I think I am doomed, because with the pistons 20 out of the hole, and the 40 I donated to the machine shop from the bottom of my heads, I have static at 10:1. I will need some overlap to bleed some of that off or change some other parts I think. I am still trying to figure it. Maybe a custom grind with a late closing intake and leave other events more PTV friendly? lol.... $168.00 is cheap schooling tuition so far.
They even make a tool that looks like a valve with teeth on it so you can cut your own reliefs. You cut the pistons while they're installed in the engine and use the head to locate it. https://www.lindytools.com/ihpc Me, I just used a 2" diameter disc in a die grinder. Trial and error on the first piston, then once I got it right I made a cardboard templated and marked off the rest. Went pretty quick after that.
I think I have spent 5 hours online hunting for a .055 compressed thickness gasket. Mr Gasket makes one for 19.50 each. That would give me .035 squish, But PTV clearance and cam selection will be the next hurdle. A valve relief of some sort would both give me added clearance, and slightly lower static compression. I will need both. I read somewhere a suggestion to grind an old valve to a point in order to mark where the center of the valve relief should be. Once they are marked, a machine shop, or play with some of my own toys. lol...If I try it and cc each piston top, before and after, theoretically I should have removed material equally and not ruined the balance? I would rather have a shop do it, but I wont learn much that way. How deep can you cut into a piston before it becomes an issue of making the rest of it too thin? hmmmmm....
Interesting home piston cut technique. https://www.fordmuscleforums.com/threads/another-technique-for-piston-notching.484906/
To get an idea of where to grind the reliefs I brought a piston up to TDC, removed the valve springs from that chamber of the head, smeared white oil paint on the valve faces, and installed the heads with a used gasket. Then I could just drop the valves down and give them a spin. Left a nice white pattern on the piston top of where the valves were located. Most, not all, small block Ford heads have the valves at a 20 degree angle to the block deck surface. Twisted Wedges being the most out of whack.
You have to remove a lot of aluminum from a piston to mess up the balance. You have all these engine shops bragging about how they get all of the rotating assembly balanced to within half a gram. The factory engineers that designed the engine just laugh at them, from the factory these engine might have been balanced within 3 or 4 grams. Whatever parts the computer picked to mate together. If you're building an all out race engine that you're gonna buzz up over 7,000+ rpm, that's one thing, but for something just driven on the street it's not a big deal.
I used a dial indicator to measure the cam lift at the lifter and got I-.238 E-.245, which translates to stock 1987 LTD, or other big car. Once inside, The part #'s on the rod caps were all D1xx. The oil pump was a ford C2xx. Is this normal for a factory E7TE block? Also included pics of a rod bearing and a main bearing. Since I dont know much about it, is this average wear, or ? Timing chain was dual roller and not stretched. Also wondering if these are 1971 rods, does this account for the pistons being .020 out of the hole?
The numbers on the parts are Ford engineering numbers, just show when the parts were designed. 302/5.0 rods are all the same length except for Boss 302 rods. Hard to tell from photos but to me it looks like the bearings have some grooves from particulate matter and the grey spots are probably from a lack of lubrication. Are the crank journals smooth and shiny?
Other than marks that correspond to what can be seen in the bearings, they are smooth and shiny. I wouldnt really call the journal marks scratches, although that is probably what they are, because if the light is reflecting off the surface they cannot be seen and certainly not felt. I already re-lubed and torqued the caps back on to keep dirt out and not have a detail to remember (or forget). I probably will not put more than 25K miles on this car by the time I am in my 70s. I also dont plan on anything over 6k rpm. I just dont really know much about what I am looking at in regards to bearing surfaces.
I took a piston out today to check a few things. They are E6SE-6110LA part #. The compression height, piston top to top of pin plus 1/2 pin, = 1.629. Skirt measured 4.0015. Block Bore at the top measured 4.0035. Rings had plenty of springiness and moved freely. Top rod bearing looked worse than the bottom, and for purpose of this experimental, cheap build-up, I will only replace the rod bearings. Pistons, rings, and main bearings will not be replaced, but I will cut my own valve reliefs to allow about .170 clearance @ TDC. The cam I would like to use has .050 lift at 3* BTDC, and I dont know yet what it needs at TDC. I currently have .072. Will be cutting into piston top 1/10 of an inch at the deepest spot. To make a template, I put light springs in the valves on one cylinder and coated the piston top with a .090 sheet of clay. I used some strips of .055 sheet metal to imitate my head gasket, bolted the head down very lightly, and made an impression by pushing the valves into the clay top at TDC. I used the pattern to trace where the valve pockets should be. Then I taped off the edge of the bore, covered the entire block except the piston top with 6mil plastic, taped that down and ground out the relief. The first two came out ok, and the third actually looked nice. Plastic gets moved for each bore, and a shop vac cleans the area before un-taping. I re-checked the first one to verify my pockets were in the right place. I know I am probably violating everything that is sacred about engine building, but I have decided that this motor is going to teach me many things I should to know about SBFs. Besides that, I am having fun with it. If I do it another time, I think I will get a scrap head and use valve guide pocket cutters.....
Dial indicator and magnetic stand from harbor freight, 30 bucks and so much fun to play with! I used it to find TDC on every piston to measure how far out of the hole each one was. 1 thru 4 were .021, .022, .021, .020. 5 thru 8 were all .015 out. According to a compression calculator, one bank will be 9.64 and the other will be 9.49. If this block were to be rebuilt, do the machining processes fix the decks? I assume it is the deck, but is something I would definitely find out if I were spending money. For this build, I am going to investigate buying one .055 head gasket and one .050. Or just forget about it. Also some debri containment pics for entertainment purposes.
Beat up top rod bearing inserts is usually a sign of detonation pounding down on the piston. You may even see wear on the backside of the bearing. If you can't find the gaskets you need you can get Cometic head gasket made in just about any thickness you want. They're expensive initially but reusable. https://www.cometic.com/ If you cut the decks the pistons will stick out even farther. Your plastic/masking tape method is exactly what I did, too. When done, I moved each piston to the bottom of their bore and wiped the cylinder walls with rags soaked with ATF. The detergent in ATF cleans the pores of the metal.
