Projects #003 & #004

I ran the truck (P-002) on the wide band O2 sensor. In a nutshell the only immediate adjustment made was the fuel pressure. I'll write more on it later.

Now I want to talk about the new projects. These are daily drivers.

P-003 - 1995 Acura Integra RS Hatchback
P-004 - 1994 Honda Civic DX 2 Door Coupe

I'll start with P-004 first.

P-004 is my wife's car. It is a zippy little runner. While more zip is always welcome my primary focus with this vehicle will be economy. There are a number of modifications that could improve either zip or economy but right now I'm going to write about a mod that will do both. The clutch is dying so while I'm in there I'm replacing the stock flywheel with a light aluminum flywheel from Fidanza. The flywheel looks like a good unit. This will reduce the overall weight of the car by about 7-10 lbs. That is not a lot but every bit helps. The real benefit comes from it lightening rotational weight. The less rotational weight the easier it is for the engine to rev-up. The easier it is to rev up the engine the less energy required to accelerate. One of the reasons vehicles get better mileage on the freeway is that they aren't spending energy (burning fuel) to accellerate the car. It requires far less fuel to maitain speed than to build it.

P-003 is my daily driver. It has 200k+ miles on it and presently gets about 30 mpg and accelerates well. I would love to build this car up into a fire breathing road warrior but the fact is that I will only be able to get so much from it. If the Integra were a rear or all wheel drive car I would be more inclined to build a serious mill for it but since it is front wheel drive I can only get so much. A car has four tires doing three things - accelerating, braking, and turning. Both front a rear wheels experience side loads durring a turn but the front tires much more of the load than the rear. When you add the force of acceleration you quickly approach the limits of the friction the tires can supply.

A simple way of increasing friction is to make the tires wider (don't give my any of that crap physics teachers pull about the weight being spread over a wider area so the friction is the same with a narrow tire as with a wide tire. The coeffiecent of friction of a tire is not linear. As long as the traction is not compromised (rain, gravel, etc.) the wider tire of the same compound has more grip). I plan on getting wider tires but there is still a relatively low practical limit on the power you can use from a front wheel drive car. There are people who drag race front wheel drive cars. Some people find drag racing to be stupid. I don't. However, I also don't find drag racing compelling. I love seeing the cars run a greatly appreciate the work a research that goes in to the cars but I don't want to do it. I like curves and most of the things you do to a car to make it a good drag car make it hadle curves poorly.

My original plan had been to modify the cylinder head and the cam to get some significant flow improvement. I quickly found in my research that this was not a viable option because everything was pretty well optimized already. So then I was thinking about a super charger. but the output on superchargers tend to drop off with RPMs. Turbos, however, do not. However, turbos (good ones) are not cheap nor are the bits that go with it. Additionally, how much power will I be able to use from a turbo? This will also hurt the gas mileage some. Today I came to the realization that nitrous oxide injection just might be the ticket. I was going to install it on the turbo version to eliminate turbo lag but now I think it might just do it on its own. N2O can be set up in stages to give pretty specific levels of output. Right now that is where I think I will focus on the big power. However, there are other areas.

• Get the propper alignment angles. The car was lowered by the previous owner so the caster is out of spec.
• Cold air intake.
• Free flowing exhaust. I'll start with the muffler.
• New suspension bushings.
• Water injection. I'm thinking about setting this up for daily driving to I can run more spark advance. I need to read up on the car's ignition system.
• MSD type ignition? With all the complimentary upgrades. I'm not sure if it would help much. The car is definitely of the open chamber design but the combustion chamber may be small enough that it doesn't really matter. If/when I install N2O I will have to upgrade to something to make ignition absolutely certain.
• N2O
• Wide low profile tires. How wide? I don't know. I need to talk to some tire shops about what will fit. I also need to find some rims that I think are worth spending money on. I am one of the biggest rim snobs and there are very few truly good looking rims out there. I'm looking for a clean, simple, open, 5-spoke wheel.
  
  
  Something like that. Unfortunately that is a Porsche wheel and I haven't seen anything like it for an Integra.
  
• New clutch.
• Aluminum flywheel.

I'm sure more ideas will come but that is what I have for now.

The owner of P-001 is back in town so I may be doing some work on that too.
Builder

Project #002 Phases 1, 2, & 3

Phase 1 - Exhaust Leaks
Exhaust leaks are eliminated. Replaced both donuts on the manifolds and installed one of the Remflex gaskets on the passenger side manifold. This was a piece of cake until I got to the top rear bolt on the manifold. I am very grateful this is not a modern vehicle, otherwise the bolt would almost certainly have broken off. In the end it came out and it all went back together just fine.

The other gasket will need to be replaced but it is fine for now.

Phase 2 - Reliable Ignition System
The ignition system is not quite as reliable as I would like but I think it is good enough for the initial tuning I will be doing. I have a nice set of Accel spiral core wires for the truck. If these wires are treated right they should last for nearly the life of the rig so I want to do a nice job routing them. When I bought the wires I also bought a plug wire stripper and crimper tool. This turned out to be a total wast of money. First, the plug wires came with a set of vice mounted crimpers. Second, the wire strippers suck. It is important that I get nice clean stripped ends to get a clean wire install. So I ordered another tool that I think will be just the thing. Unfortunately it is a special order item and hasn't arrived yet. This puts the whole ignition system upgrade on hold. I can't install the new ignition box and coil until I install the new plug wires and I can't install them until I get the wire stripper. I'm using this time to get the wire routing sorted. I will be ordering some wire routing accessories this week. They'll probably get here before the wire stripper. The present ignition system will be good enough for our purposes we just won't know how lean we can go in a few driving circumstances.

Phase 3 - Carburetor Tuning
This is the one I really wanted to write about. The carburetor is a Carter AFB competition series. This will be the routine we follow:

1. Tune primary barrels at low manifold vacuum (high load) and WOT (Wide Open Throttle). Lock out the secondaries so we are just measuring the primaries. This will establish the jet size. There is no point in adjusting the metering rods if the primary jets won't flow enough fuel. I will be using the metering rods with the narrowest enrichment diameter (They will flow the most fuel).
   
2. Test A/F ratio with primaries at WOT over varying load conditions. I will want to see when the metering rods are moving and how the air/fuel ratio looks.
   
3. Tune/observe primary part throttle A/F ratio over various manifold vacuum readings. I am not sure how well I will be able to tune this because of the metering rods I have. This is where the metering rod tuning will commence. There are three tuning areas. The metering rod's enrichment diameter, the metering rod's economy diameter, and the spring that determines when the metering rods move (i.e. when the two metering rod diameters are inserted into the jet). This is where I will be making adjustments in these three areas.
4. Tune idle and off idle circuits. This carb does not permit easy adjustment of the mixture of these circuits. The idle adjustment screws only adjust idle mixture VOLUME. It looks like the fuel restriction for the idle circuits is hard to get to but I may be able to do the adjusting I need by varying the size of the idle air bleed. I will have to check in to this before I start drilling. These are serious modifications.
5. Now with these circuits in order I will unlock the secondaries and test the overall fuel mixture at WOT. Since the other circuits should be in order any variance from the ideal (or at least the best achieved at the other load conditions) will be corrected by changes to the secondary jets.

That sounds pretty straight forward. We'll see what the results are.

Builder

Project #002

Vehicle: 1975 Ford F-250 Camper special
Engine: 390

Objective: Improve/maximize efficiency

It has been over a year since I last posted. Many things did not go to plan. But now I have a new project.

The truck tows a fair sized boat and is presently getting 4 MPG. I think that can be improved to at least 8 or 12 while it is towing and perhaps even twenty when it is empty. The issue is efficiency. This means that a properly metered mixture is well atomized and evenly distributed to the cylinders in a way that keeps the fuel in suspension and is then introduced into a well designed combustion chamber with enough swirl to completely burn the air fuel mixture when it is ignited by a very reliable ignition system with a well chosen advance curve and the exhaust leaves through a nearly zero back pressure exhaust system.



I see this job having many phases. There are a few that may overlap.

Phase 1
Eliminate all exhaust leaks.

The Ford 390 is notorious for its manifold gaskets failing. I've throw down the gauntlet and bought some Remflex exhaust manifold gaskets. I have not installed them yet but I have heard a bunch of good things from various people in various fields. I personally had a very good experience with the company. They are located in Washington state where they make the gaskets. I called them up and spoke to a human being who actually cared whether I got what I needed. I really hope their gaskets are as good as their service.

When I do this I will need to replace the manifold bolts. The gaskets are a lot thicker and the bolts are 33 years old.

The reason this is important (besides the exhaust leak) is that I don't want to get a reading on my wide band O2 sensor that is falsely lean. This will lead me to make the mixture richer than it should be and that will hurt the MPG.

Phase 2
Make the ignition system reliable.

There are two parts to this.

First I will replace the spark plugs, plug wires, and cap and rotor. This will make that side of the ignition system solid. I will be using spiral core wires instead of the usual carbon filament type. They cost about two or three times as much but almost last forever.

Second, I am in the middle of researching ignition enhancements. Specifically the multiple spark discharge type of ignition. David Vizard says in his book "Performance With Economy" that they virtually eliminate misfires and greatly reduce the time the choke needs to spend on. This is an obvious potential economy improvement. The question is how much will it cost. This may be a later addition.

Phase 3
Tune carburetor.

I have purchased a Zeitronix wide band O2 sensor. This was not cheap but considering the features you get it's a great value (It plug into your computer and gives you simultaneous data-logging of RPM, A/F ratio, manifold pressure (vacuum in this case), exhaust gas temperature, throttle position, and a user determined input of 0 to 5 volts. I bought the additional MAP (Manifold Absolute Pressure) sensor so I can look at the screen and get a pretty good idea of what is going on. I have attempted multiple times to dive into this carb using a single wire lambda sensor but it only got me close. This setup gives me an actual air/fuel ratio. With a real A/F ratio there is no guessing. . .as long as there isn't any air getting into the exhaust system up stream and there aren't misfires sending cylinder fulls of air and unburned fuel into the exhaust (hence phases 1 and 2). I did a quick check and I found the A/F ratio was around 11:1 full throttle/full load (It shouldn't be any lower than 12:1 and in this case I'm shooting for 13:1 or 13.5:1) and it got as lean as 15:1 only for brief moments. So it looks like there are some sizable improvements to be made.

That covers the immediate future. At some later date I will delve into the following

Phase 4
Design and install new exhaust system.

Phase 5
Major work
- Port heads (for efficiency - see here)
- Enlarge exhaust valve (perhaps)
- Address any valve shrouding
- CC Heads
- Intake with good flow and mixture distribution (Stock, modified stock, or aftermarket. Whichever looks to be the best)
- Wide LCA (Lobe Center line Angle) cam.

Phase 6
- IR intake system.

Builder

4" Is Out!

My research has been slowed down considerably but has not been stopped. I believe that I have established that the 4" stroke is not feasible for phase 1 of project #001. I still have not read anything about the reliability of the engine but I have seen plenty on the difficulty of assembling such an engine in a stock block. Some very knowledgeable and experienced builders said, I think verbatim, you are fool if you try to build a 4" stroke engine in a stock block.

First, there is A LOT of grinding of numerous places on the block so that the crank and rods won't hit anything. This entails assembling the bottom end, finding where there is interference, disassembling the engine, grinding (but not too much!), cleaning the block, reassembling, finding that you didn't grind enough, and repeating the process only to start all over again with the next place of interference.

Second, the block holds the cam too close to the crank with a 4" stroke and requires the use of a smaller diameter camshaft. This is referred to as a "reduced base circle" camshaft. This also means that the lobes can't be too high or they will hit the connecting rods. I'm not sure if I will be running a camshaft with high enough lift for that to be an issue. It is looking like I will be using a high lift short duration camshaft for low end torque so interference may be an issue. Since I don't know just how far I want to open the valves, I don't know how much total lift I will need but some of the guys were having to run higher ration rocker arms to get the lift they needed. With the higher ratio the valve springs can push harder on the camshaft (more leverage) and in some cases cause the reduced base circle camshafts to flex. I don't know exactly how this ended up being bad for the engines. The two bad things I can think of right off the bat are breaking the camshaft from flexing it and the flexing giving inconsistent opening and closing of the valves.

Third, as mentioned before, special "clearanced" connecting rods had to be used. There was even discussion of using crankshafts with smaller rod journals to bring the outer circumference of the crankshaft down. Clearanced rods don't seem like a big deal to me but reducing bearing surface is not in line with the kind of reliability I am after.

I don't think any one of those things alone or in concert are way beyond my capability but they sound like A LOT of work and definitely not the engine to start out with.

There was a simple (and expensive, for me) solution. Buy an after market block with a raised camshaft location and a taller deck height that was designed to accommodate a 4" stroke. This makes sense to me! There are some other headaches that come along with this solution but none that get in the way like the PRICE. I looks like these block sell for $1,000-$2,000.

So there's an end to that. There was a discussion of using a 3.82" (I think that dimension is correct, I know it is close) stroke but, at the moment, I'm inclined to go with the 3.75" stroke. I'm guessing that there is greater parts availability for it and I know I can get decent rod/stroke ratios. I guess that is the next thing to check on.

Builder

Out of the frying pan

I am out of China and in Spain. I was thinking that I would now be free to research to my hearts content. two issues have arisen.

First, I do not have regular Internet access and have to pay by time. Not a good way to go about hours of research per day. that said I will be researching as time (and money) allow and am focusing right now on the reliability of the 4 inch stoke engine.


Second, being in Spain seems like a good time to focus on improving my Spanish. I am in a good situation to do this and I don´t often spend a month at a time in Spain. This will curtail my research and posts but it will not end them.

I´ll write when I do.

Builder

More Circling Around - Questions

More Circling Around

I know that this is largely just more talking about things that have been talked about before but I am finding that the process of just massaging the information is helpful. What I'm going to do here is look at all my questions and explore each one. The answers come later.

1. What are ALL the reasons that manifolds come stock with coolant and exhaust passages?

I know that this is done to heat the manifold but why do they want to heat the manifold? I have read that this maintains a consistent air temperature to aid in more precise air fuel mixtures in carburetors. This also aids in fuel atomization or evaporation so it may help with mileage. I think it may also help with carburetor icing by warming up the manifold and heating the carb on top of it.

Heating the air before it enters the cylinder is anathema to performance engine builders. Warmer air is not as dense. The denser the air, the more power you can make. I, however, am not building a performance engine. I am building an engine to deliver the maximum of a specific type of performance. This leaves me with three questions to answer. Actually four questions.

1. Is there any fuel mileage to be gained by heating the air fuel mixture and if so how much?

   1. Is the gain great enough to offset the loss of power?

   2. How much power is to be gained by cooling the temperature?

2. Is the improved atomization worth it?

   1. Can I get the same or at least sufficient fuel atomization from a well designed and chosen carburetor that has a very high vacuum signal at the booster venturi and that shreds the fuel as it is released?

3. At what temperatures does carb icing become a problem?

   1. Will the Jeep ever be operated in these temperatures?

   2. What effect does heating the intake manifold have on the range of temperatures that an engine is serviceable in?

   3. Are there other solutions to this problem (if it is indeed a problem)? Especially solutions that do not always have to be in use or can be switched off?

4. Why else is the manifold heated?

I guess that is more like a slew of questions than four and they are to answer this one question:

How much heat do I want or need in my manifold?

2. What, if any, reliability issues are there with a 4" stroke?

I really need to find out what the trade offs are with this long of a stroke. A 4” stroke significantly reduces the rod stroke ratio. I need to have rods almost 6” long and an accompanying compression height just over 1”. These are certainly obtainable specs with parts like this quite available but how reliable are these parts. I'm not really concerned with the rod length but the piston is definitely and issue. It also occurs to me that the length of the rod effects the size of the piston skirt. So is the 4” stroke a candidate for the project? This leads to the next question.

3. What is the minimum durable compression height (or distance)?

As the compression height is reduced the rings start getting packed tighter together which reduces the amount of metal in the piston to support them. There is an amount of metal that is the most that makes an improvement in strength and any more is not necessary but I don't know what that measurement is. Additionally, I don't know how thick the rings need to be in order to be reliable and seal for a long time. This leaves me with two questions.

1. How much metal is needed to support the rings?

2. How wide to the rings need to be for high mileage durability?

This leads me to the next question.

4. What is the lightest durable piston?

In looking to improve fuel economy I want to find every opportunity to reduce weight. Rotating weight, reciprocating weight, and overall weight. In that order

5. How much flow do I need for my application?

   1. What heads/ports/port size will barely flow that?

      1. And have good flow characteristics (e.g. Swirl)

   2. What influence does stroke have on this?

   3. What magnitude of difference does swirl make?

      1. How much difference will it make on power, torque, fuel efficiency, etc.?

   4. What other head questions should I be asking?

Gears. Not so much questions but numbers that need to be determined.

6. What is (and should) the engine speed be at 70 MPH?

   1. Automatic or manual transmission and which specific one.

      1. Transmission gear ratios (especially at 70 MPH).

   2. Differential Ratios

   3. Tire diameter (and circumference)

Carburetor Selection.

7. What carburetor should be used? (Things to consider)

   1. Price

   2. Tunability

   3. Fuel Atomization

   4. Squarebore vs spreadbore

   5. Mechanical vs vacuum secondaries

   6. Flow capacity

   7. Anything else?

Clearly this plays into the manifold heat question. Frankly, right now the finely atomized mixture going into a heated manifold appears to offer the best possibilities for both complete fuel use and consistent air/fuel ratios. On the other hand, a higher intake air temperature will likely lead to needing a lower compression ratio which brings me to:

Compression Ratios

8. What is the maximum compression ratio that I can reliably use with poor quality fuel in all anticipated air temperatures and applications?

I know that this rig will be operated off road at low vehicle speeds (crawling) in higher temperatures. Engines can get pretty hot in these conditions. This means I'm going to need a good. . .

Cooling System

9. What radiator and water pump am I going to need to make sure that this engine never runs hotter than it wants to?

   1. What other parts should I be looking at for this?

      1. High volume water pump.

      2. Big radiator (but how big?)

      3. High flow T-stat.

      4. Anything else?

Rings

10. Are total seal rings durable enough?

ANWSER – Yes! It would appear that Total Seal rings are durable enough in some variation. Supposedly good for 100k miles.

1. How much do they cost?

2. What would the ideal setup be? (i.e. What should the top, second, and oil control rings be?

   1. What is the difference between standard and low tension rings?

3. Are there suitable cheaper alternatives for the first build?

   1. Are these alternatives worth the decreased performance for the decreased price? (And vis versa)

Engine Block

11. Price and availability of good used 350 and 400 blocks.

    1. I'm thinking that the 400 is more trouble than it is worth but I should definitely check it out.

       1. Reliability of the siamesed cylinders.

          1. What problems are there? (Specifically with regard to over heating)

          2. What solutions are there to these problems?

          3. Are these solutions adequate for my reliability standards and the temperature extremes likely to be encountered by the Jeep?

I am inclined to think that the 350 is the best choice for this application. First there is, as far as I know, a large supply of 350 blocks but not 400 blocks, so a 350 block will be cheaper. Second, the cylinders in the 350 block will have coolant circulating all around them and more surface area is always good for cooling. Third, the 350 block does not, to best of my knowledge and unlike the 400, have a reputation for having cooling problems. That said, I would like to know all I can about the 400. I may be using a 400 type block in the future (I have an idea for project #004 or #005 where I build a high reving high output engine for a corvette but that is way out in the future).

Oil Pumps

12. High pressure pumps. Why and why not.

What is the deal with oil pumps? Some engines run 15 psi and others run 60-90 psi. Why? What is the deal with high volume oil pumps? Only so much fluid can be pumped through a restriction at a given pressure. I hear people say that you can pump the pan dry with a high volume pump. This seems unlikely to me if the pressure is the same. People who I look to as a “Christ-like” source for automotive information like David Vizard say that high volume pumps can flood the engine with oil and should only be used if there are things like oil coolers in the line. I have yet to hear David Vizard discuss exactly what theory supports his assertions. As I said before, you can only force so much fluid through a restriction at a given pressure.

As I see it now there are two things about high volume pumps. One, you may get oil to all the parts faster with the higher volume. Two, it seems like the pressure relief bypass will get a work out relieving all the pressure from trying to pump more oil than will fit at the pressure.

What applications are universally agreed upon to need high volume pumps?

High pressure. Why? I have heard that if you don't do it right, the high pressure oil can blow the face off your bearings.

Since your engine will rapidly become so much scrap metal if it doesn't get the oil it needs, this seems like an important question to answer. This rig will be going deep off road. Reliability must be absolute.

Oil Pan

13. What kind of oil pan should I use?

This falls in a similar category as the oil pump. The pump can't deliver oil that isn't at the pick-up. So how does the oil pan influence that? Do I want extra volume? Is there a particular pan shape that will more reliably keep oil at the pick-up when the vehicle is being operated at extreme angles? Are extreme angles analogous to high cornering forces? Will the pan interfere with the high travel suspension? What about windage trays? What about baffles? What about oil scrapers? I believe that the 4” stroke will require a different pan.

I think that actually covers it for now.

Today I leave this city, wait in another city for a few days, and then fly out to the next country. I feel reasonably confident that I will have the time and resources to begin researching these questions in depth.

I will be off-line for the next four or five days so the three of you who are reading this will just have to wait for the next thrilling installment!

Builder

Man! Still busy!

I thought I was going to be free for this week to write and research to my heart's content. No such luck. I am now moving out of my apartment to go to yet another country and it is taking a lot more work than I thought.

I did correspond with my engine partner and he said that he thought my multiple engine idea was great. So that change in the plan is official, project #001 now has three phases:

• Phase 1
• Build an engine as cheaply as possible without sacrificing reliability in any way and taking every affordable step to improve fuel mileage and low-end torque.
• Phase 2
• Build an engine to whatever specs my partner wants.
• Phase 3
• Build an engine using everything that I have learned to build the engine for reliability, durability, efficiency, and low-end torque like a racer builds an engine for power.

I have compiled a pretty thorough list of questions and am in the process exploring each of the questions. Just more circling around really but it helps me organize my thoughts and find structure. That's always a good thing.

More to come when this current storm of busyness blows over.

Builder