FJ1346 from ashes to... Well, we'll see...

[skymasteres]

entropy can be heat, but it just means 'energy', in terms that include things like 'complexity'. Adds complexity to the system? Yes. I think he understood what you meant and was taking it and spinning it to fit his point.

Hard for me to imagine the vibration being introduced being that much of a factor... I mean, balancing a crankshaft removes built-in vibration. You think the vibration from one poorly firing cylinder combined with the effects of a lighter crank was enough to outweigh the built in vibration of an off-balance crank? I don't even know how to play with ballparks of what those numbers would be, but it's a little hard for me to believe. Of course, if the frequency was just right, maybe it wasn't the fact that it was *more* vibration, but *different* vibration? And on top of this, how things act spinning up to/more than 100 times per second as far as vibration is concerned is probably one of those things that my intuition will not predict well.

It is a compelling idea, though. Was the #3 cylinder the completely white spark plug?

Kind of guilty as charged. I chose to interpret the comment because I can't equate "a tendency to head
toward disorder" into something that can be quantified in the context of an engine build. I mean, it's not
like the crankshaft is going to turn into a wet noodle on me or something. What I can do though is take
the idea of energy flowing in only ONE DIRECTION, from more to less usable forms. In an engine that's
from the chemical energy of fuel to the unusable heat rejected by the cylinder head and oil cooler.

Yeah, carbs are my Achilles heel. I have a few sets of V-4 carbs I'm struggling to sort out right now too.
(They're a royal pain to work on, you guys don't know how good you have it with all four of them in a row...)

Number 4 was the completely white one. Three was pretty close though. I'm really grasping at straws with
respect to why the nut came off. It's just a guess that it "backed off" in the first place. The threads in the
nut could have failed violently. I don't know. It's actually fairly unlikely that the vibrations from the carbs
could have caused this when you look at the fact that as a general rule engines that have some destination
issues here and there don't throw rods... But, it can happen and with the lightened crank as a new variable,
it's possible... The other thing is that the lightened crank also effectively becomes a stiffer crank that would
have the effect of responding more quickly to higher frequency vibrations.  With all of the time and effort I
spend making sure that the rods and pistons were so tightly balanced I figured I'd have to look elsewhere
for sources of vibration...

Frank, you're spot on with the entropy description. It's been forever since I've done a box diagram, but they
are SOOOO useful when trying to understand what your inputs and outputs are.

I've been following this thread as most others have and I feel really bad about what happened with the build. That being said there were a few questions that I've had about the build of the motor that I didn't see addressed. I see where you had the rotating assembly lightened and balanced but didn't see where they checked the bearing surfaces for size and or out of round. I also missed if the hardware for the bearings had been changed.

I haven't been inside my fj's engine yet but the one thing I've learned building engines for cars is that the engine is only as good as the bolts that hold it together. I always change every bolt that I can to eliminate the issues that come with heat cycled and stressed bolts. I also mic every bearing so that I know what the clearances are going to be and then double check with plastigage just to be sure.

I'm not an engineer though I have gone to college for it and I know that improvements can be made in just about any mass produced engine by applying new technology and meticulous assembly practices. That is the true art of engine building maintaining clearances and clamping forces that minimize frictional losses so more power is available to the wheels.

I would really appreciate it if you could share the autopsy of the engine as well as you did on the build of the motor. After all almost all the technology we enjoy today comes from the failures of yesterday.  I hope that many of the parts from the first build can be salvaged for the next one.

The bearing surfaces were as round as they could be I guess. What I mean is, the crank was inspected before
it was lightened to make sure that it was a good crankshaft. (No sense doing all the machine work if it was flawed)
The connecting rods were not resized because they were brand new.  The rod bolts were also brand new
ARP fasteners.  As I mentioned before I used brown bearings instead of the original blue ones. (Well mostly blue)
There would not have been any issues with bearings being "out of round" here.

You don't have to go to college to do engineering really. By definition all it is, is taking concepts and applying
them to actual things. (Vs. a scientist that just goes after the concepts)

I know I was lazy with the clearanceing and went with the "it worked for the last umpteen hundred people who
did it this way" mentality. I won't make that mistake again. Besides, I think that I built this motor too tight to
run 40 weight oil anyway. I'm going to see what the bearing clearances were then make sure that they're
consistent next time. It'll take a lot longer because of all of the required bearing swapping, but I think it'll be
worth it. I'll also avoid local differences in oil flow and bearing drag this way as well. It'll make for smoother
operation. (But the differences would probably be so small you'd never actually feel them)

Other than stabbing in the dark, there is really too little info know what happened here, but I will say I have NEVER seen big end nuts "back off" and I always re-use them.

I would suggest taking the engine to a mechanic that can "read" the remains of the motor and perhaps give a qualified opinion.
Not just a mechanic that knows how everything fits together but one that has experience looking inside failed motors. This will not be as easy as it sounds. Most mechanics these days don't see enough failures to build up a good knowledge and the ones that have no longer work on the bench. A well trained eye should be able to examine the parts and tell you what happened, not speculate.

Well you're right. I haven't seen it "YET" either. Like I said, it's a guess based on the available information.
1.   The connecting rod nuts were torqued properly on assembly
2.   There was no binding in the bottom end at the time of assembly
3.   The clearances were adequate for the bottom end to spin freely
4.   The crank had been lightened by about two pounds
5.   The carbs were not fueling the cylinders evenly
These are the facts. It's all I have so far. You'll just have to wait for the rest of the information as it becomes
available. I'll send higher resolution pictures to Randy for his take on it when I get it torn down.

On the one hand you say all you wanted to do was build a good, reliable motor that would last the next 100,000Km's (Yamaha had already done that) then on the other hand you want to experiment and try out ideas.

You know. It's not really that I'm "trying out ideas". I haven't really innovated at all in this project if you get
down to it. I've taken well established principles and applied them to this build. Is lightening the crankshaft
my idea? No, in fact I am not by any means the first to do it. Are these coatings new? No, there's a whole
industry dedicated to their design and application. About the only thing I did that was unique was my little
instrument panel...

If you want a rolling test bed to muck around with coatings, combustion chamber design, crankshafts etc and try out some of your ideas, fine, get one, it's great fun if that's your thing.
If you want a bike that is reliable for the next 100,000Km's, get one.
Trying to roll the two into one won't work.
You need a project bike, or at least an engine, AND a daily rider.

Well, maybe it was a little ambitious to try to "have my cake and eat it" too. But I think that had the connecting
rod not exited the block I certainly would have. I don't see any reason why this engine would not have outlasted
those other examples.

All the technical information you have posted and the end result you were looking for have already been addressed by the engineers when they designed the engine. They in fact did such a good job, along with the oil guys, that the bottom end is probably the LAST thing that will wear out. What's to improve on?

Not much. Just incrementally small improvements in friction reduction, heat rejection, and vibration.
Add it all up and it is measurable. For me, that's cool. It doesn't have to be a huge change, but it
would have been neat to see the difference.

As I have said, if you want a motor to play with, fine. But don't confuse this with adding reliability and longevity. I saw a one owner 1100 with 200,000 on it recently. Other than using a bit of oil it ran like a Swiss watch, never been touched, never seen anything but cheap oil, but changed regularly without fail.

I always reckoned there are guys with no knowledge who do nothing to their vehicles except enjoy them, then the  guys who know a bit and can chuck in a set of rings and bearings. Then the ones who know a bit more that can modify/hot them up, then the guys who know a lot more, have the skills and experience to modify and hot them up BUT are smart enough not to.

Look in any car/bike workshop staff car park, the modified machine ALWAYS belong to the apprentice!

Rehashing the same thing doesn't help here man. What's your point? Playing armchair quarterback isn't cool if
you only say the same thing over and over. And I know many mechanics with modified machines.  I think you
mean that their primary mode of transportation is not their "project" machine....

Oil... Yeah, if you change it regularly you're good. It's not the oil that dies, it's the additives. I've already gone
into the finer points of what makes different types of oil different. If you don't want to believe me look it up yourself.

Any departure from standard will come at some cost. You can improve a modern engine in all sorts of areas but not longevity and reliability. The very act of just disassembling it compromises that.
When Saab 900's came out in the late 70's they were available in both turbo and non turbo versions. After they had been around for some years, it became obvious that the turbo engines were shagged at anything up half the mileage of the non turbo engines.

You increase the power of a motor by 40%, it's reliable and it's a lot of fun, but no way are you ever going to see the sort miles on the clock you'd get from a standard motor. Which is a trade off some are happy to make.

Dude, you're killing me here. That's why manufacturers started putting forged pistons in turbo motors
(Like I had in this build) and stronger rods (also like I had in this build) into their turbo motors. To stand
up to the additional strain. By reducing the mass of the crankshaft itself I was also reducing the dynamic
loads that it experiences due to the inertia of the counterbalances. But this was also at the expense of
its ability to absorb vibration; I effectively made the crank stiffer. I'm not sure if that tradeoff was
significant here. My gut feeling though is that it wasn't so long as the oil films in the rod big ends were
preventing metal on metal contact. (Preventing sudden spikes in torsional loadings) But I'll be able to
tell that when I look at the bearings.

The point is, you can make more power reliably. But you have to build for it. You can't just assume that
the original components will just take the new load without complaint.

What I've done all my life over a very long list of cars and bikes is, If I want more power, I just go out and buy it (with the exception of one bike). It was insanely powerful but needed a new crankshaft every 1000 miles or less, depending  how I rode it. I hadn't thought of that!
IMO modified engines for road use are a waste of money. I've built plenty, but not for myself. This is just my preference. I know everyone enjoys their bikes for different reasons.

This is completely fair. It's your experience. It's what's worked for you. I know EXACTLY where you're coming
from with the "I've had enough of that!" statement. I completely agree.

Call me crazy, but this crusade that I've been on is to get to the power level I want, with the reliability
too. I enjoy the development process immensely. I like doing something new and seeing what it does.
(Maybe not new to all of you, but new to me) I like doing LOTS of research and trying to understand
HOW IT WORKS then putting it into action. I am 100% convinced that if I hadn't had a catastrophic
mechanical failure that I would have achieved this.

When was the last time you were between 6000-9000rpm at WOT, in any gear, cursing the lack of power from your FJ? When was the last time you were pissed off because it ran out of puff at a mere 150mph?

The last time I was riding 2up in 40+ mph of wind...

But I digress, the point is everyone does their own thing. If you got something out of this then great.
If not, I guess you're wasting your time. In spite of all of this, I've set my course, gathered my data,
modified my parts, and will continue undeterred in my quest to build my engine.  I'm not going to let a
few naysayers deter me from taking advantage of new technology to improve on dated designs.

Here's a bold statement for you. I think that one of the biggest causes of problems encountered by
running synthetic oils in motorcycles is due to running too thick an oil....
(now that's something to throw spears over)

The build must go on...

You know the saying that one man's garbage is another's gold?
Well look what I got off of craigslist. An FJ1100 motor of "questionable lineage." The guy said it was a
race motor that got "blown". (Said it had a couple pistons with holes in them)






Let me tell you, this motor is spent. I did a quick look see to make sure there wasn't anything solidly holding
the crank and broke it loose with a wrench on the timing nut on the crankshaft. It turned pretty freely so I
hooked it up to a battery and did a compression test. I got zero across all of the cylinders. I was shocked
so I put 7ml of oil into all of the cylinders and did it again. Here is what I got...






Yeah, I know. Fairly abysmal numbers... So, I'm going to reuse the original pistons and cylinder block and turn it into a 1200...

[FJscott]

Let me first say that I feel your pain. I've been reading this thread from start to finish ( well not finished yet)
With great interest, not being inside my FJ yet. I very much appreciate the extent you went to to document and share with us this build. I've got ton a tremendous amount from it, thank you.

I am a maritime Engineer. I keep the engine rooms going on ships, all diesel powered so I've been thru literally hundreds of engine overhauls in my 25 years in the biz. The difference is when we throw a rod thru the block it
a $ 200,000 repair. It's happened to me on a break in following an overhaul. Cause... One rod/piston installed backwards. Earlier in the thread I saw randy comment on a pic of you determining piston deck height, randy said the piston was in backwards. I never saw a reply to his comment so didn't know if he was messin with you or I just missed it..

The second thing that made me gasp out loud in astonishment was the copious amount of ferrous metal on the drain plug and magnet. I'm sorry but there should be little to nothing on that magnet. After our break in periods, (we put a load bank on our engines and run 80% load for 4hours to seat the rings to the liner)
We remove the oil filter, cut the filter to remove the pleats and inspect for metal. If metal is found the engine comes apart to determine the source. There was something very, very wrong with your motor from the get go.

I think you're barking up the wrong tree looking at carberation as the source of the failure of the bottom end.

I feel so bad that this build turned out this way, but feel equally confident the next one will result in lots of Kookaloo.
Keep on keepin on!
Scott

[skymasteres]

Take apart, blueprint (make all parts exactly as designed), and reassemble almost any production power plant and you will increase power (usually by increasing redline) and longevity (by putting tolerances at design instead of within spec).  You might think all machines are designed to be their ultimate rendition and then cranked out one after another as designed.  The reality is scope, schedule, and budget constrain the time put into design and mass production puts tolerance stack into the mass produced product.  Evidence of the latter is the phenomenon of "infant mortality" in machines...  if their particular tolerance stack produces a substantial enough problem that reliability is severely compromised, it usually shows up when the machine is early in its expected service life.  There is a well know "bathtub curve" that predicts any manufactured product will likely either fail early or, if it survives, fail near design lifetime.  So I'd suggest ALL engines are under-designed to begin with, given relatively large safety margins (engineering factors), then pushed out to the manufacturing process with some expected ppm level failure (scrap).

Frank, thank you. I couldn't have said this better myself. (I kind of tried, but got too bogged down in the "point counter point" discussion)

Modders take heart...  you can have your cake and eat it too.   
The alternative is to painfully build your own experience base by experimenting and breaking things...  which is what happened here.

Thank you. The other thing that Mark (FJMonkey) said, which I agree with, is that there is no reason not to take advantage of better understanding of old principles. The point is, when they designed the FJ engine the early 80's, they did it to the best of their ability using the tools and techniques they had available at the time. Now fast forward FORTY YEARS and apply those lessons learned to the old engine and you CAN improve on what was done all those years ago.

I think the argument of "not being able to improve on OEM design" holds more weight on newer engines with much tighter build tolerances and no available upgrade parts. It's hard to pioneer on a shoe string budget. Not impossible, just REALLY hard.

I killed the budget building this thing. I am intensely interested in what killed the engine.  I am apprehensive as to how much I can salvage. But, overall I think once I get this "new" engine plugged in I'll feel a lot better about it because I'll be riding while figuring it out...

Figuring it out is really a staggering task. I mean, I changed very little when you get right down to it. Sure, I coated just about everything, but that was just a minor* change in tolerance. I lightened the crank, put in stronger rods, bigger pistons, bigger valves, longer duration cams, and drilled the shift drum. None of this stuff would normally be the cause in this kind of failure.

As I start to think critically about all of the parts that work together to make this engine run my head starts to swim. I mean, you have the way the bearings work and how the clearances, oil weights, temperatures, loads, and rotational speeds come into play. Then you have the way the valve size, and cam events impact how much air the engine can breathe. Things like dynamic compression ratio come into play here as it changes with respect to RPM and throttle position. I guess the point here is, that with as much as I know about engines and the theory of operation, I made a truly arrogant number of assumptions with respect to how everything will work out with this build. (A lot of dogmatic assumptions)

*to be determined for sure on tear down.

[fintip]

Well this just got exciting.

Congrats on the CL find, how much? $20?

[skymasteres]

Let me first say that I feel your pain. I've been reading this thread from start to finish ( well not finished yet)
With great interest, not being inside my FJ yet. I very much appreciate the extent you went to to document and share with us this build. I've got ton a tremendous amount from it, thank you.

I am a maritime Engineer. I keep the engine rooms going on ships, all diesel powered so I've been thru literally hundreds of engine overhauls in my 25 years in the biz. The difference is when we throw a rod thru the block it's a $ 200,000 repair. It's happened to me on a break in following an overhaul. Cause... One rod/piston installed backwards. Earlier in the thread I saw randy comment on a pic of you determining piston deck height, randy said the piston was in backwards. I never saw a reply to his comment so didn't know if he was messin with you or I just missed it..

The second thing that made me gasp out loud in astonishment was the copious amount of ferrous metal on the drain plug and magnet. I'm sorry but there should be little to nothing on that magnet. After our break in periods, (we put a load bank on our engines and run 80% load for 4hours to seat the rings to the liner)
We remove the oil filter, cut the filter to remove the pleats and inspect for metal. If metal is found the engine comes apart to determine the source. There was something very, very wrong with your motor from the get go.

I think you're barking up the wrong tree looking at carberation as the source of the failure of the bottom end.

I feel so bad that this build turned out this way, but feel equally confident the next one will result in lots of Kookaloo.
Keep on keepin on!
Scott

Thanks Scott,
The piston installed backward was corrected before it was installed for real. Throughout this build there
were many things that I became paranoid about because of little slips like that. I was also super paranoid
about the valve to piston clearances and very carefully checked with play dough that the valves weren't
hitting the pistons.

The metal particles on the magnet were kind of the underlying issue that I'd been kind of ignoring. I had no
baseline to compare too, so I was attempting to write the metal off as "normal" to the break in process.
It's not like there was anything I could do about it short of tearing the engine down. Ignoring it became
harder when I saw the dramatic increase in the metal particles on the drain plug magnet.  (Of course I didn't
get much time to think about it since the failure happened so shortly afterwards...)

Here is a comparison of all of the oil change magnet catchings...






It should be very telling when I get it apart to find out what the source of the metal was.  You're probably
right about the carburation. I'm just spit balling here.  I'm 99% sure that the failure happened because the
two halves of number 3 connecting rod came apart. I just don't have a good answer as to why they did
though. (You and I can theorize and hypothesize all we like.  We just won't know till the engine comes apart
and the parts spill their secrets to me...)

P.S. That's really cool with the marine engine rebuilds. I wonder what particle size are they filtering too with those engines?

Well this just got exciting.

Congrats on the CL find, how much? $20?

Well, I'll put it this way. The engine cost me "infinitely" more in gas to pick up than I "paid" for it.

Actually, the fellow was a great guy. He had it listed for $100 but just wanted to get it out of his garage.
After talking to him for a while, about two hours since he got really interested in the project, he said he
couldn't take my money. He was just happy that I was going to actually do something with it other than
use it for spare parts.

[red]

As I start to think critically about all of the parts that work together to make this engine run my head starts to swim. I mean, you have the way the bearings work and how the clearances, oil weights, temperatures, loads, and rotational speeds come into play. Then you have the way the valve size, and cam events impact how much air the engine can breathe. Things like dynamic compression ratio come into play here as it changes with respect to RPM and throttle position. I guess the point here is, that with as much as I know about engines and the theory of operation, I made a truly arrogant number of assumptions with respect to how everything will work out with this build. (A lot of dogmatic assumptions)
*to be determined for sure on tear down.

Skymasteres,

Lots to see, here.  Sorry that this project came apart on you, but at least you are unhurt at the physical level.  Things could have been much worse for you, there.

I'm no expert here, and I'd even say that I don't know much.  I do have a few considerations for you, though, which you may take with or without a grain of salt.

One consideration would be the break-in period.  I would hope that your coating process could be applied after a break-in period, once you know that all is well inside the engine.  I realize that would mean one more dis-assembly, cleaning, coating, and reassembly process, but I do not see any way around it.  New bearings (and other parts) come with new-part tolerances and clearances, and engineers depend on the break-in period to get a perfect fit.  Conventional wisdom with synthetic oils is to use old-style conventional oils for the break-in period, because the synthetic oils have protective qualities which prevent such initial wear.  Mobil One (hardly unbiased, but not disputed on this point) has advertised that the Dallas police cars using synthetic oils had new-part clearances after 100,000 miles (no engine break-in had occurred).  They decided to use conventional oils for the break-in period, to get the new parts "fitted" better and give better gas mileage as a result.  If you could apply your coatings then, when everything fits very well, you may see the results that you hope to get.

Another consideration is the main bearing alignments.  I may have missed it, but were the main bearing supports align-bored, before adding the main bearings and crankshaft?

Teflon buttons have been used as wrist-pin retainers, and in piston skirts (to prevent piston slap) in long-lived engines.  Teflon does not seem to be the best choice of material for that purpose, to me, and I wonder: is there any space-age material that might do the job, especially where Teflon may fall short?

Using synthetic oil may cause a problem with the clutch slipping, sure.  Are you planning to use any tricks to increase the clutch pressures, or any other methods to prevent the clutch from slipping, when you switch to synthetic oil?

Working with two-stroke engines, I know that synthetic oils may not conduct heat away from hot spots, as conventional oils do.  There may be ways to work past this aspect of engine operation, or a synthetic "blend" of oils may be a good option (many blends are available commercially).  On an air-cooled engine, this may be a valid consideration.

Best wishes on your rebuild.

[FJscott]

Many on here would suggest the coatings had something to do with the failure, I would not think so. The only thing that might be worth considering is that you go thru the effort to balance every component of the rotating assembly's down to the micro gram then add the coatings that would un balance them all. The heat rejection coatings, micro lubricants all I think are worthy steps taken however, hard to quantify their success in our application.

When you do get to disassemble the beast, cut open the oil filter and spread the pleats apart. Very curious to see what's in there.  The magnet only catches the ferrous metals, the filter will paint a more complete picture
of what's going on. Although at this point it's going to be moot.

Hope you get the FJ version 2.0 up and running quick.
-Scott

[Pat Conlon]

.....The point is, when they designed the FJ engine the early 80's, they did it to the best of their ability using the tools and techniques they had available at the time. Now fast forward FORTY YEARS and apply those lessons learned to the old engine and you CAN improve on what was done all those years ago.......

I agree that modern day improvements can be made to our FJ engines increasing power, durability and longevity ...keep at it Mike......don't let the tossers get you down.....learn what went wrong and correct it.

That being said....I know that time is relative but, sure doesn't seen like FORTY YEARS to me.....

But that's just me.

Cheers lad. Pat

[baldy3853]

The point is, when they designed the FJ engine the early 80's, they did it to the best of their ability using the tools and techniques they had available at the time. Now fast forward FORTY YEARS and apply those lessons learned to the old engine and you CAN improve on what was done all those years ago.


2014 - 1984 = 30

only forty yrs if you look at the XJ's as well

[andyb]

While we're talking about ancient history, remember that much of the technology in the FJ/XJR actually came from the XS1100, with the obvious exclusion of the head.  Because it has been so long, there's been changes not only in the design but even the metals themselves. 

We should have a pool to see who can guess the cause of the troubles.  My money says that you're going to find a bunch of interestingly shaped metal that used to be the bearings, and a simple oiling failure as a cause.

Are any of the coatings used ferrous?  I'd think not, but it'd be interesting to know.

[ribbert]

I agree with Frank, for the most part. I never said hotting up engines compromises reliability, I said it does when you get to the extreme end, racing engines etc.

I am familiar with the "bathtub" curve. We used to see some cars so bad you knew they were duds even before they left the dealership. The never actually failed but they were noisy, idled rough, drank fuel, underperformed, burnt oil and started rattling at low mileage and there was nothing you could (practically) do about it. You could actually feel the harshness in them. A few were so bad we expected them to be returned the following day. At the other end of the scale, some of them were real screamers, the "blue printed" ones, the opposite of everything I just described. To drive an example of each of these motors it was hard to believe they came off the same production line, so marked was the difference.

So, I agree 100% with Frank. Blueprinted motors do everything better.

Much had been said here recently about all the advances in engine technology. I agree.  No one has said anything about advances in engine building technology though.  Modern engine building plants have benefitted way more from advances in technology than the engines they build.


And here is where we probably agree to disagree. I believe a modern engine, for all practical purposes, comes off the line blue printed. The bathtub curve has nearly been flattened out.
I guess another point of contention would be when this modernisation of engine building took place.

Most motor bikes are made, crated, shipped halfway around the world, assembled, rolled onto the showroom floor and are started for the very FIRST time when someone buys it. So good is modern engine building.

I had a job once, briefly, doing the initial start ups on International Harvester petrol V8's. These engines were assembled entirely by hand in a surprisingly small room by about 20 workers. The bare block rolled in one end, the finished motor out the other, 100% hand assembled with hand tools. The parts were made on ww2 machines where tolerances were set and monitored by the operators, and no one gave a shit. If something wasn't right, just move it on to the next guy. I would often get complete engines that were locked solid. It could sometimes be traced back to the first station. The rejection rate was huge. This was only in the late '70's! Think about how they are made now.

I think I made it pretty clear, I have nothing against modded engines for road use, it's just not my thing. I FULLY understand the buzz people get from doing it though. There is also the money. These sort of mods aren't cheap.

Everybody wants something slightly different from their bike. Me, I just want to ride and tinker with the peripheral stuff and if the need for more grunt takes over, I'll buy a more powerful bike. I have other projects that satisfy the urge to experiment, create and go where no man has gone before.

I also agree that engines being built now incorporate far more advanced design than the FJ. To me, that's not a shortcoming though. I drive pre-war cars and part of the appeal is their age. Concessions are always make though for brakes and cooling.

The motor below, for those that asked, is an Austin 7 motor. 750cc and 10 hp on a good day. The A7 was the UK's equivalent to the T model. An affordable car for the masses. It was sold in the US as the American Austin or American Bantam but with the vast differences in distances travelled in the US it was too small and never sold in huge numbers. It did sell in huge numbers in the UK and AUS.



I had one of these brought to me last year for a rebuild. The owner gave me a list of things he "heard" had been successfully incorporated into these engines. No other information.
6 mths later it rolled out the door having had a new crankshaft, splash feed to pressure feed conversion with oil filter and internally fitted pump, white metal to shell conversion, Renault Gordini pistons and rods, thermosyphon to water pump conversion ( washing machine pump externally mounted) magneto to 12V coil conversion, carburation, exhaust, camshaft, various old style slingers, seals and bushes
replaced with modern types with the required machining, VW clutch plate, pressurised fuel system and lots of fiddling to make it all work. It runs well and has been dyno'd at 20hp.

So yes, I understand the thrill of modding and engine. I really enjoyed that project, but I had one of those cars and the motor was bog standard.

BTW Frank, I agree, the double clutch spring works perfectly!


Crotchety old Bastard.

[JMR]

Flynt, i still hold that our definitions are not contradictory, just that yours is more in depth. Your example of the universe is a great one; while we think of this as complexity, it's like the 'game of life'; seemingly complex processes come into existence, but they are just temporary relics that fade. They just sparkle before they do.

 I know guys that have done the same thing with their wives through the liberal use of cosmetic surgery.

Ummm...so what ya sayin is that Fj`s are organic in the modern day use of the word. Surround them with bulls..t and they are right at home, yet we can shape them to our artistic desire...as long as the genetic pool isn`t tinkered with...Pity that surgery doesn`t include an "on" and "off" button for turning...that`s why God made tha FJ me thinks...

Huh? That response was a humorous response to fintops ....And yeah, I'm all about putting money into an old machine. Nothing to do with bikes.

[skymasteres]

Another consideration is the main bearing alignments.  I may have missed it, but were the main bearing supports align-bored, before adding the main bearings and crankshaft?

Thanks for the input on the coatings. I didn't realize that align boring the cases was even something that was done. I don't even know where I would go to get something like that checked. A almost think that whatever alignment you could achieve over what it came from the factory with would be lost when all of the bolts holding it together were torqued. Unless it's done assembled and torqued I guess. Hmmnn...
Something to think about considering that oversized bearings may be available if the clearances open up from boring it....

Teflon buttons have been used as wrist-pin retainers, and in piston skirts (to prevent piston slap) in long-lived engines.  Teflon does not seem to be the best choice of material for that purpose, to me, and I wonder: is there any space-age material that might do the job, especially where Teflon may fall short?

I don't like what I've seen so far with Teflon buttons in pistons as pin retainers. They make a lot of sense for drag race applications where you are tearing the motor down after every couple runs. They're a lot easier to install and remove. But I don't see the performance enhancement. From what I've seen they have a tendency of catching grit then scoring the sides of the cylinders.  Why would you want to replace the circlip? I mean, I've seen spiral locks that do the same thing and are more secure. But what is the other advantage? They're light, reliable, and positively locate the piston pin.

Of course I'll eat those words if, when I tear it down, the motor had the piston pin of number thee dragging along the side of the cylinder and that was the source of the iron... Until it wore through and caught in the block and jammed the piston... (Who knows, maybe another failure mode?)

Using synthetic oil may cause a problem with the clutch slipping, sure.  Are you planning to use any tricks to increase the clutch pressures, or any other methods to prevent the clutch from slipping, when you switch to synthetic oil?

Working with two-stroke engines, I know that synthetic oils may not conduct heat away from hot spots, as conventional oils do.  There may be ways to work past this aspect of engine operation, or a synthetic "blend" of oils may be a good option (many blends are available commercially).  On an air-cooled engine, this may be a valid consideration.

Best wishes on your rebuild.

My answer for this goes back to my earlier comment on using too heavy a weight of synthetic oil.  I think that the inherently higher film strength of synthetic oil is the primary cause of many of these behaviors. Such as the clutch slipping, the rings not sealing, and is diminished ability to transfer heat.

With respect to the heat issue, it's not that it's more insulating than conventional oil. It's the higher film strength that makes it less prone to flow away from a surface it was splashed on taking the heat with it. This is why I did the oil shedding coatings in the inside of the case, the rods, and the bottoms of the pistons. So that the oil that hit it would absorb whatever heat it could in its brief moment of contact, fall off, and be replaced with more oil.

As for the clutch, I've already maxed the thing out build wise. (Well without going over the top.) I have the Barret spring conversion plate and I've replaced both narrow frictions with wide ones. So I have the maximum friction area I can get, and the maximum pressure.  To keep the clutch happy I'm going to see if I can find what I think is the holy grail for motorcycle synthetic, a 15W-30.  The reason that I say 15W-30 would be the best for this application is; it will still lubricate all of the bearings properly; it will allow the clutch to function because, without oil pressure keeping the film intact, the plates will displace it;  it shouldn't unseat the rings or otherwise gum up the cylinders; and, with the closer value between the cold and operating temperature weights, the additives package will be much smaller allowing for much greater oil change intervals.  (Motorcycles DESTROY additives like nobody's business)

Here's an interesting note on oil viscosity with these engines. In the research I've been doing on getting my oil analyzed I came across a Total Base Number (TBN) test. Basically this tells you how much of your additives are left to do their job. Things like buffers that absorb acids and the detergents. If you oil is acidic it doesn't matter if your long chain polymers are intact because all of your buffers are used up.

The interesting part was the viscosity comparison vs. service life and how oil lost weight as the long chain additives broke down.  The test used is the Kurt Orbahn Shear Stability Test that takes a rotary cylinder viscometer with a gap of 1 micrometer and spinning it really quickly. (the rpm is actually dependent on the test fluid's ability to absorb shere) Basically they spin an outer part and engage the inner cylinder via an electromagnetic clutch. The measurement is taken when the measured torque value stabilizes but before it drops due to heating. (Typically less than 40ms per test cycle)

This 90 cycles of this test are required for diesel oil certification.  SAE 40 oil is typically in a viscosity range of between 15-19 centistrokes (mm2/s) After 90 cycles the viscosity of your conventional oil drops well into the SAE 20 weight range. The conventional diesel oils fair much better dropping just to the bottom of their viscosity range after 90 cycles. The synthetic diesel oils seem to almost hold up to a whole 180 cycles. The thing that blew my mind is, when the oil  was used in an actual motorcycle and tested, the majority of the viscosity loss occurred I the first 1000 miles. (about 7 mm2/s of viscosity loss)  This put the 40 weight oil right in the 30 weight range. The synthetic 10W-30 suffered and much lower viscosity loss, maintaining parity with the conventional 10W-40 oil. The 20W-50 oil drops right to the upper range of the 10W-40 oil after the first thousand miles.


The really HUGE thing here is that the 10W-30 synthetic has effectively the same operating weight as the 10W-40 oil the engine was designed for.
(When you compare to what actually happens to the oil when it is run)

My hypothesis is that people that have issues with synthetics are using the same weight as they would with conventional. If you're running 10W-40 conventional and switch to synthetic at the same weight you are effectively going up a grade in oil weight. (It's not a complete grade but pretty close) Although for 20W-50 conventional vs. 20W-50 synthetic you are totally running a full grade thicker oil at operating temps with the synthetic.

The reason I call 15W-30 synthetic  the "holy grail" for motorcycles is the near perfect match it has with the 10W-40 in terms of behavior at operating temps. Plus with the smaller viscosity delta it will do even better with respect to shearing losses as the engine runs.  (Although I might have to experiment with 15W-40 conventional diesel oil vs. 10W-30 Amsoil or something like that...)

Many on here would suggest the coatings had something to do with the failure, I would not think so. The only thing that might be worth considering is that you go thru the effort to balance every component of the rotating assembly's down to the micro gram then add the coatings that would un balance them all. The heat rejection coatings, micro lubricants all I think are worthy steps taken however, hard to quantify their success in our application.

When you do get to disassemble the beast, cut open the oil filter and spread the pleats apart. Very curious to see what's in there.  The magnet only catches the ferrous metals, the filter will paint a more complete picture
of what's going on. Although at this point it's going to be moot.

Hope you get the FJ version 2.0 up and running quick.
-Scott

Scott, that's a very valid point about it being hard to verify improvement if any. If, I could compare a similarly build and carbureted motor without the coatings it would make for a pretty interesting comparison.

I am definitely going to see what's inside the oil filter. (I just wish I had saved the old ones)
The point may or may not be moot. If there is a lot of aluminum in it and no obvious source it would warrant further inspection of the engine to find it...

I agree that modern day improvements can be made to our FJ engines increasing power, durability and longevity ...keep at it Mike......don't let the tossers get you down.....learn what went wrong and correct it.

That being said....I know that time is relative but, sure doesn't seen like FORTY YEARS to me.....

But that's just me.

Cheers lad. Pat

2014 - 1984 = 30

only forty yrs if you look at the XJ's as well

Thanks Pat, I'll just keep plugging till I get it figured out. Of course then I don't know what I'll do with myself. (Oh, and I'll keep working on this project too)

Baldy, I was taking a little liberty with the start point of the design process. You're right, we are still short of forty calendar years of the FJ's release upon the world...

While we're talking about ancient history, remember that much of the technology in the FJ/XJR actually came from the XS1100, with the obvious exclusion of the head.  Because it has been so long, there's been changes not only in the design but even the metals themselves. 

We should have a pool to see who can guess the cause of the troubles.  My money says that you're going to find a bunch of interestingly shaped metal that used to be the bearings, and a simple oiling failure as a cause.

Are any of the coatings used ferrous?  I'd think not, but it'd be interesting to know.

That could be interesting. I split the pot with the winner?

But I digress. I don't think any of the coatings are magnetic at all. But I'll check to make sure.
Maybe I'll test it like this guy did...

Exotic Metals vs. Magnet (including uranium)



So, why not show some progress on the tear down of this 1100 motor? (Warning, ugly motor porn ahead...)


Here is the cylinder head uncovered. So far so good.





But removing it yields something fairly ugly....





It gets worse too...





The underside of the cylinder head doesn't look too bad. Well, uhm, comparatively...
(At least there are no burnt valves this time)




And back to the horror show...




There's some serious muck across all of the pistons.




And the cylinders actually still have crosshatching on them. They're really dirty, but they don't look scored.

[red]

Another consideration is the main bearing alignments.  I may have missed it, but were the main bearing supports align-bored, before adding the main bearings and crankshaft?

Thanks for the input on the coatings. I didn't realize that align boring the cases was even something that was done. I don't even know where I would go to get something like that checked. A almost think that whatever alignment you could achieve over what it came from the factory with would be lost when all of the bolts holding it together were torqued. Unless it's done assembled and torqued I guess. Hmmnn...
Something to think about considering that oversized bearings may be available if the clearances open up from boring it....

Skymasteres,

The VW Beetle crew knows all about align-boring aluminum cases.  Their VW cases warp at each and every dis-assembly, and must be aligned-bored before reassembly. In particular, they know how to measure the (mis-)alignment of main bearings very precisely, to determine if this work needs to be done.  The cases are assembled empty (no crankshaft) and torqued to specs, then measured.

Teflon buttons have been used as wrist-pin retainers, and in piston skirts (to prevent piston slap) in long-lived engines.  Teflon does not seem to be the best choice of material for that purpose, to me, and I wonder: is there any space-age material that might do the job, especially where Teflon may fall short?

I don't like what I've seen so far with Teflon buttons in pistons as pin retainers. They make a lot of sense for drag race applications where you are tearing the motor down after every couple runs. They're a lot easier to install and remove. But I don't see the performance enhancement. From what I've seen they have a tendency of catching grit then scoring the sides of the cylinders.  Why would you want to replace the circlip? I mean, I've seen spiral locks that do the same thing and are more secure. But what is the other advantage? They're light, reliable, and positively locate the piston pin.  Of course I'll eat those words if, when I tear it down, the motor had the piston pin of number thee dragging along the side of the cylinder and that was the source of the iron... Until it wore through and caught in the block and jammed the piston... (Who knows, maybe another failure mode?)

I agree, about the shortcomings of Teflon.  I was wondering if anything better has been developed lately.

[racerrad8]

Thanks for the input on the coatings. I didn't realize that align boring the cases was even something that was done. I don't even know where I would go to get something like that checked. A almost think that whatever alignment you could achieve over what it came from the factory with would be lost when all of the bolts holding it together were torqued. Unless it's done assembled and torqued I guess. Hmmnn...
Something to think about considering that oversized bearings may be available if the clearances open up from boring it....

It is not an option for this engine. If you were to remove material from either half of the case to close up the bores prior to align honing, it would also affect the transmission shaft bores. Cutting only from the upper case will affect the camshaft to crankshaft center-line distance by shortening it. If you cut the bottom half of the case only, then the shift forks engagement would be affected.

Then there are the covers that must fit on each side of the engine; clutch timing & crankshaft cover that have to line up for gasket sealing & bolt fitment.

Randy - RPM