Lee's Garage

[lee303]

it'll be orange soon enough hopefully

[lee303]

so, bit of a lees garage on the road today lmao
went down to haywards heath to see mr gills, wit his mega spec cavalier, and promtly did this to it!

oh yes, head is off for a rather more substantial head session, although that isnt hard considering how remarkably, erm, 'un ported', his head was, looks pretty good off though, chambers look great


its off to hellier performance now for a proper 270 spec head, wth bigger valves etc, should let the engine make the numbers the rest of it is capable of

[Benn]

Cool, He'll deffo have to join us lot of the rollers then...

[lee303]

he mentioned that today as it goes

[Jamie_F]

Lee, has Gills had the cav mapped yet? if so what did it make?

remined me of the days when i took mine to bits cos i got boredlmao

[lee303]

jaime, yup, made 238, hence the head off to find the missing power, one look at the head tells you where it is though, having had a measure, the ports were barely 1mm bigger thn the stock castinglmao it is now with hellier performance for a full on port, with 2mm bigger inlets and 1mm bigger exhausts, so when its back together, should make more like 270/280

anyways, finally, some engine work! having got my rods and a headgasket from Bowyer, i thought i'd crack on with some measuring lmao
the bits


first thing was to clean the block, ready for some mains bearings

then fit the crank and torque up the caps,

that done, seperated the caps from the rods, then cleaned and fitted the bearing shells

for the rod, push it on a flat surface to seat the shell bearing, for the cap, you need to use a straight edge to avoid the bolt collars
like so...

then it was out with the lube, i really like this stuff as it sticks around when building but is fully oil soluable

lubed up all the gudgepon pins and fitted them to the pistons, no clips needed as its just a dry build


all ready

then it was time to use my new ring compressor, which just rocks! takes all the effort out of fitting pistons
i slid the piston half way down

fitted the exposed skirt in the block, quick tap with a hammer handle and in they go!

so, now time for the plastigauge, same procedure as with checking mains bearings, although you cant rely on the weight of the crank to take up the other side of the clearance on the bearing, so you have to push the rod up against the crank whilst you tighten the cap bolts to squeeze the gauge
ready to check, you can just see the unsqaushed gauge on the right hand journal in this pic

all done, 2.5 thou on all of them so thats cool



so, last thing to check was compression, so first i got some valves and refitted them to the head, springs and all, with a good glob of grease on the seat to help them seal nice and tight

then fitted the head studs, and greased the top of the bore then wound the piston up to TDC and greased the block surface so it will all seal nicely

then fit the head, with a gasket in place, and torque down, then get your burette and measue the amount of parafin it takes to fill the chamber up to the bottom of the plug hole,



this gives you the cc at TDC, with which you can work out compression, by adding that figure to the swept volume for each bore, then dividing that figure by the cc at TDC figure, i did threee meaurements, with three differing head gasket sizes so i could see what i want to take off the head, and which gasket i want to run.
results...

will probably go for a 0.8 head gasket, so as not to mess with the squish band too much, and then i will get the block and head skimmed to give a good gasket surface and remove 0.5mm in total to give 11.0 - 1 compression, maybe go a touch higher
so, all in all, its all good, need to get the bottom end and the head off for machining/balancing now, then finish the head assembly and build it

[Benn]

oooo thats looking good, Running in no time then.

[donvaux]

bloody technical stuff there lee looking good though

[lee303]

hmm, few things to get done yet, so i dunno exactly when it'll be done, but it needs to be sooner rather than later really, not long till the trackday season kicks off really
this stuff may be technical, but you do need to do it if you want to build an engine with confidence imo, and its actually quite fun

[Benn]

this stuff may be technical, but you do need to do it if you want to build an engine with confidence imo, and its actually quite fun

Very true. My old engine proves that.

[LongLiveTheNova]

Top stuff.

That ring compressor is so much cooler than a clamp one,Lol.

[lee303]

its great, takes all the effort out of it and gives reliable performance every time, worth the money even if it can only be used on one bore size imo, especially with the cost of my ringslmao

[alistairolsen]

what are runing for rings lee? total seal?

I take it if you had gone totally bespoke witht he roads youd have hadthem half a mm longer then?

[lee303]

rings are omega spec, not total seal though, the rods are designed to work with a very thin gasket as per the stock setup, which is the .38mm figures which gives 11 - 1 without a head skim, trouble is i cant run the stock gasket as my bores are too big, so in a way your right, but i'd rather have just got smaller pistons tbhlmao

[alistairolsen]

lol. You running a conventional gasket or MLS or what?

[wazpaz]

also had to drill the spacers out to fit the gaz


Lee were these spacers supplied with your topmounts?

Reason i ask id i have got some GAZ coilovers with concentric topmounts all supplied by GAZ, but i only had 1 of these spacers for each side

If i fit them below the topmount it knocks like buggery, if i fit them above the topmount it knocks but not as bad.



i have only one of these for each side, i assume i need two?

[lee303]

alistair, was gonna runa cometic, but they dont do one for the 1800 block so am investigating other avenues before i pay for a one off!! namely a coated solid copper gasket, we shall see...

waz, you definitely need two specers per side, you will more than likely wreck the damper and/or the top mount bearing ifyou drive it with just one fitted, get on the phone to whoever you got them from

[Jamie_F]

ahh, thought i heard summot about him making 240 ish, does show how much effect decent headworks makes, i hope he does get to the 270 mark, would be a good achivment for all the mince time that hes put inlmao

your engine build looks good too, may have to come up one weekend for a nose about/mince/piss take session.

[lee303]

sounds good i really want to see gills' motor make the numbers, especially as i had a hand in building itlmao but in truth, i'm more interested in seeing what this little 1800 can do

[Giles]

pfft. I'm more interested in seeing Giles' engine make the numbers. lmao

1800 bits and progress looks good.
Is your piston at tdc in that picture? looks lot lower than the 20xe.

[Benn]

What are the red lines all about and why are they 2.5 thou?

[lee303]

same as when i checked the clearance on the main bearings benn, its plastigauge, depending on how much it gets squasged when you fit the bearing cap, tels you how much clearance there is in the bearing, via the little graduated chart you see in one of the pics, which gives you the 2.5 though figure

and gills, yup, thats TDC, gives 11 - 1 on a stock gasket with no head skim

[CraigGreen]

Lee. Are you going to be able to run standard pump fuel with a CR in the 11's?

Love the progress anyway.

[lee303]

yup, thats the idea of keeping it in the 11's tbh, i dont want to break into the 12's as thats when you start having to take ignition out to stop the onset of det, or start running better fuel, think i will skim the head to get 11.5 -1 though, v power will be ok at that

[CraigGreen]

Cool. I may have asked you before actually.

I keep reading up & hearing about how power outputs arent what they were a few years ago due to fuel quality & the different additives used now.