I was going to wait to finish more before i started a thread.. but im going to anyways.

recently i gained access to a CNC machine shop where it suddenly became quite easy for me to make lots of amazing stuff quite cheaply.

I have machined a D-shaped peripheral port, which will be fed by 2" I.D. intake tubes.

I will also be CNCing some roller barrel throttle bodies out of aluminum, which ride on ball bearings for smooth usage.


here is my beautiful S475 right out of the box.



in this pic you can see various pieces of metal for machining including all of my intake and exhaust flanges, my 3/4" thick aluminum dry sump pan, my peripheral port bases, and the base for my throttle bodies. Theres also some intake and exhaust pipes here, as well as my 3 stage external dry sump.



heres a few pics of my incomplete stainless steel intake manifold, which still needs to be finished/ ground down smooth on the inside.



here is what that metal looked like when it was flat.




these are my stainless intake runners that come directly out of the p-port. These also are not complete yet.



a few stainless 304 flanges:




here are a few pics of the roller barrel throttle bodies in the 3D assembly.





I actually have my p-port housings and inserts complete, i just dont have a camera currently to take those pictures.


more progress to come.

-Zander

 

looks good. Any particular reason for using stainless on the intake instead of aluminum?

 

easier to weld is my guess. aluminum is tricky sometimes. looks like he is using a mig as well.

 

I used stainless because i haven't learned how to weld aluminum yet..
I actually TIG welded it, but because it was sheet metal, and not all the seems perfectly matched up, it got pretty messy.

 

The only reason to use aluminum is for weight savings. In the end, it will cost you some hp because aluminum transfers heat at a much faster rate than steel. You want your intake runners to stay as cool as possible if all possible. Aluminum sucks for this reason. If made out of steel, sure it may weigh a little more but you wont transfer nearly as much heat. I never knew that aluminum could transfer heat so fast since I started fabricating my intake for my 20b. Anytime I was handling aluminum, I would have to quicky used gloves to keep my hands from burning. With steel it was different. It was as if the heat transfer started to dissipate as it traveled through the metal. I'm in no way a metal expert. That's just my experience.

 

well, I just didn't know how to weld aluminum, but knowing this, i might have made the right choice anyways.

 

Ok, i got around to taking pics of the rest of my setup.


Here's one of the inserts for the peripheral ports:




heres some pics of the machining in the rotor housing:





did a little smoothing out of the rough edges on my intake mani.





here's a pic of my drysump up close, although its not too good of a pic.

 

lol is that you in your avatar?

 

haha yeh thats me

 

got a little bit of work done this past week.

This 3/4" thick piece of aluminum is my dry sump pan, and should hopefully be thick enough to keep the engine from twisting apart. I decided to run the scavenge lines out of the bottom of the pan.

this is my first time doing aluminum TIG welding, so i think i am justified to grind it smooth



engine mocked up sitting on the plate:




this is the top of the plate, where you can see the two 5/8" oil inlets for the dry sump.




this is the bottom of the plate, where you can see i have routed both scavenging sections off to the side, where hoses will connect onto. The space in between the tubes will be where my subframe will run.




more to come.

-Zander

 

So i am having trouble gettin my insert into my peripheral port hole..
i've managed to get it mostly in, but the rest of the way it just doesn't seem to slide in..
It is a zero clearance press fit.

any ideas? I've already tried heating the rotor housing and freezing the insert.. and of course using a mallet.

 

zero clearence should fit just with some light tapping, you sure something isnt drasticly different?

 

They have identical demensions, and i even used the same carbide cutter on both the hole and the insert.

I have a feeling i might actually need to put it in a press.

 

I would do more work on the insert. The outer walls of your housing are so thin ( at the insert) that a press fit may bow the housing out causing a seal issue.

 

Yeh, those little pieces are only .08 of an inch thick each.

but if i put the insert in upside down, it actually slips right into that space without any issues.

The only spot where it seems to have a hard time going in is the D-shaped area of the port.

 

Place the inserts in the freezer for a day or so. Heat the housing either in an oven or gently with a torch. Slide the cold sleeve into the warm housing.

 

I actually did do that to get it as far as it is now..
mabey 350* isn't hot enough?

 

it sounds like maybe the housing cooled down by the time you got it half way in, or vise versa. What you need to do is remove the sleeve and go buy some dry ice, pack the dry ice around the insert in a baggie or something and stick it in the freezer for an hour or so then heat the housing to 400f and be sure to get the whole insert set into place quickly before it heats up and expands or before the housing cools down

 

I wouldn't heat a housing to anything higher than 250f from fear of warping it.

 

do you really think this is a realistic possibility?

 

yes, its alluminum. what do you think happens when you severely overheat and engine? it warps the housings.

 

I would be slightly worried, since people are worried about warped housings at temps as low as 250 degrees Fahrenheit.

However, I think the real damage happens to the water seal. But that is just my opinion, that is not backed by any factual evidence.

Now, I doubt there will be a fear of warping when the heat is applied evenly to a part under no stress... so it will expand evenly, and cool down evenly.

 

i took some pics of what the housing looks like currently:

they have roughly 1/2" of space that they need to move inward.

 

nobody has any advice?
what about using a hydraulic press?

 

Put a thin layer of transfer dye on the insert and see if you can find exactly where it is getting snagged up. Just hit the area it is rubbing on with a sandpaper flapper wheel until you can get it to go in.