Many of you know I recently burned a valve - $hit happens.

Chef (Richie) has found a garage in Hazlet, NJ I can use for a few days/couple weeks to do the work. I had a separate set of 1.8L heads (identical to those that are on the car now) that have just come back from getting cleaned up and having stronger springs (capable of higher revs) installed.

Engine will need dropped, sheet metal removed, heads removed. Installation is the opposite of removal Of course each of these steps has it's own laundry list of steps.

Now who's w/me!? (I have an image of Bluto in Animal House...).

Pete...do have any idea when you'll be getting the car down to Hazlet??

Oh yeah, dates would help...

Will bring the car back from Buffalo the w'end of the 12th. I'm outta town the next w'end. The w'end of the 26th is when work will probably take place.

The plan is malleable.

I will certainly try to make it . . . gotta help the 'rents move so I will be up that way.

-Chris

I'm in

hmmmm.....weekend of the 26th you say.....

Now who's w/me!?

c'mon guys. we need bodies here i'm tired of seeing the SoCal guys get 35 people together to change a flat ( no offense just a motivational tool).

. . . when the germans bombed pearl harbor . . .

Yeah they don't have to drive for 3 hours to go 20 miles.

I'd be there but I am not to knowledgable about these cars. I can talk shit and do burnouts in the driveway like no other though!

I have plans to go out of town that weekend, but will not know for sure until some time next week. So put me down as tentative.

the weekend of the 26th i am 90% sure ill be there

i dropped the engine from my 71 a year ago so i know i can at least be partially useful

I cant make it that weekend probably, I have a Hematology test on the following Wed. If I feel good about it I'll try to make it. If you change the date I will try to make it. Labor day weekend or the weekend before the 26th works for me.

What I want to know is how the hell do you have any free time when your studying for med school?

Mom wanted me to be a doctor. Spent a summer at the VA doing plebotomy and realized I don't like sick people

Thats an easy answer, I am smarter than you

if you need to bone up for your test that weekend i'll have my blood with me.

Ok seriously - anyone who doesn't know and wants to learn is welcome. That is why we get together like this. Anyone who doesn't know, but wants to sound like they do can stay home. This is going to be a good session and Chef's food is killer!

Dang Leo, did ya take me seriously? The " " indicates sarcasm Nate got it.

I realy hope I can make it. I'm not sure how the pace of 2nd year is gonna go.

food? what food? on a lighter note just took the car out saw smoke from by the fuse box. light smell of burning rubber. pulled over it went away . have to check my insurance now

Chef - Engman makes a replacement fusebox. Uses modern fuses. Runs around $100, takes about an hour or so to install... I have it on my car, when we get together I'll point it out to you. Oh, I got your msg on Sat. I was back in Ohio for my college roomies wedding. Man, my friends are getting old - half of em even have babies!!! I'll keep my fur baby (puppy) for a while...

The engman fuse box is a great piece and for only $100! I have one and like it a lot.

thanks guys will look into it when i get the cash right now gonna stick with plan b a fire extinguisher and an inflated agreed value.

OK, here's my plans:

*12-Aug.......Bring the car back to this side of the state (from Buffalo). Park it in either Hazlet or Movietime (still TBD - waiting to hear back from Ray re Movietime).

*19-Aug.......I'm out of town for a friend's wedding.

*25-Aug.......Begin work: either Friday eve (25th) or Sat AM - maybe both... Sunday can be used as a spill over day - fingers crossed.

*1-Sep.........I'm out of town again - family get together back in OH-IO!


If the job does not get done on this schedule its no big deal (unless the garage throws me out!). Evenings during the week can also be used as necessary & as garage time permits.

Lets shoot for the above. Unfortunately it hinges on me being there...only cause I have the keys to the shop. I will just be a willing student that weekend...and on the POR15 crew making Pete's car as rust free as possible while the motor's out.

This works out well.

Now I'll just need to figure out where to keep the 914 from this Sat til Fri the 25th... I am currently using my parking space for my other car (the one that works...).

Anyone have a space in the area that I can park the 914 for these 2 weeks when I pick it up to when we start working?

lete me talk to my brother in law. if we are going to work in hazlet might as well put it there now. maybe get a few nights in before the 26th. i just typed the same post and it went poof. so if you see 2 it's just me.

sorry chef....I should have been more clear....MovieTime is letting us use their place to rebuild Pete's motor.

...will probably be better done there...just in case we need stuff...like a lift.

Having the lift kicks A$$! I've had the engine and or tranny out a few times and each time I finish w/my shoulder blades in pain.

Looks like we will be able to get in there Friday night for dissassembly, then do the replacement Saturday.

FYI - This is not a full rebuild - we are not opening the case... However, we will be taking off all the sheet metal and the heads. I believe this is called a "top end rebuild". Oh, we're also going to replace some seals (main crankshaft, oil cooler, etc). Hopefully we can chase out that nasty 1qt per tank of gas oil leak...

Anyone know of a place in the metro area that can cc the heads w/about a week of turnaround? They're already cleaned up (vavles checked for proper seating) but I want to make sure they all have the same volume (within 1cc as per Jake).

Lastly, I'm not all that confident on the "lapping" vs head gasket situation although I'm leaning toward the "lapping". I just have no idea what it consists of or how to do it.

CCing your heads is not all that dificult if you can get some plexiglass, kerosene and a graduated pipette. Just measure the diameter of the bore inthe head and cut the plexiglass to fit. Drill a hole in the plexiglass for adding the kero through and measure how much it takes to fill each head. This gives you a good starting point so that you know what the differences are between the chambers. The next step would require a dremmel.

lapping requires the use of valve lapping compound which can be bought at your local FLAPS usually. You put it on the top of the cylinder, place the cylinder in the head and rotate to make the surfaces perfectly smooth. Make sure to get base gaskets that are the same size as the head gaskets you are removing.

You can probably park it around back near my work. It's 7 mile from Movie cars if thats where you guys are gonna do the work.

Down this page a little is a good pictorial and description of how to CC heads on an air cooled. It is a corvair being preped for usin an aircraft, but it is a very good analog.

http://home.hiwaay.net/~langford/corvair/valvejob.html

Another VW aircraft engine page shows a little on lapping at the bottom.

http://www.geocities.com/mhammersmith/2180VW/vwengine.htm

Dr. - Thx for the info. Sounds like I'll need to take the cylinders off the case as well. That means i'll need to squeeze the pistons back into the cylinders... Note to self, grab a ring compressor from the FLAP when buying the Lapping compound.

That leads me to the question: Cylinder to case - does this get a gasket? Is this where the "shims" go in order to lower the compression (if necessary)? Is Permatex enough to seal this?

I havn't taken a look @ Jake's video in a few years. I'll check it out this coming w'end.

Cylinder to case is shims. I can not recall of hand what is used as a sealant at the base of the cylinder. If you search the CCing page I posted you will find what it is. He has a section on assembly and it is very similar to doing one of our engines.

You may want to think about doing a full top end which would include checking and honing the cylinders and installing new rings.

turboman - That may work out. It's better logistically, especially for the Friday we start working... Is there public transport near your office? Otherwise I'll need to arrange for a ride from there back to the city. Chef said he may be able to provide the ride back to the city.

I've used permatex aviation sealant with good results before (3H I think). Refer to Jake though, his engines have a few more miles on them than mine.

Once you have the heads off, and the cylinders off, its easy to pull the pistons and split the case. Its not a bad idea to check the wear in there, it would be pretty annoying to find out a bit down the road that a cam lobe is going flat, a bearing is going, etc when you could have resolved the issue when everything was already out and apart. Plus you can then reseal the case halves too. Granted, if you find something wrong, ordering parts is going to take longer than the weekend. But, thats better than being left on the side of the road. I'd say that pulling the pistons, splitting the case, pulling the rods off the crank, taking some measurements, and putting everything back together shouldn't add much more than a few hours. Just a suggestion.

You know, while you are in there . . .

-Chris

Yeah the bus from the city stops a few block from here. Several people here live in Manhattan.

Chris -

I'd hate for things to be ugly inside there... I don't need new rings for this, do I? The engine is only about 4yrs & 10K miles old. I'm pretty sure the internals will check out fine. Splitting the case is messy and will require me to buy a new gasket set... Is awefully ambitious for a day & 1/2...

If things look sketchy when we take off the heads/cylinders then we can make a game time decision to split the case. My preference is to keep it intact...

-pt

If you are sure I can park it there for a couple weeks them I'm in as its much more convenient.

-pt

pete i'll take you back and forth fri night. it will give you a chance to explain to me all the crap i just read.

Cool, thanks Chef. This will be a good warmup for your rebuild this winter...

New rings and honing the cylinders is a good idea, but you will probably need to send the cylinders out to have that done. Over the 10k miles, any burning oil? Smoke at startup? We can see what the cyls look like, if the hone marks are gone, a refresh is a good idea.

As for new gaskets, splitting the case is just the main seal, hub seal, pump seal, cooler seals, and drain plate seals. I think you can order all those a la carte on aircooled.net or through Raby's site. Again, it wouldn't be a terrible idea to replace most of these seals "while you are in there" anyway, split or no. I know from experience how annoying pulling a freshly installed engine can be for a leaky main seal.

At the very least we can pull one or all of the pistons to measure the rods' sideplay, and pull one or all of the rods to check the bearings. No split needed. We can look at the cam lobes for noticeable wear too with the pistons out/rods off.

-Chris

I respectfully divert from Chris's idea of splitting the case. I can understand the intentions, but IF the engine only has 10K on it I would think that all would be fine. You can check the rod play, but I do not think that you need to remove a piston for that. Your rings should be fine as well. This is of course if all is optimal. You will see when you start to dig in if anything is a mis.

Who rebuilt your engine?
What was done?
Did you have it done?
Why did you burn a valve?

See, its that "think everything will be fine" that always worries me. And for only a few more hours of work, is it worth the doubt? Thats the way I think. I certainly understand the hesitation though, it does add some complexity and cost, and in this case, with a recent rebuild I suppose it may be overkill.

Checking sideplay with the piston on . . . never thought of that. But I was always removing the pistons anyway.

-Chris

My father and I rebuilt the engine in his garage following Jake's video.

2056 specs are as follows

Stock 2.0L crank & rods (outsourced the balancing of crank/rods, flywheel & pressure plate)
Webcam 73 grind
96mm Keith Black P/C's
1.8L heads w/stronger springs (don't recall the exact spring spec)
Stock 1.7L FI setup*

*The FI setup is where I believe things went awry. I recently tinkered w/the fuel pressure and intended to adjust the MPS to dial it in properly. I droped the fuel pressure to 29psi which ran the car lean. I sent my MPS to Geoff (Bleyseng) to dial it in based on his similar setup but did not have a chance to properly implement this MPS into my setup before taking the car on a longish road trip. Lean = engine got hot = valve burned... I should also note that when I put on the Bleysseng MPS one day, the valve which later burned got loud so I switched back to the old MPS.

Couple of theories: I should use a 2.0L FI plenum and CPU. The MPS is also now dialed in to be proper for Geoff's 2056cc. My 1.7L injectors should work fine. The rest of the setup should also work OK. I'll bring along a complete 2.0L setup in case its best to switch to it.

Worst case is that I have a set of Dellorto's that could get slapped on...

In a nutshell - the valve burned due to operator error (nice way of saying I'm a dumbass). I ran it lean and the valve burned.

Chris, just to clarify my position, I totally get what you are saying and do not feel that you are out of line at all. I was just trying to offer a second opinion for consideration and my hope was that it not at all detract form your experienced oppinion .

Pete, now I remember. At least you know what the insides looked like. With the 1.7 injectors, are they flowing enough fuel? Could it cause a lean running condition?

I think you guys are both right about the 1.7 djet not providing enough fuel which caused the lean meltdown of the heads.

I think in the interm, we can at least establish a safe running baseline with some of my resistors and then long term, i would guess you will probably need to get 2.0 injectors, MPS adjusted or both.

i will help in any way i can.

I have a proper MPS. It was stock 1.7L but Bleyseng adjusted it to 2.0L (actually 2056) specs. The only diff in his setup and mine is that he's running a 2.0L plenum and 2.0L injectors...

I'm under the impression the 1.7L injectors are sufficient. I'll do some research on this as it has been discussed in past posts.

Maybe I can scrape together some 2.0L injectors and have them rebuilt by that place out west. I'll dig through some boxes when I'm in Buffalo as I'm pretty sure I have some that came w/the 2.0L FI setup I bought a few years back.

Also, wouldn't bumping up the fuel pressure make things run richer? Could be a cheap and easy workaround...

thats good you have the adjusted MPS...if the MPS is adjusted I think we will be able to get away with riching it up via CHT to start without you dropping the cash for 2.0 injectors, but if you want to it could only help.

the more i lean about my engine...its not a 1.7 anymore either and seems to have a different cam. I have a stock 1.7 setup and with the CHT resistors it runs plenty rich and is running like a champ and averaging around 200 degree oil temps even in hot weather.

IMHO, i dislike the fuel pressure bump only because with the 914 potential for fires I figure in theory more presssure increases risk of leak and fire getting bigger faster.

but what the hell do i know anyways, I'm still learning too (disclaimer!)

My ignorant view is an injector is just a pump and the engine management tells it how many times to pump. Wether you use 2.0 or 1.7 injectors the management system is gonna tell it to pump so many times in relation to the TPS. So I could see how using the 1.7 injectors could cause a lean situation. Your only pumping 85% of the fuel you really needed I would assume.


I would use the 2.0 injectors instead of adjusting fuel pressure. Not sure how well the bump would work thruout the RPM range.

Raising the fuel pressure is so 1999
That's what we did before we knew how to program the computers right.