Milwaukee Midget

[Milwaukee Midget]

Plug is pulled on the entry, but not the trip.  We'll be there Tuesday and Wednesday, and I'll catch up with Max and see if we can't put some polish on the webcast.  It's Mrs. Midget's vacation, too, so I'll take this opportunity to take her someplace that doesn't taste like salt or smell of methanol for part of the trip.  

Wayno, don't forget the harps.

[Rob]

Son of a gun... Why is it always the 20c part?

You better have my beer Chris, I don't touch anything akin to brown frothy water.

Commiserations to you both, you've certainly put in the hard yards. From a watchers point of view, we should now have a couple of more pages of reading before you turn a wheel in anger.

Cheers,
Rob

[Tman]

In the words of Slim..............FARKLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Jack Gifford]

And all that oil in a short time is from...  

[Graham in Aus]

And all that oil in a short time is from...  

I thought maybe the guide (Which was stuck to the valve right behing the head of the valve) had pulled right out of the head and allowed oil to drain / get sucked straight from the rocker area into the shared inlet port?  

I'm sure Chris will investigate more, check for compressed ring lands etc.....

[fordboy628]

Ok, dammit, I've been sucked into the beerhaven vortex.

Dean,

I know EXACTLY what you are talking about............

AND, thank you kindly for the 'props'.     I just like to think of myself as being able to cipher & whittle............

MB

[Peter Jack]

Chris, sorry to hear of your misfortune. I can sympathize. I once spent a lot of time porting a pair of cast iron heads for the sprint car and then on initial fire up we dropped a valve. The head came off and was driven sideways right up the valve pocket, destroying the head. The replacement head wasn't nearly as nice because of the time bind.

You have all winter to rectify the problem and check the other valves for similar issues. You're still headed in the right direction and appear to have the best help you could wish for.

Enjoy your holiday and come back with renewed vigour. We're all looking forward to your contribution to the audio efforts on the salt. It's just too bad you can't be adding to the special effects.

Pete

[fordboy628]

Muhammad Ali once said,

"It's the repetition of affirmations that leads to belief. And once that belief becomes a deep conviction, things begin to happen."

With that, Dean, Rob, Graham, Gog's, Max, Wayno, Charles, Udo, Sparky, Sumo, Grummy, Captthundarr, everybody, I'm asking you to go to your fridge, crack one open, and join me in some commiseration.

I was so aggravated about the way the dyno session ended, I was determined to take a bit of a breather and calm down before I posted anything.   Chris, I am in awe of your continued positive attitude, regardless of situational outcome.     But here it is 3am and I am unable to sleep.   So I'm just going to tilt my head a bit and let some thoughts spill out.

POST-MORTEM PART DEUX:

Chris has listed some of what we found, and there needs to be MUCH more inspection.   BUT, part of what we know is that after removing all the inlet valve springs, #1 inlet valve was stuck in its' guide (and the guide moving up & down in the head) and #2 inlet valve (although not stuck in the guide) has virtually zero clearance.   #3 & #4 inlet valves have some clearance, significantly more than #2 & #1.    The head was professionally worked on, so the inlet valve to guide clearances should have all been equal.   My professional opinion is that the engine does not have enough run time for clearances to have changed significantly.   A thorough disassembly, cleaning, inspection and measurement will have to be conducted.   Only then can any conclusions be drawn.   That process will take a bit of time, a few days to a week or two.   Since there is now no looming deadline, a breather is in order.

There are of course other engine bits that will need to be inspected, evaluated, repaired, replaced, etc, etc.   Chris' intenton is to leave no stone unturned, (no beer unsampled?) a wise choice.   The timeline is going to be up to Chris, and the adventure will begin anew.  

Although my intention is that the next time I venture across the cheddar curtain, it will be for a brewery tour!!

And all that oil in a short time is from...  

At the current time (pending further post-mortem inspection) my thinking is that when we were re-lashing the valve-train the #1 inlet valve/guide combo was being opened to the point where the guide went past the guide bore in the head.   This would have created a large opening where the oil contained in the base of the head could/would drain virtually unrestricted into the #1 cylinder, not noticed by us.   When the attempt for a restart took place, the shared inlet port could/would account for the lessor amount of oil in #2 cylinder.   Again, the conclusions may change with further inspection/evaluation.

THE GOOD NEWS

And as I have been pecking this out, some positive thoughts have occurred to me.

As Chris has stated: "Better on the dyno, than out on the salt."   Amen to that.

During all the run-in and warm-ups the jewel was sounding very healthy & had that "crisp" note of a good combination.   When it's sounding that good it's hard (for me anyway) to accept disappointment.

Prior to the debacle, during the warm-up run I didn't see, Wisdonm observed that the engine pulled clean up to 9000rpm in 4th (?) gear.
Hmmm,   9000rpm/4.22 gear x 22" tire = 139.58mph!!   No aero drag on the rollers of course, but perhaps a reason to be 'optimisty'............

Fordboy

[Dr Goggles]

Feel for you guys. Glad it happened without too much apparent damage. Have a jar and some time off.

Dr G

[Elmo Rodge]

Aaargh.  :| I know the feeling. Anyway, I'll be there, harps in hand.  Wayno

[scrapiron aka Park Olson]

Sorry for your FARKLE,,,,
Reference Dean's post,,,2-28-12,,,,

[fordboy628]

Midget,

After spending 2 hours cleaning all the parts & tools out of the Prizm (which after the last 4 days, looked like a goat had exploded inside it) so Mrs. Fordboy could use it, I spent some time digging through my machinists tool box.  Wherein I found my set of plug gages for 9/32nds valve stems.   Will be able to do a precise evaluation of the valve stem to guide clearance on the remaining 7 valves/guides when I make time to take the head apart.

Still not up to cheers,
F/B

[Milwaukee Midget]

Sorry for your FARKLE,,,,
Reference Dean's post,,,2-28-12,,,,

A timely index Dean has put together.   

APT did the head - true.  I can't blame them, though, and there's a bit of irony in that.

David Vizard used to be a partner with Dave Anton, who owns and operates APT.  As most of you know, the book I've been using for this build up has been David Vizard's "Tuning the A-Series Engine: The Definitive Manual on Tuning for Performance or Economy".  Most of the products such as the cams and the heads produced by APT are based on the work done by Vizard. 

I don't have the exact quote in front of me, but one of the most important points DV makes in his book is this simple statement -

"If you don't check everything, you're not a good engine builder."

That statement has a strong effect, because in this sport, it goes right to one's ego.  We all want to assume that we're good, or at least competent at what we're doing.

But I didn't check the clearances on the stems.  I assumed them to be good. 

So right now, I'm not a good engine builder, but that doesn't mean I can't build a good engine.  Rather than wallow in it, I'll be taking additional steps to become a good engine builder, and I'm grateful for Fordboy's tutelage toward that effort.

[Milwaukee Midget]

There are of course other engine bits that will need to be inspected, evaluated, repaired, replaced, etc, etc.   Chris' intention is to leave no stone unturned, (no beer unsampled?) a wise choice.   The timeline is going to be up to Chris, and the adventure will begin anew.   

I've been giving this some thought - we've developed a good deal of momentum coming into this abortive attempt.  We both need to step back from it and relax, but I don't want to lose this momentum. 

I'd like to shoot for another dyno session before Christmas.  I think that's a reasonable, relaxed goal, and it will put us in order to REALLY do some fine tuning next spring.  I'm thinking set a baseline in December, trade out the header in the Spring and see if that helps - there's a shorter Maniflow intake manifold I have, and we can try it.

If we can get this donk established as reliable, we can optimize the combination.

I'd like to turn this into an opportunity.

[Peter Jack]

Love that attitude!!! 

Pete