Lifters

3.0, part two

Can you say "Three point -OH"??

"This ain't no six cylinder either!"

If you haven't already, we recommend reading 3.0, part 1.

Experience the 3.0 in the Bluebonic Plauge, the ultimate daily driver.

Well last night I finally finished the complete tear down and inspection of the 3 liter and I was suprised with its condition considering!

For those that have not been following this project it began about 3 years ago with a goal to create a reliable 3 Liter engine producing a minimum of 250 HP. The engine's goal was to provide usable HP and torque that didn't need unscheduled maintenance and that would last 60,000 miles. This engine would incorporate Billet cylinder heads and would be a proving ground for this development process. The engine would also utilize LN ENgineering Nickies larger in size than anything previously manufactured by LN Engineering @ 105.07mm (if only by .07mm!).

The engine produced 235 HP at only 5,500 RPM which was not as high as I expected, but was acceptable for an engine with so many firsts and a set of heads that I had never designed a camshaft for.

The most incredible part of this engine was it's torque curve- a whopping 237 lb/ft of torque at peak (3,500 RPM) and an astonishing 200 lb/ft at only 2,500 RPM! By the time the engine reached 2,000RPM it was already past the 180 mark for torque! This engine was developed primarily for torque and usable power that didn't need high revs to attain- this makes the engine way easier to drive daily. The engine utilized dual 48mm Dellorto carbs with no mods to them to attain these power numbers, these carburetors were way too small and no doubt they limited RPM and overall performance, but they drove good and thats what mattered for this observation and for this combo. I did not have time to set up my EWFI arrangement for the Southeast dyno day earlier this year where the engine debuted so I just decided to wait until round 2 to install the EFI that with its 52m Throttle bodies will surely make more power than the carbs. The Buebonic Plague coupled with this engine put down 196HP and 195 lb/ft of torque AT THE WHEELS at the Southeast Dyno day..

Now for the good part:
I drove this engine/car all summer back and forth to Beth's house (105 miles one way) and all over the place. I logged 13,200 miles on the Plague's odometer in that amount of time. I had a goal of a daily driver that didn't need extra maintenance or attention so I PURPOSELY NEGLECTED IT! The same oil that was in the engine at start up and for the 27 dyno runs that followed it was the same oil that was ran in it for the 13,200 miles of pure hell I put it through. I drove car very hard and on a daily basis I experienced enough power to roll on the throttle and smoke the tires in THIRD gear. The engine did not receive a carb synch, nor a valve adjustment, hell I didn't even wash the car or clean the engine for 13,200 miles and actually forgot to check the oil for a couple of months! I lost the oil cap in July and stuffed an old sock in the oil filler and literally forgot it was there until I blew the tranny apart 6 weeks ago and decided it was time for a tear down, inspection and round two of development.

The engine did utilize some proprietary coating development, but a couple of items were left uncoated so I caould get a better handle on the wear that a typical part could see without exotic processes to attain artificial results. These were the main and rod bearings as well as the valvetrain components. Len will be getting the heads for inspection and he can post his findings and I have plenty of pictures of my findings to upload as soon as I get the chance..

In a nutshell wear was nil! The cylinders and pistons don't have a scratch on them! The main, rod and cam bearings are so good I will not even be replacing them for round #2 of development which will be underway very soon. I will have these bearings coated this time and see how they wear after being ran and then coated. The cylinder heads retained their torque specifications, valve guides did not wear and valve seats did not move. This was clearly evident from the fact that my original zero lash valve adjustment I did after the dyno sessions was still a true "Zero" on all valves. The cam and lifters were no less than I would expect from a set of ceramic lifters coupled to that camshaft- Literally perfect, not a scratch on them, the cam looks like it ran 10 minutes in my spintron, not 13K+ miles and 27 hellacious dyno runs!

So I will post pictures soon to depict the truths, you'll see that the engine wasn't clean, the oil wasn't clean but that everything looks near perfect and that's just amazing!

So what does this mean for you guys??? More and more big street engines being built and hopefully when the MassIVe Billet heads are 100% I may just be able to offer a standardized DAILY DRIVER 27-2800cc engine that will make 220HP and live for 100K miles- all of that based on these results from the 3 liter development.

With that being said I'm making a cam swap, modifying the heads to allow for optimum valve lift by adding a ratio rocker and adding EFI. Looking for 270 ponies this time around, and a bit less torque (I couldn't use all the torque before anyway!)

Jake Raby