gemellocattivo.com

This thread is all the stuff that starts life on this forum (Gemello Cattivo).

For the earlier stuff see
part 1 http://forum.gemellocattivo.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=6
part 2 http://forum.gemellocattivo.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=7

Right now I'm trying to get the valves into the head....well installed in the heads. I've got the valves all cut to length and keeper grooves installed, here's a quick re-cap

WAY back I decided to convert the shim under bucket using aftermarket Suzuki Hayabua parts. This is lighter and allows much more aggressive cams but is full custom and a lot of work.

I bought the valves as blanks which means long stem and no keeper grooves so I could make them correct for the ferrari head. I measured everything up and figured out a good length.....and cut them. I roughed them in the chop saw then milled to final length, a quick lap to clean up the end then into the lathe for the keeper grooves.

With the valves cut next up was getting the springs to fit right. I'm using kibble white Hayabusa race springs and they need to be installed at 1.400"-1.410". Now the tricky part here is they are really only good for up to .440" lift cams but I have .452" lift on the intake side (only .420" on the exhaust) soooooo......I have lash which reduces lift some and i think setting them up toward the low end of the spec should do it. after measuring it looks like I want about .075" of shim on the intake to get them to 1.410 and .070" on the exhaust to get them to 1.405"

The springs came with .035" shims for the suzuki....so 2 on the exhaust was perfect....no wait...they don't locate properly. I set up to us the ID but the ID on the shims is way big?????

Weld!

Now the intake shims. I found .015" and .060" think shim with a .518" ID (same as the exhaust shims) but a 1.25" OD which is way too big. I made a mandrel in the lathe that let me put on a stack of shims and cut them to the .940" I need ....but I was cheap/lazy and used .750 material for the mandrel which left quite a lot unsupported and I bend the .015 shims that were near the ends.. No worries, I had to buy a box of 100 and I only need 24 so it doesn't really matter that I scrapped 10-15 of them

I'm starting with the exhausts. everything when together nice and the cams actually turn! Yay!

I set the lash no problems other than deciding where to start and the whole cams in, cams out, cams in, cams out, cams in that the shim under setup causes. The cam card says .010" to .012" cold and my simulator say I want .007 hot for best hp......I set them at .010"-.011" and I'll check them again when it's hot and see what I have.

Once I got the lash set I rolled the cams to their TDC position and slipped a piece of paper under the center cam journals to lock them so they stay there when I'm installing the heads and timing chain.

The ,060 shims aren't here yet and I couldn't find find 1 set of keeps so I'm delayed on the intakes.

no matter, lots to do.

The whole in the block I want to use for the coolant sensor was M14-1.5 but that in not a normal coolant sensor size so I bought an M12-1.5 sensor and made and adapter. Now I didn't think that through real well it turned out becasuse that leave basically a 0 wall if the threads line up with peaks under valleys which of course they did by random chance on my first attempt. but on my second attempt when I carefully started the tap so the peak on the inside thread where under the peaks on the outside threads it works fine

Sensor in the block and ready to go!

I forgot this....plugs

When I was cleaning up the heads for final assembly I removed the oil passage plug which seem to be threaded in then peened in place. That meant I had to make new ones and a peening tool.

I'm still waiting on shims and keepers...hopefully they arrive today. In the mean time I guess I'l start figuring out what I need for studs for the cam covers I guess. I also need to start working on the timing cover but I hate having 2 biggish projects on the bench at the same time so I'm just going to do fill-in work until the heads are on the engine I think.

Oh, 1 more small project. I have bags of SS hardware I'm using for most stuff and used for the exhasut cam caps.....which I decided was stupid becasue it's non-magnetic so if I drop a nut or washer when I'm setting lash on the finished engine I'm screwed. I need to swap all that out

I got the SS nuts and washers swapted out and remembered I has another small jobe to knock out....the pin holes in the cams were too tight after the plating/heat treating.....reamer time. But they're heat reated now and pretty much destroyed the steel reamer in pretty short order so I ordered a carbide reamer but hadn't actually reamed the holes.

swap cam nuts/washers - done
ream pin holes - done.

next up was a bash for the cam covers before they got any place near the nice clean and oiled heads. During the bath I noticed they weren't really quite as finish pretty as I was thinking wiht some paint still hiding here and there

I'll get the studs figured out and installed then revisit the covers......i can't remember whos stupid idea a satin finish on everyhting was