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Building and Blueprinting a Road Race Motor (mini-build thread)

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captdistraction

GrumpyRacer
1,954
1,698
Phoenix, Az
Check around to see if you can find a shop that can anodize and dye them. Doesn't have a material effect on dimensions (coating thickness is about 0.001" or so) but it improves thermal efficiency a lot beyond just bare aluminum if you make it black or a dark color.

I thought anodizing wouldn’t work well on cast bits due to all the mixed content in them


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In the V6L
I thought anodizing wouldn’t work well on cast bits due to all the mixed content in them

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Talk to someone who does anodizing for a living. Back in the '80's I did thermal management designs for complex high power electronic systems that had to operate in high-stress environments. Anodizing was one of the go-to solutions to get temperatures down. We did most of this with extruded or rolled parts, though, so castings might be different. It wouldn't cross my mind to not do it, but if you're concerned then talk to an expert.
 

captdistraction

GrumpyRacer
1,954
1,698
Phoenix, Az
Mondo's a definite out. Even if I get the bearings in by next week and had the shortblock assembled (which is a stretch at this pace), I'd still need to:

-Finish the engine assembly
-mate the transmission and install the lump in the car
-replace all the plumbing (there's some new line fabrication to be done)
-fill with fluids
-get the battery situation squared down
-finish wiring (or at least enough to slap it back together)
-finish glass install
-get to a dyno for tuning with Shaun (get base tune, load it, log it, refine it, validate)

being a month out and with the way work has been going (I put in another 54 hours this week which will end with no other reward than my boss's inexplicable disappointment), I don't think I could get it all done in time.

I'll be out there to shoot photos, drink beer, and complain about first world problems.
 
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FWIW - Tim used Clevite coated bearings on my rebuild. Other than Tim being a fan of the brand, the thermal efficiency was a large reason as @JAJ mentioned.
 
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Well hope the heck these guys can knock this out in two weeks or less. And done right. Seems like you guys are on the right track though. Im sure once that short block is done and back to your place, boxes of parts are going to be bolted on in many of late nights. Cant wait to give you a hand and see you up and running. Keep it rolling.
 

captdistraction

GrumpyRacer
1,954
1,698
Phoenix, Az
Finally some things going boringly smooth: the crankshaft was balanced, and now working on the damper (S550 GT oem unit) and the flywheels/pressure plates (2 Exedy Hyper Single units).

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In the interim, I made the call to clean up and cerakote my timing and top cam covers to prevent corrosion and pitting of the natural aluminum. The timing cover is particularly gross in finish, spending some time sanding it tonight, then media blasting. The color will be the closest-to-natural cast aluminum, so the casual eye won't notice the difference (other than the covers matching, as there is some variance now)

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captdistraction

GrumpyRacer
1,954
1,698
Phoenix, Az
The cover came out great, off to be cerakoted now (it received one more round of blasting after this, and I had sanded all the interior surfaces to remove sharp edges and help drainback.
IMG_0493.jpg

Back to the engine, the crankshaft was cleaned up (lots of flash removed, surfaces polished and treated) and everything was balanced:

I had two exedy clutches (hypersingles) and they were both fairly off balance, now balanced and center-punched for alignment of the pressure plate to flywheel
The front damper needed about 30 grams to get to 0 balance
The crank was 33 front/26 towards the rear

So this should have a significant impact on the smoothness of this motor.

Switching to the oiling side of things,
more problems for the FRPP oil pan and pick up tube: none of it fits. The pan's rails are too narrow so if you align one side, the bolts won't go in on the other. For a $1425MSRP pan, I'd have expected more. We'll open up the bolt locations on the rails and use washers to take up the slop. We'll use two spacers/dowels on the good side to provide a repeatable center for the pan.

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The other issue is the OEM gasket/windage tray is too large/wide on the sides, so when you install it, you bind it up slightly. I'm not sure if that's enough to create a problem for the rubber seal in it, but its definitely concerning. I don't remember having fitment issues with these things before. Has anyone else run into that? This gasket came with the FRPP pan, I assume it was an oem and not a reproduction. I might buy one more to try and see if I can get that fitment improved.

The next issue in fitment was the oil pickup tube. Using a 5.2L pump housing for mockup, we found that the FRPP oil pickup tube (MSRP $300) doesn't fit without binding the tube from the front bolt to the rear standoff, putting the grommet/gasket in bind on two sides at the bottom and top.

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The fix is to remove about 1/4" from the tube itself near the pump, so once we have the crank in and final pump assembly on, we'll cut the tube from the fitting, cut off the fitting's bracket (as its slightly too tall for the oem bolt provided, but too short for a ARP stud which we'll ultimately use) and weld on a new one. Then fit that assembly to the shortblock, massage the remainder of the tube to fit without bind and tack the two halves together. Finish the welding and clean up the inside of the tube. Lot of work when you can essentially buy a moroso pan at 1/6th(!) the price, and literally bolt it up and go. This pan is far more advanced and holds 2 extra quarts, but I've had to put a shocking amount of work into it. We've also had to chamfer the rails on the inward side where the windage tray fits to help uncover the drainback sections.

The cleanup of the block is complete, the drain-back ports look awesome!

IMG_0583.jpg

It still will get decked on both the cylinder head mating surface and the pan facing surfaces, but otherwise its ready to be assembled. I've taken home all the torque plates and associated hardware so that's a good sign. I was sent home with the GT500 rod bearings and Boss main bearings, the builder wants to use a circle track derived bearing set for this application and the target clearances. Nothing wrong with what I gave him as that's what the aluminators use, but I deferred to his preferences given the detail going into this bit of kit. Bearings are inexpensive as well.

Finally, working with boundary to run a new style oil pump. It will use a cleaned up oem housing with some massaging of the paths, a billet backplate that will aid in preventing aeration of the oil, and a new style gerotor design that takes advantage of additional pumping capabilities with up to 30% more efficiency along with new heat treatments and surface hardening techniques. They've been testing them on a hardcore drag racing application and are about to release them to the public. Should be a killer setup for wet-sump users.

The downside of all this is that its looking more and more like late december to get this all back together and in my hands, but I'm going to have to make this one last. Its quite the investment and I think we're doing all the right things to build a long lasting competitive motor.
 

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Hey Chris -

Regarding the extra length on the pickup tube, when I spoke to FP they said it's normal (assuming I am understanding it correctly). Before tightening mine down, it looked like yours. When I installed the bolt and tightened the pickup tube mount down, it really "jammed" the inlet tube up into the housing. They said this design was on purpose. It was concerning to install, but everything has been great so far.
 
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The parts look great!
back in my car show days, I thought it would be a good idea to polish a block and heads, along with the tunnel ram intake..I was actually stupid enough to do 2 TR intakes and an alternator, since none were available back then.
Hot Rodding was seriously hard core back then..lol
 

captdistraction

GrumpyRacer
1,954
1,698
Phoenix, Az
I can't seem to update/edit the original posts, so I'll put the data here and maybe a moderator can help me merge/clean this up later.

Updated Bill of Materials: I've been asked what the final BOM looked like, there's lots of spare parts that went into this as it was built (and ultimately not used in the final product like assembly bearings that were replaced with a final bearing). Here it is in all its glory with cost data. Outside the labor data, much of that cost data is from internet searches, to give a guesstimate of what it would take to build this motor from scratch assuming you had nothing on hand. These things aren't cheap, assuming you didn't find any deals, the total outlay of cash including the labor to build this would end up at $18,000 give or take.

I didn't spend nearly that much, as I had contingency payouts, inventory of parts/spares, and bought much of the service parts and performance parts in bulk reducing my costs significantly. However for the sake of argument, why would you consider spending nearly 18,000 to make less than 500rwhp when you're now in the Ford Crate Aluminator A52XS territory (which can be had for around $19k, $22k list)?

  • Different Style Product: The Aluminator 5.2XS uses ford's PAS building services, production fasteners and hardware in several key locations
  • Costs: The Aluminator uses a Gen2 Timing system, and to make that work in a Gen1 car, I estimated about $2800 in control pack hardware, custom wiring for Fan and Fuel systems, fuel system parts and fabrication (and I feel that number is low)
  • Costs: The Aluminator does not include the FP350S pan, which represents $1,979 in costs on my build (pan, change kit, block adapter, pickup tube and labor to make those parts actually fit together)
  • Service life and Duty: This motor is hardened in a number of ways specifically around road racing in high temperature applications, with the base expectation for 2 years/seasons before having to open it up and inspect components. With an iron sleeve block I have options to bore/hone to extend its service life.
There are some benefits to the aluminator option, albeit at $24k after making the modifications which include the 2 year warranty (good luck in a racing application), they do use torque plates on the 5.2 Blocks (however, you cannot really overbore them, can machine/sleeve at a significant cost), and it makes good power (580bhp). Additionally, if you're starting fresh, then the Vorshlag approach of swapping a LS series motor becomes a bit more interesting (I've estimated that cost around $24,000 for a complete 500rwhp conversion on a S197 racecar)

My anticipated costs for a full refresh as defined by FRPP on their production race cars would be around $2,500 (bore/hone, cleaning, new bearings, new pistons, assembly labor).

I've attached the BOM here: Engine BOM

and in image format for posterity:
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Bill Pemberton

0ld Ford Automotive Racing Terror
8,425
8,356
Exp. Type
Time Attack
Exp. Level
20+ Years
Blair, Nebraska
OUCH!! One of the reasons I like to just take my bills and put them in file, not catalog them or list, as that way I won't get depressed, nor will I have something laying around where my wife might find out. After 42+ years of marriage no need for her to find out how much my racing actually costs. I may be okay, though, as I am probably still behind her financial tally in shoes, ha!
 

captdistraction

GrumpyRacer
1,954
1,698
Phoenix, Az
Shortblock build
(I'll go into the long block build, final assembly, install and break-in/dyno next week)

With machining complete (which you can see in the above table), the shortblock was assembled by my builder. There's a number of operations that take a significant amount of time to complete properly:

Final fitting of bearings: this took 3 sets of KingXP main bearings (one undersized, one oversized and one standard), 2 sets of rod bearings (undersized and standard) to match up to the crank, rods and block. Once those bearings were selected (using the arp studs torqued to spec for each component with a head clamping load in place and temperatures controlled), Its on to file fitting the rings to get target ring gaps. I was a bit worried when I received a box containing my oil control rings, but my builder opted to use some different rings from Callie's that are in use in circle track applications as he had some concerns around the mahle ones. once those rings were fitted then everything could be disassembled, cleaned and prepped for final assembly. Final assembly is pretty straight forward, we used guides from the Ford Assembly plants and Service assembly guides (which we discovered there's some significant differences in each guide, but mostly applied to the top end/long block assembly). What is missing from the basic service guide are a lot of the torque specs and tolerances/measurements for things like block dowels, press fits, etc. where the assembly plant guide goes into much further detail about ever part with multiple schematics and quality control information.

I don't have many pictures from this portion, but its best left to your builder (maybe that's you) as the need to check and measure clearances one more time during final assembly was beyond my comfort zone. The engine was assembled and filled with heavy assembly lube in all the pathways; this led us to a small discovery of an issue around the oil pump (that I didn't figure out until I initially ran the motor - and required pulling it briefly to change a part of the oil filter housing), but highlights the importance of taking as many pictures and creating documentation along the way. It was also validated during this process that oil squirters would not fit.

Some pictures of the finished product:

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if you don't have one of these hydraulic carts, get one!
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Boundary Pumps - New Coyote Black Series pump assembly
We also installed this new prototype pump (that has since become a stocking product. The pump came as a complete assembly (in my case using a stock GT350 style housing that was deburred, machined and blueprinted) and the new black series gears feature a few new innovations that set them apart from the other available gear sets out there (I've tried them all): They feature special heat treating processes, a hard superfine glossy final finishing process that reduces wear and drag, and a different gerotor shape that features some additional cuts that improve overall flow and reduce aeration. The pump also included a billet steel backplate which holds a bit tighter tolerance than the cast plate included with the oem pump, and has some features in its design to reduce aeration of the oil.

Some pictures of that unit: (ignore the cloth lint from my wiping the unit down after opening it up, its shipped/packed in oil. - it was cleaned like every other assembly in the motor)
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sample of what the gerotor looks like (covered in oil, so ignore what looks like scratching outside the circular stuff)
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We did have an adjustable shim stack on the bypass spring, but that's what I later ended up removing due to some issues. Using the stock GT350 spring, bypass cold is around 125PSI (and a bit more I think), so I don't think there's much value in trying to shim that up.

The pickup tube assembly was completed as well, and it fit very, very tightly now into the pump housing and the block. Modifications to it brough its total to $500, so if I had to go back I think I'd have started to look at a dry sump system given what all this cost me. Though data shows the FP350S + boundary setup is by far the best wet sump setup I've seen, there's just no real drops in pressure even in high G-load turns (there's a small drop, but nothing like with the moroso pans that could drop 30PSI or more in a hard right hander under braking). The welds aren't porous into the tube as some were worried about (they're a bit more functional than form - albeit prettier than the welds the tube came with out of the box, and it was difficult on such a small piece to keep heat under control): I rigged up a simple pressure test and everything was good.
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You can see the additional bracing placed on this, as these have had a few failures in their short time as an available part. Its worth noting that ford performance no longer recommends these tubes for GT350s (as the simple bent steel bracket would snap, unlike the reinfoced oem bracket used on the production 5.0 tubes and now the GT500 tubes). I think by re-working the part the risk is lowered; however better alternatives exist now in the GT500 pan+pump kit and/or dry-sump systems.

Ford Performance's Oil Line adapter kit
Another snag we ran into was the FRPP oil adapter kit, part M-6881-M50A. The ports on it were significantly off when bolted up, with one port being significantly off center on the AN fitting. Additionally, it had lots of rough edges in the machining and some tight bends that would restrict flow. Since the block was having its oil feed passages ported and cleaned up, we did the same to the block adapter. After cleanup, it fit much better and the rough transitions were removed. I'm not sure what's going on at FRPP, but their supplying manufacturers are all over the place on quality. For the cost, its also interesting the o-ring seal is only outside the ports. A more ideal seal would also include isolating the pressurized ports from each other.

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To be continued next week:
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captdistraction

GrumpyRacer
1,954
1,698
Phoenix, Az
OUCH!! One of the reasons I like to just take my bills and put them in file, not catalog them or list, as that way I won't get depressed, nor will I have something laying around where my wife might find out. After 42+ years of marriage no need for her to find out how much my racing actually costs. I may be okay, though, as I am probably still behind her financial tally in shoes, ha!

Its pretty painful no doubt, but I spent much less than this. I don't care to estimate or disclose how much less (as I don't want to know exactly myself), but its still very painful and I have an understanding wife. I'll never calculate down to the cost per minute on track, as I think that's where my life would come to an abrupt end.
 
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Well. a decent dry sump is way north of what you are going to have in that oil system, the other thing is, with the lining up of the oil passages, back in the day, we had to go through some serious cutting, deburring and die grinder work on the old FE 427 engines that we used to build, that pic brought me right back to them, seems like some things never change. One thing you might add is an Accusump, they saved an engine for us at Daytona when we cut an oil line on debris in the bus stop..
I used to say, "there are engine builders, and engine assemblers" one guy does the machining, and another puts it together, this way there are two sets of eyes on everything that is being done.
 

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