In a message dated 3/6/2001 3:51:57 PM, spmdr@juno.com writes:
<< *******Tell me about the Alpine copper head gasket and water
passages.*******
DW PS you are leaving out Larry Young of current Alpine
racers! >>
Yes I did. It was inadvertent.
I have been doing Alpine engine developement work over the last several
years. Having always raced a 1725, I was curious of the development limits of
the 1600. Over two years ago, I went through a lengthy and expensive project
to develope a 1600 race engine. Seperate from the curiosity, I can run in a
different race group with the smaller engine with one of the sanctioning
bodies I race with. They group cars by period correctness and age. The group
I run in with this engine is Pre 1963, period authentic.
The 1600 is an excellent engine. Some of the history of the engine
development is on Ian's site. You can access it from what I think is the
archives or previous features link. I invite to check it out. This engine has
been revved beyond 6500 rpms and has well over 100 hours of racing on it. It
still runs strong to red line, has 35 lbs of oil pressure hot at idle, and is
dead on reliable.
Now on to the current developement work. At SUNI 2 Carl Christiansen was
telling me how Huffaker had developed a 160Bhp engine for his car. He had the
video to prove it in as much as he was flat blowing the MGBs and Porches in
the weeds. He subsequently went to Ireland for the Isle of Man races and
wrote an article about the 2 liter Alpines in Europe he raced against.
The game was a foot so to speak, and I began the process of developing a BIG
Alpine engine. Many discussions took place with Jarrid and others on the
list. My machine shop guys and I have put a full court press on building this
monster. The bore of the engine is now 3.375 i.e. .165ths over bore and the
stroke is 3.350, .100 ths stroked. If the math is correct we have 120CID or
1965cc s.
The stock Alpine headgasket is not usuable. So I paid Mordy Dunst to ACAD a
gasket for a 1725 at .040 0verbore as the stock gasket can handle this. We
then mocked this up to the 3.375 bore and blue lined where the gasket was too
small. As you know the cylinder head chamber is eliptical, and we need to
remove only those surfaces that hang into the bore. I doing this the stock
crescent shaped water passages in the head and head gasket lead us an
insufficient sealing area.
We are going to weld the head water passages and the two block water passages
and redrill them. Additionally we are going to angle the openings. So, Mordy
is laying up a couple of gaskets without the crescent shaped openings and we
will make the openings once we have the block and head configured.
Our original goal was to shoot for 12:1 compression, but we have backed off
of this. I have become concerned about how HOT this baby will run. I had a
triple row radiator made up for the 1600 engine and I hope it is enough.
This maybe a little rambling and my english is not up to par, but I welcome
any input or ideas. I owe a lot of this to the discussions Jarrid Gross and I
have had over the last several years.
ZAG
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