots, but not bad. The seats are a little crusty in spots and they don't seem to want to clean up with parts cleaner. I'm hoping the lapping will put a shine on them.
Didn't do the bowl on the exhaust, but did do the runners as best I could.

[FamiliaGT]

Looks very good! Give me a shout when install day hits! Ile PM you my number, wouldn't mind seeing another 4WD pro properly done and giving a hand. Need to catch up on some wrenching time.

[1st Gen]

Picked up a wire wheel for the shop grinder and got the valves cleaned up. Finished the porting, or all I'm going to do. I'm going to chicken on the somedner grooves though. I can't figure out how to make them all the same without some type of milling machine. I'm not sure if the gains outweigh the risk of doing it wrong. I got the crank sprocket bolt torqued down with a good amount of thread lock. I also sourced some lapping compound so I'm all ready for that task now. I don't think I'm going to have the head shaved either. I checked it and it looks about as good as it gets. I have one valve guide that is slightly looser than the rest, but not by much. I don't think I'm going to worry about it.

I just decided to stop fretting about every damn thing and put it together. Seems to be working.

[FamiliaGT]

How long till shes back together? I finally got mine all back together and putting miles on it. need to get a cruise going.

[1st Gen]

A buddy at work was asking the same thing. Honestly, I've been stuck on the head for so long, I hadn't really thought about it. I'll let you know after this weekend. The family's trying to get me up to the river but I'm duckin and weavin. lol

[FamiliaGT]

lol nice.

[1st Gen]

In the groove

[FE3-323]

bring the intake groove a bit further towards the sealing ring the ideal is ~2-3mm away.(intake side needs the most attention by looks)
Also bring the cut down to the combustion chamber. you don't want a slight step to it. like the last pic shows.
Clean up the middle of those valves man...

[FamiliaGT]

Whats the whole purpose of these grooves?

[1st Gen]

I did some web searches a while back and found an official page describing Somender Singh grooves and their claimed benefits. I was skeptical because it came across as a marketing ploy. I found all kinds of bizarre crap on YouTube that supposedly "helps" performance and millage. My Dad owned a service station in Tigard from 1972 to 1982 and he heard all kinds of snake oil remedies that mostly amounted to buying into some idea that you didn't understand.

There are basically three reasons why I did this.
1. Assuming I do it right, it won't hurt anything. If it doesn't work, all I loose is my time investment.
2. I can actually imagine how the grooves help direct the combustion process over the entire surface of the piston aiding in an even burn. With the higher compression pistons I'm using, there's a fair chance that this will help keep the combustion from doing something it's not supposed to do.
3. At least 1 trusted source endorses is.

My concept of the air/fuel mix combustion chamber going into this build was that it had to be smooth, uniform, and beautiful. That's changed. Now I know there are boundaries to all these things, and pushing boundaries sometimes yields unexpected results. So, I'm gonna try it.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

[KAinjection]

My all stock BP would ping on high load at 16 degrees advanced timing in 105+ ambient. I rebuilt the engine with 10:1 pistons with a slight mill to the head and block so estimate it was 10.2:1. Even when I was having fueling problems and couldn't get over 14:1 AFR with 100 degree heat and advanced timing. I didn't hear a thing from it and that includes my attempt at using megasquirt and not even setting up the timing properly.

Now I have this MX-3 with a KLDE and K8 heads and the compression calculates out to 10.7-10.8:1 and I was running it on 87 octane with stock timing till it we got a 98 degree day and it started to ping at WOT, so I switched to 91 and actually advanced the timing a little and even at 105+ it's completely quiet.

[1st Gen]

The last pics until I can find the charger for the camera. (found)
Tedious work. I don't want to clean any more itsy bitsy little parts for a while.
I hand sanded the runners with 320 grit to smooth them out a bit more. Feels nice

I went timid on the grooves on purpose. It'll be fine. I also had Mike chase the spark plug threads after he shave it .010. I hate it when spark plugs get thread fouled.

I'm having trouble figuring out which holes the alignment sleeves go in. I think I've got one figured out but I have no idea where the other one goes. It looks like it could go several places.
Soaked the valves in vinegar before pushing them against the wire wheel on the bench grinder. I have no idea if the vinegar helped, but they're clean now. Re- lapped the valves too. I needed to after the grinder.
New seals, valves cleaned and lapped, feeling good about it.

[SgtRauksauff]

Damn, I've not read this forum much in forever. Great work here! It's givin' me the itch to actually do something on my own cars, which is a good thing. New job recently, so once I get settled down, I should be able to make time for go-fast projects once again!

--sarge

[1st Gen]

http://www.wihandyman.com/forum/showthread.php?15698-VICS-solenoid&p=189721&viewfull=1#post189721

Hey Sarge. Great to hear from you. Glad things are getting back to normal.
Thinking about this BP intake I have and how to make the VICS work without a call to NASA.
An RPM switch is expensive, and as far as I can tell, it doesn't come with an actuator. I'd like to be able to the vacuum lines, and maybe reverse the actuator? IDK, lol.