proengines

I'll give you $200 for it, surely I get a discount given you are using my business name to try and sell it? I can tell you right now that although it might work it is definitely not exactly the same as mine, I can see a couple of spots that are a different shape just looking at the picture. I've got no problem with anyone else making and selling these things, I do have a problem with some dickhead using my name to do it. Cheers, Greg

M10x1.5 where they screw into the block.

Yep, obviously easier to use a block with the machined pad for the tensioner but a lot of people get underway on an engine without realising it. There's really no problem using the earlier blocks as long as it has the oil feed for the turbo drilled through and a drain. I got these plates laser cut because I had 3 people in a couple of months with the same problem and it was a pain milling them up. Cheers, Greg

I think this is a safer setup, you just turn 10mm off the back of the tensioner post. It fits inside the cover and everything else fits as normal. :

Orange and red silicone should be illegal, it makes any job you do look bad. Wurth make a good grey "silicone special" something or other, it works great, doesn't sag or fall off inside the engine and looks factory.

You can fit them but you do need to space them down to clear the crank throws and obviously spotface and drill & tap the girdle. Not something you'd do once the engine is assembled though. I haven't seen any problems in engines not using them, it's probably a lot of work for no real benefit.

It's all in the head.. Markos, Kat's and Pete's that was referred to earlier are all running stock valves as well. Bigger turbos would be a waste if the head isn't working properly. A change back to a stock port head from what's on these with everything else the same costs 40kw atw. We've done the dyno tests to prove it. Sometimes the right airspeed and port shape is more important that peak cfm.

I sent an RB25/30 to Perth a couple of weeks ago and it just tipped 200kg including a wooden packing crate. That was with exhaust manifold, flywheel and pressure plate.

Being billet I doubt the weight saving would be terribly significant. They look like very nice work but personally I think you could spend 11k on a lot of other things that would improve performance far more. They would be great for a really extreme engine where you might regularly punch holes through them with broken rods etc.. you could just weld it up and put it back in the machine and remachine it. If it was me I'd stick to the factory block and spend the money on a good crank, oil system, headwork and maybe a gearbox. To me a cast iron block is a real advantage as they're much stiffer.

Why would you claim compensation? It's the assemblers responsibility to make sure nothing hits anything else. Think of it as a learning experience. There's enough room to space down the squirters or you can grind the locating lug a little to rotate them where you want them to sit.

Here's one I prepared earlier:

They need clearance to allow for manufacturing tolerances where the centreline of the crank can be not quite concentric with the centreline of the pump gear, I made yours a little tighter Marko because I sat the pump on and checked where it was running before I made the collar. The clearance isn't a problem. The standard rb25/26 gears don't break and they run the same. SR20's, CA18's, Toyota 4AG's, Hondas and others run the same drive setup and rarely have problems. Nissan TB48 engines have a similar problem when they're pushed. I think it's just down to the material used. Powdered metal is used for a lot of parts that are hard to machine cheaply, almost all oil pump gears are made the same way. To mill an N1 outer gear you'd need to use a <2mm diameter cutter which just isn't workable for that type of job. I don't know why Nissan made the N1 pump with a smaller diameter outer gear which makes everything a little thinner and easier to break. I just fitted a set of the JPC gears to an N1 housing and they are good, same side clearance as factory and about .001" more clearance between the gears. The engine is from a hillclimb/circuit car still running the hydraulic tappets so I didn't want to go for a bigger pump.

I've got two sets of the JPC steel gears here for an RB30 and RB25/30 I'm currently doing. I can snap some photos if you're interested. They fit an N1 housing, not a standard 25/26 pump. I've only had one in well over 50 N1 pumps break but that's one too many and the steel gears are cheap insurance.

Ditto. If you just buzz the burr off the edge and run a tunnel hone through it you shouldn't have any issues with pump alignment or tunnel size. The tunnels do pinch up across the parting face when they get heat into them. Doing a thrust bearing like that can cause a fair bit of heat so it's worth checking out.

It's the same price Steve. Cheers, Greg

Torque plate honing is done with a plate bolted to the top of the block to simulate having the head bolted down. The idea is to finish the bore round while it is distorted by the head bolts so when the engine is assembled the bore will be round. If you don't use one, the bore goes out of round by up to .001" when you bolt the head on. Image hopefully below: This is what I use to do my rings:

It's worth checking the sizes on the pistons but with manufacturing technology being what it is today and diamond tooling usually used to turn pistons rather than grinding them as they used to, there is very little chance of having different sizes on the pistons. Maybe .0002" (two tenths of a thou) variation over a set might be possible though Wiseco's are always spot on when I measure them. Don't run less than what the piston manufacturer gives you as a minimum clearance, there's a reason they give that and it is dependent on piston material, geometry, pin offset and a number of other factors. You do need to check the ring gaps, never just assume they will be right out of the box, they normally wont be. Most performance rings are supplied as "file fit" rings which require the gaps to be set. "file fit" doesn't mean you get out a file and hack away at the ends of the rings, it means they need to be machined to set the proper gap. I made a small electric ring grinder to do them as most of the hand crank rotary ring files you buy have far too much slop in them and a wheel that's made for grinding cast iron rings, not the steel top rings you'll usually run in one of these type of engines and they are much too coarse. The bore size has a big effect on ring gaps. .001" difference in bore diameter will give you .003" difference in ring gap (Pi x diameter). Have the block honed with a torque plate, it is more important for ring sealing to have a round bore than small piston clearances. Cheers, Greg

Cometic make one to suit, I think the gasket it 88.5 from memory.

We can supply them with a semi finished pickup that needs to be cut to length to suit the depth of the sump. It's a fairly simple job but you need someone who can tig weld to weld it together once you have the length right.

Adriano is spot on, the only way to affect squish/quench is by machining the block, using a thinner gasket or using a different piston. Each cc you remove from the combustion chamber makes just on .1 compression points, for example, going from 62 to 61cc's changes your compression from say 8.2:1 up to 8.3:1. It takes about .2mm off the head to reduce the chamber by 1cc. P/v clearance isn't really a problem on RB's unless you are running really big lift, long duration cams.

You need to finish them once they're fitted. The interference fit in the head is only on part of the guide and will squeeze them in where they have interference. I hone them but it's a fairly expensive setup, there's a few grand tied up in Sunnen valve guide honing gear.

I've run 280/10.8mm lift with 1mm valves without a problem. You need to check at both extremes when you have adjustable gears fitted. The exhaust valve runs closest when the piston is chasing it back onto the seat, worse if you retard the exhaust cam. Whatever the case, always check p/v clearance with high lift/long duration cams, also the clearance between the in/ex valves themselves on the overlap.

Nope, you need to pull them out. They are pretty easy to pull apart and clean, the biggest problem is they gum up inside and stick. It's possible for the small cap inside to get cocked over and jam the lifter out. They can be a little noisy at idle but then open the valve an extra mm or so when it gets good oil pressure causing a miss. It's about an hours job once they're out to strip them, clean them and reassemble them, there's not really any wearing parts except the top of the bucket itself where the cams run on it. There is one type of lifter that you cant strip down easily but I've only seen them once and think they are aftermarket. Once they're cleaned they are as good as new.

Endyne make a piston to suit the heads they do with the pads removed.

I weld up the oil feed hole and part of the water hole. Use the rb30 gasket as a template for how much to weld. I have seen one that had nothing welded on the water jacket and did seal, it only had about 1.5mm sealing on one edge though, you're safer to weld it up and shape the hole to suit the gasket. You shouldn't need to take much off the head face once it's welded, just enough to make it flat where it's been welded.