Time to tear into #666 again, This thing is the devil Options

[Bleyseng]

Dave has learned alot doing this and I think that is the invaluable lesson plus his son Jerry has been there with him the whole time.

Good stuff!

To learn you must try....even if you fail or make mistakes along the way.


(IMG:style_emoticons/default/headbang.gif)

[DNHunt]

Jake, I haven't gotten them yet, when did they ship? Geoff, if you are holding them hostage, I'm not going to fool around. I'm sending my wife right over there.

Dave

[Bleyseng]

Send her over as she wouldn't know the difference between those LE heads and a set of Bus heads I have sitting here!

Will You take some pics of them when they do arrive.

[DNHunt]

I wasn't planning on having her bring back just one set of heads. This is gonna be a take no prisoners raid and to victors go the spoils.

Dave

[ConeDodger]

yup i hear the chant.....all the way up here.....
i hear....faintly....but repetitously
SIX......
......
SIX........
.........
SIX.......
..........
..........
i dave have given into the voice......
can you hear......the voices calling....

Don't miss the bigger picture here... A father and his son are spending time together. Lessons about sticking to it and solving a problem are being learned. I can hear Gerry 10 years from now when someone is telling him to quit trying that his father taught him to stick to it, be respectful, and in the end he would be successful... Something simple is wrong... Dave and Gerry will find it.

[ConeDodger]

Poor ring seat again. This is the second set of pistons and cylinders I've tried. First were Nickies and JE pistons and I fussed with them 3 different times. Oil consumption was in the range of a quart every 300 miles and compression in 2 cylinders was poor. Leakdown was from 12 to 60% and into the case. Anyway Jake and Charles took these back and replaced them.

This interesting this time. These are the FREE REPLACEMENT jugs and slugs from Jake and Charles and the pistons are KB's with Hastings rings. Their support has been great. All the numbers are a little better this time but not right and the bad holes the first time are the poor holes this time. Because of that fact I can't help but wonder if the problem is somewhere beside the jugs so, I'm going to check everything on the way down. Cold leakdown test, endplay, deckheight, check rod bearings and measure everthing including the cylinders on the way down.

Here's the other part. I have to take responsibilty for the problems if it's the rings cause I redid the top end when Jake was on his honeymoon in France and I made a couple of decisions that affected the rings. KB says to use a very large ring gap on the first compression ring (.028 in my case). This is so the portion above the top ring land doesn't go Kablam. I followed KB's suggestion but, Jake wanted it to be .016 because of the aluminum cylinder's expansion. The second issue is a little harder to explain but, it arises from the fact that part of the oil control ring land overlaps the wrist pin. KB puts a pin in the land to keep the ring from rotating and they suggest a ring gap of .065 to fit over the pin. Jake came up with a cool way to notch the ring so the gap deoesn't have to be this wide. It is shown in Jake's build articles in "Dune Buggies and Hot VWs". I didn't see that so I put that huge gap in. It is certainly possible that this time around all the problems arise from the way I installed the rings but, I can't be sure so I'm going to look at everything.

I usually fall asleep thinking about this problem. I've wondered if the crank is ground wrong so the pistons sit cocked. Measuring deck height on both sides of the piston and looking at the rod bearings wear should give me an idea of whether the rods are not perpendicular to the crankshaft center line. Has endplay grown and is the crank thereby out of position? Are the rods bent or bushed wrong? Is the case deck bad? Are the cylinders round and true? I have a lot of questions to answer. I'd appreciate any other suggestions.

The good news is I sure have learned a lot.

Dave

Dave, As you have asked for other suggestions...

So lets say that you have it apart, you find that everything is straight and the sizes mic out correctly. We have to ask why then would the same two jugs fail to seat their rings?
You are using a stock intake and injectors. Have the injectors been checked for flow rate and spray pattern? Same plug wires? What is the resistance?
I am just trying to figure what other things are common to all the failures that are outside the engine itself. That engine has to be the most looked at Jake box on the planet.