16 Valve B202 engine rebuild 2011

[Geoff]

I have some surplus titanium .090 sheet that I have been dying to use on a project.

Awesome.

I had a project in college where we had to design a valve that used the Coanda effect to operate. My project partner and I decided to make it out of titanium, just for kicks since it wasn't actually going to be produced. The professor got angry with us for suggesting the use of an expensive material.

[squaab99t]

I can see why. Not only is the raw material expensive, but cutting, machining and grinding was tough. Fin' hard material. I believe it is titanium 6al-4v.
Using on the belt sander was interesting. Sparks are bright white. I mean fireworks bright, so seeing the layout lines while grinding was impossible.
I was originally thinking of using the Ti for a slid plate, but after working with it I think too brittle and not tough enough for that duty.
Looks like the rain will hold of this afternoon, so I should be able to go for a test drive.

[Crazyswede]

Just a heads up titanium dust in shavings are extremely flammable so be careful. Also water will not extinguish a titanium fire. Probably not a true concern for the amount that you have though.

[DeLorean]

Just a heads up titanium dust in shavings are extremely flammable so be careful.

Also, it is apparently bulletproof.

[Geoff]

I can see why. Not only is the raw material expensive, but cutting, machining and grinding was tough. Fin' hard material.

Yeah, since it was only a homework project and there were no design restrictions given (other than the calculations had to show it working) we decided to go with a fun material. We should have chosen something whacky like hafnium.

[squaab99t]

Just a heads up titanium dust in shavings are extremely flammable so be careful. Also water will not extinguish a titanium fire. Probably not a true concern for the amount that you have though.

Thanks for the heads up. I cleaned up all the shavings and dust as best as I could before starting to weld. I also made sure the landing area for the belt sander was good old concrete. I have specified titanium at work, but it was mostly fasteners. Aluminum is standard fare for hogouts and bent sheet metal.

Speaking of extremely flammable, I am now getting complete combustion at 135 kPa for boost. No spark blow out even with the plug gap at .036".
I'll put the water/meth injection back on line and see if I still do not get any mis-fire.
Per the datalog and wideband I am running lean at that higher boost number. Could be a number of things: Never tuned in that region, new turbo is delivering more lbs of air, and/ or the combustion is happening like it should with the stronger spark.
Should be able to adjust the map and rectify the lean condition. My only fear is the injectors maybe too small to deliver enough fuel for the given dwell the intake valve is open at higher rpms. Currently running 42 #/hr bosch injectors.

[squaab99t]

She is still happy with the water/meth injection. No stubble at all. I'll read the plugs today and venture to open the gap even more
On the same subject. A buddy of mine who is interested in these coils for his big block Chevy built a bench test bed to compare with the mds. At ambient pressures, a bit of difference, but at high pressure 190 psi the plug in a pressure vessel the msd coil was working really hard and made a popping crack noise when it fired. It was not happy at all. The ls9 coil could care less.

Some images of the test setup and what he found:

test setup.PNG (413.47 KiB) Viewed 8299 times

[Geoff]

I love your friend's test stand. There's no better way to show a point than to prove it on the bench!

I also like how the photo of the test stand looks like it was taken with the world's first digital camera. What did he use to take the photos of the spark plugs firing in the pressure vessel?

[Crazyswede]

I love your friend's test stand. There's no better way to show a point than to prove it on the bench!

I also like how the photo of the test stand looks like it was taken with the world's first digital camera. What did he use to take the photos of the spark plugs firing in the pressure vessel?

However the camera used for the test stand looks like it is significantly better quality.

[squaab99t]

I love your friend's test stand. There's no better way to show a point than to prove it on the bench!

I also like how the photo of the test stand looks like it was taken with the world's first digital camera. What did he use to take the photos of the spark plugs firing in the pressure vessel?

However the camera used for the test stand looks like it is significantly better quality.

That is his old friend Canon D5 dslr.
The pressure vessel he made from black pipe and brazed in a 14 mm sleeve for the plug. He added a sight glass to the black pipe T. He left the shutter open and the only light came from the arc.

[squaab99t]

I love your friend's test stand. There's no better way to show a point than to prove it on the bench!

I also like how the photo of the test stand looks like it was taken with the world's first digital camera. What did he use to take the photos of the spark plugs firing in the pressure vessel?

The spark plug gap lives about midway of the T pipe joint. The brass colored hex is the sight glass. The red- orange at the bottom is the HT lead boot.