Engines From Hal

I honestly never hears about this one

They didn't want it good, they wanted it Wednesday. Robert A. Heinlein

Problems are only opportunities in work clothes. Henry J. Kaiser

Your Days in Hal New seats installed and the crack repair looks pretty damn good if I do say so myself

It's been a long wait but the custom set of Crower rods finally showed up for the Supercharged Austin Healey project and they sure look better than the stock se...t of tractor rods it came with . Take a guess on the difference in weight between the stock rod and the Crower rod, or if you prefer between the two rod and piston assemblies :-) See more

Your Days in Hal! My hands are definitely too big to be working on Ford Eco Bust heads . I need to start charging FFS Fee , Fat Finger Surcharge

It still needs to be resurfaced , and deburred , but I now have a Torque Plate for 5 cyl VW engines . I think this is my 27th Torque Plate

Film of Jaguar production in 1961. (Apologies if I've posted this before...)

It may not win any beauty contests , but at least it's no longer a piece of scrap that was only good for anchoring a small boat

I've learned from the past that when I decide to post tongue in cheek humour . I need to first post a disclaimer , and in this case it's even more important bec...ause it's an LS Chev post . Now lets face it folks , the people who have drank the LS Koolaide are obsessive . They do kind of make the Westboro Baptist Church look like a moderate , poorly organized group of boy scouts that are willing to listen to new ideas ;) So Disclaimer , in no way shape or form is the to be taken seriously as a negative comment against LS engines or the nation that believe the earth started rotating the day the first one came off the assembly line . There I've been asked before what is the best engineering point of the LS Chev . Not the powdered metal rods [ they are 8 ticking time bombs in the engine ] Not the 6 bolt mains [ that was needed because of poor machining practices where the bolt holes are not perpendicular to the cap parting surfaces , any fewer bolt holes and the bolts would shear when you tried to torque then ] Not the roller pivot rocker arms [ they fail adding non digestible pieces to the oiling system ] And it's not the torque to yield bolts [ that add hundreds of dollars to the price of a proper build ] No what it is , is the patented crankshaft lifting ring , with holes large enough for sausage fingered machinists to comfortably lower a crankshaft into a block using 4 fingers . Good job GM and thank you ;) See more

Every time I see this picture of a Bristol Hercules Sleeve Valve engine , it reminds me of the inside of a Swiss Watch

I got some time to work on the 318 Poly again, the machining on the block is just about finished. The main girdle has been fitted, block alignhoned , cylinder...s bored and honed with torque plates and block decked. You'll notice in the picture with the main girdle there is part of an oil pump bolted to the rear main cap, this is something that is often forgotten by many shops when the align hone a block. Main clearance on a small block is anywhere from 0.0004 -0.0025 ( a hair out of your head is 0.010 ) if you don't stress the caps the same way they will be when the engine is assembled then you just wasted time and money on having it alignhoned. All that is left to do now is to "O" ring the deck of the block since MLS head gaskets aren't available for a 318 Poly. Remember this little semi hemi should be putting out over 2.5 HP per cubic inch so we want her to stay together for a long time See more

Good to see that the smarter companies are starting to drift away from this

Most of you probably know that I'm not a fan of powdered metal rods . The reason is that I don't understand why anyone would like to have a grenade pin in an en...gine let alone several of them . I rarely see a failed engine with powdered metal rods come in where the problem isn't because of a bearing coming loose in a rod. Guess what when that happens your build just got a whole lot more expensive , because it's not getting 1 or 2 rods it's getting a set and if your plan was to boost your engine , even if the powdered metal rods check out fine , they still aren't going back in that engine Here's a few pictures of rods that came out of a running LS engine , oh the 8 , one is 0.002 out of round and the other is 0.010 out of round , why it hadn't let a bearing spin yet is beyond me , but it was only a few turns of the key away from it . Remember just because you saw it on TV doesn't mean it's right or will work more than a few dyno pulls See more