Hgf + Diy = Kr1

[DeanB]

It is going to look and go lovely when you put it back togeather Phil. It was mint before, now it is going to be near perfect....

[Phil S1]

Thanks Dean.

 

So now.....the moment I've been waiting for......

The return of my head from Roger at Sabre Heads after his KR1 work. From the peening work he assured me the head was good and hard with little porosity which is good news. The shiny valves are the new bigger diameter inlet valves and you can see he's dressed the waterways too. He has also fitted shorter studs to make fitting of the exhaust manifold that bit easier....which is nice because they are a bit awkward to get over the standard length studs. Here's a closer shot of one chamber:-

 

Here's a picture of a dressed inlet port with the new waisted inlet valves in the background:-

 

and a slightly blurry one of an exhaust port:-

 

A few reference marks for, if I remember correctly, the amount of skim and the chamber volume:-

 

plus a final one with Roger's stamp and a temperature sticker so he can tell if I ever overcook the head and destroy all his hard work. I think he becomes quite attached to the heads, woe betide anyone who abuses them...even if it does bring him more work in the future :-

 

Roger also made prior arrangement for me to take my Larini manifold to a local stainless steel fabricators whilst I was there. They added some weld along the lower edges of the bores and linished the face smooth while I waited and provided a drink too, all for a tenner

Roger then dressed the bores out again to match the exhaust gasket so now I've got a much larger sealing face:-

 

He also recommends fitting 2 exhaust gaskets to accommodate the unevenness of many aftermarket manifold flange faces, so if I do that too I should hopefully have a proper seal this time.

I have to say, whilst the Larini system looks very nice the fitment has not been brilliant. Admittedly mine is now some years old and they may have improved since but my Clubsport silencer required significant 'adjustment' before the tailpipes pointed anything like rearwards, I had to elongate the holes in the 4-2-1 manifold flange before they would fit over the studs and now this issue has come to light too.

I'm really pleased with the work Roger has done and he has been most accommodating. I can't wait now to get it back together again and see how it drives.

[DeanB]

Looks absolutely fantastic......well chuffed for you. He sounds like a top bloke does Rog.

[smithpaulg]

Phil,

 

That looks excellent, when you get it back together please tell me the wait was worth it !! Whats next

 

Was mine on the machine when you visited Roger ? I was due to pick it up on Saturday but i don't think that's happening now. I might not make the Serpentine run at this rate.

 

Paul

[Phil S1]

Hi Paul, Yes I can assure you Roger was hard at it on your head when I arrived. I promise I didn't delay him too much whilst I was there

 

A couple of other points following my visit.

Roger said the Larini manifold is actually a big bore manifold, too big for my engine's state of tune, which probably explains the noticeable loss of low down torque when I first fitted it years back. That said it also seemed to rev more freely at the top end and appeared on par for acceleration with other standard (ish) Elises on track. I am going to re-fit it anyway and see if Roger's work gets me back some of that torque....as well as horse power.

 

We also spoke about the PRRT kit and I mentioned how, like Keith had found, the lower silicon hose from the PRRT housing touched the aluminium tube. It got me thinking and tonight I had another look at it and made some adjustments....

Not an easy thing to photo in situ but this is the PRRT as first fitted, showing the aluminium tube touching the lower silicon hose:-

 

I had stuck a piece of foam padding on the tube and ideally was thinking about Brian's suggestion of using 2 'P' clips with a shared bolt to hold the 2 pipes apart but was struggling to find any big enough for the silicon tube.

Tonight, I undid a number of the jubilee clips and tried sliding various hoses about to get the best fit but still could not avoid the 2 pipes touching.

My solution was to cut 1.5 inches (3.8cm for you youngsters ) off from the lower silicon hose, immediately under the PRRT housing:-

I had tried 1 inch initially but it still wasn't enough.

I made sure the PRRT housing was pushed up as high as the upper silicon hoses would allow and then re-fitted the shortened lower hose to end up with this:-

 

Still not easy to see but I have now managed to gain some clearance between the hose and pipe:-

 

I've left the bit of foam on for now, not sure if it'll serve much purpose though...it may even fall off when the pipe gets hot I guess!

[jimbo07g41]

Nice work Phil with PRT, I bet you cant wait to get that engine back together.

[Phil S1]

Thanks Jimbo, you're right, I'm hoping to get it fired up on Sunday when Brian comes up again.

 

One other thing, Roger also told me about and has recently posted on seloc a bit of a story with a lesson or two....

http://forums.seloc.org/viewthread.php?tid=339278

[Martin R]

Phil, nice work, cable tie the foam on the Ali pipe. It does not get that hot.

[Phil S1]

Good idea Martin...as usual

[Daniel]

Phil, that's looking very shiny indeed! I look forward to seeing you and Bri reassable it (In photos of course) I'm sure it'll be fantastic when done.

 

Well done on the simple, but effective PRT rubbing pipe fix!

[kayj_prod]

Phil, I had to shorten the silicone hose to the cooling rail to get mine to fit well in the end. I guess we both took the same approach but from different ends!

 

You're now making me wish I had done a bit more cleaning around the engine itself... maybe I'll leave that until I do whatever will inevitably come next.

[Phil S1]

Now now Keith, no need to look on the gloomy side, I'm sure you'll have years of trouble free motoring now after all the work you've recently done....it's a Lotus....what else could possibly go wrong

[Phil S1]

So today was the big re-build....at least in theory.

Once more, Bri made the journey up and after a cuppa we made a start.

Bri gave the block one final going over, making sure there were no remnants of the old gasket and then fitted the new steel dowels making sure they didn't protrude too much. Then, after a good clean up we were all ready to fit the new Payen BW750 elastomer gasket, until Bri's eagle eye spotted what appeared to be a manufacturing fault on one of the gaskets seal rings.

The rings are basically a piece of thin sheet metal folded into a U shape and rolled round into a hoop and welded. Three of the rings were quite free to rotate within the main part of the gasket but the fourth was much tighter and had what looked like an extra thickness of sheet metal in the heat-discoloured welded joint area. The more we looked at it the more we were convinced that it was not going to compress down evenly in that region and consequently would lead to a premature failure of the gasket. Tried in vein to find a local motor factor with another Payen gasket but not surprisingly on a Sunday morning, failed miserably. So, rather than risk it we chose to call it a day.

Disappointing all round and a wasted journey for Bri. The gasket was from a reputable motor factor near Bri so he's going to hopefully obtain a replacement and we'll reconvene again one day in the not too distant future to have another go.

I've emailed this photo to DVA, since this is the gasket he recommends and regularly fits, to see if he's ever encountered it or at least to make him aware.

 

We did at least get one little job out the way.

When I put my oil pump back together the manual said refit the pump onto the engine before refitting the new oil pump seal. It would've been a doddle to fit it on the bench but in situ was a pain due to the limited access. I had managed to install it until it was about 1,50mm proud of the pump face after which I didn't have a suitable tool or socket to continue:-

 

Bri came to the rescue once more and turned up a piece of bar (28mm bore x 38mm outside diameter) like so:-

 

This fitted nicely over the crankshaft and we used the crankshaft bolt and washer to wind the seal in until it was underflush with the pump face (apologies for the blurry image) :-

 

So that was it for today I'm afraid.

[Martin R]

Phil, bad luck better safe than sorry with the gasket though. Nice idea about the spacer to install the oil pump seal. They are a bugger to fit and it took me 2 attempts to get it right on mine.

[smithpaulg]

Phil, that's bad news but at least you spotted it prior to fitting.

 

Is that a week lost ?

 

Paul