Lister Engine Forum
Lister Engines => Listeroid Engines => Topic started by: cujet on January 23, 2006, 01:35:57 AM
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By my calculations, the VE of a Lister is quite poor for it's RPM. Without addressing the camshaft, I am sure the volumetric efficiency can be improved with some simple hot rodding tricks. While this will not result in much more power, as the rack is wide open under full load anyway, it will decrease the pumping losses. This can result in lower fuel burn and less smoke under full load.
My thought was to test the entire intake tract (airfilter included) in stock form at maximum valve lift. From what I can see, the airfilter is smaller than the port, and the intake manifold. Also the valve is quite simple in design and can be flow improved. Simple intake port, intake manifold and airfilter mods should result in better overall airflow.
Chris
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Peace&Love :D, Darren
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Darren and List,
The BSFC for the Listeroids is typically quoted on the manufacturers sites as 255 to 268 grammes per kWh when run on high speed diesel fuel.
I have measured a fuel consumption of 0.2642 US gallons per hour, on my 6/1 when generating 2kW electricity , and Jeff Maier on the Utterpower site has seen 0.25 US gal /KWh electric.
http://utterpower.com/fuel1.htm
From my calculations this makes the engine fuel in to electricity out - about 21.8% efficient.
If the generator is about 80% efficient, then still I only have about 27.25% thermal efficiency.
How are you getting the 30% or even 45% figure?
Next time I am working on the engine, I will measure what the maximum injector shot is.
100 shots into a graduated syringe, or narrow bore glass tube, should be a reasonably accurate way of measuring it.
Ken
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Peace&Love :D, Darren
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I don't think it's possible for a RANKINE CYCLE heat engine to exceed 35% efficiency?
If memory serves correctly....
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Peace&Love :D, Darren
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Possible, but not us.
The thermal efficeincy of a motorship includes the use of a heat recovery boiler which runs a steam turbine generator for ship's electric power, so not all of the efficiency comes thru the crankshaft. (I'm a marine engineer)
The high level of turbocharging to get there would require major changes to a lister. I'm afraid the price would include the loss of the famous LISTER CHARM
I'm for increases in efficiency, like heat recovery from jacket water and exhaust, also reduction of parasitic loads like water pumps and 12V alternators. Quieter carbon fiber pushrods seem to have potential, Oil filter and air filter improvements pay off right away in longevity. I just look at this differently than you do.
Scott E
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Darren,
Hot off the press here is the max pump volume for my 6/1 engine. Pump is a CAV BKB - detail to follow.
Using a clear plastic tube of fixed internal diameter 10.5mm I turned the flywheel over 100 revolutions and counted the 50 injection shots into the tube.
I measured the depth of the fuel as 63.8mm. I repeated the test and got a consistent depth measurement to within 0.25mm.
Area of tube = PI x (5.25mm)^2 = 86.5901 mm2
Average Depth = 63.8mm
Volume = 5524..451 mm3
Volume of 1 shot = 110.4890 microlitres
So lets assume the engine was running at 650 rpm constant, that's 325 shots per minute and 19500 per hour
So the maximum fuel consumed in 1 hour is 19500 x 110.499/ 1000000 litres = 2.1545 litres (0.569158 US gals per hour if you prefer)
Now if the calorific value of diesel fuel is 46.5MJ per kilo, and there are 1.203 litres in a kilo of diesel, then in 1 hour the engine consumes 83.2786MJ or 23.133 kWh.
My own tests running the engine on a 2kW load suggested that fuel was only being used at half this rate or about 1 litre per hour.
Very roughly, I would say that the 6/1 MIGHT be capable of 8hp with the rack fully open.
Perhaps someone who understands the ratios of air needed for complete combustion might wish to continue this discussion.
I hope this helps
Ken
1 US gallon = 3.7854118 litres so at full rack 0.569158 US gallons per hour
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Ken,
Simply put you are a badass!! Thanks for the killer info.
Peace&Love :D, Darren
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Darren & list,
I re-read the fuel consumption data on the Utterpower site.
Jeff M. got a consumption of 0.125 US gal/ kWh.
This was on a 2.5kW load so 2.5 x .125 = 0.3125 US Gal/hr
Scroll down and look a the chart Jeff plotted of fuel consumption against electrical load
http://utterpower.com/fuel1.htm
A US gallon of diesel is say 138000 btu
Â
There are 3412 btu per kWh
Fuel energy in =0.3125 x 138000/3412 Â Â = 12.639kWh
Electrical energy out =2.5kWh
Efficiency = Â 2.5/12.639 = Â 19.78 %
This is close to the value I got.
The variation is down to the value used for the fuel calorific value, Â as veg oil is 121400 BTU/ gal this explains the difference.
Re calc with veg oil
Fuel energy in = Â 0.3125 x 121400/3412 Â = Â 11.11 kWh
Efficiency = Â 22.48%
I would estimate that the belts, and alternator are about 80% efficient overall.
We may use funny metric units over here, and I may be one badass melon-farmer, Â but my results have been consistent with Jeff's findings!
Ken
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Peace&Love :D, Darren
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All this talk about efficiency got me thinking about the Honda natural gas powered generator, water heater and house heater. Honda claims this multi purpose device is near 90 percent efficient at times. Using a Lister to heat water and house seems like a great idea. I know a few here have done it. Maybe this should be a factor in the efficiency numbers.
That is certainly one way to reclaim what otherwise would be losses.
Chris
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Peace&Love :D, Darren
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or about 2 tons of AC ;D
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Kyradawg
I may want to experiment on a spare head with the 2"valve.
No way you can do it for me, too far away. Can you spell out in detail for me the steps and cutter sizes, etc for enlarging the valve seat and bowl.
I am enough of a sucker for punishment that I will turn a valve out of stainless stock. My only other concern is whether there is enough spare cast iron in the bowl area to enlarge it without making it too thin in the water jacket zone.
Gerry
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Not sure about the casting and how much you have to play with. However I am sure every engine is different, so be careful.
I was not planning to install larger valves. My plan was to flow check the head at stock max valve lift, then start some common mods. I am sure the valve face can be cut for better flow, as well as the valve bowl. Small changes can make a huge difference when parts are so small and quality is so poor. From what I can see, the valve shape needs attention, the valve bowl, the area around the valve guide and the intake manifold/airfilter assy.
I am guessing that a 20-30% improvement on intake flow is within the reach of the stock sized components. Just a guess, so I could be way off base here. The numbers will tell the truth about this, and if I do this I will make sure to post the flow results.
Chris
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Peace&Love :D, Darren
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Anyone got any pictures of a ported Lister cylinder head? I have ported many automotive cylinder heads and not sure how my Metro head compares to other Listeroids, but the port shape and rough edges are horrible; there has got to be considerable gains to be had in even minor bowl work, especially on the intake side.
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Smooth porting gains are also linked proportionally to rpms. I would think that you could make some minor efficiency gains by straightening and enlarging the ports... of course with a fixed low rpm engine that will most likely be quite limited.
Many (if not all) of the modern tier 4 certified engines use 4 valves per cylinder, so it is obvious that in a modern turbocharged engine, packing in more oxygen is clearly an efficiency booster.
I also know that in some cases even a rough inlet port has certain advantages in swirl and turbulence - mostly for high rpm gasoline and alcohol performance or racing engines though.
I would be very interested in hearing/seeing what power improvements can be had with a Listeroid and just how much of an efficiency improvement can achieved.
dieselgman
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Bro I can tell ya, low speed or not, this motor stands to gain hugely from port work. Air has a lot of mass and even at low RPMs the port shape will make or break an engine. When I had the valves out today I got a good look in there and I can safely say, this motor has the worst ports I have ever seen, especially the intake port. The bowl area is horrible. The good news is there seems to be a lot of metal thickness all around (gotta love those Indian castings) so one can make a lot of improvement without worry of grinding into a water jacket. I would not be at all surprised to see an extra 3/4 - 1 HP from a full port job, and fuel efficiency should improve nicely as well. So that is definitely high up on the to do list here in the next month or so.
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something to think about
the castings might well have thin spots, and you might well grind into either a bolt passage or a water port
the shape of the port even though somewhat odd can and does have an effect over how the cylinder is scavenged... so unless you really understand what is needed there, porting can result in a much dirtier running engine.
in my opinion, porting should be limited to basic port matching between the head port and that of the manifold it mates with, and beyond that just clean up any loose flashing.
doing more so and the risk benefit ratio shift to the negative in my opinion.
also remember the runner lengths involved here, it is doubtful that you will realize any benefit to performance or efficiency because the intake and exhaust lengths are just too short to really work toward being able to appreciate any serious port work.
far more heads on any engine have been ruined and/or performance degraded by porting than have been improved by guys in a home shop.
fwiw, ymmv and all that
if you decide to proceed just want you to be forewarned
bob g
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I don`t know a thing about gas flowing an engine apart from that the racing boys do it with some success on high speed petrol engines.
Some time ago I read (not sure where) that with a pulsating airflow such as an engine has on the intake, some gains can be had by tuning the length/diameter of an extended tube attached to the intake, this is supposed to use the ram effect of a moving body of air. in fact an air filter on one of my N/A ex vehicle engines has a plenum chamber off the air ifilter pipe, this is I guess to store the pressure pulsations and return them out of phase to give some efficiency gain. A similar mod was in vogue for 2 stroke bike engines during the 70s, but didn`t catch on.
Mark.
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runner length in theory work out to be something on the order of 14ft for the exhaust, and at that length friction causes another problem
intake lengths will be very long as well.
we covered the ground years ago, and it was determined that there really was nothing to be gained apart from just matching the ports and smoothing up the rough casting and flashing in the ports.
i would bet a dollar to a dog turd that just cleaning things up vs a full blown port job that the net difference would be less than a half percent in either efficiency or net power gain... so small the gains that they would fit nicely in the margin of error.
bob g
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If I were a betting man....I'd bet $100 you're both wrong. Air is a lot heavier than you think. I don't know what YOUR Lister ports look like, but if they are anything like mine, 3/4 - 1 HP may be a conservative estimate on potential porting gains.
I'll let you know how it goes after I do the work and put a big heavy load on the thing.
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if i were a betting man i would take your bet! ;)
before you go to all the work porting, run a serious battery of tests to get a baseline to start with
then do a basic port match and cleanup/retest, then do the full monty and retest.
otherwise your reports are going to be heavily scrutinized and we would have no way to tell if there were improvements made or not.
that being said, don't let anyone discourage you, if you are bent on doing the porting job, by all means knock yourself out.
prove everyone wrong, prove the engineering text wrong, but be sure to do the documentation correctly or it will be seen as just another bold claim with no supporting evidence.
best of luck
bob g
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OK, I will do a "before and after" test. I have a number of 250-400-600-750-1000W loads that I can stack up on the motor til it starts smoking, and a Kill A Watt to measure each and see what the total draw is. I will then port the head and run the same test again to see what the difference is. Again, maybe it's just my particular "direct injection" head that sucks, but there is a freakin 1" vertical wall right there in the bowl area that is a major restriction. I am LAUGHING at any suggestion there is no gain to be had here.
Fuel efficiency shouldn't be greatly affected, as long as the thing has enough air to start with, putting more in a diesel won't help much.
Under a partial load, it isn't about "putting more air in the engine." It's about reducing pumping losses by removing restrictions.
Power yes if you turn the wick up or if the thing was starving for air in the first place but that's the thing.
Yeah that's the thing...it IS starving for air. What do you suppose the volumetric efficiency is on one of these old iron lungs? I guarantee you it isn't over 75%, and is probably much lower. Less restriction = more airflow = better fuel efficiency = more air available at HIGH LOAD = less smoking and more peak continuous power.
If' it's getting enough air now, giving it more won't help unless you give it more fuel to make power but that's not the same as getting more work from the same amount of fuel .
If the motor is smoking under maximum load, then what effect does more air have in that situation? Less smoke, more power!
I was going to suggest taking some sort of measurement of the engine power before and after the work but then I remembered you had a problem with the engine so you probably aren't inclined to put it back together just to run a test then pull it again. I wouldn't be. That said, if you do have any tangible loads you have driven that you can make a comparison with, I'm always happy to be proven wrong on things like this.
As I don't have any power source available other than this engine, it is definitely going to complicate the work a little. I will have to charge up the compressor, shut it all down, pull the head, port it some, clean up and reinstall, run and recharge the tank, shut it down, etc. I figure it will probably take 10-12 tanks worth to get it all done so it's definitely going to be a pain, but at least the head only takes like 1 minute to remove if all the tools are in place.
the shape of the port even though somewhat odd can and does have an effect over how the cylinder is scavenged... so unless you really understand what is needed there, porting can result in a much dirtier running engine.
Yes, I do really understand what is needed. I can take one look at the port and identify several areas in need of major help, and that's just the intake port. When you have ported dozens of cylinder heads then it becomes immediately obvious where the restrictions are on any given head.
far more heads on any engine have been ruined and/or performance degraded by porting than have been improved by guys in a home shop.
That may be true in a general sense, but I am an airflow expert. I appreciate your concern, but I am not some clueless redneck with a die grinder. Every head I've ported and put on an engine has made more power, often considerably so. This one will be no exception.
I was looking at the exhaust the other day wondering if a long straight exhaust might have some scavenging effect on the cylinder. Given the pulsing nature of the engine, I am sure it would but finding the right length and diameter pipe would be a fun exercise... Not.
Actually it is really simple. The exact number can be calculated based on the speed of sound and runner length. Someone mentioned 14 ft which sounds about right. Even if you are an inch or two off you will still get noticeable gains as the effect lasts as long as the intake/exhaust valve is open. Check this out:
http://speedtalk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=29113&sid=d0fca2fee0eb80970bf4374f3137902b
The trick really with one of these engines is not power as much as torque. We can get more power just resetting the governor and spinning the thing up faster, what we really want is more torque at the same RPM.
Yep...and anything which reduces pumping losses (increased volumetric efficiency) will give you that extra torque!
I have to admit, since seeing it on the Utterpower site I have been keeping an eye out for a cheap turbo to put on the roid. May not work very well but it sure would look cool! Grin
I'm a big believer in turbos especially on Diesels. I have had 2 same models vehicles, one NA and one with a conservative Turbo boost and the difference is night and day. My 75 yo father has a Subaru Forrester turbo and that thing is just ridiculously fast for what it is and again, the difference over the NA models in incomparable.
I imagine a lister could handle a fair bit of boost as well and the power gains could be highly significant.
I have experience with building turbo engines and a turbo kit is definitely on the agenda, for this winter or next summer. I can say for certain just by looking at it, that this beast of an engine can swallow MASSIVE boost and survive it just fine. I still have research to do on the fuel system as I am a bit rusty on diesels in general and Listers in particular, but as long as I can get a pump/injector on this thing that can supply enough fuel, 10kW continuous (reliable) power output should be well within the realm of possibility. 20+ PSI is a piece of cake and 30-40+ should be achievable with correct turbo sizing.
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Whilst I admire your plans for improving breathing on this 80 year old design and am sure you will get a lot of satisfaction out of doing it, to me and I may be missing the point here, it seems like a lot of work to acheive what a Perkins/Kubota/Isuzu/Yanmar could give without modification. Am looking forward to reading of your findings.
Mark.
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Hey Shiftless, I like your thinking, but as a conservative engineer, I'm a little cautious about the quantum of potential gains from the porting work. That said, there's a real opportunity for the rest of us to learn something from your extensive experience applied to a Lister.
Can you take some photos of the ports you're going to work, maybe mark up on the photos the areas you're going to clean up? Then some after photos as well? I'm sure there are other members following this thread who would like to see what shape and form the head is and will soon be.
Photo posting instructions are found here:http://listerengine.com/smf/index.php?topic=5796.0 (http://listerengine.com/smf/index.php?topic=5796.0)
cheers, Schwen
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Interesting discussion, while I'm not real optimistic that porting will make much difference, there is an interesting aspect of the CS 6/1 engines that has not been discussed here before. Yes these are low low rpm engines, however when the do inhale it's a big gulp of air. I guess to accurately analyze the situation we'd need to know the velocity of the air flow during the intake/exhaust stroke to know if there is much improvement to be had. Or an experienced person could port one and measure the performance difference.
On my roid I port matched to the gaskets and even at that things are far from ideal. It will be interesting to see your results.
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As I don't have any power source available other than this engine, it is definitely going to complicate the work a little. I will have to charge up the compressor, shut it all down, pull the head, port it some, clean up and reinstall, run and recharge the tank, shut it down, etc. I figure it will probably take 10-12 tanks worth to get it all done so it's definitely going to be a pain, but at least the head only takes like 1 minute to remove if all the tools are in place.
As I'm about to dive into my head and cylinder, what's the general opinion on the factory head studs. I'm looking at just 3 remove/installs, you are about to do a dozen, can I/we expect the studs & threads to hold up ?
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Thanks gentlemen, I appreciate the comments and interest. I'll be sure to take pics and document everything from start to finish. I will not fudge any numbers or cheat....whatever the results are, good or otherwise, is what will be posted up for all to see. I agree with Mike that modifying an old engine like this is more work than just buying a ready to run genset, but I get a lot of satisfaction out of doing this type of work. I feel like I could spend a year or two just doing little upgrades here and there and tweaking a little more power and efficiency out of it. I tend to gravitate towards engines which are big, strong, and simple so this one is right up my alley.
Regarding the head studs, I can't comment on the quality of Indian studs as I am no metallurgist, but the things are so damn massive that even with lower quality steel I would imagine the factory studs will suffice for 95% of purposes. You shouldn't have to worry about the threads. This is just based on what's on this Metro engine; your particular situation may vary. Due to the thickness of the crankcase, cylinder liner, rod, piston, head, studs, etc, major mechanical failure is something you simply are not gonna have to worry about. It reminds me of a Ford 2.3 engine which I have experience with turbocharging. Those are similar in being big cast iron lumps whose heads don't breathe so great but a turbo wakes them up big time and they'll take just about anything you can throw at it. The biggest areas of potential problems I can foresee would be poor quality machining (head or deck surface not flat; cylinder liner sticking up too high, etc) and EGTs if they get too high.
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A two valve per cylinder pushrods natural aspirated diesel will run approx .25HP per cubic inch at 1800rpm.
The short cam timing required to ensure high volumetric efficiency at cranking speeds. Which maxes the compression pressure and heat to ignite fuel in a cranking engine.
A run of the mill single cylinder natural aspirated diesel will run approx .40 -.45 lbs of fuel per HP per hour. Larger multi cylinder engines has less loss per cu". A modest turbo will improve efficiency some. Hard pressed to beat .375 lbs fuel per HP with any conventional mechanical injection diesel.
Open cycle Rankin coal power plants and gas turbines or reciprocating diesels with secondary boilers can squeeze 50% thermal efficiency. That 100,000HP turbo two stroke marine engine running at 102rpm comes to mind..
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I've hogged out the massive lump from the intake port on my Kryslar PH1H clone . Used a milling machine and a drill bit that just cleared the valve seats. Port now has a conventional valve bowl . Then used the sand blasting booth to sand blast down the intake port to smooth off the rough edges.
No flow bench before and after to verify cfm.
Considering sending the followers and cam in to true them up but the old clunk is 't really worth it for a hobby put putter. Still won't make enough power to run a 10KW generator.
Going to just use the stock PH1 piston and sleeve. Had a fantasy going for a while to $$$ bore the cylinder to take a PJ1H sleeve and piston.
Did rebuild the pump and injector into a PJ version with an 8mm element.
Have to weld head around coolant holes on deck. While sand blasting the rock hard minerals out of the coolant passages. I accidentally took off some head metal. :'(
Engine still in pieces due to time, money and daughter's over due horse barn and pasture.
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Hi all,
Shiftless, you asked for some pictures on a ported lister head. And cujet was talking about air flow improvement. (http://listerenginegallery.com/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=6981&g2_serialNumber=1) (http://listerenginegallery.com/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=7131&g2_serialNumber=2)
These pictures show before and after of a head Tony ported.
Now, for a partial recap of an earlier blog entrie and how we achieved better fuel economy.
We are not engineers but we have experienced good results from the modifications we have done to our lister in the air flow department. Our measurements have been over long periods of time (months/years) keeping good records of fuel added and hours run using a hour meter.
In 2006 when the Lister arrived, the first thing we did was to tear down the head and cylinder and do the following improvements.
1. We port matched the intake and exhaust ports.
2. Machined the head for a thermostat.
3. Did a 3 angle valve job and shimmed the valve springs with a .060 spacer to increase the spring pressure.
4. Resurfaced the head.
5. Ground the lifters to make them true (as they were not square with the cam) and put a slight crown on them to cause them to spin while running.
For the 4 years following our fuel consumption was 4 hr/gal.
The average load was probably no higher than 2 kw.
We'd been running at 990rpm and probably run it about 500 hours per year.
Then in 2010 we removed the oil filled air cleaner and change it to a paper filter. We cut off the first 2 inches of the intake manifold and welded a pipe to accommodate a VW air filter. This process caused the air intake manifold volume to be increased by slightly over 70% (from 1.3 “dia. to 1.70”dia.) This increased air flow caused the fuel consumption economy to increase a big 1.2hr/gal from 4hr/gal to 5.2hr/gal.
(http://listerenginegallery.com/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=6965&g2_serialNumber=4)
The next thing we did was to change the cooling system to a radiator (from my old tank system) to have a more consistent temperature in a shorter amount of start-up time. This helped to achieve 5.5hr/gal.
Lastly we changed the pulley ratio to lessen the running rpm from 990 to 770. This ultimately brought us to 5.7 hours per gallon and it has been consistent over the last three years.
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Interesting, this article seems to confirm the "big gulp" theory stated previously in this thread. I wonder which VW the air filter is off of???
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Thank you Selma, I'm glad you chimed in! I had found your thread a couple months ago and your story is definitely inspiring. I am glad (and not at all surprised) to hear you increased fuel economy so much through simple little mods. It's all about attention to detail.
Did you do any maximum load testing on your engine, and can you comment on what effect your improvements may have had in power output?
One thing that is interesting to me, is seeing the differences in "common beliefs" on various Internet forums. Human knowledge on various topics has evolved and morphed over the past ~15 years and grown considerably as various forums have been established, bringing together folks of all different sorts with wildly different opinions in some cases, and there has been a process of dissemination of all this knowledge. In the early years especially there were a lot of arguments, some pretty ugly, striking down certain long held beliefs in some cases, and the overall effect is people are becoming better educated and informed. That's why I'm a big fan of the Internet.
I see though that certain information, which is now becoming "common knowledge" on the better hot rodding forums, like how air flows and how a port should be shaped for best performance, has not quite spread everywhere yet. I see guys posting up pictures of their Listeroids with freaking 90* plumbing els for their intake and exhaust system, or these piece of shit oil bath oil cleaners, without a thought in the world as to why that may be bad and nobody even thinks to comment, while I'm just staring at it thinking WOW what a restriction! There seems to be a misconception that certain details don't matter or aren't important because it's a "slow speed" engine and that is simply not the case. The laws of physics are the same whether a motor runs at 650 RPM or 6500, and even at 650 it's a big motor and that's a lot of air pulses per second. One thing I have learned from hot rodding is that the tiniest of details do matter and will make a real difference in how an engine runs. A 5% improvement is still a 5% improvement whether your engine is 6 HP or 600 HP.
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Yesterday using an original Lister 6-1 with a chocked rack and powering a fixed electrical load, 1.5 psig boost, applied using an idustrial blower fan, sent the steady frequency of 47.3 hz, up by 1 hz and back down again by this amount when removed, this was repeated many times over with the same result + or - 0.1 hz. this would appear to reinforce the efficiency benefits of port work, in this case the inlet port only, as the boost applied and the commensurate power increase without extra fuelling should represent the same net result of what occurs when the inlet tract flow is improved.
PS this test was carried out after investigating the effects of water addition to the air charge regarding eficiency/.power gains, I will post the full test protocol,results and photos soon.
It will be interesting and relatively easy to find out what pressure boost gives the maximum power increase available on a fixed fuel amount, I am thinking of my 180 cfm tractair compressor ( ticking over of course ) piped to the inlet with a couple of tee branches connected, one for a gate valve to act as a dump valve/regulator and the other for a 0-15 psi gauge.
Mark.
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Hi Tom, 73 bug only had a paper air filter, 74 and up where fuel injected and different again.
Hi shiftles, we never had the abilety to test load before and after,
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if you guys will take note of selmawp's pictures for a moment
top pic, right port, upper half of inner, just under the seat area
do you guys see the little lip running around?
bottom pic, same position, it appears that this lip was removed
does anyone know what the lip is for?
anyone?
yes it causes restriction, but it has a very definite purpose, that being to impart a swirl and aid
in scavenging the spent exhaust gasses from the cylinder. the engine as a result is designed to run cleaner because of it.
everyone is getting all atwitter about opening up the ports, and this is in my opinion not only unneeded but likely undesirable.
case in point, take a look at "pulse port" technology. read up on mach numbers and get an understanding of port velocity and its effects on what is going on in the cylinder.
also measure you lift, measure the area of valve opening, and factor in cam lift characteristics and you will find that the ports are already almost always larger than the available opening, especially after factoring in the cam profile effects...
opening up the ports in an effort to increase flow is not going to result in a higher flow rate, it will likely result in lower port velocity and if you remove port shelves or lips you might end up with a dirtier running engine... maybe dirtier with black smoke, maybe dirtier with higher NOx or ?
before you go hogging out a port you might want to take a hard look at simply replicating what the original listers used, it is extremely unlikely any guy in his garage with his die grinder is going to improve on listers efforts and much more likely the result is going to be much less than expected at best and much worse than hoped for a definite reality.
there is no way anyone should be sitting on their chair edge waiting for anecdotal evidence to a porting job while itching to grind up their cylinder head! don't do it! don't do anything until such time that real testing can be done to prove the validity of a claim... unless you just have money to spend or don't care much about what the results might be.
i got one hundred bucks that doing anything other than a port match and general cleanup results in anything more than a 1-2% increase in fuel economy is just not going to happen. even getting a percent is going to be a monumental feat, and is going to take some serious efforts to document and commitment to doing what is needed to run the tests.
yes there might be one nasty head out there that might have a more significant gain, but across the board gains? not likely.
bob g
ps. do some reading on how many guys screw up their cylinder heads by doing the full on porting job, far more heads are effectively ruined than are improved by guys in their garage. read up on flow characteristics in a port and runner, and you will find things change when engine speeds drop below about 1200rpm (yes that can be lowered by smaller ports), however you must understand why these things work at higher rpms and post real gains. it is because of "pressure waves" which are setup at higher velocities but just don't happen at 650rpm.
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Bro I'm sorry but I just have to laugh at any suggestion that there are specific features in this intake port which are designed to do any specific thing. That lip is there on the port not because the Lister engineers or the Listeroid manufacturers are rocket scientists who put it there for a specific reason, but because the Indians' casting technology is stuck back in the stone age and that's just how it ended up. I have seen the same type of lip on automotive cylinder heads, due to the same reason (mass produced castings.) I have seen ports (late Ford 2.3 for instance) which have bumps and such specifically designed to introduce swirl; removing this stuff increases power at all RPMs with no ill effects in 100% of cases. Believe me, there were no flow tests or computer simulations conducted on this Listeroid port to design it, and nobody is in any danger of screwing up their port from porting it as long as they don't go hog wild and do crazy stuff to it. The original Lister stuff is not a blueprint to copy either considering it was designed back in the 1920s before a lot of this air flow information was even known.
Bottom line is, your theories are off base... which will be amply demonstrated when the before and after tests are conducted. I can probably get on that next week or so but in the mean time I first have to install a voltage reg on my gen head and do something about the governor so the RPMs and Hz won't drop so much under load.
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Shiftless, I don't mean to be argumentative, but you're thinking like a gas-engine Dude. ;)
Your comments indicate that you expect increased efficiency from the incremental changes you are considering making to the intake restriction. On a diesel engine.
Everyone here knows that in a gasoline engine more air means more fuel, and thus, more power, because the fuel/air ratio is constant. But a diesel takes a full breath every intake stroke regardless of whether it's idling or at full load. One gets more power by injecting more fuel, up to a point. That point is reached when more fuel is injected than can be completely burned by the available charge of air, and smoke forms. That will only happen as you near maximum load.
A 6/1, 8/1, etc., at the appx. 2 kw load Selmawp mentioned isn't near that point. Providing more air under a partial load will only enrich the oxygen content of the exhaust stream; the extra available oxygen won't be burned. What decreasing intake resistance will do is it will allow the engine to produce more power before it begins to smoke. But you won't see any benefit at partial load. In another example of gas-engine-thinking, Millman56 mistook the 1 Hz increase in alternator frequency to indicate that providing more air resulted in more power from the same amount of fuel. What he was doing was simply reducing the pumping loss of the engine and slightly overpressurizing the cylinder. Go to any show and you'll find old dudes running small 4-stroke engines on compressed air simply by pressurizing the intake manifold.
What you propose has been talked about a few times, but I don't think anyone has ever done it and provided photos, and most important, reliable data.
Consider what's involved:
The 6/1 chugging along at 650 rpm takes a breath 325 times/minute. Its cylinder volume, is 87 cu. in. The airflow sucked into the cylinder on the intake stroke should be about 28,275 cu in/min, or about 16.4 cfm.
For the sake of comparison, at full roar, each cylinder of a 350 V-8 takes about 2500 breaths each minute at WOT with manifold vacuum near 0. Its cylinder volume is about 44 cu in. So it sucks about 110,000 cu in/min or about 64 cfm past each intake valve. That's almost 4 times as much air as the diesel breathes.
The intake valve on the V-8 is just under 2" diameter; about the same as that of the 'roid. All things being equal, and setting aside the complexities of boundary vs. turbulent flow, Reynolds numbers, and boundary layer thickness, what we’re talking about with such a short intake runner boils down to flow resistance. And the resistance to flow varies with the square of the area of the restriction.
Since the flow rate past the intake valve of a 350 V-8 is about four times as great as that of the diesel, and resistance varies as the square of the flow rate, any improvement you make to the restriction in the intake of the V-8 will be 16 times that of the same operation in the diesel. That’s why porting is always done in gasoline race engines, but is seldom mentioned with regard to diesels.
I think any gain in power that you might make by cleaning up the intake would be small. But it appears that you've already drawn your conclusions from your experiment which has yet to be performed.
I'm not saying don't do it; these engines are wonderful tools for experimentation and learning. I wish they still taught autoshop in my old high school; I would have donated one of my engines to the program.
Quinn
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Very well put post Quinn. Based on you post though it seems that there are a couple of perhaps minor gains to be had. 1 is that cleaning up the ports may improve pumping efficiency with less energy lost to that. And 2 that a larger charge of air in the cylinder will increase effective compression ratio. BUT we'll see when the results are in.
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Aw, shucks. I agree some small benefit might be attained, but I really doubt it would be measurable. There's nothing wrong with doing the porting/polishing. A good quality engine will already have smooth ports, whether it's gas or diesel. It's just the gas-engine thinking that I wanted to point out, hopefully before Shiftless, or anyone else, gets their hopes too high. Again, if this were a gas engine, by all means. But a diesel? Only if you really want to do it and won't be disappointed if it doesn't turn out.
q.
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Sorry Quinn....you're wrong...gas engine or diesel.
Which is easier to turn by hand: a Lister with no cylinder head installed, or the same engine with head installed and the exhaust and intake valves propped open? What if you took said Lister and hooked it up to a 5 horsepower electric motor, head on or off. Which engine do you think would spin faster?
With the head removed, obviously the motor will turn much easier with NO restriction on air entering or exiting the now totally open cylinder.
With head installed, during the intake stroke there is atmospheric pressure on bottom of the piston, and a partial vacuum on top of it due to the port and valve RESTRICTING AIRFLOW. The less restriction on the intake valve, the higher cylinder pressure will be, closer to atmospheric. Less force working against the piston as it moves down = lower pumping losses.
Same goes on the exhaust stroke except now you have high pressure exhaust attempting to exit through a restrictive port to the atmosphere, and crankshaft power being sapped to force it out.
The analogy you gave of a 350 V-8 is flawed. You didn't specify what RPMs said engine was turning but from you description of "full roar" I suppose you mean redline RPMs, 6000+? To have given such an example, you must clearly know nothing about porting. If you did, then you'd realize that port work benefits the motor at ALL speeds, part throttle and full, low RPMs and high RPMs. A typical full port job will show power gains on the dyno as low as 2000 RPM on any given motor; lower RPMs cannot be measured on most dynos. A steady state dyno with the engine running at a constant speed (i.e. PART throttle) will show horsepower gains at any speed. So how about plugging that 2000 RPM number into your little calculator and tell me now how the two engine flow rates compare? Go ahead--I'll wait.
I see a lot of scientific terms being thrown about (Reynolds numbers etc) but no indication from you that you actually know anything about or understand what they mean. You accuse me of having preconceived notions but last time I've checked, I'm speaking from real world experience, while you and Bob simply have theories based on scientific jargon combined with nonsense. How many cylinder heads have you personally ported, Quinn; gasoline or diesel? What was YOUR results the last time you tried the proposed experiment?
Speaking of Reynolds numbers, what effect do you suppose the factory port has on total airflow with as many twists and turns and restrictions as it has, thus introducing turbulence? (I guess I don't have to explain to you (the armchair engineer) what effect turbulence has on the flow rate?)
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........
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I just have to laugh at any suggestion that there are specific features in this intake port which are designed to do any specific thing. That lip is there on the port not because the Lister engineers or the Listeroid manufacturers are rocket scientists who put it there for a specific reason, but because the Indians' casting technology is stuck back in the stone age and that's just how it ended up.
Not so!
You will not see that lip on a geniume Lister CS engine, the pictures shown in this thread was of a direct injection Listeriod head.
The ledge you refer is there for a reason (to promote turbulance to the incoming airstream on direct injection engines). The Indians have copied this feature straight from Petter engines such as the AV and PH range.
Prior to the advent of computer modeling of port design to impart turbulance to the incoming airstream, the options were limited to placing what appears to be casting obstructions in the inlet port, or having shrouded inlet valves. Petter used both features in there engines (PAZ1, BA, and PJ engines used shrouded inlet valves).
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Hi Quinnf, would like to point out that the engine we are running is a 10/1.
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If the ported vs factory cast port comparison is made with engines producing 90-100% power than yes the ported engine has lower pumping losses and higher peak torque and HP due to being able to burn extra fuel with the extra air.
Part load efficiency on a diesel , gas turbine , boiler or stove is another issue.
Any extra airflow beyond what is required to burn the fuel reduces overall thermal efficiency. Drawing unused air through the combustion chamber just drags heat out the stack.
Some diesels, some gas turbines and certainly boilers have the intake air throttled when operating at part load.
It's a point sorry missed by diesel truck fans who think a 345 HP engine running at 45HP to roll the vehicle down the highway is " more efficient". Diesel does win out over carbureted gassers and to a degree port injected gassers if continuously making 200+HP pulling a high drag trailer at 70MPH.
The new DI gassers with their high EMP are every bit as efficient or more than the diesels per btu of fuel in. Diesel will win out in comparisons per gallon in some instances due to more btu per gallon.
Water injection will improve efficiency in a 11:1 compression carbureted or port injected gasser running 87 octane gasoline. Timing and mixture can be returned to approx the settings used with 94 octane fuel. Not easy to calibrate and uses a lot of water. Mineral build up is a problem unless demin water is used. Makes the process cost prohibitive.
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Hi Quinnf, would like to point out that the engine we are running is a 10/1.
OK, but you said you were running that engine at 770 rpm. So that's in the neighborhood of the number I calculated (for the sake of simplicity) for the 6/1. Your cfm will be 770/650 * 16.4 cfm, or 19.4 cfm. Still far less airflow than the flow you'd measure passing into one cylinder of a V-8 at 5000 rpm (2500 breaths/minute). And that speed difference is very important. The effects aren't linear. As flow increases, the pressure drop within the intake increases as nearly the square of the flow. So double the flow, and the pressure drop increases almost 4 times. That is why such attention is focused on porting and polishing race engines, but you never hear of that being done on slow speed stationary diesel engines. Well, until now, I'll grant.
But my point, which Shiftless seemed to either miss or ignore, was that, in a throttled engine with a constant fuel/air ratio, more air means more fuel which means more power. In a diesel engine, which, except at full load, always has excess oxygen remaining in the cylinder after combustion, more fuel means more power. So at conditions of partial load at constant RPM in a diesel engine, such as running a generator at 2 kw load, increasing airflow won't buy you very much.
In regard to pumping losses, in a diesel engine, pumping losses are a function of engine speed, while in a gas engine, pumping losses are a function of engine speed and throttle position. In order to maintain constant fuel/air ratio the gas engine restricts the airflow through the intake by means of a throttle valve, increasing pumping loss, while in a diesel the intake is always wide open to the atmosphere. For that reason, and because of the slower airflow in the diesel example I cited, I don't see much benefit in treating the diesel engine as if it were a gas race engine.
Quinn
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Great point on the heat loss to higher air flow than needed B&D. It will be interesting to see the numbers Shiftless comes up with.
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another thing to consider is this "what are the big boys doing"?
most of the big boys have reduced the port dimensions and manifolds to increase velocity
take a look at cummins with their pulse manifold technology they started in with some 30 years ago.
compare the powerstroke 7.3 with the newer 6.0 exhaust systems
as stated by Q, the flow rates are not linear with engine speed, a bigger port while in theory might flow more air, the reality is for all the reasons mentioned by others, the added air will not result in added hp or increased efficiency... at least not in amounts that are going to be outside the margins of error in testing.
measure you valve lift, then do the math to calculate the actual opening to the cylinder in sq/inches... i think you will find the ports are larger than this opening, so increasing port dimensions are not going to increase airflow at all.
the only way you are going to increase flow with larger ported out ports, is with more lift and/or duration on the cam... and to what end? again you will see almost no gains from all the effort, at least not measurable gains.
whatever gain there is to make, will come from simply port matching to the manifolds and a basic cleanup of the port by removing flashing and smooth it up a bit... this has been the truth since the first die grinder was used to port a 265 chevy in '55 and is still the truth today.
again far more heads are messed up by porting than are improved, that being for gas engine's. and likely this will hold true for diesel heads as well.
when the engine rpm is this low you just don't have the inertia needed to get any real benefit.
don't believe me, check out the engineering text! its all there in graphic detail, there is a reason the graphs don't start plotting until something on the order of 1200rpm. this of course for engine's of the bore/stroke class we are talking about here... of course engines with 30inch bores and 6 ft strokes are going to have much different dynamics down to very low rpms (~120rpm),
its you engine, its you time, you mind is made up, so go forth and prove the world wrong!
just don't come back whining if you grind through a thin spot in the casting, or into a bolt/stud boss and have a head that won't hold water, or if you end up with an engine that makes more smoke than it used to.
fwiw... don't forget the carbon fiber pushrods!
bob g
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measure you valve lift, then do the math to calculate the actual opening to the cylinder in sq/inches... i think you will find the ports are larger than this opening, so increasing port dimensions are not going to increase airflow at all.
lol.
Bob I know it may not be apparent to you since you are currently posting in an echo chamber, but you continue to demonstrate your profound ignorance of airflow through this pointless and absurd line of argumentation which you seem determined to doggedly pursue. In fact it's quite comical to observe since a lot of the same arguments errors I see you and others making here are the same urban myths I've seen repeated time after time on the gasoline engine forums............10 years ago.
There are so many eggheads in this world who think they can boil down a port's flow characteristics (or any number of other complex phenomena) to a simple math equation, but such is not the case, and never will be. The size of the valve, the dimensions of the port, are nothing more than numbers, a couple variables in a sea of a thousand variables that effect how the port flows.
the only way you are going to increase flow with larger ported out ports, is with more lift and/or duration on the cam... and to what end? again you will see almost no gains from all the effort, at least not measurable gains.
That's your assertion anyhow, which you continue to repeat over and over despite having no evidence or personal experience to substantiate it.
whatever gain there is to make, will come from simply port matching to the manifolds and a basic cleanup of the port by removing flashing and smooth it up a bit...
Also known as "completely useless noob porting" or just plain "a waste of time", which was, again, once quite common on the various hot rod forums 10 years ago.
its you engine, its you time, you mind is made up, so go forth and prove the world wrong!
It's not "the world" arguing against me...it's just you and a few other ignorant souls. Every other diesel engine forum on the planet agrees with my analysis. Go on the Dodge Diesel forums and tell them port work is useless and won't even make a 1-2% difference....they will laugh you out of the room.
My mind is made up just as well as yours is. Except my thoughts are based on concrete knowledge, while yours are based on conjecture and superstition.
just don't come back whining if you grind through a thin spot in the casting, or into a bolt/stud boss and have a head that won't hold water, or if you end up with an engine that makes more smoke than it used to.
None of which are even the slightest bit likely to occur.....which you would know, if you knew anything.
If I seem insulting maybe it's because it's tiring to be called dumb by the ignorant.
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If the ported vs factory cast port comparison is made with engines producing 90-100% power than yes the ported engine has lower pumping losses and higher peak torque and HP due to being able to burn extra fuel with the extra air.
Correct.
Part load efficiency on a diesel , gas turbine , boiler or stove is another issue. Any extra airflow beyond what is required to burn the fuel reduces overall thermal efficiency. Drawing unused air through the combustion chamber just drags heat out the stack.
Incorrect. Port work decreases the amount of fuel necessary to burn to sustain a certain RPM, due to reduced pumping losses. But for a minute let's assume the fuel burned is the same.
There is a certain fixed amount of heat contained in each volume of fuel. If a greater volume of air is pumped through, with the same or lesser quantity of fuel burned....the total heat loss is the same, and the difference is lower EGTs.
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If the ported vs factory cast port comparison is made with engines producing 90-100% power than yes the ported engine has lower pumping losses and higher peak torque and HP due to being able to burn extra fuel with the extra air.
Correct.
Part load efficiency on a diesel , gas turbine , boiler or stove is another issue. Any extra airflow beyond what is required to burn the fuel reduces overall thermal efficiency. Drawing unused air through the combustion chamber just drags heat out the stack.
Incorrect. Port work decreases the amount of fuel necessary to burn to sustain a certain RPM, due to reduced pumping losses. But for a minute let's assume the fuel burned is the same.
There is a certain fixed amount of heat contained in each volume of fuel. If a greater volume of air is pumped through, with the same or lesser quantity of fuel burned....the total heat loss is the same, and the difference is lower EGTs.
Why do we throttle back the airflow to the boiler fireboxes when we are at reduced power and injecting less coal powder?
Why do we have throttle blades on the Utilitie's Natural gas combustion turbine inlet. These throttle blades appear very similar to a stationary stator blade stage. They turn to either feather and allow full airflow or turn and throttle airflow at reduced power levels.
Why do the new VM DOHC diesels in the Chev Cruz adjust intake cam timing at reduced power cruise to limit airflow into the combustion chambers?
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OK, but you said you were running that engine at 770 rpm. So that's in the neighborhood of the number I calculated (for the sake of simplicity) for the 6/1. Your cfm will be 770/650 * 16.4 cfm, or 19.4 cfm. Still far less airflow than the flow you'd measure passing into one cylinder of a V-8 at 5000 rpm (2500 breaths/minute). And that speed difference is very important. The effects aren't linear. As flow increases, the pressure drop within the intake increases as nearly the square of the flow. So double the flow, and the pressure drop increases almost 4 times.
Yeah, and that's all well and good if you just like quoting stuff out of an engineering textbook. But there is a long way between an engineering textbook and the real world.
Why are you still talking about a V8 at 5000 RPM? Go back to 2000 RPMs and try again. What part of "port work increases efficiency/power at all RPMs" did you miss from my last explanation?
But my point, which Shiftless seemed to either miss or ignore, was that, in a throttled engine with a constant fuel/air ratio, more air means more fuel which means more power.
In a gasoline engine at steady cruising RPMs, a better flowing port means less throttle opening required to make the same speed and power. Not more fuel...less fuel being burned.
You do understand that all else being equal, a gasoline engine typically will get better MPG with port work? How would that be possible, if MORE fuel were being burned per cycle?
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Why do we throttle back the airflow to the boiler fireboxes when we are at reduced power and injecting less coal powder?
Seems to me you would throttle back airflow to your firebox so that you can maintain high temperatures inside the boiler. Which is nothing like a reciprocating engine, because in your firebox you don't have a piston being forced downward by the expansion of hot gases.......... before the exhaust valve opens to release the remainder of unused heat out of the cylinder.
Why do we have throttle blades on the Utilitie's Natural gas combustion turbine inlet. These throttle blades appear very similar to a stationary stator blade stage. They turn to either feather and allow full airflow or turn and throttle airflow at reduced power levels.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torque_converter :
"A design feature once found in some General Motors automatic transmissions was the variable-pitch stator, in which the blades' angle of attack could be varied in response to changes in engine speed and load. The effect of this was to vary the amount of torque multiplication produced by the converter. At the normal angle of attack, the stator caused the converter to produce a moderate amount of multiplication but with a higher level of efficiency. If the driver abruptly opened the throttle, a valve would switch the stator pitch to a different angle of attack, increasing torque multiplication at the expense of efficiency."
Same principle. It has nothing to do with "throttling", and everything to do with ensuring optimum exhaust gas entry angle/velocity into the turbine, which will vary depending on turbine RPM/load.
Why do the new VM DOHC diesels in the Chev Cruz adjust intake cam timing at reduced power cruise to limit airflow into the combustion chambers?
One word: Emissions. Specifically, reduction of NOx (nitrides of oxygen.)
Edit: Just Googled it, and sure enough...
http://www.designnews.com/document.asp?doc_id=266687
"General Motors is bringing diesel technology back to an American-made compact car by using an air intake technique called “variable swirl.”
The technique enables the company’s new 2.0-liter diesel engine to generate more power with less fuel, while minimizing nitrogen oxide (NOx) and soot levels. As a result, the Chevy Cruze Diesel's new engine is said to be the cleanest ever produced by GM. It’s also the first diesel to be offered in a GM compact car since the 1986 Chevette.
”The Cruze diesel engine, by virtue of its smaller bore configuration, is more in need of a way to make sure the fuel and air mix properly,” Mike Siegrist, GM’s 2.0-liter turbo diesel assistant chief engineer, told Design News. “That’s what the variable swirl does. It mixes the air and fuel more effectively, so optimum combustion occurs.”
Variable swirl accomplishes that by employing a throttle valve in the cylinder’s air intake port. Under high speeds and high engine loads, the throttle valve is wide open, allowing air to flow freely into the cylinder. But at low speeds and low loads, the valve is partially closed, creating an air velocity differential between the opposing sides of the cylinder. That differential causes a “mixture motion,” or swirl, which burns the fuel in a compression-ignited engine more thoroughly."
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One word: Emissions. Specifically, reduction of NOx (nitrides of oxygen.)
Edit: Just Googled it, and sure enough...
http://www.designnews.com/document.asp?doc_id=266687
"General Motors is bringing diesel technology back to an American-made compact car by using an air intake technique called “variable swirl.”
The technique enables the company’s new 2.0-liter diesel engine to generate more power with less fuel, while minimizing nitrogen oxide (NOx) and soot levels. As a result, the Chevy Cruze Diesel's new engine is said to be the cleanest ever produced by GM. It’s also the first diesel to be offered in a GM compact car since the 1986 Chevette.
”The Cruze diesel engine, by virtue of its smaller bore configuration, is more in need of a way to make sure the fuel and air mix properly,” Mike Siegrist, GM’s 2.0-liter turbo diesel assistant chief engineer, told Design News. “That’s what the variable swirl does. It mixes the air and fuel more effectively, so optimum combustion occurs.”
Variable swirl accomplishes that by employing a throttle valve in the cylinder’s air intake port. Under high speeds and high engine loads, the throttle valve is wide open, allowing air to flow freely into the cylinder. But at low speeds and low loads, the valve is partially closed, creating an air velocity differential between the opposing sides of the cylinder. That differential causes a “mixture motion,” or swirl, which burns the fuel in a compression-ignited engine more thoroughly."
The purpose is not just emissions but also increased fuel efficiency. So from your linked article there is benefit in a restriction as well. Hmm. In fact the last paragraph sums up exactly what everyone else has been saying. The only time there is a need for increased airflow is at high speeds and high loads. Neither of which is a slow speed CS variant.
In fact porting can be detrimental to performance in many circumstances. Sure if you want to show higher horsepower numbers at RPM's above 2500 then porting is worthwhile, but at lower rpm's where torque is the ultimate goal it is often detrimental.
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Well Quinn, I was hoping for the patent for a diesel assisted CS compressed air motor developing 50 HP ;)!! Back to the drawing board :embarassed:.
Mark.
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Why do we throttle back the airflow to the boiler fireboxes when we are at reduced power and injecting less coal powder?
Seems to me you would throttle back airflow to your firebox so that you can maintain high temperatures inside the boiler. Which is nothing like a reciprocating engine, because in your firebox you don't have a piston being forced downward by the expansion of hot gases.......... before the exhaust valve opens to release the remainder of unused heat out of the cylinder.
Air flow is limited at low power as the higher combustion chamber temp maintains a higher combustion chamber pressure than allowing extra unused airflow.
Why do we have throttle blades on the Utilitie's Natural gas combustion turbine inlet. These throttle blades appear very similar to a stationary stator blade stage. They turn to either feather and allow full airflow or turn and throttle airflow at reduced power levels.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torque_converter :
"A design feature once found in some General Motors automatic transmissions was the variable-pitch stator, in which the blades' angle of attack could be varied in response to changes in engine speed and load. The effect of this was to vary the amount of torque multiplication produced by the converter. At the normal angle of attack, the stator caused the converter to produce a moderate amount of multiplication but with a higher level of efficiency. If the driver abruptly opened the throttle, a valve would switch the stator pitch to a different angle of attack, increasing torque multiplication at the expense of efficiency."
Same principle. It has nothing to do with "throttling", and everything to do with ensuring optimum exhaust gas entry angle/velocity into the turbine, which will vary depending on turbine RPM/load.
I have no idea where you made the connection between variable angle stator vanes in an transmission's torque converter. And the air control vanes located just upstream of the turbines 1ft stage of stationary stator blades.
Why do the new VM DOHC diesels in the Chev Cruz adjust intake cam timing at reduced power cruise to limit airflow into the combustion chambers?
One word: Emissions. Specifically, reduction of NOx (nitrides of oxygen.)
Edit: Just Googled it, and sure enough...
http://www.designnews.com/document.asp?doc_id=266687
"General Motors is bringing diesel technology back to an American-made compact car by using an air intake technique called “variable swirl.”
The technique enables the company’s new 2.0-liter diesel engine to generate more power with less fuel, while minimizing nitrogen oxide (NOx) and soot levels. As a result, the Chevy Cruze Diesel's new engine is said to be the cleanest ever produced by GM. It’s also the first diesel to be offered in a GM compact car since the 1986 Chevette.
”The Cruze diesel engine, by virtue of its smaller bore configuration, is more in need of a way to make sure the fuel and air mix properly,” Mike Siegrist, GM’s 2.0-liter turbo diesel assistant chief engineer, told Design News. “That’s what the variable swirl does. It mixes the air and fuel more effectively, so optimum combustion occurs.”
Variable swirl accomplishes that by employing a throttle valve in the cylinder’s air intake port. Under high speeds and high engine loads, the throttle valve is wide open, allowing air to flow freely into the cylinder. But at low speeds and low loads, the valve is partially closed, creating an air velocity differential between the opposing sides of the cylinder. That differential causes a “mixture motion,” or swirl, which burns the fuel in a compression-ignited engine more thoroughly."
The NOX is controlled by varying the exhaust cam advance/retard, not the intake cam. Late cam closing allows exhaust gasses to flow back into the combustion chamber which provides EGR function.
The intake cam advance /retard is used to limit combustion chamber filling by closing late and letting some air be pushed back out of the combustion chambers on the start of the compression stroke.
Swirl is important in carburetored and port injected engines to keep the fuel mist in suspension until it flashes to vapour. Combustion chamber swirl in a gasoline DI engine or a diesel form an intake valve is of minimal importance as fuel is not even in the combustion chamber until combustion starts. Intake valve swirl in minimal compared to the swirl induced by the quench area have less than 25 thou hot clearance. Forcing the gasses as a "jet" into the remaining open area of the combustion chamber.
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Mark,
Don't feel bad. There's nothing wrong with thinking about ways to improve efficiency. I’ll admit to the whole internet, what my wife and whatever governmental organization is sifting through these words knows all too well:
These engines are just bigger, heavier versions of the Mammod steam engine we may have had as a child. Or the Cox .049 screaming at 18,000 rpm and dripping castor oil all over the carpet on a rainy Saturday afternoon, or the Honda 90/350/550 we had later, or the Kawasaki that we had even later that scared some sense into us when we realized we had a wife and kids and bills to pay and what if . . . .
Just keep in mind that this mistress isn’t exactly a virgin. She’s been around the block and she’s older than she looks, and you and I aren’t the only ones to have laid eyes on her. The technology has been around for a long time. Several generations have wondered at the marvel of turning fuel into work. It may be new to you or to me, but the reciprocating engine isn't new. Keep an open mind and don't be disappointed (or surprised) if it turns out your idea doesn't produce the results you hoped it would.
People forget that reciprocating internal combustion engines were based on the theoretical work of Nicolas Carnot way back in 1823. For over 150 years, the reciprocating engine, whether fueled by gunpowder, steam, liquid or gaseous petroleum fuels, has been on the cutting edge of technology. So it's a mature technology, perhaps even a senescent one, because new people come along and "discover" what their grandfathers knew before them. The Lister 5/1 and later the 6/1 first appeared in 1930. At the time, they were not cutting edge. They were simply an improvement over what was then available, based on, to no small measure, the introduction of the Cold Start valve, which accorded Freeman-Sanders a patent and marketing protection.
Rudolf Diesel's first patent was published in 1892. He filed another important patent in 1898, and a few later ones that were bitterly contested. At that time he was already besieged by competitors vying for investment capital needed to build the next generation of compression ignition engine. His 1892 patent claimed extraordinarily high fuel efficiency by means of extraordinarily high compression, which got him a LOT of attention. He had ample investors who were willing to finance his experiments, he marketed himself widely as the Wunderkind of the new technology, and he lived and spent money like a rock star. But by 1900 there were several examples of compresion ignition engines in industrial operation. And by 1920 all engines looked pretty much the same and everyone had switched from air blast induction to high pressure fuel injection. From then on it was simply a matter of tweaking.
1892 to 1930 was only 38 years. From concept to mass market. The fact that a Lister 6/1 made in 1930 wrings about as much work out of a liter of fuel as does a Kubota diesel indicates that the technology, as far as naturally aspirated standard (non-electronically controlled) diesels go, is mature. There's really nowhere to go to get better efficiency without redesigning the engine.
But for you and me, although Solomon lamented that there's nothing new under the sun, that shouldn't stop us from playing around with propane or natural gas induction, or even hydrogen if you have the nerve (I don't). So what if that which you "discover" was common knowledge long ago? The process of learning and discovery is its own reward. And I can think of no engine better suited to that pursuit of answering the question "What if” than the 6/1 and its variants.
Quinn
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Pithy quote:
Ignorance is not knowing what you don't know.
Wisdom is knowing that you don't know.
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Hold on guys. I've got to make some more popcorn before I can read anymore. I LOVE all the ideas flying back and forth.
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Cujet (Chris) look at all the shit you started by posting this undiscovered topic years ago.
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Quinn, Me feel bad ???? No no no!!! Just trying to make light of my lack of knowledge, even at my age knowledge aquisition is still a very important part of my life.
The following is well off topic but a learning curve nonetheless.
I`ll bet the designers at Lister never envisaged the use of a CS engine as as a projectile launching device in the next century, well I can reassure any doubters that this ancient design is very capable of lobbing a pound of cast iron at high energy or a centre punch at high velocity.
As most on here will know, removing the injector side secondary combustion chamber hemisphere on a CS is a difficult task often made easier by firstly removing the threaded outer part then driving a small centre punch into the connecting port, this seals the hole and when the engine is turned over the stuck hemisphere usually pops out, this particular one did not and the engine was subsequently run for several hours to no avail.
The next morning the engine was spun over to start and on the 3rd firing the centre punch was ejected at high speed, ricocheting off the coolant pump and a sheet of plywood then disappearing never to be found, another punch was tapped in and the engine was cranked again, the result was a loud explosion and a cloud of smoke, the hemisphere had exited violently , impacting with the coolant pump causing the casing to smash then chopped a couple of wires before punching a hole in the sheet of 1/4" plywood, fortunately this was against the shipping container wall thus preventing the part causing any more damage or being lost in the weeds.
The punch disappeared completely and I was able to complete the original task of fitting a glow plug adapter bung.
My experience tells me two things, 1. when carrying out this operation if no restrainig device is in place stand well clear of the exit path. 2. these engines develop far higher peak pressures when cold than when warm, initially this operation was carried out on a warm engine.
Mark.
PS
Was that pithy quote a shot at D. Rumpsfeldt ?
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Understood. Now that you mention it, I recall hearing Donald Rumsfeldt say that on an interview during Gulf War I. But he was probably quoting someone else, who was probably quoting someone else, who probably lifted it from something that was inscribed on the tomb of some dead Greek.
The other one I like is by Bertrand Russel. It says pretty much the same thing:
"The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt."
I've worked in research for 35 years and I'm constantly amazed at how little I know. ;)
Quinn
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By the way, the Chevy Cruze diesel (2014) was mentioned. Has anyone driven the Cruze? I rented a gas Cruze last week. As with any rental car, the first thing I did when I picked it up at the airport rental yard was to push the seat all the way back before I got in. Too tall for the car. But when I tried to get in, I found the B pillar was about 6" too far forward and I hit my back. You're given the choice of either scraping your back against the B pillar or braining your skull on the A pillar. Whoever designed that car was either a dwarf or he never bothered to try out the mockup.
Great little car, though. Stuck to the road like Velcro. But getting in and out takes some getting used to.
Quinn
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my favorite quote, and it "might" have broad application here...
"the definition of insanity, is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result" (attributed to albert einstein)
yup, i think it applies here on a multitude of levels
bob g
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Guy Fawkes are you back???
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I have driven the Holden Cruze as it is known here is OZ in Diesel.
I wonder if that's the same car they're building in Ohio now.
(http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k70/quinnf_01/CruzeDoorpost_zpsdbe1514f.jpg) (http://s85.photobucket.com/user/quinnf_01/media/CruzeDoorpost_zpsdbe1514f.jpg.html)
Don't know if it shows up well enough, but look at how far forward that door post is, and how far back the front seat is. There's too little room to keep from bumping your back or bumping your head as you get in and out. That's one thing I disliked about the car. That, and, with the steering wheel all the way up, the rim eclipses the fuel and oil pressure gauges.
And look at the shape of the door frame and the seat location. Tell me, how do you get in the car without banging your head?
Other than that, I drove from Petaluma CA to Bodega Bay on back roads at twice the posted speed and really liked how the car performed in the twisties. Couldn't get it to lift the inside rear tire, nor squeal the rubber. The gas engine's not anything out of the ordinary, but the car handles like it's on rails.
q.
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By the way, Rumsfeld said the following:
There are known knowns; there are things we know that we know.
There are known unknowns; that is to say, there are things that we now know we don't know.
But there are also unknown unknowns – there are things we do not know we don't know.
q.
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I love my ported listerioid.
Actually, my poor old twin got nothing more than a few simple blueprinting tweaks. The intake manifold is still smaller than the intake ports and the oem air filter is still on it. I really can't use all the power this thing makes anyway.
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i don't think it is GuyFawkes, but rather "kyradawg/darren" that might be back among us.
as for porting anything, beit a formula one engine, or a briggs and stratton pushmower engine, you have no idea what you have, what you want and whether you are gaining or loosing without a flowbench to start with.
as Q alludes to, there really is nothing new under the sun, this porting thing has been around since there were ports to grind out with a drill motor and a sandpaper wrapped dowel rod.
this topic has been beaten to death in the past here on this very forum and the consensus was and should still be the same.
as with everything
bold assertions demand equally bold proof
failing this simple concept its going to come down to the old adage "the first liar doesn't have a chance".
all this porting talk reminds me of the ford 351 cleveland engine, the one with those beer can intake ports. those heads in order to be used in certain race classes had to be offered on production cars... every one of those production cars were miserable POS because they generally never saw the 8krpm (plus) needed to get into the region that the ports were designed for and the cars didn't come with the cam and valve gear needed or the exhaust systems needed to get anywhere near the a useable and drivable car, much less get into the region of performance they were made for.
put them in a pantera or a gt40 and it was a different story of course.
point being porting apart from port matching and simple blending/cleanup of flashing almost always results in poorer performance no matter how you want to measure it, beit emissions, economy, power etc.
if on the other hand doing a full blown port job makes you feel good, makes you feel you engine is performing better, then maybe you ought to go ahead and do it? like they said back in the day
"if it feels good do it"
just don't expect a lot of folks getting in line at the tool store buying die grinders and all those neat little bits of tooling to hog out their ports.
fwiw... remember the golf ball discussion?
very smooth port walls often will not flow as well as ports what are left a bit rough, like the dimples of a golf ball the rough surface creates a boundary layer that breaks the adhesion of the air column and in doing so reduces the frictional losses.
all this is not worth much unless one is to fully rework the interior of his intake manifold to the same size in cross section and the same relative finish...
on another thought
it is doubtful that a port and bowl job is going to produce measurable results, so...
one could setup his engine on a dyno to get the baseline hp at a specific rpm, fuel rate, etc...
he could then open up the valve lash an additional 10 thou and repeat the testing... (yes the engine valve train will be noisy but we are only going to do a short test) The idea being the increase in valve lash results in a decrease in valve opening which equates to a reduction in port cross section (enough so to illustrate the point)
if you cannot measure a decrease in power or economy, then it is very doubtful you will be able to measure any improvement after the porting job.
or...
one could install a choke plate, a restrictor plate in the intake to reduce the cross sectional area of the existing port by perhaps 5% or maybe even 10% and see how the testing goes. if the results show little or no reduction in performance/economy or power... then what would make one think that a port job is warranted or even desirable?
seems to me like that would be the place i would start with, make up some restrictor plates and do some testing to see what the results might be.
bob g
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Good idea Bob, screwing various reducing bushes into the inlet flange whilst running on a fixed load and locked rack is a quick job with instant results, I will give it a go tomorrow and see what occurs and post my findings in the evening.
Mark.
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Just don't let a bush get sucked into the engine or we'll be demanding pictures of the carnage!
q.
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If it can happen then I have sufficient expertise in creating calamities to ensure that it will. "There are things I knew but don`t know now and things that I needed to know then but didn`t know I needed to know not knowing that all I knew was nothing much at all" D. Mentia. 2013.
Mark.
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Had a cruz loaner form the dealer as well. Had already learned to rollup, back in and carefully un-tuck after purchasing the GMC Terrain. Was used to the pickup and Astro van. Still hit my head getting into the Cruz. Comfortable once in there but no extra room. Like a Spitefire cockpit. iirc the Cruz, Trax, Encore and all those are very similar from the B pillar forward.
Worst ride I ever had was in the backseat of some late model sloped roof Cadillac sports carl. Honest to goodness there was NO WAY to straighten up. Had to fold the arms on top of the legs and almost lay forward with my head down so far that seeing out the windshield was difficult.
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I just love watching the herd mentality on display....LOL.
Obviously there is no need for me to continue wasting time arguing with certain braying jackasses whose minds are set in stone. Regardless of the results from my experiment, some closed minded folks have made it obvious they will still find a way to disbelieve. But whether some random mouth breather decides to believe me or not, is completely irrelevant to anything. I am not porting my cylinder head for the purpose of impressing some fucktard on an Internet forum. I'm doing it to make extra power and efficiency. Since I have benefited from knowledge here I will be happy to share my results with you, which some more clear minded thinkers have expressed interest in seeing. I will do exactly what I said I'd do: I will perform the work and post the results obtained, regardless of what they are. The only difference between you and me is: I won't be surprised by the outcome.
Really, isn't it humorous to see some people, in a thread that is supposedly about getting down to the truth of things, stating before they even see the results that they won't believe it if it shows something different than their preconceptions have already decided is the truth? All because you're sooo upset at the attitude you got from some random dude on the Internet, that you started out calling a delusional idiot, making the same tired and incorrect arguments over and over, becoming madder and madder when said idiot replied back and showed you to flawed and misinformed and just plain wrong at every step? lol.
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I hate to say this, but ad hominem attacks are a sure sign of a loosing position in a disagreement.
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Alright already.....
Why don't we all just wait for Shiftless do his experiment and publish the results.
I am in the doubter camp, but willing to have a look at his measurements.
Eagerly awaiting the outcome.
Cheers.
Hugh
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shiftless
you must understand that many of us are not what anyone would call "newbies" when it comes to these engine's, what they are capable of, and what is reasonable to expect from them.
many here have decades of experience with diesel engine's, many have decades of experience with small diesel engine's and many have decades of experience with lister/oids.
there are also many here that have done serious testing, actually developed test equipment, setup and run test cells and have read and/or own vast libraries of everything written on the subject at hand.
and my bet is there are several here that have more than a modest amount of experience in porting heads!
so you really don't do much to promote your position by coming in here with a post count of what? 30 or 40? acting like a child? married to an idea? and not understanding that the so called hurd mentality is based on solid foundations, rather than "feelings".
no one here is or has launched a personal attack on you, as far as forums go i think you have been treated very fairly here and will continue to be treated well... provided you act responsibly.
so go forth and do your porting, and report back what you have found.
bob g
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I agree with Hugh. Less key tapping, more die grinding please. That's what I'm looking forward to seeing and reading on this thread.
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My dear old Gramma used to say,
"If you can't something nice, keep your mouth shut OR I'LL SLAP YOU!"
q.
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All of this bickering is pointless. While i am of the opinion that there will be little or no gain in porting a listeroid head, I am open minded enough to listen to the results of such a test as long as they are scientific and not skewed. As the old saying goes its time to "put up or shut up"!
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Do most people agree that there is no harm in port matching. Smoothing off casting flash, rough edges, and blending up to the edge of machined surfaces. Plus a five angle race engine type valve job.
Probably less smoke at full rack and maybe 1-5% more power. Changes in actual fuel efficiency would be too small to measure.
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Sure there is no harm in doing those things. But I don't see why anyone would want to. Pumping work is minor in a diesel (it isn't in a gasoline engine), and a diesel engine running at constant speed against a partial load has excess oxygen in the cylinder anyway (a gasoline engine doesn't). You can grind and smooth and polish and match all you want, but you won't see any measurable difference in efficiency under those conditions. Where you WILL notice them is as you add load to the engine at constant speed. The stock engine will begin to smoke at a lower load condition than the engine that has been all pimped up. But none of us run our engines that way. 50% to 80% capacity is where these engines seem to perform the best over the long haul. And they have all the air they want under that condition.
I notice the proponent, when challenged, immediately retreated to the collective wisdom of the Dodge Diesel Truck forum, as if that has any relevance to this case. Those are high performance engines which are intended by their design to wring the maximum amount of power from the available engine displacement. It's not appropriate to expect what would benefit a Cummins diesel, which produces 60 horsepower from each cylinder, lugging a Bobcat on a trailer up a long grade would yield the same benefit to a small 80 year old stationary diesel chugging along at constant speed and under constant load, producing 4 horsepower from its cylinder, under which conditions it does not even generate enough heat to thoroughly warm the lubricating oil in the crankcase.
Like you, I'm waiting to see the data, but I don't expect anything to be forthcoming.
q.
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Today I did the test to see what effect various inlet port restrictions had on power output, this was with a locked rack and a fixed electrical load.
The frequency was 45 Hz with some hunting around this figure of 0.2 Hz, the volts were 218 and the amps were 3.8.
The inlet size is 1.5" BSP which necks into 1 1/4" or so, the BSP reducing bushes used were of 0.725"-0.582"-0.446" and 0.316" internal diameters.
The 0.725" dia had no effect whatever on the frequency, the 0.582" dropped the frequency by 0.4 Hz, the 0.446" by 1.6 Hz and the 0.316" by 3.9 Hz with moderate black smoke.
There was some hysteresis 1-1.3 Hz when the restriction was removed prior to attaching the next smaller one, the baseline frequency was recovered by dumping the load for a couple of seconds.
The test and results are purely comparative and in loosely controlled conditions but enough to convince this hillbilly that the CS inlet port is more than adequate and is not in any need of gas flowing work.
One thing that may affect the results but within the margin for error is the UFRO function of the alternators AVR, I believe the knee point is 47Hz with a linear response below that frequency.
Mark.
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Millman56:
thank you for your effort and report
the results of which really don't surprise me at all, as i suspect they don't come as a surprise to many other here either.
your first restrictor of ~.750" is probably about equal in cross section to that of the valve to seat opening (average) area.
when one stops to consider that as a plausible explanation the "aha" moment comes over you pretty quickly.
i agree it is apparent that the port size is more than adequate, being it is likely 3x or more the cross sectional area of the (average) cross sectional area of the valve to seat opening.
its hard to see how doing much serious port work is going to net any gains.
as for the 3 angle job, i am all over that! i never liked the single angle seat common to the listeriods, and having never seen the lister oem seat i can't comment on them.
the 3 angle job with the interference angle will provide a much more reliable seal, dramatically higher seat pressures with the same springs and spring heights, and much less area for hot bits of carbon to stick to the seat which coupled with higher seat pressures available make the seat able to self clean and clear the carbon much more readily. its been my experience that a 3 angle valve job with a half degree of interference angle tolerate much looser fitting valve guides and still function properly, most especially in slower rpm engines (under ~2500rpm).
then there is this,,, it can be proven that a 3 angle seat will flow a bit more air for a given lift than a wide single angle seat.. this has been shown to be the case on many flow benches going back decades.
now if the OP were to proffer a plan to redo the valve job to a 3 angle seat, with interference angle, "and" do some basic port matching, then i would be standing with at least one leg over on his side of the fence... as it is i am not getting close to the fence on his approach.
bob g
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Mark,
There you go. The Scientific Method in operation. And I bet you didn't even know that you were doing it:
Ask a Quesion: "I wonder whether a 6/1 running under conditions of constant partial load is starved for oxygen. I.e., could it benefit by supplying more oxygen?"
Formulate an Hypothesis: I believe the stock engine is starved for oxygen and could benefit by opening up the intake port.
Test the Hypothesis: (This always has an If, Then, Therefore to it) If the hypothesis is correct, then reducing the oxygen available further will therefore have an immediate effect on engine speed. By successively restricting the intake, starving the engine for oxygen as the air/fuel ratio is reduced, the engine should produce less power against constant load and it should slow down and eventually produce black smoke.
Collect Data/Make Observations:
1.5” diameter 45 Hz
0.725” diameter 45 Hz
0.582“ diameter 43.4 Hz
0.316“ diameter 41.1 Hz “with moderate black smoke.”
Formulate a Conclusion in Light of the Hypothesis Which Accounts for Your Results: Evidence of oxygen starvation only began to become evident at 0.582” diameter. Therefore the experimental evidence fails to support the hypothesis that the stock engine is starved for oxygen.
Publish/Communicate Your Results: You just did that.
Congratulations! You’re a Scientist! Now as soon as you get published the local sperm bank is going to be calling you wanting to schedule you to make a deposit.
But seriously, by restricting the area to less than a quarter of that of the standard intake, you reported there was no effect whatever on the frequency. So there's plenty of excess air in the cylinder under normal conditions to support combustion without dulling your carbide burr.
By extension, you've shown that it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen starvation to affect the operation of a 6/1 diesel under constant speed and constant load. I'll resist the temptation to mention that's just what I predicted at the outset. (Oh darn!) That has clear implications for one's need for an expensive designer air filter over a generic plain paper element.
Quinn
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Learning to acheive a consistent 65-70-75 % passing 75 um pf sample on a self built with built in snags, air swept Hardinge conical mill and dynamic classifier setup, using anything from clean run of mine anthracite to virtual coal sludge, then having up to half a dozen interdependent variables to contend with, has taught me a little about the scientific approach not to mention a bit more about air circuit design faults.
How will I tell the sperm bank that my .22 derringer :-[ will only fire blanks ?
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RHF3 is the smallest turbo I've found yet. Should do ok at full load on a single cylinder but could be slow to spool up.
http://www.ihi-turbo.com/turbo_RHE-RHF.htm
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Sounds like fun. But I wonder how well a splash lubricated engine would stand up to the increased load.
The airflow isn't very much. I wonder if there's a fundamental reason for the lack of turbos on small engines. Other than the guys who have modded lawnmowers!
q.
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Splash lubed engine would have a challenge lubing the turbo.
May as well rifle drill that crank for oil passages then set up an oil pump & filter system when at it.
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I have a Toyota SC-12 supercharger I bought to use on my Thermoking Isuzu diesel to try to make up for the 5000'+ elevation here. I thought about the 6/1 Lister, but figured the parasitic loss would be more than the 6/1 could handle.
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It's easier to get a turbo diesel to met emissions and efficiency goals than a natural aspirated.
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I agree with Hugh. Less key tapping, more die grinding please. That's what I'm looking forward to seeing and reading on this thread.
Thank you Schwen, Hugh, and others. I know there are more than a few people who are interested in seeing less bullshit and more real world results. I am working every day to get the generator ready for testing. Currently waiting on parts. Been doing some research on the gen head and it seems I need a "RegOhm" regulator for this old unit, which has a rotary exciter. Also need to mod the governor spring so it will hold its speed better under load. As of right now the voltage and frequency drops too much. So far I have washed a couple loads of laundry and run some other appliances, but the clothes dryer is just too much for it, runs but drags the speed and voltage down a lot. Hopefully the above mods will fix that problem. Also waiting on the last pieces to come in to build the intake and exhaust, and a water pump to finish up the cooling system. At that point it should be ready to do some baseline testing. Looks like I'll have those results ready to post within 2-3 weeks.
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Getting closer. The intake silencer is finished and muffler 90% done. The motor is a lot quieter now but the diesel knock is pretty loud with direct injection. The previous owner set the timing at 20* and I tried retarding it a bit but it seemed to be happiest where it was. Still gotta finish the cooling system but I went ahead and did a quick test to see how much of a load it would pull. I was able to put about 4300 watts on it without much of any smoke. That is running at 815 RPMs (at 60 Hz) and 180* coolant temp. It drops about 2 Hz, maybe a little over. Not bad IMO. I will do more precise testing within the next week when the other stuff is finished up, then the porting shall begin.
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Still working on it. The exhaust and cooling system are finished up and I'm about halfway putting together a cabinet to contain this thing and hopefully cut the noise down. Not sure what the injection timing is set to but I think it needs to be advanced just a hair as the motor smokes a bit even when fully warmed up. Getting the bugs worked out little by little. Stay tuned......
http://i888.photobucket.com/albums/ac86/bfm_/IMAG0373.jpg?t=1381701587 (http://i888.photobucket.com/albums/ac86/bfm_/IMAG0373.jpg?t=1381701587)
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With regard to your (it looks like) cool water inlet and the exhaust and intake, consider installing some sort of flexible coupler inline with them; the water line especially. Steel tubing rigidly connected to an engine will tend to vibrate like a tuning fork and if it happens to be just the right length, will resonate to some degree and snap off at the threads. Been there, done that, and had a dead engine and a bilge full of crankcase oil. It might not happen for hundreds of hours, but when it does you'll kick yourself for not taking the precaution earlier.
Quinn
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I've been working with a stone on my water outlet on the head, to try to get a thermostat into it. The water outlet is a MESS.
And today I looked at the ex and intake, and OMG, it's night and day. There is nothing there to port, it's all smooth, and only down inside the passage, are all the lumps and bumps. But at the interface, it's great. Too bad the water port is not that way.
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Quinn: the exhaust and intake are connected to lengths of flex tubing just above the picture frame, so they are probably OK, but thanks for the heads up on the water line, I could see that eventually breaking due to vibration. What an ugly situation that would be. If the solid pipe were about half that length or less the hose would be a lot easier to route, and the loop could be eliminated. Sounds like a plan.
Just did a test run on the motor for a couple hours under full load to see how the cooling system works. There are iron pipes routing coolant upstairs to a Pinto radiator, which is gonna be great for keeping the shop warm and toasty this winter. The total coolant capacity ended up being just over 2 gallons which is great as only one jug of antifreeze is needed. I put 4kW on it for a while until the coolant slowly heated up to about 225*. Then put a box fan near the radiator blowing air on it and backed off to 3kW. The temp held about 220* for a while and seemed to run great there. At that temp the motor makes more of a deep thump and less noisy diesel racket. No combustion gases spotted in the coolant or excessive burping into the overflow tank.
The cabinet is about 80% completed and sure makes a world of difference in keeping the noise level down. It's getting to the point where the motor is tamed down enough to be run for longer periods of time and a larger fuel tank is needed. Trying to round up some used 55 gallon drums for that purpose. Hopefully will have that sorted out by this weekend. Sure is starting to get chilly out...
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Hey Shiftless, how do you get the coolant temperature so high without boiling it? Is your system pressurised or is it just the glycol concentration?
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It's pressurized. The radiator cap is an old ragged looking one that came with the radiator and no clue what its rating is, wasn't even sure if it would hold pressure, but it does. There is a tiny spot of coolant seeping out from the (copper) head gasket which does not appear to be a problem, but I forgot to look at it again when the system was fully pressurized. I was focused on the temp gauge but it seems like there would have been visible steam or something if the leak had worsened. I hope it will be OK because a pressurized cooling system is really the way to go IMO, so it can run efficiently at higher temps. Might need to invest in some Yamabond or something similar.
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Time for an update. Still working on this thing and for the past week I've been running it at least 3 hours per day. Now have over 35 hours of run time on this big thumper and so far it's been pretty smooth sailing. This project is starting to get to that stage where it seems like it's gonna work out like it's supposed to. There are a few bugs and issues still to get worked out and also getting that timing dialed in. Fuel consumption has been a little high but with the latest timing adjustment seems to have improved a good bit. I got a few empty drums from the local oil company and will be setting one up as a fuel tank soon. Got the cabinet finished up and it's turned out real good, cut down on the noise substantially and keeps the engine nice and toasty too. Did some rerouting and improvements to the coolant system as suggested and just a lot of little tweaks here and there. Those tiny seeps from the head gasket turned out not to be a big deal. I replaced the radiator cap with a new 7 psi cap and the motor does real good with the top valve cracked to 1/4-1/3 open, gets up to around 200-225* depending on flow rate etc and holds pretty steady. Takes it about an hour to get fully warmed up with no thermostat, which kinda sucks but will be acceptable for constant running. Money is a bit tight at the moment but within the two weeks I'll have everything finished up for sure and be ready to make a video, then on to the port work. Might be able to borrow the neighbor's power for a bit to run the compressor which would really make the porting go a lot easier. Will do an initial max load test here soon when the timing seems to be right. Stay tuned...
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Shiftless, is your cooling system, pump or convection circulated ? My 6-1 system is pumped and has a 175 F thermostat fitted, this gives @ 60% load, running temps of 172 F out and 135 F in, these temps are measured using a cheap IR thermometer at the outlet and inlet flanges, if I take the outlet temp above 195 C, localised boiling which I assume to be around the exhaust port/combustion chamber, occurs, this, if allowed to continue, leads to overpressurization of the system and venting through the header tank pressure relief cap.
If I was to run this setup at near boiling temps then I am pretty sure it would result in a runaway boiling situation and serious overheating, so I am curious as to how your system operates at well over boiling temps without this occuring, new cast iron heat transfer vs 75 year old scaly rusted cast iron heat transfer maybe?
Mark.
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Yes the engine has a Grundfos 1/25 hp pump. Dunno why your engine is boiling; are you sure it isn't combustion pressure escaping into the coolant jacket or something? With a 50/50 antifreeze solution and 7+ psi of pressure your coolant should not be boiling or overflowing until well past safe operating temperatures. If it's not pressurized....there's your problem. Just ran my engine another 8+ hours yesterday and it thumped along at 210-230*F the whole time. It will sit there at 220* or 230* and run for hours on end like that, no problem.
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Its a bit strange, mine also has a Grundfos circulating pump, its connected to the block port pumping up through the block from the radiators outlets, its a pressurized system and has no combustion gas escaping into the coolant. My engine doesn`t boil under normal circumstances, but prolonged full load will bring it on as will running it with a carboned injector. Could be the radiators are not up to the job.
Mark.
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Mine will do localized boiling too. It's running an open system with plain water and a 195 deg thermostat. When shut down the boiling can be heard for a few minutes.
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Just been reading a Ruston instruction book and it reccomends for the VTO, VSH and VSO ranges (similar to Lister CDs and CEs) that the outlet temperature of the circulating water be about 160F and not exceed 180F. The Lister CD/CE book says it is essential to maintain the coolant between 165F and 185F, these temps fit in nicely with my CS cooling regime.
Shiftless, what do you use to measure your coolant temp?
Mark.
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......what do you use to measure your coolant temp?
I use a IR thermometer
I'd love to find a simple EGT gismo I can bolt onto the exhaust port and be able to monitor that too. Self powered even better.
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EGT gizmo: my son is now driving my 12 valve Cummins climbing the Rockies and one of the first things he did was to install an EGT pyrometer and gage. Genos Garage is one place to start. Best wishes
overbore
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An external thermal gun is one thing and has it's place. However reading coolant temp inside a pipe is another. Just by varying the emissivity setting will vary the apparent temp from Luke warm to boiling .
An immersed element reading 195F on the coolant outlet is a good starting point. Coolant flow in gph, pressure and anti-freeze mix as previously stated will skew the ideal temp.
210F if not suffering nucleate boiling is just fine. Cleaner combustion too.
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My engine temp is measured with a thermometer installed in the coolant outlet. I would imagine Lister recommends such low temperatures to prevent cooling in the stock unpressurized cooling system. If that is addressed the engine certainly will run more efficiently at higher temps. I haven't done any prolonged runs at full load yet but I will do so at some point and report back how the cooling system holds up.
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An external thermal gun is one thing and has it's place. However reading coolant temp inside a pipe is another. Just by varying the emissivity setting will vary the apparent temp from Luke warm to boiling .
An immersed element reading 195F on the coolant outlet is a good starting point. Coolant flow in gph, pressure and anti-freeze mix as previously stated will skew the ideal temp.
210F if not suffering nucleate boiling is just fine. Cleaner combustion too.
Buickanddeere, you are spot on with your evaluation of the IR thermometers, mines not very accurate and today have proved to myself just how inaccurate it is. A rummage in my junk turned up an unused Murphy Switchgage 50 to 120 C temp gauge and its capillary sender unit whatsit, this was tested in boiling water and proved pretty accurate, this was fitted in the coolant flow approx 2" from the outlet port and the temp gauge did not aggree with the IR thermometer reading, with the gauge reading approx 25 C higher, so I have been assuming the engine was cooler than it actually was.
With the help of its new and accurate temp gauge the engine was run with the coolant flow restricted in order to raise the temp and it seemed comfortable at an indicated 90 C and I did in fact take it up to 95 C briefly, without boiling issuses. (100 C = 212 F )
Shiftless, without knowing it I`ve probably been running at your kind of elevated temperatures ;D
The Murphy Switchgage is a useful bit of kit due to it having N/O contacts (the actual indicator needle is one) which can be set to close at any preset temp, this output could be easily be used to provide over temp auto shut-down.
Mark.
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Glort, I have one of the multimeters you mention, never used it for my Lister as its thermocouple is really only any good for dipping in liquid or measuring gas temps, also when using a multimeter ( 4 handed job at times ) near drive belts, it`s very easy to entrain the hanging/dropped leads and trash things a bit.
Using cheap, loop powered digital meters, I built a display which simultaneously shows, Volts, Amps (50) and HZ, this is ideal for checking the instantaneous effect of different fuels, temps, inlet restrictions and your favourite, water injection which I`m afraid has no effect on performance but does appear to help clear a carboned injector. This display also acts as a load monitor when testing small gensets.
I use industrial type K thermocouples to sense for PID controllers in a process plant, these are expensive and the ones I use are not really suited to engine fitment, the Murphy gauge is perfect for the Lister and these engine temp gauges have all the right connection fittings and no electrics.
I do try and keep things self contained and compact, so I stick with the fan and pump scenario, the latest incarnation using an auto header tank and 2 ex BMC 1.8 diesel 10" X 3"X 2" oil coolers fitted over the alternators cooling air outlets, these outlets have quite a high airflow and it does away with having a seperate fan and a radiator bouncing about, surprisingly it all works fine even though reduced to 1/2" I/D steel and 5/8" I/D rubber pipework. Yesterday after fitting the temp gauge I blanked one rad off and the remaining one cooled it fine.
Mark.
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I check here from time to time and I see that members still dig this porting topic up. If you are looking to get more performance and efficiency I would consider looking into a mini turbo setup. The 6-1 would be hard on a turbo but I feel the exhaust pulse can be reduced by fabricating an expansion chamber and a reduced exhaust port from the expansion chamber to the turbo. The expansion chamber should be wrapped so heat loss is reduced. This could work.
Henry
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An oiling system would be easy on a turbo listeroid. Belt driven oil pump would work along with a full flow oil filter. An auto shut down would also be good. If the turbo ever looses oil pressure the engine can be safely shut down.
Henry
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Just out of childish interest and with a one shot lube system, I held a Nissan Micra (1.5 litre) turbo charger over the exhaust port on a 6-1, it spun it up a bit but with low output and no whistle. I can`t think of any readily available turbochargers small enough to be spun up to a usable speed by the low exhaust volume of a 6-1.
Mark.
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Here you go.
A turbo kit.
Henry
http://www.ecotrons.com/Small_Engine_RHB31_VZ21_turbocharger.html
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I'm more convinced than before the porting will do squat.
unless the engine has some sort of manufacturing defect like casting flash or similar blocking the port.
X2 ;) Reading along here has been fun but I think the bottom line is just as you said.
No,the Lister ports are not ideal shape, no the cam profiles are not ideal but neither are we expecting much of them. My bet is a person would need some pretty fancy instrumentation to be able to substantiate improvment be it either HP delivered or HP hours per gallon of fuel.
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IHI RHF3 is a little larger but should do the job ?
Don't see any need for an expansion chamber.
I agree that porting alone and expecting a 50% power increase, or any increase over 5-10% for that matter with a 1920-1930's designed engine is optimistic.
With any engine and Indian built clones in particular. Unless the cam is ground to a known good working profile instead of by guess and by golly. Engines, twins in particular are never going to make the power and fuel efficiency they are capable of without sending the cam and followers out for re-grinding.
Porting is just a bit of optional fun along the way. Casting flash, machined edges and lumps of metal cast into the port may not do any harm. Neither are they doing any good.
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unless the engine has some sort of manufacturing defect like casting flash or similar blocking the port.
They do; it's called "Indian casting technology."
No,the Lister ports are not ideal shape, no the cam profiles are not ideal but neither are we expecting much of them.
Maybe that's your problem.
My bet is a person would need some pretty fancy instrumentation to be able to substantiate improvment be it either HP delivered or HP hours per gallon of fuel.
Better get those wagers in.
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i got a C note that says you won't gain any measurable efficiency gain, however
i am not putting a dime on a bet until such time as i see how you will be testing before and after, "and" until such time as there are others that can independently verify those results, preferably by independent replication.
before anything is done to the ports there is a lot of work that needs to be done in setting up a suitable test cell, followed by several tests to determine a baseline.
do that first and get some agreement as to the methods used to test, then go after the porting.
you might set a goal of maybe 1 to 2 percentage points in efficiency gains as being about the maximum gains you are going to accomplish under any circumstances via porting alone... setting up suitable test capability to measure 1 to 2 percentage points "reliably" is going to be quite an accomplishment to start with let alone trying to improve things via porting.
bob g
ps
you might consider this,
if you are looking for more power, or more efficiency or both...
replace the flywheels with stover wheels and crank the rpm up to closer to 1000rpm... you might have to replace the iron piston as well. enclose the cooling system and make it a pressurized system running at ~220deg F under load... doing these things will net you a couple points increase in efficiency... "and" then worry about porting... maybe then you might see a slight improvement but i would not bet on it.
the problem with the 6/1 is there is a massive amount of iron that sucks the heat away from the combustion process. lost heat does not make for more power as we all know... added to the problem is the very slow rpm and you have a lot of time for this heat to flow away from the combustion process... the two together limit the engine's ability to be much more efficient than it already is. anything you can do to reduce the heat flow either by raising the cooling system temperature or decreasing the dwell time via increased rpm is a step in the right direction.
in my opinion the lister design as with any design is one of compromise(s) they wanted a slow speed engine to increase longevity, lots of iron to make it more stable, simple so that anyone can work on it, etc... balancing that against efficiency.
with the cost of fuel being pennies per gallon back at the 5/1's inception, it is really doubtful that eeking out the highest efficiency was very high on the list of priorities. if the design was so damn good they would not have gone on to design and manufacture more advanced designs in more recent times.
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Bob, I agree that not much can be gained on a listeroid 6/1. The GM-90 6/1 achieves better efficiency by direct injection. There were some direct injected listeroids in the early to mid 2000's. Parts might still be available at certain companies in India. This could be an option for listeroid owners looking for efficiency. I had the choice of a listeroid or GM-90 and after running both side by side with the same load and the GM-90 was clearly a cleaner and more efficient running engine and that is what I bought. My space and needs changed so I sold the GM-90 and went with modern engines, but I had fun with slow running diesels. Look for a DI head, injector with injector line and aluminum DI piston for a listeroid and I bet there will be an improvement. Otherwise, I feel the only option to see a noticeable improvement is a turbocharger.
Henry
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Many of the Lister clones are available with direct injection. the 18/1 we carry uses this design. Almost all of the more modern Listers, especially the air-cooled lot from 1960 forward, are direct injection. This speaks to the viability of the design.
The newer Lister stuff with turbocharging is a joke in my opinion, but they did offer some pretty robust air-cooled designs in the 60's and 70's with turbos. We have seen a lot of the modern Lister oilfield turbocharged stuff fail at 300 hours... not one of Lister's better designs (the LPWT). A lot of complexity there and a lot of expense for a bit of extra power... Isuzu, Kubota, and the like got it right it seems in many of their smaller turbocharged diesels, and almost all the good John Deere, Caterpillar, Cummins stuff has the turbocharger as a central design feature. None are suited to very slow speed stuff like the CS. :(
dieselgman
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Anybody ever try one of the "ceramic" coatings on the piston top and cylinder walls ? Or would that still be too much mass and continue to suck the heat away ?
http://www.dieselnet.com/tech/engine_coat.php#intro
DIY kit:
CBC2 POWERKOTE (scroll down to it)
http://www.techlinecoatings.com/hi-performance/bs-internal-engine-coatings.html
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All this pursuit of extra power reminds me of the young and not so young who for instance, spend a fortune, both in time and money, on fitting big bore kits, tuning goodies and the like, in order to make a stock 1.6 litre car as powerful/fast/sexy as a stock 2.0 litre one, it would make sense if there were no 2.0 litre cars available, having said that it`s impossible to put a price on the satisfaction got from spending, doing and talking about it. That reminds me, I must get that £1500.00 nitrous oxide boost kit fitted to my CS. ;D
Mark.
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There will be very little benefit from porting. The reason is the engines fuel is injected into the combustion chamber about 17 Degrees before TDC. Air is only drawn into the combustion chamber at a slow rate. The engine only spins at 650 RPM's. The naturaly asperated Listeroid engine can only draw so much air at 650 RPM's. The cam profile can be off some on the intake and exhaust lobes and it won't make much of a differance. Air gets sucked in, it gets compressed, fuel is injected at 17 deg BTDC and ignites. The only way to see a noticeable improvement is forced induction or as I written before, (change it to direct injection) I cannot see spending all the time and money to possibly gain a couple percent worth it after porting? Changing it to direct injection could gain up to 15% in efficiency. It is hard to say what might be gained with a turbo.
Henry
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............."That reminds me, I must get that £1500.00 nitrous oxide boost kit fitted to my CS".....
At least you'd have a Lister that was happy, or didn't care what you did to it ;D
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The Lister`s as happy as a sandboy, it`s me that needs to sniff the nitrous ;D.
Sorry to keep harping on about the benefits of a digital display but on the topic of quantifying increased performance its a godsend, today I decided to fit an Indian oil filter kit which has been lying around for years so as a special treat I drained the thick goopy oil out and treated it to some semi synthetic 5W-30. On a 7 amp 238 Volt load, it gained 1.3 HZ and unloaded it gained 1.4 Hz over its pre oil change readings, this required the governor spring tension resetting to give 51 HZ unloaded, I also cleaned up the breather diaphragm whilst on the case, although I can`t see this having any bearing on the increase in power and I assume its all down to the thin oil reducing drag.
Mark.
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Anybody ever try one of the "ceramic" coatings on the piston top and cylinder walls ? Or would that still be too much mass and continue to suck the heat away ?
http://www.dieselnet.com/tech/engine_coat.php#intro
DIY kit:
CBC2 POWERKOTE (scroll down to it)
http://www.techlinecoatings.com/hi-performance/bs-internal-engine-coatings.html
I've used similar coatings on motorcycle and automotive race engines. The ceramic piston dome and cylinder head coatings prevent some percentage of heat transfer and result in lower detonation margins. The end result is a slightly cooler running engine, with higher octane requirements, less timing advance and the resulting possible loss of power.
The piston skirt coatings are, if done correctly, quite beneficial. They can postpone or prevent a piston seizure and reduce friction. Allowing tighter piston to wall clearances. This results in lower blow-by, better efficiency, more power and less risk. All good things. In fact, modern VW automotive diesel engines use such coatings on the piston skirts.
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All this pursuit of extra power reminds me of the young and not so young who for instance, spend a fortune, both in time and money, on fitting big bore kits, tuning goodies and the like, in order to make a stock 1.6 litre car as powerful/fast/sexy as a stock 2.0 litre one, it would make sense if there were no 2.0 litre cars available, having said that it`s impossible to put a price on the satisfaction got from spending, doing and talking about it. That reminds me, I must get that £1500.00 nitrous oxide boost kit fitted to my CS. ;D
Mark.
Now that you mention it, I could have purchased a C6, Z-06 Corvette with the wonderful 7.0L engine and achieved identical performance and lap times. Rather than modify my 1994 Mazda Miata "R" package 2300 pound street n track car, to 385 uncorrected RWHP. Oh wait, my total investment was a tiny fraction of the Corvette. I purchased the turbo for $90, overhauled it, built my own turbo header from 321 stainless for $300. Built my own intercooler for $300, and purchased other engine and management goodies for about $3000. Grand total, including the price of the car comes in well less than $15K.
(http://www.cujet.com/assets/images/miata_resize.jpg)
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Very neat work, you`ve taken an MX-5 hairdressers car and given it a sex change ;D Modifying a 1.8 litre 133 HP (is this right ?) engine and obtaining 385 HP from it is a fantastic acheivement.
Mark.
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Very nice work Chris,
I always liked the mid 90's Miata. It is one of the simplest and most reliable sports car to work on. What turbo are you using? A T3-T4 hybrid?
What injectors you using? I am getting jealous, very nice indeed.
I did a turbo Ranger a while back. Used a 88 Turbo coupe engine, t5 trans and ecu. To this day I still miss it.
I always thought about a Miata. It is great to see what can be done with one.
Henry
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I used the larger Aerodyne turbo I had on hand first, then a super 60 T3 left over from my Merkur days, then a smaller T4. The injectors were RC 750's. Peaked at 33 pounds boost, but generally ran about 23-25 lbs boost. Used 20% toluene in the fuel too.
That car would spin both rear tires (Torsen diff) on sticky rubber, at 65MPH, using just 1/2 to 2/3 throttle in 3rd gear, with no clutch or forcing it to spin. It simply had enough power to do that.
Of course, the original engine had stock rods, and for some reason, in cylinders 1 and 3, the pistons were about 1/4 inch shy of the top of the block. Guess the rods compressed a bit. Bearings and crank were fine, as were the cylinders.
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Wow, 1/4", that is a lot. Were the pistons oil cooled? My guess you had forged pistons. The reason I am asking is when tearing down some drag engines we seen wrist pin bosses on pistons pushed up towards the piston head. They were on the verge of blowing apart. I wonder if that happened to the pistons on that engine. Very rare indeed. But you would of seen lots of play. Hypereutectic Pistons would of failed under extreme stress. I seen many of bent rods also.
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Anybody ever try one of the "ceramic" coatings on the piston top and cylinder walls ? Or would that still be too much mass and continue to suck the heat away ?
http://www.dieselnet.com/tech/engine_coat.php#intro
DIY kit:
CBC2 POWERKOTE (scroll down to it)
http://www.techlinecoatings.com/hi-performance/bs-internal-engine-coatings.html
Anything you can do to slow heat transfer to the mass of the engine from the combustion process will increase engine efficiency. Remember, our Carnot-cycle engines all work by making hot AIR, not hot metal. I also intend to ceramic coat the piston top, combustion chamber face, valve heads and (particularly) the precombustor chamber on my 6/1 if I ever get the thing built.
The master plan is to build the set, run it in, measure a baseline BSFC at a couple of different loads, then take the bits of interest off, ceramic coat them, and retest.
And yes, running the coolant jacket hotter than boiling point is also guaranteed to increase combustion efficiency, because the delta-T (and thus rate of heat transfer) between engine mass and combustion is decreased. The good news is that you can theoretically run an all-iron engine very hot. The bad news is that it's really hard to regulate/limit engine temperature much above about 15 PSIG, which only gets you to an operating temp of 240F or so in non-boiling mode. Something tells me that it's going to be very hard to get the cylinder block and head to stay watertight at anything above that kind of pressure. It's fun to look at a steam table and consider running the thing at something like 30+ PSIG though.
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Look for a DI head, injector with injector line and aluminum DI piston for a listeroid and I bet there will be an improvement.
Maybe yall should try familiarizing yourself with some of the basic facts of the engine in question before you stand on your soap box telling me what I should or shouldn't do or what will or won't happen?
The engine is direct injection. It does have an alloy piston. It's not like I've mentioned this 2-3 times on different threads or anything.
before anything is done to the ports there is a lot of work that needs to be done in setting up a suitable test cell, followed by several tests to determine a baseline.
Does this seem like something I'm not aware of? Why do you think I haven't already performed the testing? I'm still getting all the i's dotted and the t's crossed.
do that first and get some agreement as to the methods used to test, then go after the porting.
I don't need to "get some agreement" on anything. I don't need your help in designing an effective test. I am a scientist. I know how to test things.
you might set a goal of maybe 1 to 2 percentage points in efficiency gains as being about the maximum gains you are going to accomplish under any circumstances via porting alone...
So you continue to claim over and over and over again. Repeat it often enough and it still doesn't become true.
I just did a rough fuel consumption test on the motor now that the timing is pretty close or dead on to where it needs to be. Under 1300-1400W continuous with occasional bursts to 2000W, it ran for 8 hours 40 minutes on less than two gallons of fuel. Looks like about 4 hr 30 mins per gallon.
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All this pursuit of extra power reminds me of the young and not so young who for instance, spend a fortune, both in time and money, on fitting big bore kits, tuning goodies and the like, in order to make a stock 1.6 litre car as powerful/fast/sexy as a stock 2.0 litre one, it would make sense if there were no 2.0 litre cars available, having said that it`s impossible to put a price on the satisfaction got from spending, doing and talking about it. That reminds me, I must get that £1500.00 nitrous oxide boost kit fitted to my CS. ;D
I built a 2.3L Ford that smokes big block V8s all day long....at half the cost, with twice the gas mileage. So yeah, I guess that would be a pretty good analogy.
(http://i888.photobucket.com/albums/ac86/bfm_/svo_engine_bay_stg3.jpg)
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I did a turbo Ranger a while back. Used a 88 Turbo coupe engine, t5 trans and ecu. To this day I still miss it.
I did the same years ago except the motor was from an 86 TC and I reused the stock Mazda trans. I removed the fuel injection and built a custom propane fuel system with OHG X-450 mixer and X-1 converter.......because I had no other running vehicles and needed something to drive, and that's what was on hand. Less than a week after building it I was daily driving it an hour back and forth to school and continued to do so for the next six months without any problems, other than running out of fuel a few times. As far as I could tell nobody within a 150+ mile radius had any clue how to do this; I figured it all out myself. Oh yeah, and did I mention the peanut gallery was in full force the whole time telling me that it wouldn't work out like I thought? lol. This ain't the first time Nathan Cline has proved a bunch of unimaginative doubters wrong, and it won't be the last. Years after the truck was taken apart and decommissioned I still had people coming up every now and again to ask about it, even complete strangers.
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Ok, I see you have a Metro 6/1 DI. It does come with an aluminum piston. That setup is roughly 12% more efficient, and possibly up to 15% might be able to be achieved. That engine is much more efficient than a CS. Porting the engine still won't give you much more. Forced induction with a low pressure turbo setup should give you better efficiency. I would say around 3 psi would be a good start. I bet that would give very good numbers and make lots here jealous. You have the experience and understanding of forced induction with one of my favorite engines and I would like to see someone take on this task with a 6/1 Listeroid.
By the way I just missed out on a NOS tall deck SVO block about eight months ago. :( I should of bought one years ago when they were available at reasonable prices. I know what those engines are capable of. Helped my friend with a turbo pinto and it was very fast. He had it in mid tens a couple times before he wrecked it. The car kicked around and hit a rail. (Note: just spoke to my friend in CT. And he said his fastest time was in the mid elevens. Getting old to remember times. He got the engine and ecu out of a 85 SVO that was wrecked he does not remember the turbo configuration but I think it was a T3-T4. Back than everything was experimental and he was very good figuring things out. The exhaust manifold had to be fabricated. we used sch 40 weld type pipe fittings) Only problems were distributer gear and cracked heads by running 30 pounds of boost. He beat my 69 Torino Cobra with the 428 Super Cobra Jet along with a drag pack installed. I ran low twelves legally, and who knows what else I ran street dragging when I was young and stupid. I never did harness all the power to the rear wheels though. The Locker was hard and noisy. Blueprinted it back when I worked part time at a drag shop in the late 70's and early 80's. I sold it in 93 after holding on to it for 12 years. I wish I never sold it. Put out over 500 hp and well over 500lbs of torque. We built engines mainly for drag boats. It was fun while it lasted. I loved the FE blocks back then 390, 406, 427, 427 side oiler, tunnel port, and I had the opportunity to touch one 427SOHC. Remember spending a good part of the day timing that engine. What a timing chain setup.
Anyways, I am getting carried away here. Members here just trying to give sound advice. Please don't take it personal. If you feel like porting to get the last percent go for it. Recutting the seats and valves should yield longer life.
Henry
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All this pursuit of extra power reminds me of the young and not so young who for instance, spend a fortune, both in time and money, on fitting big bore kits, tuning goodies and the like, in order to make a stock 1.6 litre car as powerful/fast/sexy as a stock 2.0 litre one, it would make sense if there were no 2.0 litre cars available, having said that it`s impossible to put a price on the satisfaction got from spending, doing and talking about it. That reminds me, I must get that £1500.00 nitrous oxide boost kit fitted to my CS. ;D
I built a 2.3L Ford that smokes big block V8s all day long....at half the cost, with twice the gas mileage. So yeah, I guess that would be a pretty good analogy.
(http://i888.photobucket.com/albums/ac86/bfm_/svo_engine_bay_stg3.jpg)
Shiftless, as you`ve probably guessed cars don`t rock my boat, although a bog standard Ferrari Testarosterone or 500 SL might just tick the box..... The pipework and tight instalation of the extra bits on the photos of members car mods is impressive though.
One thing , does your alternator belt squeal under heavy loading? There doesn`t seem to be much wrap round the alts pulley.
Mark.
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There will be very little benefit from porting. The reason is the engines fuel is injected into the combustion chamber about 17 Degrees before TDC. Air is only drawn into the combustion chamber at a slow rate. The engine only spins at 650 RPM's. The naturaly asperated Listeroid engine can only draw so much air at 650 RPM's. The cam profile can be off some on the intake and exhaust lobes and it won't make much of a differance. Air gets sucked in, it gets compressed, fuel is injected at 17 deg BTDC and ignites. The only way to see a noticeable improvement is forced induction or as I written before, (change it to direct injection) I cannot see spending all the time and money to possibly gain a couple percent worth it after porting? Changing it to direct injection could gain up to 15% in efficiency. It is hard to say what might be gained with a turbo.
Henry
Lets differ on the importance of cam timing. A few degrees will vary the % cylinder fill or volumetric efficiency. % Cylinder fill will affect how much fuel can be burned and hot/pressurized the combustion chamber will operate at. A few degrees on cam timing will also vary the compression pressure and thus combustion chamber temp at the start of the injection event.
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I understand the importance of cam timing. I am talking about cam timing of + or- 3 degrees. The listeroid is a stationary engine and it is set at a rated output. The engine will not benefit much it all because of it's rated speed. If it was a higher speed engine and used at variable speeds then there would be some benefit. The compression on a stationary engine such as a listeroid can be adjusted some with different head gasket thickness.
There was a test with restrictor plates and the results were posted. It proved that messing with porting and to some extent it also mimics cam timing by restricting air flow, the changes by different size restrictor plates proved there will be small gains. I wrote there won't make much of a difference and I do stand behind that claim unless someone can prove that it makes a difference by more than 2 or 3%. I also wrote about direct injection. The change to direct injection will make a difference that I consider substantial. Along with low pressure forced induction you will see another gain.
My bet is, since these engines were built by many manufactures that cam timing could vary by a large margine from the original timing specs. If cam timing is off, you do have a solution, the cam timing can be adjusted by repinning the lobes in the correct timing specs. Make sure the injector timing is set properly if cam timing has to be changed. But, as I written earlier, the gains in adjusting cam timing on a listeroid will be little. On the other hand, if you want to rework the cam profile and porting, and it will make you feel better go for it. Just don't expect huge percentage gains.
Henry
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Mark, you have a good eye as I did have problems with that alternator. That is an old picture and a few things have changed since then. The alt there is one from Summit, I forget the name of the company but their slogan is "Our chrome will get you home." Ha. The bastard quit charging after less than 100 miles and the case bolts even backed out to the point where the back half of the alt was flopping around. Ended up replacing it with a Powermaster 140A and a dual V-belt pulley which was a huge improvement.
There was a test with restrictor plates and the results were posted. It proved that messing with porting and to some extent it also mimics cam timing by restricting air flow, the changes by different size restrictor plates proved there will be small gains.
No it didn't. Yeah, I saw that test--and it proved me right. Think about it.
What lies in the path between that restrictor plate, and the cylinder? The intake port in the head.
If installing a restrictor plate did not decrease power, it's not because the cylinder can't hold any more air; it's because it's already choked off big time by that massively restrictive intake port!
If you have already in effect installed a 3/8" (or whatever size) restrictor plate in the runner by having a fucked up port design, why in the world would you be surprised that adding a 2nd restrictor plate of the same size (in essence) doesn't decrease power any further?
815 RPM is about 6.8 intake pulses per second. Furthermore, those pulses aren't spread out over the entire second; they occur only 1/4 of the time. There is only a tiny window for that big Lister cylinder to fill itself, 6.8 times per second. The intake is working so damn hard you can hear it....just listen to the sound of air being sucked into the damn thing. It's louder than the exhaust! All of that noise equals energy being wasted.
The Lister engine has only 75% volumetric efficiency. When it sucks in air 6.8 times per second, loud as a gunshot each time, it only succeeds in filling that big cylinder 3/4 of the way. And you're sitting there and telling me with a straight face that the port design doesn't matter and it's impossible to gain any more airflow, even as I, a porting expert, can point to the specific areas where airflow is being restricted big time, and tell you exactly how it needs to be modified to make an improvement? And you are furthermore telling me that more airflow doesn't equal more power, and that it certainly won't increase efficiency if the engine doesn't have to work nearly as hard to suck in more air 6.8 times per second? This is despite another reputable poster who has already posted up their real world results of a massive increase in efficiency from 4 to 6 hours of run time per gallon due in part to port work and other attention to detail. And I'm the one who's deluded? lol.
Like I said: get your wagers in. But be careful you don't swallow your own foot in the process.
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I understand the importance of cam timing. I am talking about cam timing of + or- 3 degrees. The listeroid is a stationary engine and it is set at a rated output. The engine will not benefit much it all because of it's rated speed. If it was a higher speed engine and used at variable speeds then there would be some benefit. The compression on a stationary engine such as a listeroid can be adjusted some with different head gasket thickness.
There was a test with restrictor plates and the results were posted. It proved that messing with porting and to some extent it also mimics cam timing by restricting air flow, the changes by different size restrictor plates proved there will be small gains. I wrote there won't make much of a difference and I do stand behind that claim unless someone can prove that it makes a difference by more than 2 or 3%. I also wrote about direct injection. The change to direct injection will make a difference that I consider substantial. Along with low pressure forced induction you will see another gain.
My bet is, since these engines were built by many manufactures that cam timing could vary by a large margine from the original timing specs. If cam timing is off, you do have a solution, the cam timing can be adjusted by repinning the lobes in the correct timing specs. Make sure the injector timing is set properly if cam timing has to be changed. But, as I written earlier, the gains in adjusting cam timing on a listeroid will be little. On the other hand, if you want to rework the cam profile and porting, and it will make you feel better go for it. Just don't expect huge percentage gains.
Henry
A incorrectly built and/or timed cam will affect cylinder filling more than porting. Open the valve too late and the cylinder will be under filled . Close the intake too late and air that could have been used in combustion will be pushed back into the intake manifold.the cylinder will again be under filled and fuel will be wasted while power is reduced.
As Is said before huge gains are not expected. It's just a fun little tinker project and maybe 5-10% more power from 5-10% more airflow.
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Bear in mind that more airflow does not necessarily mean more power... especially not "5-10% more power from 5-10% more airflow" as was suggested.
I hope that this experimentation lends some real useable data to the debate... go for it! Innovation requires out of the box thinking!
dieselgman
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buickanddeere,
I think I am well beyond the point in my life to be lectured about cam profiling/timing. I also understand porting better than most. Bear in mind we are talking about a fuel injected diesel, not a naturally asperated, carberated, gasoline engine that fuel and air is mixed and has to be atomized properly before it reaches the combustion chamber.
I don't know if your old enough to remember the Ford Boss 302 and Boss 351 Cleveland and 351 Cleveland four barrel engines. Those engines were a disaster on the street. They were not designed to run on the street they were originally designed to turn high RPM's. Ford decided to try to make them run in street vehicles and to me it was a failure. The intake ports and valves were so large the fuel would puddle in the intake manifold. Ford under cammed and had large open combustion chambers on the street 351's to pass emissions. Boss 302 combustion chambers were a bit better but the intake ports and valves were to large. Those so called performance cars driveability suffered on the street. Those engines were originally designed to turn 6000+ rpm's. They were designed for Trans-Am racing. To bad Trans-Am ended. I felt it brought out US auto manufactures best. Now, Ford in Australia did it right with the 351 Cleveland. The ones to get were the two barrel heads. The combustion chambers were much smaller and the intake manifolds intake ports were much smaller. I believe the intake valves were smaller. People here in the US found out about this and started importing them in the US. They would than buy an aftermarket intake four barrel manifold that was designed to mate with the Australian two barrel heads. That setup worked much better.
Henry
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Ok guys, I went back and looked at some pictures that looks like a DI head. The picture clearly shows lots of casting in the pocket of the exhaust. I don't know how I missed it. ::). That is very poor casting indeed. I also feel the pockets needed to be cut open on both intake and exhaust a bit. That is definitely the worst casting and machining job of a pocket I have ever seen. I would not take much away from the valve guide bosses. I would just clean up the rough casting around it. I would re-cut the seats and valves. Might consider triple cut , it depends how hard the seats are. If all heads are that bad then there would be a good reason to work together to work on cleaning pockets up. I don't know how much casting is around the seats. If possible valve seat inserts might be a good consideration.
Henry
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buickanddeere,
I think I am well beyond the point in my life to be lectured about cam profiling/timing. I also understand porting better than most. Bear in mind we are talking about a fuel injected diesel, not a naturally asperated, carberated, gasoline engine that fuel and air is mixed and has to be atomized properly before it reaches the combustion chamber.
I don't know if your old enough to remember the Ford Boss 302 and Boss 351 Cleveland and 351 Cleveland four barrel engines. Those engines were a disaster on the street. They were not designed to run on the street they were originally designed to turn high RPM's. Ford decided to try to make them run in street vehicles and to me it was a failure. The intake ports and valves were so large the fuel would puddle in the intake manifold. Ford under cammed and had large open combustion chambers on the street 351's to pass emissions. Boss 302 combustion chambers were a bit better but the intake ports and valves were to large. Those so called performance cars driveability suffered on the street. Those engines were originally designed to turn 6000+ rpm's. They were designed for Trans-Am racing. To bad Trans-Am ended. I felt it brought out US auto manufactures best. Now, Ford in Australia did it right with the 351 Cleveland. The ones to get were the two barrel heads. The combustion chambers were much smaller and the intake manifolds intake ports were much smaller. I believe the intake valves were smaller. People here in the US found out about this and started importing them in the US. They would than buy an aftermarket intake four barrel manifold that was designed to mate with the Australian two barrel heads. That setup worked much better.
Henry
Sorry Henry but I have no clue about your background, training or profession.
Ford & GM had to sell X number of "Trans Am" cars on the street to be considered a "street" car for the "Trans Am street class".
GM de-stroked the 350 into a 302 to build a competitive engine.
Certainly if those TA engines were port or even better direct injected. Most of the fluid dynamics challenges through the intake system would have avoided via the dry airflow.
No longer is turbulence required to keep the fuel suspended. That leaves the delicate balance between port volume, intake plenum volume, port/intake manifold plenum length and port/intake plenum cross sectional area. At least even if combustion chamber filling and emptying at low rpm/low power demand is not ideal due to camming and low port velocity . At least the airfuel mixture in the combustion chamber is well atomized and at the ideal ratio.
I wish I had taken images of the lump of metal around/behind the intake value guide and up the entire back 1/2 of the port on my Kryslar Petteroid. The exhaust was clear around the valve guide but the near side of the port was obstructed.
Setting the head on the mill and using a drill bit diameter that just cleared the seat surface. A lot of metal was removed on both intake and exhaust bowls via just drilling straight down to just touching the valve guide.
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From what i just saw this afternoon I get an idea how bad the pockets and ports could be. as I said I never seen pockets that bad. And now thinking about it I can only imagine how bad some of port castings could be.
I am set in my ways. And at times I am stuborn I get carried away at times. No harm intended.
Been into building drag engines with one of my friends back in the late 70's. His dad ran a drag shop and he specialized in boat engines. He needed some extra hands and so he put us boys to work. Learned lots but it was short lived when he closed shop. I did get the 428 SCJ engine completed before he closed shop. The old man did know FE based engines and he was a big help. He had lots of spair parts around and that kept the costs way down. I remember the first time firing it up, I could not wipe the smile off my face. Trans-Am racing was short lived but while it was around I enjoyed it. Pretty much was Ford against Chevy and yes 302 CI was the limit.
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Made some quick calculations which reflect a typical 6/1 is only sucking in 16.5 cubic feet of air per minute which is not a lot. So I have to wonder how much is there to gain from removing the surface restrictions discussed in porting near the airfilter. To me, the greatest restriction in the air flow would be the intake valve opening area and would present the greatest opportunity for improvement. Improving airflow in this narrow area seems reasonable. ORIGINAL POST HAD MATH ERROR WHICH WAS CORRECTED BELOW.
Diameter 4.5 in Bore D
radius 2.3 in Bore r
Stroke 5.5 in Stroke h
Volume 87.5 in^3 V=pi*(r^2)*h
Assume 650 rpm
5.4 intake strokes per second
473.8 in^3 per second
0.28 ft^3 per sec
16.5 ft^3 per minute
When I calculated this for my 20/2 GTC it comes out to be 48 cubic feet minute through the airfilter and intake pipes which is more significant.
Diameter 4.75 in Bore D
radius 2.38 in Bore r
Stroke 5.5 in Stroke h
Volume 97.5 in^3 V=pi*(r^2)*h
Assume 850 rpm
7.0 intake strokes per second per cyclinder
1381 in^3 per second
0.81 ft^3 per sec
48 ft^3 per minute
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Horsepoor, I go with your prognosis, its not possible to say what effect opening out the inlet port or increasing the valve lift will have because as far as I know no one has yet done it and published the numbers.
However, whilst knowing little about Reynolds nos, laminar flow and swirl effects, I do know with mucky hands practical certainty, that with a Dursley CS 6-1, when restricting the inlet on a fixed load and locked fuel rack, no significant effect is noticed until the restriction diameter is reduced to less than 1/2", by extension, this strongly suggests to me that opening up the port would not do much in the way of power/efficiency increase.
The tests done are easily repeatable, the results instant and the invite is out for anyone on this forum to come see the tests and verify my findings.
Mark.
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Horsepoor - I'm having trouble with the math.
On the 6/1 -
650 RPM / 60 secs/min = 10.8 revs/sec
4 stroke engine has 1 intake stroke per 2 revs
10.8 / 2 = 5.4 intake stokes per second
Did I miss a divide by 2 somewhere?
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Millman56 has it right on the head!
there is nothing to be gained by porting, apart from removal of flashing and perhaps port matching
as proven by the testing done by Mark.
if you can input a restrictor down to near a half inch before you see any reduction in power, then it follows that any opening of the ports via a port job is just an exercise in futility.
i do recall reading from several sources that 95% of all heads that were ported in home shops resulted in lower numbers at the dyno... and of those that showed the best gains came from very poorly designed and equally poorly casted heads with sloppy port matching of the manifolds.
"and" in an incredibly large number of examples the dyno numbers were way lower than stock
this of course was on gas engines
also most of the intake noise from these engines is not the result of the cylinder trying to such in air but rather the result of expanding gasses coughing back during valve overlap
all this makes for fun discussion, but until such time as some form of accurate testing is done on the oem article, which proves to be replicable by others, setting out to do any changes in porting or cam profiles is going to be very hard to support any measurable improvements.
as least such that can be accepted as other than anecdotal.
anyone can claim anything he likes i suppose, i just would not want to see the discussion lead to some highschool level parking lot discussion on "my engine makes 500 hp because i bolted on these super headers, this monster carb, these trick sparkplugs etc". when we all know the engine probably made less power than stock after all these mod's, and was often proven to be so when the car was finally taken to the dyno after proving to do so poorly at the drag strip.
bob g
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You know what your problem is, Bob? You are suffering under the delusion that you are smarter than me. That's why you keep chiming in with your paternal, simplistic ideas, like I'm a 5 year old kid who needs to be led around by the hand. Except that's not the case at all, and will never be the case. You have never been smarter than me....and never will be. So please do us all a favor: sit down, shut up, and pay attention.
there is nothing to be gained by porting, apart from removal of flashing and perhaps port matching
as proven by the testing done by Mark.
How many times will you feel it necessary to repeat such unfounded bullshit assertions? So far you've said this about 8,392 times now. Do you have to get to at least 10,000 before you feel your piece has been said?
if you can input a restrictor down to near a half inch before you see any reduction in power, then it follows that any opening of the ports via a port job is just an exercise in futility.
Wrong. Re read the explanation I gave you over and over until you get it. And if you still don't get it...then just sit down, shut up, and pay attention.
i do recall reading from several sources that 95% of all heads that were ported in home shops resulted in lower numbers at the dyno.
Well isn't that cute. You read something in a book, so of course that means you know everything about everything and are perfectly equipped to tell me (a person with years of real world experience) I don't know anything.
The heads ported in MY shop make MORE power, EVERY time. That's because I'm a fucking expert. So your statement is irrelevant and less than useless. Sit down.....shut up. Pay attention.
also most of the intake noise from these engines is not the result of the cylinder trying to such in air but rather the result of expanding gasses coughing back during valve overlap
What? Apparently you don't understand the purpose of valve overlap. If exhaust gases are indeed blasting up past the valve every stroke, wouldn't that mean the cam timing is way the fuck off? Thus contradicting your idiotic idea that "the way Lister designed it is the best way possible, period, end of discussion"?
all this makes for fun discussion, but until such time as some form of accurate testing is done on the oem article, which proves to be replicable by others, setting out to do any changes in porting or cam profiles is going to be very hard to support any measurable improvements.
You just don't get it, so I'm going to repeat it again slowly:
I don't give a fuck what you "support." I am not here for a "fun discussion." That's all people like you ever do: sit around and talk about shit and verbally jerk yourselves off. Meanwhile I'm out there getting shit done. I'm porting my head to improve power--and that is exactly what will happen. Take it to the bank and cash it. Any and all arguments to the contrary are evidence of idiocy, arrogance, and a foolish lack of understanding. Whether you or your fellow peanut gallery finds the results posted to be valuable or not, is irrelevant. Your opinion is irrelevant. All that matters is the truth--which I understand better than anyone in this thread.
anyone can claim anything he likes i suppose, i just would not want to see the discussion lead to some highschool level parking lot discussion
That's exactly where it is right now. Isn't it just like a high schooler to comment on things he doesn't even understand, speaking with authority like he's the expert because he read a fucking book? Look in the mirror.
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You want to understand why I know what I know? You like to read, right? Read this page and educate yourself:
http://thomaslauer.com/start/INTJs
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Hey shiftless,
It is time to put the hammer down here. Everyone else here has been behaving and you decide to cross the line. Your abusive language is not tolerated here on this forum. If you cannot clean it up. It is time to take a time out and think how you need to behave.
Henry
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And I don't care who you are or what you know. You want respect? Than start respecting others.
Henry
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I'm with you Henry,
I do not spend my time and efforts here for no good reason, and anything other than civility, teaching and learning is outside of my comfort zone. Time for the moderators to do their thing! :police:
dieselgman
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Thanks deiselgman,
Once the boundaries are crossed as what just happened here. It is time to clean it up.
Henry
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Shiftless,
That is now way to behave on this forum. Everyone here is treated with respect and expects the same. Clean up your act!
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Perhaps a visit here may be helpful......angermanagementschool.com
Cheers,
Hugh
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THOB,
Dam, you are correct, double all results by factor of two. You dont want to fly on an airplane I might build.
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Well if there is noise from the intake due to high pressure gasses expanding in the wrong direction from the combustion chamber into the intake port. I would submit the theory that there is extra noise, lost power and reduced efficiency due to incorrect valve timing.
If the cam is out of time then no amount of work on any other engine component is going to improve anything.
Again from what I picked up from most posters is the understanding . That port cleanup will not add more than a very small percent of power and efficiency if the fuel delivery is maxed out when full power is requested. And that port cleanup is just something either fun to do. Or for the meticulous type looking for perfection.
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I cleaned up the ports on my Metro 6/1 IDI head. It wasn't because I was expecting lots more power, but because they were obviously not close to what the design shape obviously was. It was basically an exercise in 'gasket matching' with the idea being that sharp corners, crud from a cracking and porous core, some included core sand, etc. were bad things.
The only thing I remember seeing that looked really bad to me was the area where the seat throat machining intersected the short side radius, which was a sharp 70 or so degree angle. I blended that in hopes of preventing flow separation, but I doubt magic will occur at 650 RPM.
Now cam lift, duration and timing obviously need to be close to Dursley specs. Given the large time windows and that nobody is trying a tuned intake yet, a few degrees and tens of thou either way won't matter much. I would be really surprised to hear that Lister didn't try different cam timings on the 5/1-6/1 before settling on what they built for decades.
If you're not getting the curtain area/time number you need then VE, power and efficiency will all suffer, and that's all a function of our known-crappy Indian camshafts. It's also pretty easy to fix with a little care and a drill press...
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I am thinking that the notorious intake noise on these models can be a combination of both a restrictive inlet flow in some cases, and to varying degrees, issues with the inlet valve and/or cam timing. I would submit that this debate appears to have more to do with subtle variations that could and should be investigated... too bad we have the volatile bickering going on, but the issues being discussed are certainly valid concerns worthy of some experimentation. Let's hope we can get some result reports here despite the other stuff going on.
I believe that there have been a few threads here dealing with inlet noise... some seeking to muffle it with inlet silencers. As far as cam and valve timing is concerned: offset idlers, changing valve lash adjustments, and even cam gears incorrectly installed - off one tooth, have been discussed.
dieselgman
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shift4brains
"You know what your problem is, Bob? You are suffering under the delusion that you are smarter than me. That's why you keep chiming in with your paternal, simplistic ideas, like I'm a 5 year old kid who needs to be led around by the hand. Except that's not the case at all, and will never be the case. You have never been smarter than me....and never will be. So please do us all a favor: sit down, shut up, and pay attention."
this ain't my first rodeo my friend, and you got to do much better than this!
if what i wrote made you feel like a 5 yo, perhaps that is your problem and not mine?
the intake noise from a listeroid, or a lister or a chanfa or for that matter any naturally aspirated diesel is not only prevalent but down right horrible in some cases... and it has nothing to do with cam timing... at least in as much as it can be abated to good effect by varying the cam timing without subsequent loss to power.
take a look under the hood of the old 5.7 and 6.2 gm diesels, they all had intake resonators and should one remove the air cleaner and start the engine you will find that the noise is deafening... same goes for old naturally aspirated cat's, cummins etc.
if you have valve overlap you will have noise, and if you remove the overlap your power will suffer, along with efficiency.
now lets move on to what i may or may not have read in a book as you assert
first of all yes i read lots of books, and have done so since the early 60's, i was an early fan of smokie yunicks work and as far as i am concerned he is the "last" word in porting and sorry my friend you will never be on par with that gentleman not on your best day vs smokies worst day.
would you like to know why? because smokie took the time to design and build a flow bench, so that he could determine exactly what the hell was going on.
secondly, i think charles lafayette taylors MIT work (2 volumes) will explain in graphic detail what you are missing... i invite you to read up on port design and pay special attention to Mach numbers and how it relates to port velocity...
now then having said all that, i will leave you with this
if you want to port your head, by all means knock yourself out!
my only point is this
once have ported your heads, don't come back here with some wild ass claims of increased power and efficiency "unless" you are prepared to be run through the gauntlet.
bold claims require equally bold proof.
so get out your grinder and have at it, do as you say "go out and do something"
me? i am too old to want to expend the effort to do something that has been proven to be not worth the effort.
now go forth and prove me wrong!
prove me wrong and i will apologize fully!
failing that proof, i really don't expect much of the same from you!
good luck
bob g
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sorry i had to go meet my wife for lunch and did a quick post, at least a quick post for me, and did not fully express what i wanted to in response to mr. shiftless
first of all i probably should have not referred to him as "shift4brains"
now, down to the meat and taters
i understand you have several years of practical experience, and it appears you are unaware of others maybe having equal or superior experience to yours.
me? oh i dunno, i guess i have been actively involved professionally for what? 5 decades now?
wow, has it been that long? geesh i feel old.
does this make me some sort of guru?
ans. no!
does it make me a bit wary of going out and supporting something that experience and education tells me will not provide the kinds of returns on investment as some would claim?
ans. yes
now i realize that maybe there are differences between small single cylinder diesels and larger multicylinder engines such as cat, cummins, mack, ih, gm, detroit etc that i spent my professional life maintaining, repairing and overhauling, however please consider the following.
based on my experience and what i have read (many books, manuals, trade journals, etc over these many years) "and" also getting very much into the weeds to do "accurate" testing that "has" stood up to not only peer review but also review by EE, ME and some other very bright fellows, it became very clear to me as it should you and any "thinking" individual that the following as stated by smokie yunick (among others) is empirically true.
Smokie figured out back in the 60's that in order to determine what effect or benefit porting might have on a particular cylinder head, he would need to design and build a flow bench. he not only built the bench but it was used by several oem's on a contract basis to work out port design issues with their designs...
are we learning something here? we should be!
there are countless examples of this documented everywhere, relating to all manner of modification and such, all having the same common answer...
before we set out to change anything, we ought to avail ourselves to what has been done and documented in the past. we ought to follow some sense of scientific method in that we must set down first and do what?
we must setup some form of test stand, test cell or whatever you want to call it... then do some pretty significant testing to get a baseline, before we change anything.
does this sound reasonable? it should! it does to most every reasonable thinking folks.
once we have this baseline, we can then set out and make changes, right?
ans: yes, provided we make one change and a time, do the retesting and document the results.
why am i going over all this? it is not to make anyone feel like a 5 yo. !
it is to illustrate my own personal experience, because most folks will never understand just how difficult it is to do accurate testing.... hell i didn't fully appreciate this myself earlier on!
and many folks that are pretty sharp don't fully appreciate this either and get bit with alarming regularity. they get bit because they think they have done something that has resulted in a significant improvement in power or efficiency, only to find out later that there is another explanation for the results they have witnessed and once that is understood fully they find their once wonderful improvement has melted away or worse the result is worse than what it was before they started.
it has happened to me too!
remember just having the best measuring equipment in the world does not always lead to accurate results.
the bottom line is this, the original lister 6/1 put out X amount of power burning X amount of fuel at sea level and X ambient temperature etc. if the listeroid is close to the original lister in this regard it is damned unlikely one is going to significantly improve either power or efficiency in my opinion... what makes one think he is smarter than the oem's engineers?
now if you come back at me claiming you think you can improve either power or efficiency by maybe 5% via several modifications, then maybe i might pull up a chair and have a listen... as i would expect several others to do.... however
when you start out by stating 10% or more, you lose me and many others right quick.
to state anything other only leads to illustrate your lack of understanding of what is going on with these engine's.
then something else comes to mind
i personally know of several very smart fellows, far smarter than myself, a few with phd's behind their names, some with ME, EE and a variety of others... all having the listeroid 6/1 engines, many who have put countless hours trying to improve the baseline efficiency, none of which have posted even a 5% gain in efficiency. oh yes this even includes one fellow who is a thermal dynamic's expert who works for NASA.
so tell me again, why should want to jump on board with your claims?
why should i shut up and sit down? to learn what from you?
bob g
ps. back in the 70's i did my share of porting and polishing small block chevy 194 heads, and found them to outperform the 202 heads for use on the street. so i am not a complete newbie to the die grinder and a port. none of this is useful or transferable to the diesel engine.
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Ah yes, the 194 head, I remember my brother wanted 202 heads for his 1973 350 Camaro and I mentioned to stay with the 194's. Along with an Edelbrock Performer Dual Plane manifold, Holley 600cfm with vacuum secondaries, with a mild street cam and 9.5-1 compression. It turned out to be a great combination with the automatic.
Henry
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if I can diverge a bit, from the porting issue. Gaskets. Intake and exhaust and water outlet (upper)
Does anyone know if the Metro brand has done something odd, with their port size and bolt spacing ? I was starting to button the beast up today, and while I think I can re-use the existing ones, the new ones, won't fit. Their inner hole is to small (Intake and Exhaust) and also the bolt spacing is too small. I'll take photos tomorrow. But, I'll have to port my gaskets, and that would thin them way out to just a tiny web that is likely to fail. I'll get the mfg date off the ID plate too.
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I have no idea. Can you get gasket material? You can probably buy higher gasket material and cut your own and have better results. If the gaskets do not fit something has to be different. If possible, side by side pictures of the head an manifolds would be helpful.
Henry
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Ah yes, the 194 head, I remember my brother wanted 202 heads for his 1973 350 Camaro and I mentioned to stay with the 194's. Along with an Edelbrock Performer Dual Plane manifold, Holley 600cfm with vacuum secondaries, with a mild street cam and 9.5-1 compression. It turned out to be a great combination with the automatic.
Henry
It's all about the area under the curve instead of the peak height of the curve.
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You're Right.
SHIT4brains is entirely and completely appropriate and fitting in this case.
I have no doubt that will be proven repeatedly in the future.
Glort, do you know why you continue to accuse me, over and over again, of intending to fabricate results?
Because you are just the type of piece of shit who would do such a thing.
Psychologists call it "projection." Look it up. Then do us all favor, and go jump off a cliff. The world will be a better place without you.
Bob, I didn't bother to read any of your last couple 600 paragraph essays. Based on your previous posts I am quite sure nothing of value was missed.
You know what the most ridiculous thing about you is, Bob?
I read a lot of posts here before I even signed up for an account. Time after time again I would see posts from you dating back to 2006 or so, bringing up all kinds of interesting ideas like tuned intake runners and other stuff. Here it is 2013, bout to be 2014, and guess what? All of your ideas were left untried. Apparently you let other assholes convince you it wasn't worth the time. I guess you were never the type to actually try anything anyway, preferring instead to waste the hours away endlessly pondering and discussing, accomplishing nothing other than stroking your own ego.
Porting isn't rocket science. You could take an old junk head and practice, and in 3-6 hours work fully port a Lister cylinder head from start to finish. You could then bolt it on, and assuming no other major restrictions in the intake/exhaust system, would see a significant, measurable power gain. It would take you one day to do that, Bob. Not at all difficult. But no, it's far easier to just continue being ignorant, isn't it?
If I want to know something about the basics of how a diesel engine works, or some knowledge gained from years of operating a diesel...I'll ask you. But if someone wanted to know anything about port work and how it effects an engine, you are the last person I would ask. That's because you don't know anything about the subject. Anyone who has done port work for at least one week of real world experience could tell you that. The more you post, the more you reveal your lack of knowledge. Yet you insist on arguing, and arguing, and arguing, and fucking arguing til the sun goes down. Just like a typical idiot. If you aren't an idiot....then why do you insist on arguing about something you know nothing about?
Don't like my attitude? OK then, I won't post any more. Do your own testing. I'm not going to stay here and continue taking insults from low life pieces of shit like Glort. You can keep him, and best of luck with your lives.
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Port and polish till you are blue in the face....you won't see a 1% improvement. I have worked on and built race engines for cars, boats and aircraft. Try to take a stock aircraft, massage the cowl, wings, etc and you will be hard pressd to get 10% better.
The listeroids just won't see any marked improvement. WORD
Doc
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Please ban this moron
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Port and polish till you are blue in the face....you won't see a 1% improvement. I have worked on and built race engines for cars, boats and aircraft. Try to take a stock aircraft, massage the cowl, wings, etc and you will be hard pressd to get 10% better.
The listeroids just won't see any marked improvement. WORD
Doc
I'm not advocating hogging out ports. In particular in the straight portion of the port between the flange surface and the beginning of the valve bowl. Leave that area alone unless it's just a bit of castings flash.
A three angle valve job always gains flow. Smoothing rough edges around the the bowl and the guides won't do any harm either. Boring those massive lumps out of the valve bowl are not going to do any more than look better and feel good. However it's fun and hey, 1-5% more airflow is slightly less smoke at 100% rack travel.
I still suspect there is more volumetric efficiency/cylinder filling in a cam re-grind/re-time however than any porting adventure.
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shifty
if you go back and "really" read those posts back in '06 or so, you will find that in order for there to be any runner effect at 650-800 rpm, the intake runner will be something on the order of many feet, and the exhaust runner will be many, many feet.
the problem then becomes losses due to friction
this is exactly why the charts stop at about 1200rpm or so for most engines, below that and the frictional losses are greater than any gains from runner length.
as for 3 angle valve jobs, i have long been a proponent of such, for a number of reasons none of which include getting more air into a lister/oid... however yes they do promote better air to engine's running at higher rpm's.
if you were working on a changfa and wanted to port one of those, even though their ports are vastly superior to most listeroids, i could be persuaded to believe their might be some gains to be made... however nothing like 10% or even 5%... more like 1% maybe and then only if you were to match up some sort of runner length to promote breathing. the only reason i would entertain that discussion is based on the engine operational rpm being typically 1800rpm.
i will keep this short, mainly because you have proven your inability to absorb information, which begs the question "how the hell do you know anything about porting, if you haven't done some really deep reading?"
oh yes, via empirical evidence
bob g
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Wow!!! ::)
Shiftless, you definitely need to seek some counseling on etiquette and anger management. I think it is time for you to seek help before you do something that you will regret. I think you are unhappy and frustrated with your life. Life is too short please get some help. Please do it for your loved ones before it is too late.
Henry
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me thinks Glort makes a good point as it relates to not having to do every experiment in order to arrive at a reasonable conclusion.
i for one really don't have to hit my finger with a hammer to know it will hurt!
i don't have to run that experiment to arrive at a reasonable conclusion.
same goes for having a house fall on my head.
apparently there are those that have determined that the reason a hammer blow would hurt a finger is the ones having done it before and reported on it, didn't do it right?
better quit while the word count is such that shifty can assimilate the content.
bob g
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shifty
i guess i will do this in snippets
"All of your ideas were left untried. Apparently you let other assholes convince you it wasn't worth the time. I guess you were never the type to actually try anything anyway, preferring instead to waste the hours away endlessly pondering and discussing, accomplishing nothing other than stroking your own ego."
you really should do a bit more reading! holy crap! apparently youth has no patience? do you really think i let anyone talk me out of anything? really? apparently you did not avail yourself of the concrete vs resilient mount discussion?
i may not have posted all of the work i have done here on this forum, but i have on others, and there is much that i have not published, for reasons you likely would not understand.
ego? really? i gave up on that one years ago! ego? seems like something you are not in short supply of.
"Porting isn't rocket science. You could take an old junk head and practice, and in 3-6 hours work fully port a Lister cylinder head from start to finish. "
simply picking up a die grinder and a set of stones surely is not rocket science, however getting results is not as simple as some would like to believe... quite the contrary!
one must understand what all is involved in proper port design, especially when it comes to a slow speed diesel! simply going in an removing things without understanding why they are there is likely to result in an engine that not only does not make more power, but likely less and more likely run dirtier! some of the designs incorporate a shelf that is designed to provide additional swirl and aid in scavenging spent gasses... leading to a cleaner burn.
now as for all the other drivel bounded by less than appropriate language and offensive behavior... all i can say is this...
grow up dude!
if you truly are as intelligent as you would have others believe, you would not have to resort to ridicule and profane language to get your point across. doing so only proves your lack of depth or lack of understanding of the subject at hand. this is a schoolboys approach to debate, when forced to support his claims to resort to ridicule, foul language and name calling.
bob g
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This person (shiftless ) has no place on this site he is certainly not the least bit funny but is totally disrespectful and an ass ! If I have a vote this is not the type of person we want to be posting on this site. That is my two cents worth.
Or at least till he is back on his meds
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I just wish your two could line up side by side and see who can pee the farthest. Just to get the both of you over it.
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Alright I'll go back and re-read. It's rather smelly and I did not want to wade through it all.
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During the course of that long and painful thread, someone quoted a theoretical length the intake would need to be to take advantage of the natural oscillation frequency of that moving column of air. Can you remind me how long it would need to be to suit that engine speed?
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it has been years since i did the calculations, so from memory they are as follows
the intake needs to be something on the order of 10 ft and the exhaust something around 15 plus feet.
having said that, and in support of Glort's comments...
these long runs of piping to get the effect, never get their because of friction within the pipes
this is precisely why the charts that were generated by MIT (among many others) drop off at about 1200rpm, below which the friction of the runner outweighs any possible gains from the ram effect of the long runner.
fwiw
my recall of the actual runner lengths is probably off by a significant amount, however they are close enough to illustrate the folly in going that route.
bob g
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All interesting stuff Mark. if you will allow me to mention a ford transit -? my old 190 have used it on veg oil that I've filtered. not a pretty sight i can tell you. But the point I'm making the transit has a wosit in the inlet, lol butterfly ? the old mind forgets now. that reduces the air intake. for years Ive run a transit with out this valve, throttle butterfly. ? and the intake has always been very noisy, more so than the exhaust. but with this valve fitted it closes the air intake off, and it makes it a lot quite r. there is a rod that connects to the injection pump and as when opening the pump/accelerator. it also opens this butterfly. but the Lister does not need to rev like the transit does. so this is something that is in my head now. --- if you can understand me.
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You fellows have raised an interesting point about induction when mentioning one way reed valves. While not practical in the real world .........Thinking of the intake noise when the intake valve opens while there is still some combustion chamber pressure even if the cam is "timed" correctly.
What if............the Lister or Petter could have a two stroke engine type of reed valve mounted as close as possible to the intake valve ???
Just a theoretical question......... Yes I know we are talking low single digit percent gains at the very best
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On the Transit 2.5 DI engines fitted with what is colloquially called the banana manifold, the butterfly valve is there to create a depression in the manifold at low throttle settings which as Glort says actuates the EGR valve, a crappy side effect is that oil oil mist coming through the crankcase ventilator which when mixed with hot exhaust gas eventually bungs the manifold with black goop. Been there done that, 2.5 DIs do have a very noisy inlet.
Mark.
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Just a thought off the side, a CS when running under load with a straight through type silencer, produces quite a powerful shock wave which precedes the actual exhaust gas, is there a way of harnessing this to somehow aid the induction process?
Mark.
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Some reciprocating diesels and gas turbines throttle the inlet to increased efficiency at low power output levels.