The engine building begins
It's not much yet as the block hasn't turned up yet
V8D had removed the pistons to machine them, and our local V8 racing engine builder had done the balancing so needed them separate from the conrods. So now I have to re-attach them, and this is not something I have done before, so new exciting stuff
I decided to knock up a jig out of some old bits of MDF, wood and an old bracket. It didn't have to look nice, which was lucky
The base is screwed to the bench, then a V shape out of MDF is glued and screwed to that, the bit to the right pivots to clamp the piston in place.
The piston has to stay where it is as I need to heat the conrod until it goes blue, then hold it in place and push the gudgeon pin in, possibly with some force. All of the surfaces in contact with the piston are MDF so shouldn't scratch it.
I have heard (google and youtube) that I only have around two seconds to get the gudgeon pin in the correct place until the rod cools enough to 'grab' the pin. The stud through the wood has a couple of nuts on the end which I have set to the right position to act as a stop for the gudgeon pin. It did occur to me that the conrod would be up against the inside of the piston when fitting so would be offset by a little and the gudgeon pin would need to be offset to the same amount.
The first one went ok, but when I still had pressure on the pin I inadvertently moved the conrod, leaving the pin 3mm offset. Luckily I managed to get into the press and just persuade it over a bit.
The second one wasn't quite hot enough and the rod grabbed the pin before it got all the way through so back to the press, but the second attempt went perfectly.
I ran out of time then, so only two done so far.
I have heard that Vectra injectors are better then the normal Hotwire ones as they have a two hole spray which atomises the fuel better and flow better. I somehow managed to get 13 of them, and have sent them round to our local injector service company who has sorted the best 8 and apparently they all flow very close to 230cc with a perfect spray pattern.
They should pep it up a bit