Jason's "built" D24T engine build

[Jason]

Well, here is the begining of my "built" engine for my Volvo. My engine is just about worn the hell out, it has tons of blow by and is having a pretty hard time starting when hot. I can see the writing on the wall for it, I know by this fall it won't be starting in the cold weather...

This engine came out of Alex's '85 and had 173k miles on it. The car seemed to be pretty well maintained, and was all stock when we got it. It appears to have never overheated, and the head had never been off it as far as I can tell. It has never been machined for sure. Pretty virgin starting point which is nice. Upon getting it apart, the rings are totally gone, many were broke, and some were worn down to almost nothing (see pics). The bottom end is like new though! It doesn't even need rod bearings, but its getting new ones anyway... I'll be dropping the block off in a few days at a local machine shop to have it hot tanked and dipped (they have a acid tank for cast iron blocks that makes them come out looking new).

Plans for the engine include:
basic rebuild with new bearings, rings, rebuilt head with new valves, guides, min fly cut, etc...

rebuilt rods, shot peened, and balanced

balanced pistons

balanced crank (going to take it and have it checked/balanced if need be on a sunnen crank balancing machine at a local shop)

port and polish job on the head (by me, nothing major, just clean up/smooth out on the intake ports, very minor work on the exhaust ports)

NA cam

ARP head studs and rod bolts

I'll be painting the whole thing CAT yellow.. I know I know, its a green block, but I haven't found a green that really looks like the original color, and I kinda like the industrial look that the cat yellow has. Don't worry, I'll still be telling everyone its a vw diesel, but at least people when they look at it will probably automaticly think its a diesel, and NOT a gasser.

Heres some pics:

[Jason]

This engine will also be getting my hotrod injection pump that I'll be building, but not untill after its running with my current pump and broken in. I've got a couple spares and am planning on building one with a Cummins 12mm head, and a 2.8mm lift cam plate. Also planning on doing a HE351 turbo of a common rail Cummins with the bigger pump. I'm hoping to make 250 to the wheels...

Jason

[ngoma]

Wow, those rings are pretty worn for 173k miles. What do you think caused them to break?

I think the cat yellow will look sharp. You could carry the color theme and paint the new diff. cat yellow also.

[cuaz64]

Interesting Build. Good Luck!

[Jason]

Thanks... Hopefull it puts down some power. I got the head apart all the way last night... Quite a bit of room for improvement in the ports. Hopefully the port and polish job will help extract some more power out of it.

Jason

[Slobodan]

Jason, you are doing some kickass stuff. Keep up the good work, I can't wait to see how it turns out for you, the port and polish.

[Jason]

Thanks!

Wish I had a flow bench at work to see before and after... There is a guy on vwdiesel.net that had his head done, (for a 1.6 build) and it was flowed. They got a pretty sizeable increase in flow out of it. I'm not quite that worried about it to pay to have it flowed though. I've done plenty of head work, I know there will be an improvement.

Jason

[Jason]

Here's a couple pics of the head. Just finnished the port and polish job tonight. Didn't get real crazy with it, just smoothed out the casting lines in the ports, and mostly cleaned up the material under the valve seats. All the ports had a sharp edge from the seat pocket being cut. The exhausts were worse than the intakes interestingly. I removed the ridge around those areas and blended from the seat into the port. Kinda hard to see in the pics, the camera flash really doesn't get down into the port very well. As you can see in the last pic, the head is all cleaned up, and now ready for the new guides to be installed. Its getting all new guides, and a 3 angle valve job next! As Alex likes to say, its my thousand dollar racing head...lol




The exhaust port in the one pic looks all out of shape... its how the light is hitting it, I was trying to get close to the intake port as you can see down it the best with the camera flash. I took at least 10 pics and they all sucked.

[Jason]

Head update: I installed all 12 guides and reamed them. The head is now getting the 3 angle valve job and should be done by the end of the week.

I just ordered piston rings today, and hope to assemble the short block this weekend if the rings show up. I still need to order a water pump, a couple misc gaskets and the head studs.

The project may take a little break as I don't really have the $$ for the studs. I just got married and we paid for the wedding. Kinda put a drain on the finances!

Jason

[v8volvo]

Congrats on the wedding!

Assume you are going oversize on the pistons... What kind of rings are you going to use? Just the standard Mahle stuff, or whatever comes on the pistons? Or have you considered using Total Seal rings? I looked into them at one point and decided against it due to expense but it might be worth considering for an engine that is going to put down a lot of power.

Also I would be sure to use a proper quality water pump, not a GMB, so that you are moving enough coolant to keep it cool. RockAuto sells Bosch pumps that are actually excellent quality. We ordered one and it turned out even nicer than the OEM-quality Graf I got from Tom. Nice smooth impeller casting, better than the Graf, and the Graf was good too. I would use a Bosch next time.

You might also considering sending your rods to Tom and having him set you up with a matched set of rods and pistons. There is a fair amount of variation in length and weight for rod+piston assemblies which can cause differences in compression between cylinders, difficulty selecting a headgasket thickness, etc. Tom has a massive collection and can make you a set of 6 that are matched for closest possible length and weight. If you are going to the trouble of building a nice motor I would do this to give it that extra little bit of smoothness and flexibility.