V11 Daytona project

[Admin Jaap]

Yep, working on it

[Lucky Phil]

3 hours ago, Admin Jaap said:

Yep, working on it

Images added....thanks Jaap.

 

Ciao

[Lucky Phil]

Moved on to the heads today while I wait for a new OP relief spring. I have 2 brand new l/h camshafts so I'm good for that head but I wanted to check the cam lobe taper to be sure I'll get the lifter rotation I need when the engine is running. I had heard a long while back that the factory cams can be ground without any taper due to poor quality.

So I chucked up a new L/H can and dialed it up. The manual says it should have and 8' angle on the lobe so a 20mm wide lobe by may calculation should have a .046mm taper across the face. The std new cam came up at .040 so close enough.

 

The R/H lobes are another matter. The exhaust isnt too bad, its got the taper but some wear in the center of the lobe.

The inlet however isnt quite so good. No taper and center wear. I'll have a more comprehensive look at these and see where on the lobe the wear and lack of taper begins and ends and decide what action to take. Hopefully I'll be able to use a diamond lap and correct them by hand. 

Ciao

 

[Lucky Phil]

So today I looked at the cams and lifters again. I have a couple of used r/h cams, one I believe any normal person would use again without a second thought and one that any decent engineer would not. Which isnt to say I'm thrilled to use the acceptable one but thats the life of the pedantic. I checked the new lifters for correct finish and found them all good.

The V10 engine has a reputation for being hard on lifters and valve guides so I'm paying particular attention to this area hence the preoccupation with such matters as lifter and cam profile.It doesnt help that I dont know the actual mileage of the engine originally and I also have parts from another engine of unknown mileage.

No one has a definitive answer to this issue so everything needs to be examined. The cam lobes on this engine are lubricated via a small 1mm dia hole in the camshaft between the lobes. The cam itself is housed in what could be best described as a bathtub arrangement. Oil is fed from a main head gallery into the center of the camshaft and it then squirts out of the lube hole and keeps the bathtub filled which the lobes dip into on each rotation and it also squirts a bit of oil into the general head area.

Its not a system I'm totally in love with as I'd much prefer to have the oil distributed directly to the opening ramps of each lobe, but it is what it is.

Interestingly on my unusable r/h cam I found the small 1mm oil feed hole almost totally blocked so that explains the wear I guess.

Whats really important with this engine is to make sure you have plenty of cam lube on the lobes before its first start AND the bathtub the cams sit in is filled with oil. I'm wondering if a lot of the cam and lifter issues stem from poor attention to these areas at the factory as you can toast a lifter and lobe in the first 30 seconds of operation if you haven't prepared. 

Lifter faces all good. radias is something like 76 feet but they all measured up at 0.06mm across the face ctr to edge.

  Here's the cam lube hole that was almost totally blocked.   

Here's what was blocking it. One of the 2 pieces on the left is what I found. They were some form of organic material and I had no idea from where but in one of those crazy moments where the universe provides you with an answer from, well somewhere, I found the source. If only the universe stepped up for something really meaningful.   

Not more than 5 minutes after finding the partially blocked oil feed hole ( partially blocked as in a 1mm drill needed to be pushed with force to clear it although a bright torch shined in the hole still showed a little light in the main cam gallery) I was looking at the main head gallery where the blanking plug is fitted and at the inside end of the threads I found stuck there the piece of the material shown on the right of the pieces that blocked the hole. its the thread sealant the factory used on the oil gallery blanking plug. It looks a little less translucent  in the photo because it thicker in section but its the same stuff.

My wife often wonders why I'm awake thinking at 3am.

  Ciao

[Chuck]

My wife often wonders why I'm awake thinking at 3am.

 

I've always said I do my best work in bed.. Good find, and a cautionary note to remind us that if a little sealer is good, a lot is not.

[Kevin_T]

Phil, I'd like to ask you a few questions, but I haven't got into the motor yet so some of them maybe darn right silly. First I want to thank you for Joe Caruso e-mail address. I seen a couple of people had his @ntlworld wrong.  Joe is sending me the improved pump and gears so I'll have some more direct knowledge in a while.

  You said your big end bearing journal was just fine no scouring or wasn't oval. So I'd imagine the oil pressure was okish, but the journal on the camshaft you were indicating the lobe seemed to have some scouring. Do you think there might be some general oil restriction to the heads? I put an oil pressure gauge on my and found about 53 psi, but once the oil cooler kick in pressure dropped to 43 psi at best no matter rpm's. That seemed to be system wide the lines to feed the heads could cause the pressure to drop even further. I've just took my readings where the oil sending unit is and not at a point on the heads themselves. Maybe someone has some real numbers?

   Rocker arm geometry looks a little off maybe its an optical illusion, the tappet end of the rocker arm seems past the point of being perpendicular. Once the rocker arm gets on that side of its arc it becomes a real sweeping motion. Have you tried any layout dye across the top of the valves and tappets(tappet might rotate)? You said you had a valve guide that was .030 oversize, maybe the motor is sensitive in that respect. I don't think I've encountered a guide with that much wear. 

[Lucky Phil]

5 hours ago, Kevin_T said:

Phil, I'd like to ask you a few questions, but I haven't got into the motor yet so some of them maybe darn right silly. First I want to thank you for Joe Caruso e-mail address. I seen a couple of people had his @ntlworld wrong.  Joe is sending me the improved pump and gears so I'll have some more direct knowledge in a while.

  You said your big end bearing journal was just fine no scouring or wasn't oval. So I'd imagine the oil pressure was okish, but the journal on the camshaft you were indicating the lobe seemed to have some scouring. Do you think there might be some general oil restriction to the heads? I put an oil pressure gauge on my and found about 53 psi, but once the oil cooler kick in pressure dropped to 43 psi at best no matter rpm's. That seemed to be system wide the lines to feed the heads could cause the pressure to drop even further. I've just took my readings where the oil sending unit is and not at a point on the heads themselves. Maybe someone has some real numbers?

   Rocker arm geometry looks a little off maybe its an optical illusion, the tappet end of the rocker arm seems past the point of being perpendicular. Once the rocker arm gets on that side of its arc it becomes a real sweeping motion. Have you tried any layout dye across the top of the valves and tappets(tappet might rotate)? You said you had a valve guide that was .030 oversize, maybe the motor is sensitive in that respect. I don't think I've encountered a guide with that much wear. 

Hi Kevin, I have 3 different sets of heads and and 2 sets of valve gear plus brand new and second hand inlet cams and a couple of used exhaust cams. Unfortunately I dont have knowledge of the mileage traveled by these engines so its hard for me to  draw a conclusion about wear rates. I had never seen so much guide wear as the original set of heads I have either.

One exhaust cam is scuffed a little and the other has minor wear and one set of used lifters I have seem usable and one set trashed. In general the cams seem to survive better than the lifters. Both are chilled cast iron material I believe. 

Having said that I think in general the valve guide wear and lifter wear rates could be better. You read about some owners that have trashed lifters at 20,000 klms and others that are still going at 100,000. The guide wear is down to the valves I believe mainly. If you use plasma nitrided micro polished valves then the guide wear will be ok although I did investigate the rocker geometry a few years ago and wasn't too impressed. Hard to correct that though. I was toying with the idea of roller lifters and cams like a later Grisso motor with the mini pushrods and roller tips on the rockers as well but then you would need to have shim adjustment of the clearances and it got too hard. In the end I admitted to myself that my engine isn't going to be doing a lot of miles and I already had a set of new std valves so thats what I'm using. If I had to buy new valves I'd go with the afore mentioned ones for sure and the guide wear will be largely eliminated.

The other thing I was considering was drilling a lube hole in each cam faces on the opening ramp to put the oil directly onto the cam lobe face to help with the lifter wear.

I'm going to put together a nice set of std heads and down the track I might go all out on a second set with all or some of my ideas.

Oil pressure? well in my view 43 psi is probably enough in the grand scheme of things for a road engine. By that I mean that it shouldn't cause a failure. Heads dont need as much oil supply as you might think and many engines over the years have required oil feed to the heads be restricted for racing. Honda RC30's are an example of an engine that put too much oil into the heads at the expense of the crank in the early days. That and tight rod clearances. Interestingly I and Chuck in his aero engine are and were having difficulty with the oil pressure relief valve cracking too early. My spring seems to have sagged somewhat and I have a new one on the way. When I receive it I'll let everyone know whether or not that's the issue. The Daytona engine has the biggest oil pump Guzzi fitted to the original type big blocks as well and a taller drive ration. Guzziology did a lot of investigation into all the big block oil pressures, worth a read.  

The OPR valve could be something to look at in your engine as its easyish to remove. Watch this space to see what I find with the spring and preload and lapping of the valve.

Its where the oil supply to the head on the V10 is directed that's probably of more concern to me and could use improving. I think its important with this engine as I mentioned previously that the cam well that the lobes sit in is filled with oil before you attempt to start a fresh engine and the lobes are well lubricated with a cam assembly lube. 

 

Ciao

[Lucky Phil]

L/H head ready to fit.

One for the detail people and if it ever arises for those getting inside a 4 valver. Different spring retainers and although not really apparent in the image fractionally different keepers. The black retainers were from a pair of heads I bought from Paul Minnaert and are slightly different in dimension to the silver ones from my original engine. The keepers are also a slightly blacker tone and have slightly different dimensions. It may be just different time and suppliers but I kept the black keepers with the black retainers and likewise. Using the black ones gave less spring pre-load and would have required shimming the valve springs. The black keepers with the silver retainers also didnt produce a solid feel when installed without the springs as there was a slight rocking. Fine with like ones.I used the silver ones in the end.  

New rockers pins and adjusters ready to fit after the head go on.

Ciao

[czakky]

So complex with all those valves

[Lucky Phil]

2 hours ago, czakky said:

So complex with all those valves

Component rich:)

Ciao

[pete roper]

On 3/26/2019 at 1:10 PM, czakky said:

So complex with all those valves

It's interesting how much simpler the second generation Hi-Cam is compared to the original. While Carcano's  swansong is undoubtably a tour de force in 1960's design terms it is also complex and, in many ways, a fragile thing. The Nuovo Hi-Cam in comparison is not only incredibly simple but also astonishingly robust! If they hadn't chosen to save a few dollars a bike by downgrading to flat tappets and rendering the top end a ticking time bomb it really could of been an 'Engine for the ages'. Alas it wasn't to be. The bean counters did for it and now we're seemingly stuck with boring, Uber-conservative, dreary motive units until after I'm dead!

I weep!

[czakky]

Carcano’s swan song?

Was the hi-cam Carcano’s?

[Chuck]

44 minutes ago, czakky said:

Carcano’s swan song?

Was the hi-cam Carcano’s?

Todero did the development work on the high cam, but the basic powerplant is still the old Carcano architecture.

[Lucky Phil]

12 hours ago, pete roper said:

It's interesting how much simpler the second generation Hi-Cam is compared to the original. While Carcano's  swansong is undoubtably a tour de force in 1960's design terms it is also complex and, in many ways, a fragile thing. The Nuovo Hi-Cam in comparison is not only incredibly simple but also astonishingly robust! If they hadn't chosen to save a few dollars a bike by downgrading to flat tappets and rendering the top end a ticking time bomb it really could of been an 'Engine for the ages'. Alas it wasn't to be. The bean counters did for it and now we're seemingly stuck with boring, Uber-conservative, dreary motive units until after I'm dead!

I weep!

They got it right in the end though didn't they Pete? I like the Griso roller lifters better than the V10 flat tappet design. You could convert the V10 engine to roller lifters, it wouldn't be outrageously difficult. I looked at it with that old Griso lifter you sent me and then the images you did for the roller conversion. A couple of tricky bits but nothing that someone like Chuck with his machinery and engineering talent couldn't do.    

One thing though, none of them look better than the V10 high cam engine. Its a pretty sexy looking thing.

Ciao

 

[Lucky Phil]

A question for those that have been inside the Daytona engine. Rocker arm side clearances. The original Daytona manual advises 0.2mm clearance with no image support which feels about right. However checking the later Centauro/Daytona manual the text is the same but the image seems to show 0.2mm clearance at each end giving a total clearance of 0.4mm.

Now the shims come in 1.0 and 1.2mm thicknesses and achieving the 0.2mm overall total is close to impossible without making some shims myself. Anyone ever experienced the end float on these? I didnt note the clearances when I pulled the engine down all those years ago and 0.2 seems to "feel"' good while 0.4 "feels"a bit loose. 

Not sure if the manual is saying you measure 0.2 at each end or you can measure either end. Why wouldnt they just give you a total.

 

Ciao