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Piston liner question

Posted: Tue Aug 29, 2006 6:13 am
by TargaNick
Well I finally got the heads off and now I am curious what kind of bores I have. The engine serial number says its out of a 72 (the car is a 73.5 T) and it looks as if someone has been in there before...well before it seized do to rain down the Webers. Anyway I put a magnet on the walls of the bore and it grabs pretty good. Im just kinda confused what this means, I have looked around and gotten mixed answers depending on the year of the car. I would like to have the bores cleaned up instead of purchasing all new ones. Is this possible?
Thanks for all your help guys.

Nick
73.5 T

Posted: Tue Aug 29, 2006 8:14 am
by Bob_Salmon
Sounds like you have Biral cylinders Nick. THey have a thin steel sleeve which is encased in the finned alloy unit. The metal sleeve is not removeable but it can be re-bored if the damage is not too bad. That will then require an over size set of pistons but still much cheaper than replaceing the whole set of six cylinders.

Bob

Posted: Tue Aug 29, 2006 9:37 am
by Lightweight_911
What are the engine serial & type numbers ?

These can be found stamped into the vertical & horizontal surfaces to the right hand side of the fan housing.

Posted: Wed Aug 30, 2006 5:07 am
by TargaNick
the number is 6122147

Thanks Guys!

Nick

Posted: Wed Aug 30, 2006 9:36 am
by davidppp
Hello, Nick.

I'd say that number is for the 1971/2 model year, mfi, T engine.911/15

It should have solid cast iron barrels and the flattest piston tops you ever saw on a 911.

If you consider selling, I'm looking for a caore of this type..

Kind regards
david

Posted: Wed Aug 30, 2006 5:01 pm
by TargaNick
Thats interesting, the cylinder's are not that flat they are somewhat concave and they have grooves for the valves on the top. I can get some pics if that would help? Also if it was cast iron would a magnet stick to the sides? I know someone has done something to the engine previously I just dont know what. Thanks for your help guys.

Nick

Posted: Wed Aug 30, 2006 5:42 pm
by Lightweight_911
Sounds like they could be 2.2 E or 2.4 E pistons to give a higher compression ratio.

Post some pictures.

Posted: Thu Aug 31, 2006 2:28 am
by TargaNick
Ok finally got some pics posted. Again thanks for your help guys and let me know what i got.
Nick

Image

Image

Posted: Thu Aug 31, 2006 7:55 am
by davidppp
I agree with Andy.

Those are most likely E pots and pistons...either 2.4 or 2.2 I cannot be sure..either way makes a nice upgrade.

Kind regards
David

Posted: Thu Aug 31, 2006 2:29 pm
by Barry
One quick tip: when you re-assemble the engine, double check that your valve-piston clearances are O.K.:

Build up the engine, with heads torqued down. Leave all valve clearances well loose (like 30 thou). Pick a cylinder from each bank and one by one, close the valve clearances for the exhaust and inlet of your chosen cylinder as follows: position the cam as you would for adjusting the clearances as usual (i.e. TDC on compression stroke). Adjust out all clearance, and then keep turning: each turn represents 1mm travel. From memory you are looking for at least 1.5mm for intakes and 2.0mm for exhausts.

Therefore to be safe on an exhaust valve, you should be able to close it's gap, wind a further two turns, and very carefully turn the engine through two turns at the crank: i.e. a full cycle. Obviously you are doing this very carefully, one valve at a time (you don't want to bend a valve!): interestingly it's not TDC that's the problem, the valves actually get closest to the piston a little way before and after TDC. The inlets obviously would be wound down 1.5 mm. Once the checks are done, all of the clearances can be set to the factory spec.

Sorry, forgot to say why you need to do this check ( :oops: ): the E piston has quite a crown on it compared to the T piston, as a consequence if someone has modified the engine, and particularly fitted hot cams and had some machining done, the piston to valve clearance gets very tight. When the engine is revved, the con-rods get longer as they stretch, risking a contact. I've heard of engines making an odd noise on start-up, that dissappears after a minute or so: turns out it is the valves just kissing the pistons until the barrels warm up, expand, and take the pistons a liitle lower in the bores :shock: . So this check safely replicates an engine going slightly beyond maximum revs, perhaps a bit of valve bounce, hot valves and all of the other things that could combine to make clearances tight.

One of the donor engines for my original 911 was a T engine with E pistons and S cams: surprise surprise, when (the long term non-runner) came apart, it was to the tinkle tinkle of exhaust valve head in the bottom of the barrel. Further investigation showed every exhaust valve had failed, and the heads could be snapped off the stem by hand :shock: :shock: :shock: . (Not a happy day in the workshop :roll: ).

Posted: Thu Aug 31, 2006 2:35 pm
by Barry
BTW, I got rid of the S cams and went to E (well Solex anyway) cams, which were perfect: went from .7mm clearance to over 2mm on the exhausts.

I was lucky, I nearly didn't bother with the piston-valve clearance checks, and did it almost on the offchance, not expecting to have any problems. Had I run the engine as it was, it would have almost certainly had problems when it was first revved. It was great to know that those clearances were huge, and that I didn't have to worry about them :) .

Posted: Fri Sep 01, 2006 1:32 am
by TargaNick
cleaned off one of the pistons and these numbers where on it
SP0,05
83,95

Mean anything to you guys? Again thanks for all your help.