Turbo 325

[bangn]

Started today, its been a busy week. Cam is broken in and first oil change out was very clean exception to the slight shimmer under light, no nasty chunks in the filter. Its very peppy and surprisingly quiet on the valvetrain front. I thought the steel rockers would of been louder but its the quietest its ever been. Very smooth too.

Only issue I have is home sensor not staying in full sync and began to drop out after about 10 minutes, so Il need to reposition the cam tone wheel as its too close to the crank sensor event.

[bangn]

So car is getting a run in and tune on the dyno in a couple of weeks. Will only be on gate pressure whilst its got running in oil in it. Once ive put some road hours to break the engine in a bit further I will take it back for a power tune I would say Early Feb.

Sync issue so far seems to be resolved with the tone wheel reposition so fingers crossed it stays that way, hard to confirm much when I cant run it for a long period.

Ive decided to re-do the oil filter relocation setup as I would like to incorporate an engine oil cooler. I found with the current setup the exhaust manifold is pretty close to the in/out fittings on the Derale relocation block and feel I am taking on some excess engine oil temps due to this. The Derale block is chunky and then with an added NPT fitting plus 90 degree fitting it makes the stack height excessive. So may as well do what I can now to add some more engine protection. I'm sure on a power run the EOC will be beneficial to the tuner in maintaining good oil pressure. NPT fittings to me also just look yuck with excess thread hanging out.


So getting rid of the Derale gear and going with improved racing, must say I was really impressed with their website and ability to customize their products to your application, they run ORB fittings which is great and should help free up some room

Oil filter housing with thermostat. I have picked the 215f version as the vehicle is a street car.


Inline block so I can relocate the oil pressure sensor as well as incorporate an oil temp sensor


KOYO 19 row cooler, the SETRAB cooler nearly won selection but KOYO run ORB fittings so no brainer there.

[bangn]

The quality of improved racings products are exceptional, highly recommended!

[bangn]

40 degree days have backed off a bit so had a chance to do this today. Took 6 hours which included masking everything up, vacuming as I went to prevent galling and marking the bores. Got the protrusion and spacing bang on which I'm very happy with seeing it was my first go at oringing a block. Def not a quick job in situ. Best thing is the oring grooves fell exactly where the marks were in the block left from the back of the cutring so that worked out well.

Hopefully does a better job at sealing than the cut ring gasket that shat itself after an hours use.

[bangn]

so small update, 2024 is proving to be quite a challenging year. So on top of the cut-ring gasket failure I've experienced on this engine, its also been found the head had developed a crack in it from said gasket and was not picked up by my machine shops usual testing before I bolted it down the second time round. It was cold pressure checked but probably should of been hot pressure checked its been found as it had a crack an inch long inline with the head bolt supports on the intake side on cylinder 5. The shop wanted a challenge and offered to fix it for me for free, however once they heated it up it cracked from head bolt to head bolt. I've never seen something so cavernous. Worth a shot I guess if I could of obtained another year of use from it whilst I source a replacement but that's life for you. Downside is that its taken two months get the answer I needed from the shop but nothing seems to happen fast in the machining world anymore.

So I've ordered a new AMC head, well aware the ports suck but there is a machinist in Adelaide called Knight engines who I've believe have the ability to get them to flow a bit over 200cfm so hopefully I can see that through. Hopefully can get on top of this car in the next couple months.

Other news the other E30 I have which is a 323 ive picked up a VCT SR20 combo for it, but really bad timing with this head. I want to start but I refuse to start until this car is back together.

[zwill23]

Man that's a tough break.

I keep hearing more and more stories of the 885 heads cracking, seems at this point it's luck of the draw when having one built. Going with a new AMC head is a smart decision I say, I imagine the reduced flow won't matter as much in a forced induction application.

[Panici]

I imagine the reduced flow won't matter as much in a forced induction application.

Of course an engine that flows better (and makes more power) N/A will also flow better when boosted, but when you can dynamically adjust the amount of air via boost pressure it isn't a big deal.


I've read that new engines are being designed more for knock resistance than flow (shallower valve angles among other things?).

The idea being that you can just cram more boost in there on a knock-resistant engine to make the same power, and run a lower octane fuel in the process.