Cascade Crew

BluFbdy · Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2014 12:07 am Post subject: Cracked my head -_-

Well it was fun while it lasted, just got the car back yesterday and cracked the passenger side head tonight (as far as I know ) got on the freeway, hit the gas and heard a bang, motor was still running, shut it off and then Luke came to help. We pulled the passenger valve cover off to find milky oil, drivers side was clean. Coolant coming out the exhaust when it went on the tow truck so all indications of a cracked head and/or head gasket. The motor only has 9.5k on it so I'm leaning more towards the second hand heads than I do the gasket, if it were a failing gasket it wouldn't have made it this far along.

So tomorrow I'll be helping Luke pull the heads and inspect the damage, I believe the bottom end is still good it didn't run long on the milky mix. Sooooo....Time for some new heads, aftermarket aluminum ones. Everyone's big go to is the afr 195, while I like the idea the price is.....insane lol I've been thinking of trick flows for the cost/performance scales. Basically a bare bones top end rebuild now, heads and a cam to support the modification. Being that I suck with head/cam selection anyone got any advice for me? I've got zero experience in this area and I'd really appreciate the help lol

As far as I'm concerned a good set of aftermarket heads and a nice cam to compliment the heads will do me a world of good but I need to be pointed in the right direction, the only plans for the motor is well....power lol I'd like to build a second motor at a low compression for boost but that's way down the line, if I could buy what I need now and be able to use it in the future that would be preferred.

TIA guys

Twilightoptics · Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2014 6:32 am Post subject:

Buy aluminum. Need motor . Specs now to determin size of chamber. Bore /deck height/gasket opening/etc

BluFbdy · Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2014 8:07 am Post subject:

Ah balls, off the top of my head it's an l98 bored .30 over, hyper pistons (not sure which ones at the moment ) planned to buy aluminum and I'm attempting to get in touch with trick flow at the moment, the motor was built for stock compression ratio by Paul at bowtie. He built it to "stock" with boring to compensate for some cylinder wall wear and then insstalled new matched pistons and connecting rods on the original crank. Tpi on there is stock but I feel an HSR on the way in the near future if necessary.

What do you need exactly? Luke and I will be pulling the motor apart today and I can take whatever measurments you need I appreciate the help Paul

fiveoformula · Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2014 8:18 am Post subject:

Dang, thats a bummer. Was it running hot or anything?

Twilightoptics · Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2014 8:48 am Post subject:

Heads don't tend to crack for no reason. Were these used heads surfaced? Was the block dexk surfaced? Deck height and gasket will tell us quench. 0.040 is ideal. Stock compression really has no meaning lol.

Bore = 4.030
Stroke = 3.48
Head gasket bore =? (Part number)
Head gasket compressed thickness = ? (Part number)
Deck height = ?
Piston relief cc = ?
Cylinder head cc =TBD

Cam specs from the cam card.

BluFbdy · Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2014 9:58 am Post subject:

The block was machined by bowtie he said he decked the surface the heads however were second hand with zero work done to them since I got them, I believe I saw a fine crack in it when I was assembling the motor by one of the rocker arm studs but I'm not sure that's the issue with taking a long time with things like this. The car wasn't hot or anything I just think the head failed for stupid decisions on my part. The head gaskets were just felpro replacements that matched the boring done. Cam is just an lt1 cam nothing special.

I don't have most of this info on hand unfortunately, what would I need to do to get them for you? I can measure the basics but I don't have any micrometers or depth gauges available to me.

Finally got through to TFR they suggested the 30410007m64 head based off the info I gave them, pair it with a cam that falls within the spring and I believe the max was .600, I have no desire for a super heavy cam but one that's better than stock and forgiving for daily driving/ street use would be good with me. Probably going to throw an hsr in the mix as well or I'll be dumping $1500 for nothing

Good news is I'm traveling to San Diego for work for 7 months so it's definitely within the budget.

Sorry if I'm frustrating man I feel like an idiot and I should have this info available to me but Paul never gave me a build sheet of any kind he just said "it's stock .30 over with your lt1 cam that's it"

Luke is working on draining the whole thing and we will be breaking into it around 3:30 to assess any damage.

Is there a possibility the bottom end could have suffered damage? ~45 seconds of max run time on it when it happened and there's only 9 k on the motor

BluFbdy · Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2014 10:04 am Post subject:

I DID however have a rocker arm stud snap on me last year, that would have definitely put a shock to the structure of them, and like I said they were used

Twilightoptics · Posted: Wed Jul 30, 2014 4:55 pm Post subject:

I'm really glad this is still up.

http://cochise.uia.net/pkelley2/DynamicCR.html

Read it. Know it. Love it.

Dynamic compression ratio is all that matters.

chevymad · Posted: Wed Jul 30, 2014 8:20 pm Post subject:

Used that calculator to get my pontiac to run on premium with 10:1 compression and iron heads. You can get tricky with cams and compression using that thing.

Amazing that it still says Pkelley. Pat passed away quite a few years ago now.

BluFbdy · Posted: Wed Jul 30, 2014 9:25 pm Post subject:

Well once we get the motor back together I'll start back on my fun mods lol haven't put much into it at this point but from what I've been instructed a 9:1 should be decent, wether or not that's possible at this point I'm not sure, there's potential plans for boosting it in the future but if it's not achievable with the bottom end I've got then it'll just go farther down the dream list lol

Luke and I got the jacked up piston out and I'm taking it to bowtie on Friday so he can get me a new one as close to its weight as possible and press it onto the rod. Luke and I cleaned up the spare head from John and Luke will be lapping the valves tomorrow, missing the o rings for the valve stems so once I get those we will throw them back together, most likely Friday. We are shooting to make the point defiance bbq on Sat and at this point if nothing goes wrong that'll be achievable

fiveoformula · Posted: Wed Jul 30, 2014 9:49 pm Post subject:

Whoa, jacked up piston? Thought there was just problems with a head?

aaron_sK · Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2014 6:40 am Post subject:

BluFbdy · Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2014 6:54 am Post subject:

Oh sorry I was texting Paul about it and John was in on it lol

So the head did in fact crack, a chunk fell off into cyl #8 and managed to make a few very nice impressions on the piston. Luckily no scoring on the cylinder walls (some how I got insanely lucky with that) so tomorrow I'm picking up a new one and dropping it in. I'm glad it was #8 because we are doing this in the car lol even getting the front of the motor up as much as we could the pan still won't come out so I'm having to work around it loose

91RSVert · Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2014 12:03 pm Post subject:

Pics?

BluFbdy · Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2014 12:09 pm Post subject:

Well thanks to a certain engine shop i will not have the piston back until Monday at the absolute earliest. He told me on Tuesday "yeah we can get that done for you this week, I'll be at the shop until 2" so I called him this morning to confirm that I was going his way, "yeah that'll be fine I will be leaving around 1" so I took off of work and drove all the way out there. I showed up at 11:45 and he informs me that he can't get to it today because he doesn't have those pistons on hand and he's leaving for the drags in 10 mins (noon)

So he shaved 2 hours effectively, I barely caught him on time and he can't even do it until Monday at the earliest.... Had I known it was going to be like this I would have pursued a different approach. After this is over and done with I will not be dealing with this shop, nor will I ever suggest anyone to deal with them

Hopefully it doesn't rain.

91RSVert · Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2014 5:22 pm Post subject:

Ive had some crappy luck with the shops around my area as well. I'm finding it difficult to find good work lately.

BluFbdy · Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2014 7:01 pm Post subject:

Very frustrating because what I was told the other day was yeah it's no problem no time at all, but today it was a completely different story because he had plans to go to the drags -_-

Anyway here's some pics of the damage, chunk of the head that broke off

Here's the heads all cleaned up

Lukes lapping job

Aaaaannnnd a few pics of the car all done up with paint. Shame I only had it for 24 hours before tthings went south