Alternative Fuels

cold starts no problem here as long as I don't try and really use power tell there is some water temp.
I had thought of doing a vapor line for really cold mornings. definitely some water vapor in propane around here.

Wow. Nice cool. Progress on the engine BBM.

Curious on how it will run. What will yo use for cam sync?

I'll probably modify/use the distributor as cam-signal.

Broke-in the engine/camshaft on the 360ci engine today.
I had built an engine-teststand at the same time so I could do a controlled engine-start and check for leaks or issues all around.

The break-in has been done on gasoline, to speed up ringseal and ease of setup.
As the engine however has 11.3 :1 compression, I wanted some extra protection and got myself 5 gallon of 102 octane pumpgas.
Ridiculous expensive stuff, but worthwhile for the occassion.

Pics and info on my site:
https://www.bigblockmopar.nl/2017/10/36 ... -break-in/

cool...strange though that the radiator couldnt keep up....in your car at 2000rpm the radiator does not get the air flow the electric fan pushes through on the stand. Although covering a smaller area, it flows a lot more air in my opinion.

and now? ..........let the (mega)squirting begin?

I will do some more running and fine-tuning of the engine in the engine-stand.
Mainly want to make sure the engine doesn't overheat.
When that's solved and I feel confident about the engine, then it will be installed in the Dart.

Here's a clip of the engine running on the stand from a while ago;

https://www.bigblockmopar.nl/2017/10/vi ... teststand/


Since the clip, I found the carb's primaries (gasoline) was tuned way too rich and blackened the sparkplugs.
Was a bit pissed about that knowing there's a nice coat of carbon all around the cylinders now. Damn stinking gasoline fuel

So I've now hooked up an LPG system to run and test the engine with further.
I'm not quite happy yet how the engine idles a bit irraticle/nervous, which goes away when the throttle is opened.
While compression tests seem good, I think there's some intake sealing issues at hand.

I removed the intake yesterday and will probably replace the stamped steel gaskets for a paper/composite one, or maybe double up if the intake port alignments still allows this.

Rigged up a propane setup on the enginestand and have had the engine running on propane some 2 weeks ago.
The twitchy idle was because of too light advance springs in the distributor. Changed one of them for a slightly heavier one and adjusting the idle-mixture a tad richer on propane made the engine much happier at idle.

No clip of the engine running on LPG yet so you'll just have to do with this McGvyer setup...

Not sure if anyone is still 'tuned-in' here but I'm finally getting ready to install the engine.
A long winter and a few time-delaying setbacks mainly with collapsing hydraulic lifters prompted me to convert them to solid mechanical lifters instead. Never again will I use hydraulic lifters in any engine build if I have a choice.

Also decided to change the current Edelbrock Performer intake for an Edelbrock AirGap intake.


Here's the clip of the engine running on propane since my last post.

[youtube]v=0hq9vK81TSo[/youtube]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hq9vK81TSo

https://www.bigblockmopar.nl/2018/01/mo ... -response/

Tomorrow I will install the AirGap intake and a freshly painted pair of cast aluminium valve covers on the engine and do some testing again to check if the cam's lash is correct.
If everything goes to plan I hope to be able to install the engine next weekend.

So... after trying to edit my previous post a few times to get the video to show up, my home pc IP got blocked by the forumserver.
The hosting of this site is getting really questionable.

Posting from my iPhone now.
This might be one of my last posts here.

BigBlockMopar wrote: ↑

Sun Apr 22, 2018 6:21 pm

Not sure if anyone is still 'tuned-in' here but I'm finally getting ready to install the engine.

I'll keep following as long as you keep posting.

nice!

I'm still here too...and every now and then I point people to this awesome forum too.

But I have made some lpg-friends outside the forum and noticed that Facebook and messenger are a lot quicker to get info. Talking to couple guys from Germany and even Litouwen.

forums are great for logging info, but I have noticed I use thema as last resort.

as far as your build. following with great interest. I love the air gap design of intakes. looking forward to your updates

I still check in to this forum once a week or so to see whats new. You've come a long ways.. I've had trouble with some hyd lifters before and going solid is an option depending which cam you have. I concluded the lifter bores were a little too worn in my case. Yours was more the lifter quality? Which brand failed? What are you running for lash with the solids?

Anyway, she sounds good!

The IP-block I got as a 'present for participating to actively' seemed to last a complete day. IMO not the smartest setting that blocks existing users that try to edit their own post to fix something and at least 'do' post something once in awhile. Especially on a forum that hardly sees any action anymore.

-

The new lifters have been in a unmarked white box for over 20 years I think. Just started using them for this build. After the first collapsing lifters I opened them up and cleaned them all, but found nothing inside. It might be engine block related as it only occured at the right side of the engine.
I've had this happen before on a different enginebuild too. Lifters starting collapsing after some runtime. Swapped them out for solids. I won't be using anymore hydraulic lifters anytime soon that's for sure.

I removed the lifter internals and placed a properly sized spacer inside so they act as a solid lifter.
Had the engine running again yesterday and ran fine.
Valves were lashed at 0.006-7" but I expected the lash to grow slightly.
They were slightly noisy so I will tighten them up a bit more to 0.004" tomorrow now everything has set a bit.

Re-lashed the valves today at 0.003".
Some had opened up a bit after the first run of the engine with the now solid lifters.
Engine idles with 21" vacuum with vacuum advance disconnected. The distributor's mechanical advance springs are a tad too light and cause the idle to get a bit nervous when hooked up.
In the car the engine's timing will be controlled by the Megasquirt ECU which has much better control.
I plan to swap and install the engine in the car somewhere in the next couple of days.

Still thinking of modifying the Edelbrock AirGap intake by opening up and camfer the divider wall a bit to create a somewhat semi-open plenum.
Although I'm not sure how much this will help anything as the mixture already goes from the 'open' Impco 425 to the 4-hole throttle plate, which causes some turbulence or disruption already, and then into the intake.
Maybe putting a slight camfer on the throttle plate-housing would help here, but I would really need a (smoke) flowbench-setup for this to see if it cleans up any turbulence or not.