Technical wolf direct racing 1242 8v engine rebuild (slow build)

[Lecook]

Hi guys and girls... hope everyone is well

So here we have what is believed to be a 16v/8v hybrid/custom/whatever engine built by a guy that used to work for wolf direct racing.. home of the 600m cars...
So heres a few pics of what I have and ill slowly add to the thread as things progress... as yet theres no plans set in stone as to what car this will be going in nor whether it will be anythingmore then a engine project..

So here goes a few pics..

'Loaded' up and dragged back a pair of them... on belonging to Cento186 and one for myself to disect and work out what was inside...

So first things first, out of the trailer and onto the stand to have all of the ancillaries removed ready to begin the stripping down

....

As the cam cover had been left off and although left under a shelter, it was left outside for goodness knows how long, I suspect the cam was a regrind of the 866 cam however I havent checked this, ive simply removed the cam and put it on a storage box with the other bits id removed

.

Turns out the plugs had been removed and water had got into the bores..
A little bit of corrosion but nothing that cant be fixed with some wet and dry amd some elbow grease although it was nice to see the valves had been polished
I dont know whether theres any perfomance gains to be had or reliability but there must be a reason it was done surely??

...
a shot of the head removed, there was heavy corrosion in the tops of the bores and this had effectively seized the engine, however 20 mins with a tin of wd40 and a razor blade soon freed it up and I had it turning perfectly
After a quick clean up...

.....

And a shot of the 8v mpi head from a mk1 punto 75, supposedly gasflowed..

A quick shot of the honing marks left from when it was originally built.. imo from the looks of how clean the engine is internally (minus any corrosion) I don't believe this has been run since it was put together...

Im not completely sure of the origin but im lead to believe this was a mk1 punto sporting 16v engine block

And heres the illusive piston skirt oil squirters

A spare set of 1242 16v pistons I had for a comparison shot to the pistons removed... im hoping someone In the know here can tell me if these are infact forged high compression items?? Believed to be from a ford zetec engine of some description and around 1.5mm-2mm larger then the standard 1242 16v fiat items

Something else interesting here.. im not 100% sure whether these are 8v rods but theyre definately not 16v items, they may even be rods from another make/model of car, anyone have a shot of the 8v rods??

Moving along to the flywheel now.. weighing in at a miniscule 3.6kgs.. a few people on the face of books have commented onnit not being structurally sound and/or being dangerous, however a bit of research shows no evidence of the wdr race engines destroying them so id assume this is ok...

So what do you do when your trying to teach yourself to weld?? just a little head stand, keeps it tidy and together and did indeed give me a bit of practice with the welder, not pretty but it was made from an old bed frame and does exactly what its designed to do

as always guys thoughts oppinions and comments appreciated, this will be a slow progress thread as im in no rush to get it done..

cheers

Lee

 

[fingers99]

Generally you can tell if a piston is a forging by looking up inside it. Pics would help.

I'd be inclined to take the flywheel to Guy Croft or Dave Walker for a look see (neither are that far away from you). The consequences of having a flywheel let go are sometimes horrendous: life threatening injuries, destroyed engines/gearboxes, someone even had a mini do an 80mph forward roll when the whole drivetrain locked up as a result.

Get someone with honing experience to look at those bores (preferably with a decent guage). At the very least, if water has got to those rings, it'll need a re-ring.

 

[Lecook]

Cheers fingers im currently stripping the engine down to a bare block, ive spoken to my local machine shop ( Trevor at TMW Engineering, he builds the classic mini race engines) and hes said to strip everything and clean all the rust away with phospheric acid and then im going to take it to him for inspection, i planned on getting the pistons re-ringed anyway and will be taking the cam to him to see if theres any way of saving it, if not i have an 866 here that i can have reground to the same spec as the rusted one

Heres some better pics of the pistons

Generally you can tell if a piston is a forging by looking up inside it. Pics would help.

I'd be inclined to take the flywheel to Guy Croft or Dave Walker for a look see (neither are that far away from you). The consequences of having a flywheel let go are sometimes horrendous: life threatening injuries, destroyed engines/gearboxes, someone even had a mini do an 80mph forward roll when the whole drivetrain locked up as a result.

Get someone with honing experience to look at those bores (preferably with a decent guage). At the very least, if water has got to those rings, it'll need a re-ring.

Well that turned out a bit upside down

 

[fingers99]

Those are definitely cast pistons -- generally you'll only see tool marks on the insides (basically they're machined from a forged chunk of aluminium alloy) never any standy-out identification marks, which can only be the result of casting.

 

[Lecook]

Those are definitely cast pistons -- generally you'll only see tool marks on the insides (basically they're machined from a forged chunk of aluminium alloy) never any standy-out identification marks, which can only be the result of casting.

Cheers fingers that clears that up for me then would have been nice to have had the forged item but they were used for a reason I guess.. is there any way of working out if theyre the high compression items or would that just be a case of measuring the c/r ??? Clearly the skirts seem longer then the standard 16v ones and are flat topped rather then grooved, is there any advantages of the flat top design?? I assume that not having the valve cut outs would surely raise the cr??

Cheers

lee

 

[fingers99]

I'd think it might lower it -- the cut outs are "dodgers" so that the valves don't clout the pistons.

Still, that's only one aspect of it all. Best to whip out the burette and get measuring.

An engine builder with the right books might even be able to identify the pistons.

 

[Todger182]

Ford Fiesta Mk5 1.2 (1.25 technically) 16v piston with a 10.1 compression. Not sure what it would be in a fiat block. Be in the 9's I would expect.

They look like 1.2 16v/1.4 16v rods from a later mk2 series engine (I've had plenty of engines broken down to tell ).

Thanks

X

 

[Lecook]

Ford Fiesta Mk5 1.2 (1.25 technically) 16v piston with a 10.1 compression. Not sure what it would be in a fiat block. Be in the 9's I would expect.

They look like 1.2 16v/1.4 16v rods from a later mk2 series engine (I've had plenty of engines broken down to tell ).

Thanks

X

Cheers for clearing that up for me fella, thatll help me in the search for new rings, I assume thatll mean itll effectively be high compression then.. give or take the variables (headgasket thickness and however much has or hasnt been removed from the head) and im pretty sure the block has been decked as there seems to be no engine numbers visable? Ive read there was rumor of some of wdr base engines being stolen, I have no Idea how much truth there is in that but who knows...

im yet to get an order in for some phospheric acid but i plan to have the cr measured when its all cleaned and put back together, the claims ive read/heard say this engine is capable (with the right cam of course) of 190bhp and 11k rpm... as im not overly clued up on the engineering of engines i couldnt tell whether this is true or not... to be honest ill be glad if this engine makes 100bhp

time will tell I guess..

cheers

lee

 

[Razman]

I'm glad you put this thread up, these engines are very interesting

I'm actually currently running a WDR bottom end in my car. The crank is lightened and knife edged, and my flywheel is the same as the one pictured. It makes for some fast revving, I can tell you that much!

I'd say that cam is ********ed really, removing all that rust will probably reveal bad pitting. I'd go ahead and use your 866.

Looking forward to your progress, good luck

 

[fingers99]

Ive read there was rumor of some of wdr base engines being stolen, I have no Idea how much truth there is in that but who knows...

Some stuff did mysteriously go missing, but I think the matter is still in the hands of the Police.

, the claims ive read/heard say this engine is capable (with the right cam of course) of 190bhp and 11k rpm...

I hay me doots. KAD do a 16v 180bhp Mini head for £4,500 for the head alone. Or Guy Croft recons that if you give him a 2 litre FIAT Lampredi 8v engine £7k will get you the engine done and all the ancillaries you need to keep it in one piece. 100 bhp/litre from an 8v engine is pretty good going, 120bhp about as good as it gets before you go for forced induction.

Still, it'll be an interesting journey!

 

[Lecook]

Heres a few pics of the head porting and some more progress with the stripping down, ive been looking into rust treatments and the phospheric acid today and will be ordering one or the other in the next few days

Anyway, I know how much people love pictures

A few shots of the inlet port work, ive seen mixed oppinions of trimming the valve guides...

And one of the valves removed... I think I may have to have the valve guides replaced as one or two valves needed a little more then a bit of persuasion to remove them.. also (I dont have a picture yet) it appears the valves have had a little meat removed from the tops

Couldnt resist a little mock up... eventually the plan is to go completely matt black with polished stainless nuts, bolts and the odd polished part thrown in

The Crankshaft was removed today and is looking a tad sorry for itself...

Hopefully nothing a good clean wont fix, then ill take it to the machine shop to have it checked and any work needed,

And now the messy part.... altgough it looks alot worse then it is, most of the rust just wipes away and the more stubborn stuff moves with a light wire brushing, however ill be using the the chemicals to ensure the rust thats going to be hiding in the oilways/water channels is completely removed

So yea, im Slowly getting little bits done.. ive got a bunch of pictures but for some reason they wont upload at the moment.. ill try again tonight

Cheers

Lee

 

[ycming]

Try and soak it in vinegar see if it helps with removing the rust !

 

[Lecook]

Try and soak it in vinegar see if it helps moving the rust !

I have looked into it.. apparently apple cider vinegar is good but im not sure if itll damage the actual metal... think im going to stick with what I know and go with the phosperic acid

hopefully in the next week or so

Cheers

lee

 

[biggelmo]

Hi, I'm intrigued by these Fiesta 1.25 flat top pistons in a Fiat block.
Did you measure how far down the bore the pistons were at top dead centre or as you suspected the block may have been "decked" were the pistons actually flush with the block top?
The standard Fiesta bore size is 1.1mm bigger than a 1242cc Fiat (70.8mm) at 71.9mm which increases the capacity to 1281cc, there is also a 0.5mm (72.4mm) oversize piston set available for the Fiesta engine which if used in a Fiat block would increase the capacity to 1299cc with a standard stroke crank.
Does any one know if a 1242cc Fiat block will safely bore out to 72.4mm??

 

[cc1]

The pistons for a 1.4 @ grade "C" (max bore) are 71.980-71.990, so I think you are going to push the limits @ 72.400?

 

[Todger182]

I'm using 73mm pistons on my forged build. Keeping it NA you should be fine. I wouldn't want to turbo my engine at 73mm though. Could get a little sketchy :devil:.

Thanks

X