Are you talking of the XE engine?
You thinking of getting it done?
You do realise that you're gonna require a special crank and special rods to change the stroke - circa £2k I would think (maybe a little under).
People go on about square engines - so 90mm would be 'fine'. However I would have thought you could rev higher with a shorter stroke. However with 2mm differance I'm not sure how much effect you're talking.
Sorry, I am talking about the XE engine. I must admit, I hadn't realised I'd need special rods to facilitate changing the stroke - I'd been lead to believe that a special crank and "standard" XE steel rods would be sufficient.
I know of at least one person who has gone 90mm stroke and 88mm bore apparently without problems but I don't fully understand the effects of moving from a square engine. I am going steel bottom end obviously and ultimately solid lifters.
I'm running the same as Mike. Haven't seen any tuners advocate changing the stroke.
Was a german company a while back that did a 90mm stroking kit, but thta was loads of money.
I suppose in therory you could:
off senter re-grind the big end journels,
get 'bigger' big ends made up,
take the top off the piston to compensate for longer stroke.
IIRC fords (CVH???) can do this: off centre re-grind, diesel rods and top the pistons.
Whole lotta effort for little payback I should think.
The reason for the dilemma is that I was going to go for a steel crank - I can get an "off the shelf" standard 86mm stroke one but if I'm paying out the money I figured I should at least investigate changing the stroke.
for all the trouble of getting a 2.2, why not just use a 2.2 ecotec bottom end?? 94.6mm stroke on that. take the bores out from the standard 86, to 88, and youve got yourself a C23XE !!
The C20XE blocks are easier to get hold of and cheap. I was looking towards Doug Kiddie. When I spoke to Swindon they didn't mention a crank for that price
Why do you want to go to an aftermarket steel crank though? You can get into the mid 9k's with a standard crank. The only real advantage is a slight weight saving over the standard one. But then you could lighten the standard one anyway if you so wished...
The crank is about the only thing on an XE that I could never be arsed to change as it just doesn't need it..
During my build I spoke to several well respected builders & tuners about doing this. None of them advocated this as a good idea. Even the so called 'knife edging' that gets mentioned on Mig tech specs I was advised against doing by Steve Smith (aka da man - when it comes to balancing/structural design).
However he did agree that knife edging would be a waste of time in my engne anyhow - as a dry sump=no oil to cut through. lmao
During my build I spoke to several well respected builders & tuners about doing this. None of them advocated this as a good idea. Even the so called 'knife edging' that gets mentioned on Mig tech specs I was advised against doing by Steve Smith (aka da man - when it comes to balancing/structural design)
mark at BRE said the same thing. the counterweights, are, errr, counterweights !! they exactly match the piston and rod which it is opposite. knife edging means removing sh-teloads of material from the counterweight. the crank itself might be balanced, but get a rod and piston on there and its not balanced !
for all the trouble of getting a 2.2, why not just use a 2.2 ecotec bottom end?? 94.6mm stroke on that. take the bores out from the standard 86, to 88, and youve got yourself a C23XE !!
The cheapest way(if there is such a thing) is a X2.2XE (iron block) crank in an XE block with standard length rods(steel !) and specially made 88mm pistons with a shorter compression height and that just about fits.
You can use the 2.2 iron block but with longer rods but the standard rods are too thin and have press fit pins so you really need special rods made.
Then you have to alter the belt pulleys to lenghten the belt(late XE/LET) or use a YB belt.
The belt cover and back plate has to be altered if you want to fit them.
The cam cover front hits on the underside of most astra/calibra/cavalier/nova bonnets.
There is more to it than this(especially if you turbo it or it is an LET)
In non-turbo form they can make over 300 BHP
Would there be any issues with using such a crank with a dry sump in terms of clearance? I still haven't found out what stroke this crank is either.
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