Ramon Spontelli wrote,
>Here are some of the highlights:
>
>1. Buy four rods.
S N I P!
The whole chevy rod thing is quite an elaborate attempt toward engine
nirvana.
It will be rather expensive and will butcher an otherwise perfect crank.
While I certain that this is a great way to extend the capabilities of the
of the Alpine engine, I feel that I should tell of some of the experiences
of other peoples engine woes.
A while back I did a survey of alpine engine failures. Many people replied
with alot of great information.
Along with my survey in this group, I have been occasionally racing my car
and talking with other alpine people at the track ect.
The engine strory goes like this.....
1) The oil pressure bypass valve sticks open on some earlier model
alpines.
When the pressure relief sticks open, you have no oil pressure at idle and
vey little oil presssure at high RPM. This one has bitten me really hard.
This happens to many 4 cyl Rootes cars, and generally snuffs all the engine
bearings, which results in knock or ventalated engine blocks.
2) Rods cap bolts and rods should not be reused 30 times. I dont know how
many times they can safely be reused, but these parts are cheap, so dont
take any chances. Rod bolts eventully stretch and fatigue. All threads
will stretch.
The result can be complete engine failure. I personally know of at least 4
recent catostrophic engie failure where old rod bolts are suspected of
causing the engine failure.
3) Dont reuse questionable components. Bent rods are trash so dont even
bother. If you have spun rod bearings, you must resize the conecting rods
or face spinning them again. Take your internals to the machine shop and
have them inspected. Have your rods checked for trueness and crack checked
"Zyglo, MagnaFlux".
Have your rods shot peened. This relieves the rods surface stress, and
makes the rod stronger.
Alpine engines are not cheap to build, so spend the extra couple of dollars
and be certain you know your engine will last.
4) Alpine engines are not 10000 RPM motors. The true max RPM of the
alpine motor is not too much over 5700 RPM.
With a little bit of performace mods and cearefull engine building, one may
be able to expect 6500 RPM redlines. Beyond that, buy a real engine. The
ford Sierra Cosworth engine for sistance.
Valves float on the alpine at 6000 RPM so unless you've done some serious
head and spring work, you are just wasting your engine and time, and you are
not making any torque anyhow. Valve floating chips the surface hardening
from the bottoms of the lifters. This will kill your cam faster than any
grinder you've ever seen.
CONCLUSION:
As Ramon and his F*(at)!ing machinist has stated, the alpine rods are probalbly
just fine even for a performance application.
I think Ramons work on getting these ARP rod bolts is a great srevice to us
all. At least we wont have to worry about whether the bolts and caps will
survive.
Jarrid Gross
SII EFI
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