Following on from the 'outie' post I have finally got my reconditioned engine in.
Don and my engine last Saturday when I went to pick it up. Don assures me that it got 'the love' and he even sent me pictures of the sump mods he made - putting gates in to control
oil flow (unfortunately I cant separate the pictures from the email
) Don is grinning as he contemplates me trying to recall all of the pre-start instructions and tips he gave me.
Don guesses that the engine will make 250Kw
I am relegated to the small shed for my side project as the landlord's crate engine has arrived and takes up most of the 'big' shed. You can tell that this isn't the usual work area by the somewhat depleted shadow board. Never the less it is fine for the purpose.
I transfer a number of bits off the engine prior to fitting it - turns out that the 'some fabrication required' sticker fell off the engine. Actually this is mostly a symptom of the lack of real after-market stores now - went into 3 different stores asking for alternator brackets/kits to be met with blank stares (a topic for another time perhaps).
I have a photo of the harmonic balancer in my gallery but didn't post it here. after I took off the (3 bolt) bottom pulley I could read the original C5AE (1965) number on the balancer so I guess this engine has been kicking around for a while.
After many dramas the engine was finally nestled in. This shot shows two of the issues - firstly I have my old twin-point in because my new billet electronic dizzy failed after about 8 seconds, about the same time that it became apparent that there was water spewing out the side of the block (didn't fit some sort of plug) - and - after getting it going again there was
lots of smoke - as you can see the bottom centre and left (of screen) holes in the cylinder head to secure the rocker covers are not correctly positioned (or don't appear to be) - so we switched to a chunky cork gasket for that side.
On Friday my nephew and I went to Shepparton to the workshop of fellow CCCV member Trevor Simkin for a dyno run-in and tune. Here we are stopped at Nagambie. This is also the first time I've used my new trailer. You'll notice that the bonnet doesn't fit anymore.
This is Trevor whispering dark threats to his dyno computer - it came good after a blast with the air gun and a reboot.
Trevor worked the car on the dyno around the 3000rpm range for a time however the radiator was not really up the extra energy being generated and the engine got hot a number of times.
Although the engine had become noticeably looser Trevor was not comfortable with giving it full power with the heating issue and only once took it up to around 4k.
Trevor guesses that the engine will make 240Kw
Its now up to me to fix the cooling and put a couple of thousand k's on before a full dyno test.
I did however drive back from Shepparton to the Hume - the engine felt very strong. (but the steering was notchy - due to hasty replacement after engine swap).
The dyno test did also reveal that the stamp on my diff is misleading - its marked as being 43/13 (3.31) but was doing about 1900rpm @ 100kph in top and while the engine had no trouble with this I think that's a bit tall.
As for the numbers I only glanced a few and Trevor wasn't recording. I think there was about 512Nm @ 3000rpm when I looked at one point and Trevor said that he saw over 200kw when he took it to about 4000rpm. Not having anything to refer to is sort of frustrating but I guess anticipation is part of the fun - in either case its a journey, there are now plenty of things I have to do for ShelbyFest.
LoBelly