Ideas to strengthen the EJ

[HolyCrapItsFast]

So I was chatting with my machinist over the weekend (Bob @ Ace Crankshaft). I recently brought him a few motors to machine and one of them, the client wants some robust reenforcing done to handle significant power. One things he is doing is he is pinning the cylinders by welding in some dowels at the head bolt locations. That's nothing new really but I don't see allot of people doing that these days.

I'm making this thread to document any ideas that you/we may have beyond what I suggested above and I can convey this to my machinist and make it a reality. I am very fortunate to know a guy who wants nothing more than to be different and better than everyone else and is willing to put in the time for ideas worth doing.

Lets make a bullet proof EJ that is not considred week sauce by any venue.

 

[IGOTASTi]

Great idea. Can't wait to see all the good things that come from this.

 

[HolyCrapItsFast]

Case bolts need to go through the block
Oiling passages on crank need to be modified
Dowel pins on all 12 head stud holes (4 have dowels already, 4 are already machined for dowels, 4 need to be machines)
Head gasket needs to be modified for the dowel pins to go through it.
Pressed in closed deck material with sleeves. IE take a litchfield or an S&R block and add sleeves to it.
DLC on crank, wrist pins, cams and rings
Custom pistons and rings made for DLC coated rings allowing for a much higher wrist pin height. With the amount it can then be moved, a stroked motor will still be able to rev high.
Properly machined bearings, and case to allow the proper oiling.
Clean up oiling passages for the head
O ring the sleeves

Cool thanks!

I'm only really interested in the things that will strengthen the block only at this time besides the standard stuff that is being done now including sleeving.

I like the case bolts. That is a big one. :tup:

I like modifying the oil passages but he already does that now.

I like the alignment pins on each head bolt location. :tup:

What about adding gussets to strategic areas of the block? I just wouldn't know the areas that would benefit from something like that though.

 

[HolyCrapItsFast]

I have not seen that done. Each one of the things I mentioned have been done, but rarely documented as all used together. Sleeving the block, closing the deck, fixing the case bolts and modifying the oiling should take car of most of the issues. The rest seem to be in the rotating assembly from what I understand. The big thing is making sure things stay in the place they need to and making sure everything is oiled properly.

I gotcha... I will certainly try to document everything he does for sure.

As for the build I will make your recommendations to the client as well. The more we can document the better. I think the real test is going to be at the track and in real world conditions. That and longevity. It could take some serious time before that data is available though.

Ultimately I would love to built a sacrificial block and bring it right to the threshold of failure and beyond just to see what fails and how well the block holds up to those stresses.

 

[smitty5788]

So something I have run into that is pissing me off. The amount that this case flexes when bolting it together.

I know Ed probably saw my post on IWSTI about my issues with my short block, not sure who else has, but when we tried to assemble it we found it to be significantly out of round with a fresh set of sleeves in it. What we are finding is that cylinder roundness is not repeatable each time you torque the case together and it also effects your main bearing clearances. Cylinder roundness also changes if your torque the case halves with or without the main bearings in place. I need to test this more when I get the new one back from the machine shop but it seems like each time you put the halves together the measurements can varry. I am gong to take some measurements with various configurations to test this out more but I think we have proven it to be true. Here are my thoughts to prevent this, these are things I want to do on the next block.

• Case studs like Ed mentioned, The bolts will not fail I have no doubt about that but torquing them up is causing all hell to break loose. Obviously studs will minimize this issue and not introduce the torque factor into the case which I have no doubt is causing the our of roundness.
• Pinning the two halves to keep them from shifting.
• Adding material between the main webs and the case to keep things from twisting. There is a billet Case out there that a company in Austrailia makes that has done this for this exact reason. Adding material here would not be easy though without a good amount of work.

Thoughts?

On top of that if you add the material to make these closed deck like Ed is talking about or even just pinning IMO and some sleeves you will have one hell of a block. There is only so much you can do though and all of these things we are talking about are still significant amounts of cash. No doubt we can make this thing strong but it will cost an arm and a leg to do it :x.

 

[smitty5788]

Yep I looked at those a a little while ago. I like the idea. I would like that with sleeves and the other things I mentioned. I want to know how you split the case though once they are pressed in?

 

[HolyCrapItsFast]

My machinist suggested sleeving the EJ25 only serves to weaken the block over all. He suggested that the stock sleeves are part of the casting and the after market sleeves are pressed in and get little support from the surrounding structure. He says a built 2.0 with the thicker wall unsleeved but pinned is the way to go as far as the EJ goes.

I tend to agree.