FlatCad Racing's Quest for 200 MPH-a Cadillac Flathead Story!

I think sometimes the guys in the oil bottling business throw a little chunk of metal into the bottle just so that we find it later in our oil pan and can't ever figure out where it came from. I found an unidentifiable piece in a Buick Straight 8 that I ran for years. When I tore it down I scrutinized every square millimeter of that engine and parts, and never did find any evidence of a missing piece. I have to think it found it's way in through the oil fill hole.

 

Ok The mystery is solved !!! I tore the front timing cover off and I found more crushed up steel



So as I was looking around at the parts I removed and


I found where the pin came from



this is an anti-rotation pin for the idler gear shaft.. What we think is we started to lose the bearing and the shaft rotated and sheared the pin. We will now look in to the oiling system to the front of the cover

 

Donovan says this gear drive will only fail if something runs through the gears. They also say, that nothing of the gear drive would break and run through the gears, and it must have been something on our end.

REALLY?

 

Everything can and fail Buddy, but hopefully that Flatcad have not been to much damage. The Flatcad crew will always solve the problem

K

.................................
Taildragger&fenderless

 

38Flattie,

Thanks for your input on my homemade head thread. I've been wanting to read about your adventures but never seem to have time, so I made some time and I have only one thing to say, WOW!!!

That engine is bad ass and very inspiring to all. The best thing about flatheads is that you can't mail order a 500+ HP crate flathead, takes a lot of knowledge, ingenuity and craftsmanship to build a radical flathead.

Subscribed

Kipp

 

Well, Buddy and I finally got together at my place this weekend to do the tear down on the motor ,, here are the results ..

well it looks as after a few self inflicted wounds,(( cracking of the block, head gasket issues, and edge clearance issues on the main bearings )) the motor held up fantastically . All the bearings look great, the scoring in the cylinders can be honed out. ect.

as for the self infliction -- the Block was looked at by the owner of lock-n-stich and he explained the process of the repairs to the cracks, and we feel this is the way to go. I will see if we can get some progress pictures of the repairs and post them. We also spent some time with Kenny Boyd at his shop to look over all the parts and he was impressed with the condition of the parts so we will proceed with having the block repaired, then to Kenny's shop for pressure testing the block, clearancing the main bearings, honing of the bores and lapping the valves. Buddy is working on ordering new coated bearings and new rings.

Here are the pics

cam held up great with the new roller lifter setup as did the lifters and blocks

 

now for self infliction !!!!!! we scored the top edge of 4 pistons on one side of the block by not having the head gasket aligned correctly you can see the interference in the pics

 

here is a few shots of the crank

 

All in all this was great news !! It shows this motor can take the abuse of the SHIFTING GURU BUDDY and stay together.. This year we plan on a bunch of changes, all in the small details,, areo, complete electrical re-wire (( thanks to Bob at Rebel Wire our newest sponsor )), fabrication of new exhaust system ect.

 

Maybe, I should have said SHIFT MASTER BUDDY

 

Have your fun........LOL!

 

Looks like minor stuff, that can even happen to a new design high dollar engine. With the abuse this old engine taken, it must have been some first class mechanics that build her!

K

.......................................
Taildragger&fenderless

 

Out of curiosity, do you have to replace the pistons when they look like that?

 

I'm just glad the 'shifting pressure' is no longer being directed at me - I got my share last year. I think something along the line of 'Short Shifter' Hays!

Buddy now owns the shifting crown - fair and square. He makes up in volume for what he lacks in quality.

 

The areas that rubbed the gasket can be hand smoothed and polished - they are really in the pop-up region and don't influence the rings or sealing. The problem occurred due to the dowel pin gasket alignment holes not being exactly where they needed to be - and I didn't relieve the gasket enough with the die grinder in these areas. My Bad!

 

All in all Dale that looks great after all the runs. You guys have done a bang up job on the ol Flat Cad and I know with all these learning pains which are not unsurmontable next year looks like the "Year of the Flat Cad"
Good going guys and remember to
"Keep em between the whites"

 

Thanks Kipp! I'm really enjoying your threads!

Update: The block is at Lock-N-Stitch, to be repaired. When it's repaired, we will hone the bores, and start the assembly process.

The MSD Dizzy is headed back to MSD, for a freshening up. We'll Probably run a MSD 20 mag next year, so this dizzy will be a backup.

The gear drive is repaired, and headed back to us! I reported how the initial call went, but since then, my opinion has completely changed!

Donovan feels we may have a clearance issue on the crank, and that may be putting the idler bearing in a bind. Their second thought is inadequate oiling. In spite of the fact that they feel we may have inadvertently caused the problem, They paid for all of the repairs! I only had to pay for a new front seal I requested, and the shipping!

Donovan has now set the drive up with a crank gear that is cut a few thousands deeper, to help with any clearance issues we may have. I have to give MAJOR PROPS to Donovan, for really standing behind their product!!!!

Don and I looked the drive over when I was at his house last week, and came up with a plan to add oil sprayers to it, so hopefully we can cure any oiling issues we may have.

 

I believe some motorcycles had aluminum head gaskets.

Is here a reason that copper is used, instead of aluminum? Don has the capability to make aluminum head gaskets.

It seems to me that if a soft aluminum were to be used, it would work very well with our o-ring/receiver groove setup.

I'm thinking of a soft, annealed aluminum:

6061-O Soft Annealed Aluminum Alloys - Sheet

Check up to five results to perform an action.


Sheet

This is the most versatile of the heat treatable aluminum alloys. It has most of the good qualities of aluminum, and it offers a wide range of mechanical properties and corrosion resistance. It can be fabricated by many of the commonly used techniques.

In the annealed condition it has good formability. In the T4 condition fairly severe forming operations may be accomplished. The T6 properties may be obtained by artificial aging.

It is welded by all methods and can be furnace brazed. It is available in the clad form ("Alclad") with a thin surface layer of high purity aluminum to improve both appearance and corrosion resistance.

Specifications: QQ-A-250/11, AMS 4025

Color Marking (Rod and Bar): Ends painted Blue

 

Hi Buddy interesting thoughts about using aluminum for the head gaskets. Being a softer material than the copper would the aluminum become thinner in the area of the studs after the torque leaving the gasket thicker in between the studs? I would think if the material would work others would be using it.

 

We would do a masking and chemical etching in areas to reduce the thickness and leave a band around the chambers and the studs. Just some Ideas we are messing with

 

You could be right, but I NEVER let the fact that someone else hasn't or isn't doing something influence me!

 

Aluminum is used as crush washers to seal banjo connectors. Of course, the pressures are probably lower. The biggest problem, in addition to figuring out the optimum thickness, will be the time consuming trial and error process to see if it works. Fortunately it is a flat head engine so the valves won't have to be adjusted each time you remove the head.

 

Dead soft copper is pretty soft. Do you know the hardness of copper verses aluminum? Copper is nice for my kind od cutting as it's half hard when I'm cutting it and then easy to anneal. But aluminum is pretty much the same I guess. What is the advantage of using aluminum other than cost? Which I know is no object.

 

With aluminum gaskets could you get a galling effect between the gasket surface and the block deck or the head surface?

 

What we are doing is simply testing some ideas and materials . We have some engineering students and Graduate engineers form a local engineering college that are a part of the Society of Automobile Engineers and even the President of the group working with us to test the theory. They will do full computer annalists on some of our ideas. We still may be way off line but you never know what may happen

 

Being able to etch the outer surface a bit lower so material around the combustion chamber and studs remains higher might just work. Once again you guys are thinking outside the box good stuff for sure.

 

It would be nice to try one in some street driven car before going to Bonneville. People have been using copper for some time. And wondering if aluminum would work. Must be some reason copper is still #1

 

Jiminy, galling is one thing we'll need to keep an eye out for!

Rich, aluminum is a lot softer than copper-maybe too soft is the issue? It may be that aluminum 'loses it's shape' after being torqued with the o-rings digging into it?

From Wikpedia- lead has a hardness of 5HB, aluminum 15HB, copper 35HB, and mild steel 120HB

I would love to use a fiber, or multi layer stainless gasket, but cannot get anyone to make one for us.

So, some motorcycles run aluminum head gaskets, and a lot of cars have aluminum header gaskets. Does anyone know why aluminum isn't, or can't be used for head gaskets?

...Sorry, I don't necessarily always buy into the "if it worked, everyone would be doing it" thing!

 

Your previous post made me curious so I did a bit of a search to see if I could find any automotive use of aluminum head gaskets.


This is the only thing I could find with Google, http://geometroforum.com/topic/4911452/1/

It is a post from last year on a Geo Metro board (sorry about the mega-off-topic !) and it mentions aluminum and also stainless laser cut shim gaskets that he makes himself by the sound of it.

The guy that makes them is Mark Dvorak, (620) 783-5338.

 

Well it will be an interesting experiment. I guess you will try the aluminum gaskets on the dyno and know what's what when you go to Bonneville. Hope I'm there to see how it goes.