When ever your spending your Saturday evening pulling your Dart 227 cc head! I hurt something racing last weekend.:(

Note hogged out Felpro 1206 intake gaskets and I have the stud girdle off. Getting ready to take of the 1.65 intake steel rockers and 1.6 exhausts.




[Modified by gkull, 9:54 PM 2/15/2003]

 

:( :(

 

What gave you the hint that something was wrong?

 

Fog and spitting water out of the right exhaust pipe. I was a little hard on it. running it into the rev limiter many times per lap and it got up to 240 degrees.

 

Well it did get you home, there is no shrapnel that I can see there and nothing seems to have turned a shade of blue - all good signs!

In other news: -2 degrees F. and falling here . . .


[Modified by 45ACP, 11:59 PM 2/15/2003]

 

My dad is an old racer and he once told me...
'If something doesn't break every now and then then you aren't pushing it hard enough."

:cheers:

 

:withstupid:

Hopefully it's just a head gasket George !

 

Dale - You have to get your car going and go down to Lime Rock for a weekend play day. I was looking at the ports to see if maybe water was coming around the intake gasket. :smash: No such luck! It's more like have they ever sealed with so little gasket area around the intake ports.

Hey, it ran good for nearly 20,000 miles. the great thing is it only took me less an hour to get it to this picture. No smog and lots of times make perfect :troll

 

Corey 68. Your dad is right! I always have fun. I just hate leaning over the fenders for too long. I was thinking that i'm so close to the cam now!!!!!

Crane has a really good deal on Custom cams for $220 billet custom solid roller if you already have one and want an exchange. i just can't figure out if i would want more duration or not. My springs have done so good that I would like to try something near .700 lift

 

George-I hope it’s not serious! The older I get, the less I enjoy tearing into engines, but it’s a necessary evil. I can't trust others.
Dan

 

Before I started tearing everything down i should have put some thought into using a leak down tester first.

So yeaterday I went over to friends to watched a failed Daytona 500 race and borrow his leak down tester. For any of you that have never used one here is the basic idea behind one.
**************************************** *********************
Remove all your spark plugs to make it easy to rotate the motor

This is how it works. You place a piston at top dead center on the compression stroke, like you would when adjusting valves. This doesn't have to be real precise like when timing cams. I usually place a long phillips screwdriver in the spark plug hole and turn the crank until the screwdriver is all the way at the top. You can also use the timing mark on the stock advancer. Another option which I use is just bump the motor a series of times and watch the valve events and you can see where the cylinder in question is at. Once the cylinder is in place lock the motor because 100 psi will rotate it to bottom dead center. Easy to do if you have a manual tranny1:) It's just simple math as to why it will rotate. 4 inch bore X 3.14 = a little over 12 sq. inches of piston area. Now apply 100 psi. The piston now has 1200+ lbs of force on it.

With the spark plug removed you screw the tester adapter into the hole. This is a short piece of tube with threads on one end and an air compressor fitting on the other. The leak down tester applies 100 PSI of pressure into the cylinder. If the pressure drops to 95, then you have a 5 percent leakdown. If the pressure drops to 90, you have 10 percent leak down.

What is good?? I like to see all of my new engines at 1-3 percent. Most good race motors should leak no less than 4-5percent. Most engine builders rebuild at 6-7 percent. Some people think up to 10 percent is OK. That's ludicrous. If you have a engine leaking over 7 percent, YOU DON'T HAVE NO MOTOR, at least not one that's going to win a race! Look at it this way. If only 1/3 of the heat energy is going to push down on the piston, and your loosing 10 percent of that, how much is left? Even brand new total seal rings with the best hone jobs never seem to achive more than 1-1.5 % leak down rate.

Leak down testing will also tell you where the cylinder is leaking. You will be able to here air flowing around the rings. ( normal) but if you suspect head gasket you will see bubles in the coolant. If you suspect leaking valves just remove the intake or exhaust. Just squirt some soapy water in the port and see if it starts blowing bubbles when you apply air to the cylinder :auto:

 

So have you found anything yet George :confused: ?

 

Hmmmm . . . I have to believe that would be a forum-wide record. :crazy:

 

The sad thing is I have not found anything. None of the cylinders looks different. I'm running on the rich side. All cylinder Leak down less than 3%. I have one discolored head stud and I'm thinking that maybe it's not sealed. Some water was around it so I'm going to pull it.

The head gasket looks perfect. The intake gasket looks perfect. But it was spitting water and light fog out of one pipe at the track. On the drive home I had someone follow me. I always drive 80-100 mph on the freeway for the 200 some miles and he said that he never saw anything after we left the track.




[Modified by gkull, 1:43 PM 2/17/2003]