Alright, haven't revisted the heads...working on getting the bottom end ready for balancing tomorrow. My plan was to measure the end play and deckheight tonight, but things didn't exactly go as planned.
First off, my Scat Flywheel doesn't want to mate up with my no-brand forged crank. Not overly surprised here, it does say made in China
. Each of the dowels is in the right spot, just appears to be a wee bit too tight of a fit. A light tap with the dead-blow didn't do anything, so I didn't bother playing around with it. It's going to a machine shop tomorrow for balancing, let them fix it!
Here's my "deck height"...I'm assuming I'm going to have to start with shims in order to sort these out? I placed one of my V-blocks across the piston and measured the height between the piston and edge of the cylinder. 1, 2 & 3 are 0.007", #4 is 0.008". Well, for what those numbers are worth. The cylinder's are just 'resting' on the case (couldn't torque them down without making something on the lathe, lathe is across town).
So here is where I get stuck...sort of. I figured after measuring the deck-height I would have a theoretical compression ratio and thus a starting point for a discussion on what I should be aiming for. But since I have to shim just to get the clearance Bentley calls for, I guess we should start that discussion now? Final build is a 1776 and I'd prefer to run on regular gas. I put 45,000 miles on the bug last year so overall life of the engine is more important then absolute power. What should I be aiming for, and thus what barrel shims should I be ordering to start with?
At some point it's going to come up, so here's the build specs:
- Mahle Forged 90.5mm pistons and cylinder set
- 69mm Forged and counterweighted crank (no name, cip chinese made)
- Scat i-beam rods
- Scat C20 Cam
- Kadron 40mm dual carbs (yet to be purchased)
Let me know what else is relevant and I'll post it up.
-Dave