Converting a 1.9 head to instal on a 1.6 mech. block

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Yay. Glad to hear about your engine conversion. Mine too, is smokey upon first start up and the timming is @ 1.2. Not so much with the block heater in use.
Sorry to hear about your nerves. Keep us all posted.

[saurkraut]

Well, 1.2mm did the trick.  Shot right up to 85 MPH in 4th gear and promptly pushed out the head gasket.  Time to toss the Raceware studs and go to ARP.

I suspect the Raceware studs are a bit too tricky to successfully get torqued more than once.  I ran a stock head gasket for years on this motor at 25+ PSI boost with boat load of fuel and the seal never failed.  But now I've blown two metal gaskets and one fiber gasket with the same boost, lower compression ratio, and lower fueling.  When the ARP studs show up, I'll pull the head and have a close look at the Raceware studs.  I bet they're stripped.  I never exceed 50 ftlbs of torque, always cleaned the studs, and always used mineral oil per Raceware's recommendation.

[Rabbit on Roids]

what about the fact that most people are running 100ft bls on there studs? or will racewares not take that kinda tq?

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To bad about the Racewear studs. My ARP's are torqued to 90ft.lbs. and no evidence of leakage yet.
About pump timing. I was running the timing @ 1.2mm and at first start w/ block heater it smoke just a couple of puffs, but w/out the block heater, it starts right up but smokes to high heaven till it gets some heat into the engine. Note that my engine makes noise like, to far advanced at idle, but when throttled and making boost, the noise seems to decrease. Coolant temps. seem to rise as normal and EGT's seem to rise to 1200 on a hard pull till Gov. kicks in. I reset pump timing to 1.06mm and does not run smooth on first start, but sounds so much better.
I wonder if anyone else is having the same problems.  Karl, how about you?

Josh

[saurkraut]

I'm actually at 1.19mm, and the EGT is climbing to 1300º F at 25 PSI after running it full throttle through a few gears.  I don't have an intercooler yet, but I have the Spruce thermocouple, so i think I'm seeing the actual temperature.

The coolant temp is not climbing as fast as the lower timing settings.  I wouldn't classify the nailing at idle to be excessive  I wonder if the sweet spot is somewhere between 1.10 and 1.20?

Well, the ARP studs are on order.  hopefully I'll get to putz with it some more before the snow/salt season.

[saurkraut]

The ARP studs are in and torqued.  Just have to hook up all the trinkets and fire it up.

I suspect the Raceware studs I was using lost their proprietary friction reducing coating and didn't provide the clamping force.  The gasket didn't look completely compressed either.  I think Raceware kind of put them selves in a box with their stud design.  They rely on their special friction reducing coating, mineral oil only for the torquing lube, and being very accurate in reaching 50 ftlbs of total torque.  Screw any one of those three things up, and you don't get the proper clamping force.  In all fairness to Raceware, I think i used the studs four times before they failed to clamp properly.  So if you don't plan on pulling your engine apart as often as I do, Raceware will do fine.

ARP on the other hand uses a larger thread diameter, and molybdenum disulphide grease as a lubricant for torquing.  The thread pitch looks to be close to Racewares thread pitch, just larger in diameter.  So the ARP studs can provide more clamping force, and should be more consistent in thread friction in subsequent installations since they rely only on the moly grease to lube the threads and dictate the thread friction.  I think their literature that came with the studs states that the torque value is 75% of failure.  Raceware is probably over 80% with their design as the torque to 50, and fail around 60.

the only down side to ARP is its tough lowering the head with the studs in as the larger thread diameter is a very tight fit on the bolt holes in the head.

[saurkraut]

The ARP studs did the trick.  The car goes like a scalded cat, and there is no leakage of combustion products into the water jacket.  The start was a little smoky, but it cleared up as soon as i put it in gear and put a load on it.  I'm not going to drive it in winter, so its not a big deal.

I torqued them to 80 ftlbs cold, plugged in the block heater and let it get warm.  After it cooled, I retorqued and about 4 stud took a little more twist to get back up to 80 ftlbs.  I noticed some folks are going to 90 ftlbs.  Is that value coming directly from ARP?  My instructions said 80 ftlbs, but yah, its probably the Coswoth specs

I didn't get around to checking the pump timing with the gasket/stud swap.  It snowed and the salted, so that's it for the year.  I'll putz with that in the spring and try to find the sweet spot between 1.10mm and 1.20 mm.

[theman53]

53 willys did 110ft/lbs
since I have more time and not running yet, I took and old HG and torqued the bolts to 100 ft/lbs. I let them sit for a week and took it all down and redid it all. I have left them torqued for about a month now and I am going to break them loose again and leave it alone until it is time for the real HG...my  idea being that I will be stressing them before they are in service so I won't have problems in the future, or have to try and do any kind of retorque to stress relieve like the rod bolts did.

[NintendoKD]

Hey, saurkraut, I know that you know about my build and how it is similar to yours, but for cold starts someone suggested to me about using a 1,000W block heater.  I though why go that far without using something better?  I am thinking using an oilpan heater would help too on cold days.  the 17.5 static comp is working for you?  I plan on porting my head when it gets here too.  BTW, sorry to hear about your nerve issue autoimmune? my father has one too  .  Hope you stick around I will def. need to pick your brain "no pun intended", too bad you can't come out and help with the build "there would be cold beer and hot food "

Thanks, and a Very Merry Christmas,

Kevin

[saurkraut]

i haven't gotten back to my 1.5TD project yet.  See: http://www.vwdiesel.net/forum/index.php?topic=11786.0  On that motor, I used a 1.6 head, which lowered the Cr. below 23:1, but you'd have to look at the post for that motor to see what it is as i don't remember.  I plan on returning to it soon.  First step will be triage to see if I have a cracked block and need to build a new bottom end.  i might use the 1.5 crank, 1.9 rods and 1.6td pistons in a 1.6td block. I'll have way too much piston protrusion with just bolting stuff together, so I have some issues to resolve.  You might want to make note of the pump number.

The engine I have running is a 1.6TD block with a 1.9 head.  This yields a Cr of 19:1.  Starts above 40º F are OK.  A little smoky at first, but it clears up as soon as you put a load on the engine.  Higher temperatures give better results, with summer temperature leaving no noticeable difference.

The engine does have more measurable power that I can only attribute to the head.  Bigger ports, bigger valves, and lower cranking loss is probably what's yielding the gains. I spent too much time (3 head gaskets; two metal, one fiber) trying to get a good seal with my extremely used Raceware studs and I ran out of season to do more testing to dial it in.  Finding the right static timing is going to be my spring time activity.  I'm close, but I want to find a measurable point with EGT and boost to determine where the best spot is.  Apparently, not enough advance raises EGT, raises water jacket temperature, and raises boost. Too much advance can damage pistons with out showing big EGT and other measurables.  So I plan on going down to 1.15 mm static timing and sneak it back up past 1.2 mm, record boost, EGT and speed between to fixed points and see if I can reach any conclusions.

I have no data for you on the viability of running a 17:1 compression ratio.  There is noticeable differences going from 23:1 to 19:1, and that's 4 points of Cr.  17:1 is 2 points lower.

Perhaps your best bet is to put an engine together and see if the thing will even run.

My nerve disease is ALS or Lou Gehrig's Disease. My right hand is shot, I walk and talk funny, and my memory is less than perfect.  But every day is a holiday, and every meal is a banquet.

[Rabbit on Roids]

ALS is a bad one, one of my friends lost her dad from it a couple years back. it was absolutely rediculious watching him die so slowly from it. it really hit everyone hard when he passed. im pretty sure it took him less than a year from initial diagnosis.

[NintendoKD]

I am going to run the 1.6 bottom with the aaz head "the post title is deceptive" so it is good to know that static comp will be 19 and not 17 "guys in my thread told me it would be lower" thanks I am keeping the hydro head hydro, and was wondering.  If I ran a line from the extra drain hole" VW engineers put it there for a reason" back to the block, or to the oil pan, or posibly overflow, would there be any benefits?

thanks,

Merry christmas

[saurkraut]

ALS is a bad one, one of my friends lost her dad from it a couple years back. it was absolutely rediculious watching him die so slowly from it. it really hit everyone hard when he passed. im pretty sure it took him less than a year from initial diagnosis.

yup, its a real crap sandwich.  I'm working on my bucket list.  Notice the last car in my sig.  Its going to be a long winter...,.

[Rabbit on Roids]

I am going to run the 1.6 bottom with the aaz head "the post title is deceptive" so it is good to know that static comp will be 19 and not 17 "guys in my thread told me it would be lower" thanks I am keeping the hydro head hydro, and was wondering.  If I ran a line from the extra drain hole" VW engineers put it there for a reason" back to the block, or to the oil pan, or posibly overflow, would there be any benefits?

thanks,

Merry christmas

no benefit to a hydraulic head really. i would convert it to mechanical lifters. people say you get better power out of mech heads.

and i cant really see there being a benefit to having the oil drain in tact. there are 2 HUGE oil drains in the back of the head, if you have so much oil going up to the head that the 2 big drains cant keep up, there is a problem, not to mention there is a EVEN BIGGER drain in the center of the head on the front. think of a vanagon engine, it lays at 50*. do you think that the top oil drains EVER drain oil back down into the block? i think not, you would have a severe runaway if there was that much oil under the valve cover. and vw car engines lean to atleast 15* towards the back also. so , either way, the front oil drains are not that necessary.

[rabbitman]

My nerve disease is ALS or Lou Gehrig's Disease. My right hand is shot, I walk and talk funny, and my memory is less than perfect.  But every day is a holiday, and every meal is a banquet.

awww man......I got a little teary eyed readin' that .........I'll be prayin'...........