so i got to thinking, has anyone ever built a flatty with wet sleeves to get the most cubes possible out of it. mabey for a land speed or drag car being pushed to its max. anyone heard of any?
Wet sleeving a stock flatty? Probably not a good idea unless you can find a way to beef up the deck. If you were to wet sleeve one chances are you would distort the deck so bad you would never get a head gasket to seal.
Points to worry about: - exhaust port - combustion chamber sealing (you got all the pressure right in the sealing point) Sounds tricky, but impossible is nothing.
Loudpedals dad and brother Muffin did one here on the board. Do a search. Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!
yeah, it's been done, but I can think of a couple of better ways to get a few more horses out of a flatty. The $$$ and custom stuff it would take is seriously not worth it. Go get yourself a blower!!!
Sleeving a flathead? Reminds me of a tragic tale. Guy I know wanted a monster flathead. Bought a 4 1/2 inch stroker crank, and sleeved the block to 3 1/2" bore. Was going solid block but didn't want to use block filler per se so he bought Devcon and filled the block. Had Kong heads, magneto, stout looking motor. Special machined Ross pistons just for this application. I volunteered to be his push car when he first fired the motor. Seems the coeficient of expansion of Devcon was incompatible with that use in the block. Motor fired up okay, sounded good but before we even could push it to the starting line kept slowing down. Long story short, it compressed the cylinder walls enough to melt piston grooves and seize the engine. But the crank, rods, heads and all were salvaged and now are running in another FED. Block and pistons were scrap. Expensive lesson to e sure.
A friend of mine said they used piston/sleeves out of a buick v6 in the sixties. Apparently it went pretty good but hard on head gaskets.They used some magnum edelbrock heads.Thicker I guess,he said that helped quite a bit.
Full wet sleeving any block not "designed for it" isn't a good idea. At least for more than one or two runs at the drags or Bonneville. The deck and the bottom of the crankcase aren't connected any longer. This leaves the deck to float, more in the center thAn the ends. Even seen a drag race Hemi block....? The cylinder head studs go all the way to the main cap area..! As noted..it's been done, and probably continue to be done...but only until the builder decides it was too much money and time for the low return in quick time slips..! Mike
When wet sleeving the flathead block all works well IF you decide to not push the motor to much. Using the typical straight sleeve will work OK. But if the top of the combustion chamber sees a lot of heat the sleeve will not remain round at the top causing a leak along the ledge of the deck just below the valve seats. The fix for such a problem is a flanged sleeve. When I found the straight sleeves leaking in my Lakester motor caused by the top no longer being round I machined the block myself for flanged sleeves. The flange at the top of the sleeve eliminates any inward movement caused by combustion chamber heat along the valve seat ledge so the sleeve stays sealed. In my opinion if your going to spend the time and money to do this to a block the flanged sleeves are a better way to go. Flanged sleeves are available from LA Sleeve. I'm not talking theory here I'm talking from experience. Ford flatheads were sleeved by the factory the sleeves have a small flange along the top edge that fit into a small relief machined into the top of the bore. The factory engineers knew that small flange would keep the sleeve round along the top edge.
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