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(S//NP)3.0L Buick V6 Destroker Build (eventually an 81 Regal to put it in)

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  • (S//NP)3.0L Buick V6 Destroker Build (eventually an 81 Regal to put it in)

    Howdy,

    If you want the backstory on the portion markings (S//NP), check out my LSR section thread.

    I'm decided to go racing and chase some small displacement Classic records. Since I'm not planning on racing this year, I'm still trying to get the Riviera cruiseable, and I put my family ahead of this hobby; I'm taking the slow route of getting it together. Much like TSB and his OHC Six thread starting with an engine and a car joining later, I'll add the 81 Regal that'll be the home of this motor at some point in the future.

    Basic Specs:
    Block, just agreed to buy a complete 70K mile 82 Grand Prix motor complete from a guy who's changing directions with a 4x4 project.
    Crank, modified 3.0L OEM crank. Rods turned down to 2.20 from 2.25 and a solid radius put on the crank to strengthen it. It's a 2.66in stroke vs. the 3.40 of a 3.8L.
    Rods, 6.385in BBC rods narrowed to fit the Buick journals and the small ends offset bushed down to 0.927 SBC pins and to bring the C-C length down to ~6.375. The slop is dependent on the final deck height to nail the 0.040in piston to head clearance with the 0.035in gaskets.
    Pistons, old BMS TRW flattops in 3.800in bore. Old school, heavy, but near indestructable.
    Heads, some form of stock heads. I have home ported (maybe butchered) GN heads and a set of complete older heads, a set of 1.745/1.5 SS valves (oversized). Will probably have beehive springs and Ti retainers to keep the valvetrain stable at rpm.
    Intake, massaged 4.1L OEM intake with an spreadbore adapter for a 600cfm double pumper modified for blow through. Steve Morris Engines carb bonnet with as tall of a spacer under the bonnet as I can fit to get the air straight before the carb.
    Headers, KB/ATR style units since I like the cross over design better than the stockers.
    Turbo, stock GN turbo. Already have one and it's good for 300hp and still spool on the low end. Might upgrade depending on performance.

    Variables:
    Cam, solid roller but since they are billet and expensive, I'm working with a big Turbo6 builder on seeing if he can fine a good used one that fits the application.
    Rockers, definately rollers to keep them stable at rpm but ratio will likely be determined by either a used set coming available or coilbind on the springs.
    Oiling, getting my hands on a mid 90's Rover timing cover that has a gerotor pump in it to experiment with. Definately going to add extra oil returns to the pan from the heads. Might block off the lifter valley to keep the drainback off of the rotating assembly.
    Flexplate, probably a custom unit, depends on the crank pattern compared to the RWD parts and balance factors.
    Block stability, thinking about doing a half fill on the block and/or adding a steel girdle to try and increase the crank's stability. The builder I'm working with doesn't like girdles, he doesn't think they add much to strengthening the main webs which are the block weakness. Haven't asked him about hardblock on a well seasoned block.

    Well this has gone on long enough, I'll get pictures of a good cross section of my parts tomorrow just because.
    Central TEXAS Sleeper
    USAF Physicist

    ROA# 9790

  • #2
    Sounds like a good plan! Looking forward to pics of your project.

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    • #3
      Well weather has delayed the delivery of the first round of parts I ordered so maybe pictures tonight of what I have stashed away from building the engine in the Riv.

      Really need to decide if I want to run the older heads (will have 2 sets of stockers) or chance it on the home ported (not by me) GN heads.
      Central TEXAS Sleeper
      USAF Physicist

      ROA# 9790

      Comment


      • #4
        I've been waiting for this one. Thanks for posting.
        I'm still learning

        Comment


        • #5
          Photo shoot canceled. Littlest one is having a rough night and we are expecting a blizzard (again), so I'm going to head to bed early. Did buy most of the stuff needed to get the engine home from the dude I'm buying it from up in Denver.
          Central TEXAS Sleeper
          USAF Physicist

          ROA# 9790

          Comment


          • #6
            Like the solid roller....my engine guy had same sentiments on the girdle.
            Looking forward to progress .....motor stuff is fun.
            Thom

            "The object is to keep your balls on the table and knock everybody else's off..."

            Comment


            • #7
              That's a negative on pictures though I did get the pistons in. The reason being is that I took leave today to take care of a sick wife and used some of the time while kids where napping to call vendors recommended to me by my contacts after the local shop balked at my BBC connecting rod idea. Well tonight I was about to take pictures when I decided that, no offense, it was a better idea to concentrate on the details than the showing off to my online friends.

              Well I measured the pistons compression height and got a shock, well really I made a big mistake in the first place so the shock was really the measurement then realizing what I did wrong. I had for some reason carried forward using the specs off of cast replacement Buick 3.0L V6 pistons which have a 1.808in compression height. 3.8L pistons have a 1.835in nominal compression height. The old school TRW slugs I have have a 1.874in compression height! See the huge difference between 1.808 and 1.874! This means my calculation for rods is all sorts of off! Instead of being near a BBC 6.385in rod I'm closer to a standard Buick V6 stroker rod of 6.350in which come with 0.927in SBC pins which guess what, match my pistons pin size. Now the rods are close but still not perfect, "assuming" a blueprint deck height of the later blocks (which have a shorter deck height), the piston and rod combo puts them 0.032in above the deck. However since I have old school HEAVY TRW pistons, they have MASSIVELY thick crowns on them. The local machine shop brought it up that I can shave the crowns down as long as I keep the thickness above the top ringland at >0.150in. This really means I can shave the pistons down to fit the deck height, gasket thickness, and piston to head clearance. I can do this at home mind you since I have a mill.
              REF: http://youtu.be/AhgeOhAtd48?t=7s

              Now I just have to get the engine to figure out the deck height, buy the off the shelf rods, figure out a gasket thickness, and find professional advice on how thick to keep the crown above the ring land and how much of a camfer to put on the lip of the piston.

              Another side note is that since the pistons have ~6.5cc's of valve reliefs (pistons are so cool that you can see the valve relief forgings on the underside of the piston), cutting the crown down will bring my compression up from the ~8.83 with the current valve reliefs to where I want it at around 9.5. Will also have to find pins for these pistons and I don't think I have the measurement equipment to do that. I think I'll take the pistons down to the machine shop and have them run the full spec on them official.

              I've agreed to buy a second hand mechanical roller but the specs are classified CRITICAL TURBO WEAPON DESIGN INFO (play on the classification CNWDI or Critical Nuclear Weapons Design Information). Lets just say it's big compared with my 212/212 hydrallic roller off the shelf cam in my Riviera. To support them I got a set of old Kenne Bell roller rockers that have the expensive bits but are missing the minor stuff so folks didn't want to touch them. Estimated cost to refurb them plus buy the parts is still only 75% of a set of new roller rockers.

              Now I know that religion isn't supposed to really be mentioned but God has truely guided this behind the scenes. There are so many places where what should have been a rash purchase that blew up in my face has turned into a major blessing in disguise. I'll just leave it at that.

              Pictures most likely tomorrow.
              Last edited by CTX-SLPR; February 27, 2013, 10:02 PM.
              Central TEXAS Sleeper
              USAF Physicist

              ROA# 9790

              Comment


              • #8
                PICTURES!!!

                Picture 1: Buick Motorsports (TRW's really) Stage I high compression pistons, these things are meaty
                Picture 2-4: My collection of 1 piece SS valves. Nice pieces, the stems are back cut and they look ready for a nice multi angle valvejob. Intake 1.745 Exhaust: 1.5in Pretty close to the largest valves to fit in stock heads and a 3.8in bore.
                Picture 5: 4.1L OEM 4bbl intake that I'm going to open up the carb pad to match the underside of the carb adapter I'll have to use to get a 600DP on it.

                That's all for now. Pictures of th engine when I haul it home.
                Attached Files
                Central TEXAS Sleeper
                USAF Physicist

                ROA# 9790

                Comment


                • #9
                  DIY Chamber CC'ing

                  So I really wanted to know how big the valve reliefs were on the pistons I'd bought so I can get 1 step closer to figureing out compression ratio. Since these were factory parts and designed for factory heads doing some work with a set of calipers told me they were set up to take pretty much the maximum size of valves you can put in the factory heads but I needed to know the exact (sorta) volume.

                  So I dug through the scrap piles all around the house and came up with a workable setup.

                  Materials:
                  Sheet of clear plastic or plexi
                  Vasoline
                  Childrens medicine syringe
                  Cup of water
                  Drill bits; one slightly smaller than the head of the syringe, the other pretty much as tiny as you can get

                  Step 1: Mock up the plastic plate on the piston top so you can put the big hole in the middle of the area you want to measure (or in my case, the middle of one of the valve reliefs since it gets really shallow between them) and the small hole barely on the edge of the area. See Picture 1. It's important that you put the small hole just barely overlapping the area so that it lets air out but water comes out after everything is full.

                  Step 2: Drill the holes, if you have a big enough piece you don't really have to get too accurate with the hole locations. They can be adjusted later.

                  Step 3: Coat the perimeter of the area you want to measure with vasoline, not too thick since you don't want to add volume or push it into the area to measure but enough that you know you have a continuous seal. See Pictures 2 and 3.

                  Step 4: Align the holes as mentioned in Step 1 and press the plate down so it makes a good seal and minimizes the extra volume. See Picture 4.

                  Step 5: Fill childrens medicine syringe with water and get rid of all the air bubbles. Then make sure you have it at a known marking on the syringe. Mine is a 0-5cc unit so I started with 5cc's. Put the syringe tip in the hole and slowly fill the area with water. See Picture 5.

                  Step 6: Fill the area till water barely comes up in the vent hole. If this takes a few syringes full, make sure to count how many you used. Subtract final amount left in the syringe from the amount you started, add any full syringe quantities and you have your area's volume. See Picture 6.

                  Alternatively you can make the hole bigger than the syringe head and just squirt it in but I found it easier to seal it and then tilt the piston so that the vent hole was higher than the injection hole and surface tension kept it from going out till I over filled the area.
                  Results is my pistons have 3.5cc's of valve reliefs.
                  Attached Files
                  Central TEXAS Sleeper
                  USAF Physicist

                  ROA# 9790

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Howdy,

                    What a change talking to a good local speedshop/engine builder can make! I've been talked out of using a blowthrough carb by the local speedshop/engine builder who has actually been to Bonneville and run over 200mph. My goals of ~145-150 are staggeringly short of that but still experience weighs heavily here. He showed me an Enderle version of Ron's Flying Toilet that greatly intrigued me. It really opened my eyes to MFI not being just stacks and dedicated manifolding. While that might be better it's not likely required for my goals. I'm also still trying to get my head wrapped around the fuel flow increase due to boost.

                    The intake I'm debating over going with a heavily modified OEM/aftermarket 4bbl with an elbow and TB or a converted 86-87 EFI intake. Right now I'm leaning towards the EFI intake since it's a relatively proven design (though with some distrobution issues) that's been to 1000hp. It's also dry flow so I'm not stuck with wet flow compromises. However they seem to be ~$200 apiece though that's roughly on par with a good aftermarket 4bbl intake with little fabrication required.

                    The fuel enrichment I have a few ideas... Pretty much all of them seem to require adding another set of injectors though. The most expensive but most likely to work straight off is a setup from Travis Quillen that would be a rather complete setup of nozzles, barrel valve, and fuel management valve for the boost. Similiarly there is a Boost Sensor Valve from Hilborn that seems a bit more roll your own but takes boost pressure and adds fuel though it might work by restricting the return from the barrell valve. There is practically 0 documentation I've found on how it works but the pictures that come up with a search for it show double injectors. The final and I must say home grown idea is a modified application of a Bosch K-Jetronic MFI fuel distibutor which instead of being attached to a big flapper like air sensor, would be attached to an aneroid or some other form of mechanical boost sensor and add fuel based on that. This idea could also be made to work as the sole injector control unit but I'm not sure how much I like the idea of the big air flapper being in my intake stream.
                    Last edited by CTX-SLPR; March 17, 2013, 07:51 PM.
                    Central TEXAS Sleeper
                    USAF Physicist

                    ROA# 9790

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      More scrounging has turned up good quality parts that means I've got less compromises in parts that I'll later have to replace but forces a change in plans for the build a bit.

                      A guy I know in Dayton that collects the oddest pieces of Buick Stage II V6 parts by buying large lots of items and picking out what he needed and then sitting on/selling the rest. He has an old Buick Motorsports 2.66in stroke forged crank, but it's an Oddfire setup meaning that it has shared pins like a V8. Originally I thought this was going to be a problem, especially since it's setup for 2.100in SBC rods. However the more I dug around and the more I looked into what it would take to rework an OEM Evenfire crank to work, the less what he was originally asking stung and required in custom parts.
                      I got back to him a few days ago and asked him if he had a matching solid roller cam and if he could come down on the price of the crank. The answer was rather surprising, he let the crank and a cam go for basically the cost of shipping the crank over his original price and included shipping!

                      It's now a 181cid Oddfire V6 with old BMS forged pistons and crank with some form of forged SBC rod in the middle. Still production heads with bigger valves, solid roller valve train, and some form of stock block.
                      This weekend I'm hitting up the local junkyard looking for a FWD V6 intake that I'm going to cut the top off of and build an upper plenum for more volume and to turn the TB around now that one of the guys on the project has access to a TIG, an Oddfire distributor, and a 94-95 Rover Discovery timing cover which has a distributor hole but uses a gerotor oil pump.
                      I've got to find a block that will work so I can get the deck height and get the crank in hand to determine the final specs for the rods so I know what will fit. I'll definately be scrounging around seeing if I can find a set on Racingjunk or eBay!

                      Pictures of the Kenne Bell (T&D) rockers I got on Friday.
                      Central TEXAS Sleeper
                      USAF Physicist

                      ROA# 9790

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Mailed the check over the weekend for the crank, solid roller cam, and distributor.

                        TA vendor is putting together a package of other parts for me so I can start mocking up stuff once I get a block.

                        I'm hitting the junkyard this weekend for a Rover Discovery timing cover, FWD intake, and the hunt for a complete standard bore RWD 3.8 if I can find it. Depending on time and weather I might pack the dial bore indicator to pull heads and check cylinders.
                        Central TEXAS Sleeper
                        USAF Physicist

                        ROA# 9790

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Been busy spending that money on parts and what a productive time it has been! Been busying working on the intake so that's all I've snapped pictures of but I've either bought or pulled (well I guess I bought it that way too) a good bit of the parts I need for this project.

                          2.66in Oddfire crank: At the crank grinder in Denver, going to call him tomorrow or Tuesday to find out what it looks like.
                          Oddfire points distributor: In hand and in pretty good shape. Need to get a new rotor and cap and consult with the speed shop about what ignition system to put in it vs. the points. It already has the vacuum advance pulled and locked out.
                          95 Rover 3.9L Discovery timing cover: in hand (what an ordeal it was to get the dang balancer bolt off) and I've double checked the distributor fitment so that is good. I'll check the crank and block fitment when I get them. Crank looks like it will work fine, from memory the block fitment looks like I have 2 bolt holes on the outside of the water pump holes that aren't covered and I'd have to plug but otherwise looks like it will fit. This gets me a gerotor oil pump since I really hate the stock spur gear setup.
                          Oddfire Solid Roller Cam: In hand and it's got some staining and maybe some very light surface rust on it, no big think from my limited experience. Definately a big stick! Will have the speed shop check it out. I need all the nose and retension hardware so we'll see what we come up with.

                          Intake: This is a stock FWD off of an 85 3.0L which shares the heads I have so complete bolt on.


                          I'm giving it a shave and a hair cut so that I can turn the throttlebody around so it's facing the front instead of the rear and add some plenum volume.


                          This is my first real semi educated adventure with my milling machine so I made mistakes all the way through but am overall happy with the results. I'm waiting on my new fly cutters to show up so I can buy the right sized cutters and actually flatten the top surface.


                          Definately not to scale but this is the basic idea of what I'm going to do for a plenum and probably use the LT1 TB I already have since well I already have it and it will allow me to make a taller plenum with the existing hood clearance.


                          One of the oops' that I'm going to have to figure out how to repair is where I didn't check everything before I started milling and baddly got into the water jacket behind the thermostat. Now I'd like to cut the entire bulge out but that wouldn't leave room for the thermostat itself so I'm likely going to have to either have it welded shut or more likely do a mix of machined plate and epoxy to close the hole and the adjacent EGR hole from where I milled the tower off.

                          Central TEXAS Sleeper
                          USAF Physicist

                          ROA# 9790

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Oh, YES!!

                            I dig it when someone jumps in with both feet.
                            I'm still learning

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                            • #15
                              tap it or put a welch plug in it?
                              Flying south, with a flock of bird dogs.

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