I took the block to Gary, my machinist, and the cylinder bores were
not unduly trashed. I'll be able to stay with .040 over. Gary will
hone the bores, clean and check everything including the cylinder
head. Gary also reccomended that I stick with Venolia pistons, as they
seem to be the most popular brand among other folks who hotrod MGs. I
asked him about Mahle, he said that they were very expensive and
primarily used by the BMW and Porsche folks.
One friend did reccomend bead blasting the top of the piston and
the combustion chamber to make sure that there were no sharp edges. I
wonder if Venolia would "radius" the corner where they dish out the
piston, and if that would be worth the bother.
I took the crankd to Armando Ayala (Custom Crank Repair) on Broadway
in Redwood City. He was reccomended by the machine shop that Dema
Elgin used to own, and everyone I've talked to who knew about him has
said good things. Gary's comment was "I've heard nothing but good
about him". He checked my crank. No serious cracks, though there were
some signs of heat checking. He's going to clean it up, heat treat it,
grind it .030 under (it's now .020) and radius the corners. He says
that there is no strength problem going .030 under. For what it's
worth, this will run me $425.
When Armando saw the bearings, his comment was "What did you do to
pound them like that? Nitrous?" Note to self, if that is a competent
machinists expectation of nitrous, don't use nitrous.
There is an interesting thread going on about hi flow oil pumps at:
http://www2.mgcars.org.uk/cgi-bin/gen5?runprog=mgbbs&mode=thread&access=41748614900012&subject=71&source=T&thread=2003061105440329544
My understanding of high flow oil pumps is that if my oil pressure
guage reads that the oil pressure is at the value that the relief
valve is dumping, then more flow won't do me any good as it just gets
dumped out the relief valve. On the other hand, if I'm not running at
the limit of the valve, then more flow is a good thing, if for no
other reason than it keeps the oil next to the bearings cooler.
So, Jasmine's going to be off the road for at least a month while I'm
waiting for pistons, crank etc. In the meantime, I'm looking for a
Miata as an interim daily driver, eventually to turn into a Spec Miata
so I can have something to race that won't be quite such a bother if
it got rolled up into a little ball. I checked out one Miata last
night that seemed like a pretty clean '91 base model, that I could
have gotten for $2100. Unfortnately it didn't have several things I'd
like (hardtop, Limited Slip, alloy wheels, roll bar/cage) and wouldn't
be available for another week anyways.
--
Girling is not a verb.
lrc@red4est.com http://www.red4est.com/lrc
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