"Kit engines".......where?

[Quinnf]

Doug,

That might be your conclusion, but it was not mine.  Comparing the kit parts and subassemblies against the parts that came in the engine I bought in the Spring of 2005, the kit engine wins hands down.  Castings in the kit engine are FAR SUPERIOR to those in my other engine.  Example is the Ashwamegh had nickle sized divots full of sand in the rim of the flywheels which I had to fill with epoxy filler.  The Jkson kit engine has none.  Same with the crankcase casting.  No flaws inside or out.  Look at that pic of the inside of the crankcase after I stripped the paint.  It doesn't get much better than that. 

I recently spent some time grinding the surface smooth of the orange peel texture that is characteristic of cast iron, but that is just because I wanted it to look a certain way once it's painted.  That said, something I've noticed is that the castings on the Petteroids appear (from photos only) to be of better quality, i.e. smoother, than those of any of the Listeroids.  I don't know why that would be.  Perhaps it's because the castings are smaller for the most part.

Sure, the kit engine's not perfect, but I made a point of drawing attention to defects where I found them.  And I think the reason that I was chosen by George/Joel to evaluate one of these kits is because George knew I would look at the things that are important and call out defects where I saw them.  You'll notice in the text that I have tried to balance out the negative observations with positive ones.  But maybe I need to compose another part to bring closure to the kit evaluation and tie up the loose ends with some general comments.  I can tell you now, though, if I were offered a fully assembled Listeroid that had been run in at the factory, vs. a pile of parts, or subassemblies as in the kit engine, I'd take the latter.   

The engine is now in pieces and I'm slowly assembling it, making sure every piece is as PERFECT as I can make it.  I just finished reassembling the governor weights to the camshaft, which I weighed and found were within a gram of each other.  Those are the kinds of details I'm looking at.  I'm not in any hurry on this engine like I was on the Ashwamegh.  Other than a couple of issues that are common to these engines, which I detailed in Part II, I'm very pleased with the quality of the kit. 

Quinn

[Procrustes]

Which manufactures sell kit engines?
The thought of buying a listeroid which hasn't been run (casting sand) and is unpainted is quite attractive.

Does Powerline (Power Anand) produce kits because from what I understand, they seem to be the fore runner in terms of quality (Am I mistaken here?).

I'd imagine any of the Indian assemblers will sell a kit for a price.  I contacted several and found them to be flexible.  I say 'assemblers' because I've heard from two sources now that most of the Listeroid parts are made in just a few factories around Rajkot, and the various Listeroid brands you hear tell of are assemblers and marketers.

Rockymountainpowersource.com (?) sells USA assembled Listeroids.

I don't have any good evidence of any one brand being better than the others, except I believe that this is the dealer Mike Montieth's opinion of the GM-90, a direct injection/alloy piston version of the Listeroid.  I've never heard of GM-90 kits.  There is sometimes huge variation among individual brands.

Be aware that EPA regulations can be extraordinarily onerous for engine manufacturers, which is exactly what you will be if you build an engine from parts.

[xyzer]

I can't compare my powersoulutions to much other than the Vidhata I set up. But I can tell you it was a clean engine....I never found any sand! A little was inside the water jacket of the head but that doesn't count. The spare parts was a nice addition also, valves, rod bearings, main seals, flywheel keys, and a spare high pressure fuel line. The flywheels were the beautiful even though I had it balanced I don't believe they were that far off. They had no runnout and were uniform castings. The lifters were ready to use...and I learned a trick concerning lifter rotation! Basicaly after all the things I fixed the way I wanted it could have been fired up and ran the way it was. Yes there were a few Indian issues with quality that were in the cosmetic catagory but all in all it will be my best engine and I would recomend it as a good buy! I also like the fact It hasn't been run.
Dave

[asavage]

. . . that would be a violation of copyright law.

Geno: only if the images are copyrighted -- and, if they were, I assume that the copyright holder would be Quinn, not George.  But that's a side issue.  Be that as it may . . .

Maybe you should just suggest someone else violate the law? Oh, wait, thats what you did.

The law to which you refer being copyright law?  I only want to see the images that he "lets" IE users see.  I have no interest in copying them, and as a maintainer of several hobby websites myself, I know firsthand how it hurts to have others use my work and call it their own.  I have had extensive original work lifted whole and copied to another site.  But I don't attempt user-agent-specific code to avoid that situation, because when you put barriers between your message and the recipient, you lose audience.

So when I typed, "Someone should put the text and images on a web page so everyone can see them, this looks like an interesting article," I meant just that.  Just like 99.5% of the rest of the web.  If I make information available on a webpage, I make it available.  Not just to IE users or Firefox users or even graphical-interface users.  If you want to browse my site using Lynx or whatever, you still have all the info I wrote available to you.  George hasn't, and that's a shame because he has a huge collection of good information.

Joe: I assume that one or several folks reading this right now have an established relationship with George.  That assumption is based on his name coming up every five posts   I am not an influencer in George's world the way some of you are.  I put my initial suggestion out there to see if the "problem" was really a problem: if it only affects 1% of George's audience, who cares?  But if it's a larger problem than that, then perhaps someone should tell George that that page has a bunch of black squares where many of Quinn's pictures should be.  I showed why that happens specifically, and why it's not a Good Thing.

Sorry if I've ruffled feathers -- Geno, I'm talking to you here.  I respect others work and their rights.  I am also a vocal critic of Things That Don't Work.  And I know things and appreciate others who also know things -- which is why this is a good place to lurk or speak out, as the case may be.

[Joe]

asavage,
I was being facetious about the phone call…


As far as I can tell unless you are intent on a high end machine that is ready to run… there is no better choice than to go with a "kit engine" that you yourself build and know every nut and bolt in it…anything in between that has yet to be verified by “Western Attitude” will be questionable…building a machine for your own personal consumption is not going to put you afoul of the Feds…

If you’re not willing to get into the “chitlins” of your machine when it is new… to learn it inside and out while you are in the relaxed comfort of your heated/cooled shop/garage/barn than what are you going to do when it is -27C during a blizzard or 110F after a hurricane when you will really need that engine to perform and have no one else to turn to….I for one will trust in the two hands pecking at this keyboard and nothing/no one else….

Buy George’s CD…

Joe

[Doug]

Quin the smoothness and finnish are what I was talking about and I should correct my statement...

I have looked over many pictures of Listeroid casting and the surface finnish is always rough. The PS kit engines are better looking but I still see the rough texture that begs to hang onto sand and grit.

Let me ask you something.
Did the stripping method you used leave a film or something that the cammera makes look worse than it actulay is or what.

I haven't been over tot he other site since last night but Gearge is in a bit of a flap over the "Idiot" here who made the comment that JKson castings don't look any nicer than any others and my other comment that my Petter casting look much better.

I also stated that the Prakash castings look like a dog breakfast.

Maybe I've only seen the worst of it and your cammera made the JKson block look not much better.

I would like to see more pictures of the good and the bad so I can set the record straight and if wrong I want to set the record right.

I haven't run a grinder over anything on mine but I have used some 60 and 120 grit paper and on the oil filter housing I used a 60 grit drum ( the results are obvious and I kind of regret doing it ). There is no bondo under any of my paint, but I did fill the voids on the cam cover with some loctight epox. I did prime some parts twice and sand them and I used a little spot putty on the fuel filter housing and  grinder marks in the cam cover. I wish now I hadn't done anything with the CAT yellow or the red primer.I should have used Glyptal 2001 with a red top coat, that would have left me with smooth hard finnish instead of the softer stuff I have now.

The inside of the engine still has the green from the factory and its all as smooth as the inside of the cam cover

Doug

[hotater]

Doug--

I'm confused at what you're using for comparison in surface finish.   A cast iron pipe fitting is MUCH smoother than a Listeroid, but they've been tumbled for hours to get that finish.  The insides of an Ameircan engine are usually shot peened after snag grinding and then painted.  After a caustic bath they look much like Quinn's Listeroid.

If it's the outside you're concerned with, I agree.  Some of the engines obviously has someone that knows how to apply and finish body filler doing it.   Look at old Cincinatti machine tools sometimes.  Under that perfect paint job is the same cast iron as the others.

All it takes is the lightest of passes with a flap wheel disk on an angle grinder to learn what looks like dry dog food is actually as smooth as a cow pellet.

I've seen the insides of exactly two Listeroids and two Onan diesels in the past year.  The kit engine is as good as the Onans and the other Listeroid is terrible.
  DON'T judge the insides by the outsides and DON'T assume anything.  If I was that Indian astronaught I'd be checking THOSE engines for sand, too!!

[Quinnf]

HI Doug,

Re: the finish, the flash makes it look a lot worse than it would if seen by eye.  The drain cleaner strips the paint and filler out completely and after a rinse with the hose and a quick pass with a plastic scrub brush, all the filler is evicted from the nooks and crannies that remain from the imprint of the casting sand.

The roughness I refer to is the exterior of the castings.  I don't worry about the interior unless there are voids because that's all getting painted anyway.  BTW, I've found that brushable Rustoleum industrial enamels work great inside diesel engines.  There are no volatile hydrocarbons in diesel fuel to lift the paint like there would be in a petrol engine.  I looked at Glyptal, but it's essentially just a solvent-based enamel paint with high dielectric strength which I don't need, so I passed on the $58/quart stuff for the cheaper Rustoleum that I've had good luck with in the past.  Others have had good luck with epoxy paints.  I just don't think it's necessary in a diesel engine.

The broad exterior surfaces of the sides of the crankcase are easy to fair with a flap sanding disk in a 4.5" angle grinder.  It takes the high spots down and auto primer and whatever topcoat you choose does the rest.  Just because I had a pile of grinding disks and flap sanding disks on hand, I spent an afternoon grinding down all the exterior surfaces of the crankcase, cylinder and head with 80 grit carbide disks, followed by the flap sander to take out the swirls left by the grinder so I could get a better finish.  Many of the pics that show up on the manufacturers' sites are of engines that have been detailed, and I wanted a similar appearance.  My Ashwamegh, which I stripped using chemical stripper, then ground, filled and painted, still looks like it has acne scars.  Though it runs fine, I wasn't able to get the finish I was looking for with that engine. 

As I said before the pics I've seen of Petteroid engines make it look like the non-machined areas of the castings have a better surface finish than do the surfaces on Listeroids.  However the Listeroid engine being larger might make it more difficult to achieve a smooth finish during casting.  I don't know, and it really doesn't matter because it's only the machined surfaces that we should be concerned about. 

One thing that I've learned first hand, and from others' experiences related here as well as privately is that at the present time you can't expect either consistent good or consistent bad quality from Indian engines.  I got an Ashwamegh from George 18 months ago at a time when he had thrown up his hands and severed ties with Ashwamegh because they evidently sold him some cruddy product.  Just like FuKing did earlier.  That indicates that they were shipping some pretty bad engines.  So bad, in fact that Jack (Hotater) says he had to arm-wrestle Joel before the latter agreed to sell him one of his "reject" engines.  But the Ashwamegh I got was fine.  Very little sand and it ran (and continues to run) very smooth. 

Quinn

[Doug]

Good points all but I have a little more familiarity with the casting process than most.

I never made a mould, never charged a furnace, never did any of the cool stuff. My job was to keep the cranes moving so the bull ladel full of the hot yellow stuff didn't turn into blocks swining in mid air.

You learn a lot watching foundry opperations.

I never saw castings with rough surfaces and small voids and pock marks that didn't have other things to hide inside. This is why sample wedges were poured for shear testing and proper heat had to be held.

A good casting is smooth, gassy or off spec iron spat and made porrus parts. With out actuly destroying your casting there is no way to tell.

I will confess one thing to you and the group some of my duplicate castings went to Neelon and were checked. They are not premium, at least from the persective of being used to make brake rotors, mill balls, ects.

"They are engine casting Doug" but I hope you didn't pay much for this ( Quote ).

Doug

[Quinnf]

I wonder if some of the roughness might result from re-using the casting sand.  I'm guessing here because I've never seen this done, but it seems to me that if the casting sand isn't screened between each use you could end up with chunks getting in the mold that affect the appearance of the part.  From the pics we've seen posted of the processes in India, i.e. guys working on dirt floors in bare feet, it seems like it would be easy to contaminate the sand.  I've read that temperature is also very important during the pour, as is the speed with which the mold is filled.  Then, there's the composition of the iron in the pour.  It's not like they have the technology to determine carbon content.  Lots of things that can go wrong.  It would be interesting to be a fly on the wall in one of those places.

Quinn

[Doug]

Casting sand is complicated, I could scan you a few pages from one of my college books if you like.
Iron properties can be easily determined by a shear test, a microscope and some desire to do the job right.
Tramp metals are an issue to a point.
Aluminum burns off and takes oxygen with it.
Copper actualy adds toughness to iron as does nickel.
The real issue is getting the carbon content right slaging and pouring at the right temp.
The real casting issue is making a decent mould that hold together.

Doug

[hotater]

Cast iron is 'good enough' according to what's needed for the job.
I'm sure the Listeroid cases aren't made from premium iron, because they don't have to be.  Be more concerned about where they locate the holes and which way they're looking.   If the iron is stable and dont leak and can be machined, it's good for a crankcase.

Whatever it is, seal it well.

[Doug]

Sealing is good point hence my pushing the glyptal 1201.
A good surface is easier to seal.

Doug

[xyzer]

I'm not a foundry guy but built and poured a few. The sand they use would probably be oil tempered sand. The surface exposed to the molten metal burns the oil out of the exposed sand for maybe 1/8" and if not mixed well before the next pack in the cope and drag (top and bottom) it will flake and not hold its form well because there are areas that have no oil to hold the sand togeather. Then it will wander in the pour leaving pockets. The inside of the block in my opinion had a core not packed sand (they are made of sand). It is a sand mixture that is cast in a form and baked in the shape of the inside of the crankcase. It is a lot more durable than packed sand. It is then set in registers of the drag(bottom mold) probably where the crank holes are to locate it in the proper position then the cope (top mold) is set on top. After the casting cools they will beat dig the core out of the block, it is tough stuff. We used sift all the sand every so often then put it in a big cement mixer and re temper it. It would freshin it up for awile and we could get nice clean castings for awile. There is also a water tempered sand. It does a beautiful job but takes a lot more work, and can be dangerous! You have to remove all the moisture before you dare get molten metal near it. Time consuming and an oven is handy. I'm sure they didn't use that.
Dave

[agroot]

Doug:

I had to check to ensure that I was not the idiot who set George off.  I've been known to engage my mouth before my brain.

I recently bought a JKSON 20/2.  I was told that I could put this beast into service without a strip-down, but decided to listen to George's advice. Every engine out of India should be thoroughly checked and re-worked where necessary.

So far I've found casting sand in non-critical areas such as behind the fuel filter, and metal bits from machining operations in the crankcase.   The oil filter screen was gummed up with black goo.  I'm stripping her down, but will not smooth the exterior surfaces.  I'll use epoxy based paint on the interior.  It's a work engine, not a show piece.  If you want pictures, I'll be posting them on my website.