Porting a Lister cylinder head and intake

[shiftless]

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.

[mobile_bob]

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.

[guest18]

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

[dieselgman]

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

[mike90045]

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

[millman56]

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.

Mark.


 
   

[guest18]

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

[bschwartz]

............."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 

[millman56]

The Lister`s as happy as a sandboy, it`s me that needs to sniff the nitrous .
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.

[cujet]

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.

[cujet]

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.

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.
 

[millman56]

Very neat work,  you`ve taken an MX-5 hairdressers car and given it a sex change        Modifying a 1.8 litre  133 HP (is this right ?) engine and obtaining 385 HP from it is a fantastic acheivement.   

Mark.

[guest18]

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

[cujet]

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.

[guest18]

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.