For those of you that have been watching this site for a long time this is a new page.
If you have been following my project over the years you might be shocked at what you are about to read. Since the completion of my engine build, I had some issues from day one that were never resolved. I did not disclose them publicly because I was trying to resolve these issues with the help of the engine builder.
These issues were:
1. Burning a quart of oil every 300 miles.
2. Leaking coolant from block. When the deck plates were welded in there was some cracking into the valley on one bank, and they welded up the cracks. I was assured that they would not leak. This was not the case. When I discussed it with the engine builder, I was handed a can of stop leak... which did nothing for the leaking coolant. It would leak about 1/3 of a gallon ever 200 miles.
3. When the engine was cold (below 50 F) it would knock badly until warmed up. This was not present when it was newly built. The piston skirts getting torn up increased the piston to cylinder wall clearance.
4. The engine never produced what it should have.
Then I found that I had 2 cylinders that had in excess of 25 percent leak down, so I decided to pull the engine thinking that the Total Seal rings were the problem.
After pulling it all apart, I found the following:
1. The liners in cylinder's 3, 5 & 8 had rotated in the bore.
2. The finish bore in all 8 cylinders was not done all the way to the bottom of the cylinders. This caused the piston skirts to be virtually destroyed in 5000 miles. The ring of material at the bottom of each cylinder stuck out into the bore was approximately .003 .
3. The rods were 5.700 which were too short. This aggravates the problem #2, by placing more side load on the piston skirts in the worst possible time.... when they are reaching the bottom of the bore.
4. The thrust bearings were thrashed after only 5000 miles indicating that the line bore that was done was not done properly. The top thrust bearing was worn drastically on the front, and the bottom thrust bearing was almost destroyed on the back, meaning that the line bore was slightly tilted downward from front to rear of the engine.
So to say I wasn't happy was an understatement. When I talked to the engine builder, and told him I was going to have to rebuild the engine after 5000 miles, he told it sounded like a fun project and turned his back on me and walked away from me in his own shop. This by the way is NOT Bob Norwood. He sold his shop to the guy I was dealing with when my engine was originally built.
Here is the original shortblock.
Ultimately I decided to go a different direction with the new engine.
Here is the improved shortblock.
Heads
& VarioCam
