Ken Morton's Hybrid C32/C27 in a Phantom kit car

[kotetu]

Bump for 2010. Got an surprise PM today.

[Vic Cardenas]

Please elaborate.

[GreekPower]

elaborate more please

[Artillery129]

Yeah you tease like a bad stripper!

[bboarder711]

want!

[kotetu]

Ok, ok, here it is.

Originally Posted by kenm

Hi,
just joined this forum after reading your pm. Would like to hear more about the bust up.
Been busy with other things till now so car has been off the road since the last head gasket failure. Have had the ports opened up a bit while the heads have been off so just rebuilding it ready for end of March (hopefully).
Will report a bit more then.
Ken.

Now I'm waiting to see if he starts posting.

[kenm]

Bit of an update, still work in progress but getting better all the time.

1st engine.
Problems with cooling. Basicaly down to engine being mounted in the back and radiator right up front. When the car was moving along and revs were above 1500 rpm no problems but if revs droped below about 1500 rpm the water pump just couldn't push enough water around the lengthened cooling circuit. Not too much of a problem if I remembered to keep the revs up if I was stuck in trafic. Did become a problem when I left the car idling on the driveway and got distracted by something in the garage until my youngest son asked if I knew that the car was steaming away nicely and all the coolant was running away down the street! Turned it off quickly and left it to cool down then after about an hour filled it up again and was amazed it fired up. Went for a drive to see if there was anything wrong but the temp guage sat at 85C rock solid. Thinking I had "got away with it" and how the Honda engineers must be some kind of superheros who could design engines to be totally idiot proof I glanced down at the temp guage to see it showing 135C!
After letting it cool down managed to nurse it back home and left it overnight. Next day it fired up first time again so I took it out for a quick spin. All seemed to be going well so I gave it a good lung full and it was then that I noticed the blue smoke trailing behind. When I stopped and opened the engine cover it was obviously from the oil that had p1ssed out of the breathers all over the engine and exhaust manifolds, just glad it hadn't gone on fire!
When I stripped the engine I found one piston had melted (no signs of any ring land damage) - link to pic:

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/kennmo...65806924494770


2nd engine.
So I bought another Legend and stripped it for the engine and being keen to get back on the road quickly I just swaped the turbo and associated parts and stuck it in the Phantom. I had also put in a rudimentary boost control consisting of a couple of linked needle bleed valves set to give 12 psi with initial overboost to 14 psi plus an electric water pump to help with slow speed flow. After a mapping session all ran well until head gasket failure after about 1000 miles. To be fair these were probably the original 15 year old gaskets that never expected to have nearly 1 bar of boost hitting them every time I planted my foot on the accelerator.
Rang Honda parts hwo said left hand gasket was available from Belgium - 2 days but right hand gasket was on back order from Japan - 2½ months! Couldn't wait that long so found some OEM gaskets in USA but they wouldn't deliver to UK. Ebay to the rescue, complete top end gasket kit for $42 + $28 shipping. Loads of forums said most of the parts were o.k. but don't bother with the head gaskets and I was rather wary of a complete top end set for less than ½ price of just one genuine Honda head gasket.
Still they should at least last for a couple of months so I clicked "buy it now" and they were with me a few days later. Swaped them over a weekend and car back on the road on the Monday morning. Less than one tank of fuel and they were blown by the Wednesday the same week!

3rd engine.
Bought another Legend and stripped it for the engine. Only covered 76,000 miles but this time it was stripped and inspected. Heads were sent off for porting, not actually set up on a flow bench but just cleaned up and had the valve guides ground back and blended into the roof of the ports plus 3 angle valve jobs and minimal skim to make sure they were perfectly flat. Also took Buzzards advice and installed srtonger valve springs and "O" ringed the block and all put back together with proper Honda head gaskets though later C35 ones. (This all took about 10 months because my youngest son managed to crash his classic mini into a solid rock face at the side of a back road and basically put one of the front wheels into the passenger footwell, so loads of cutting out bent shell and welding in new panels and a complete respray. Plus at the same time the engine is having a twin overhead BMW motorbike head and a set of Suzuki bike carbs grafted on to the old A series block.)
Anyway, booked the car in for a dyno session for 19th April 2010 and thought I had plenty of time to get everything sorted. Working on the car after work and weekends for two weeks I only just got it back on the road at 5.00 p.m. on the Sunday before the dyno session on the Monday. One of the problems was the twin plate rally clutch, I think I have sent my clutch alignment tool (old gearbox input shaft) to the scap yard. So I had to just line up the clutch plates by eye and nip the pressure plate up and then try to fix the gearbox into position then remove the gearbox without distubing the clutch plates and torque up the pressure plate then replace the gearbox. This job alone added about 6 hours to the build!
At the dyno session the boost was turned back to 7 psi with initial 8 psi overboost. Link to dyno print out and log from ecu:

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/kennmo...65815291498066

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/kennmo...65822625876690

On the dyno graph the run was done in 4th gear so peak power of 317 whp at 100mph correspondes to 5,000rpm. So last year the engine must have been putting out somewhere around 450 bhp. Next update is to instal an ecu controlled boost valve to get a better torque spread.
From the ecu log the intake temperature is too high mainly from the heat soak into the inlet manifold and plemum so I am fabricating a new lighter inlet. If this works to keep the inlet temp down then I will probably up the boost to around 10psi.

Anyway have put about 500 miles on it now and everything is holding together nicely.

[sam o nela]

Jesus wept!!

Great work though man!!

[Nine Four One]

damn thats a badass car. lots of hard work on that one. love to drive it and see how it pulls.

[cars all mighty v2]

sorry this was old but i must know! a c27 tranny with a LSD? i never thought i would see that.