Chris,

Your doing a great favor to all of us by posting all this stuff. Maybe after your done you could compile a "How To" written just like you have in this post with pictures. I am starting to learn a lot just from your few posts in this thread.

Thanks,

Mike

 

Chris, since you went to all the trouble and expense of buying all that measuring equipment you should find out what the correct valve stem clearence is. I would then send back the valves with the undersize stems. I know your inspection equipment cost some money, you might as well reap the benefits of your investment and diligence.

 

well, I haven't actually measured my valve guides yet. I'm just going by the ford specs. First I need to measure the valve guides and determine the exact valve guide clearance. if it is not within spec, then I'll have to persue the issue further.

it is theoretically possible that I could be within specs.

using the ford spec range for actual valve guide inner diameter, and using my aftermarket valve stem measurement, I COULD be within specs.

ex: my valve measures 6.952mm (.2737")

ford valve guide diameter spec is 7.044-7.015 mm (0.2773-0.2762 in)

ford clearance is: 0.069-0.020 mm (0.0027-0.0008 in)

using the smallest spec for the valve guide, my clearance would be .063mm (.0025") which is within spec.

using the max spec for the new ford guide, my clearance would be .092mm (.0036") which exceeds spec by .023mm (.00090")

so if my math is correct, WORST CASE SCENARIO, we are talking about exceeding specs by TWO HUNDREDTHS OF A MILLIMETER or LESS THAN ONE THOUSANDTH OF AN INCH.

just to put it in perspective, here is a pic of the "worst case" amount that I could be exceeding clearance.




I mean, look at what we are talking about, you can't even see that the micrometer is open, that's how small a distance we are talking about.

not that I'm arguing with you, but sometimes if you get too caught up in the numbers, you lose track of what you are actually talking about.

I agree with you though, what is the point of "blueprinting" an engine if you ignore the findings?

later,
chris

 

Nice Tools! And you're certainly right about "blueprinting". Carefully measuring everything to determine sizes so you can find what your "actual" clearances are. Spec's are one thing - what you actually have may be much different. After your measurements, then you're in a position to determine that if what you have size wise, and clearance wise, is what you want it to be.

Just out of curiosity - maybe I didnt read all your info clearly - did you have your crankshaft checked for "whip"? One of the last engines I "bluprinted" may year ago, I foolishly made the mistake of buying the bearings I wanted (Clevite 77's back then) before I had the crank checked. Turned out the crank was "whipped" and I had to have it turned .010 under. And had to wait another 2 weeks to "exchange" my new bearings for .010 over ones.

And like you - I always have my dog nearby to make sure I'm doing it right.

 

hey chris, hows your arm doin? lol

 

From what I've seen, it wouldn't be a bad idea to leave them a little loose. The valves and guides can be perfectly concentric on the bench but after they are torqued down and you put some heat to them it seems like the valve guide goes one way and the valve seats go another. If guide clearance is on the tight side then the valves have a hard time seating but with enough miles it will seat in I guess.

 

Robert Francis: I am not familiar with that terminology. I have never heard of a crankshaft being "whipped" so I don't know exactly what you mean. however, this is a brand new ford crank and the journals have measured out just about perfectly, so I believe that the crank should be fine.

clonetek: my arm is fine except for a small scar. thanks for asking! on a not so funny side note, about a week after my incident, my girlfriends dog got into a fight with yet another dog and when she tried to stop him, he bit her, ON THE FACE!
she is also doing fine though.

Bad as L: when I called the machine shop that did my cylinder head flowbenching and other work, they told me that the valves "felt" fine in the guides when they installed them. they said that any little bit of extra clearance that I might have wouldn't hurt a thing and might actually be a good thing, and that I shouldn't have any problems.

later,
chris

 

I think by 'whipped' Robert Francis means the journals are not concentrically aligned, thus the crankshaft would 'whip' as it rotates. This can only be trued by turning down the journals.

What you need to do is measure all the valves, and notate stem size. Then measure all the seals, and fit each valve to its closest seal for tolerance. Should be worth at least .0005 HP!

 

Chris are your trying to make my Brain explode with all this math
your making me do,

Go easy on me Bro, your looking at a guy that made it through
H/S in the 70's with just taken 1 Math Credit (9th Grade, General Math) You know, 2+2 stuff

Great Post, Awesome Job so far on the "How To",
great skills you got there Chris, and it's awesome that you
get to use them on building your own built engine,
and a fine job your doing

 

LOL

and Thanks Rob!

 

What I meant by a "whipped crank" is what LocoSVT noted. After use, particurly in a performance engine, as the forces act upon the crankshaft, the crank main journals and rod journals start to "twist" and become unaligned with the main journals and the proper angle with the journals- and can only be trued up by turning them undersize - or building them up with weld, and then turning undersize. Your crankshaft, being new, should ok.

 

well, after measuring the bearing clearance on all 8 of my rods, i've found that almost all of them exceed acceptable clearance tolerances. with the worst one measuring .0032 clearance. I bought my rods prolly 6 months ago or so, and somewhere between me having them for that long, and traveling back and forth between the machine shop and the balancing shop and my house, and my work, the rod torque spec sheet got lost. So at first I thought that POSSIBLY I didn't have the proper torque on the rod caps and that was giving me a false measurement. unfortunately, it's not that easy. after spending the day talking to what seems like everybody (Sal & Lisa @ PSP, Rich @ Federal Mogul/ Speed Pro bearings, some rude idiot @ ARP fastners, somebody @ Pro-Power, and Randy @ True Blue performance) I've determined that my desired clearance specs have changed ever so slightly, and that I'm going to have to send my bearings to be coated to add approximately .0005 to reduce the excess clearance.

Ford rod bearing clearance spec is: .001-.0025

Originally I was looking for .0025-.00275 with my Speed-Pro bearings, but after talking to everybody mentioned above, I am shooting for as close to .0025 as possible with an acceptable range of .0022-.0027

I'll ship my bearings out tomorrow. wish me luck.

later,
chris

P.S. the first tech guy at ARP told me that ARP didn't make any fastners for modular fords I thought that was odd, since I while I was talking to him I was looking at boxes of ARP Main studs, ARP Head studs, and ARP rod bolts. not to mention that the '03-04 cobras come from the factory with arp fastners. what a tool. then he told me to call Manley for the torque specs on my ARP rod bolts

the lady that I talked to after I hung up with him and called back was very helpful and got me the correct torque specs that I needed though.

 

well, today I took the garden hose to the bare block. the thought of it makes me cringe. spraying large amounts of water onto the bare iron machined surfaces of a block, but its a good idea all the same.

washing the block inside and out helps to eliminate the chance of any debris or residue being left over from the original casting process, the ford machining process, or the local machine shop's boring and honing.

also, applying water pressure to the main oil galleys allowed me to verify that I had proper unobstructed flow to each of the main bearing bores, and to each cylinder head. basically lets you visually verify that ford machined all of the oil galleys properly.

IMMEDIATELY after hosing the block down I started soaking it down in WD-40. you need to apply some type of water dispersing oil like this pronto, because the bare metal surfaces will develop surface rust before your very eyes when they come in contact with the air.

later on in the day I washed the block down again in brake cleaner to get rid of all of the wd-40 and any remaining water, then I blew out all of the bolt holes, oil galleys, cylinder bores, etc with compressed air.

next I wiped the cylinder bores down with transmission fluid and paper towels. believe it or not, there is still very fine residue from the honing process left at this point. keep wiping the bores until the papertowel comes out clean.

now it's time to measure the cylinder bores to check the piston to wall clearance.

here are some pics:






generally you should measure the cylinder bore in at least 3 places. top/middle/bottom.

CP calls for .0035 piston to wall clearance. and none of mine were any larger than that.

with these measurements, I can now select fit each piston to each bore based on the very slight variations from piston to piston and bore to bore.

next step is to file the rings to fit, but I'm going to put that on hold for a couple days.

tomorrow I'm going to install the main studs and main bearings and check those clearances.

later,
chris

 

Great job so far, Keep us posted. I have never blueprinted an engine, but after reading your post, I think it wouldn't be too bad if I had the proper tools.

 

keepum comin! i think this has got to be the best post in the history of f150online