The non-thrust side of the block is most concerning -- I don't mean the enclosure around the lifters. You can see the block was engineered to have more cooling flow on the thrust side of the bores.

Yes, exactly.

The slant block issues would be more closely comparable to the loose liner design used by Renault in the alloy R16 engine and the Alpine save that the liners Renault used were iron and set up to protrude slightly past the block sealing surface. That engine was very risky to take past 7200 rpms in competition form because it moved around and you would loose a head gasket.

Electroforming would involve cleaning the block extremely well -- particularly the areas aound the tops of the cylinders and near the deck sealing surfaces.

A key technical issue would be the choice of filler material. You will want to bring this up to within .5 inch of the surface or however thick you want your "deck" to be. A water soluble wax could be used for most of the fill and then topped by a more conventional wax that would be in contact with the electroforming solutions. The issue here is that you want as much of the wax as possible to flush away after the layer of aluminum has been created. You don't want water soluble wax contaminating the electroforming solutions. There are water soluble cleaning fluids that will rinse away more conventional waxes but these are normally used with very hot water. That might wait till the engine is installed and a thorough flush procedure performed prior to filling with coolant. Give very careful thought on how to perform this.

Choose your coolant flow locations and insert short lengths of aluminum tubing into the wax. They will be subsequently milled flush with the deck.

Make a wax dam to allow the electroforming chemicals to rise above the deck and prevent their flow into undesired areas.

Apply aluminum powder to the wax surfaces to create a conductive layer. Obtain a plating power supply.

Contact a company that manufactures electroforming/plating chemicals for aluminum. They will explain further what to do. Lots of proprietary art involved here. Make very certain you understand any safety and disposal issues. If you do this commercially you are guaranteed a visit from your local hazardous waste authorities.

I would suggest practicing on some small scale items and refining your technique. You will want to evaluate how well the formed aluminum is bonding and its density/machinability. Try repeatedly cycling the object in boiling and cold water. Carefully measure the object before and after processing to ensure that no dimensional stress is being introduced.

Crude beginning instructions -- might work very well in this application however.

From pics on FABO, I don't see a lot of corrosion splitting of the cyl tops, but maybe I'm missing it.

Looks like you can mill the block quite a bit (0.100-0.150"?) without compromising bolt bosses or other structures. I've seen one milled 0.070" and it looked totally fine.

I will probably plane down the outer deck area a bit on mine (0.002" or so) to get the cylinders sticking out a bit before I assemble it. It has been milled clean about 0.020" already by whatever rebuilder house worked it.

I would be all in for a Cometic MLS group buy. 50 is a lot at >$60 a gasket, but I'd buy at least 5 of them, and I'm sure we could sell 20-30 more right away. They can probably do 2 bore sizes (3.440" and 3.600"?) w/o much trouble once they have patterns.

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines

Doug's filler plate idea is precisely what they're using on heavily modified Honda engines. Seems to be a machined spacer that drops in - I think some of them may be press fitted, but I'm not 100% sure.

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"Mad Scientist" Matt Cramer
'66 Dart - turbocharged 225
My blog - Mad Scientist Matt's Lair

So do we know if we can re sleeve these aluminum blocks?

http://www.lasleeve.com/master.html

there are others that offer wide flanged sleeves as well.

This would give a lot more sealing surface.

the aluminum around the cylinder[upper portion] does not look like it could hold it's own weight.

Is there enough material to re sleeve without concern for loosing some of the aluminum around the upper portion of the liner?

How thick is the bottom of the block I wonder, block is at the shop right now.

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leaving you so far behind you need a time machine to catch up

There is no easy way to re-sleeve the aluminum block SL6, there is not a lot of material at the base of the die-casting so any pressed-in sleeve would not be well supported.
Here are a few photos that show how much material is at the base of the cylinder liners:
DD

Ok, another relatively simple solution. Make a full deck plate that stabilizes the cylinders on the top of the bores just like a halo girdle stabilizes protruding main caps. Or more accurately, you're making a bedplate for the top of the engine.

The plate could be mounted and then used as the mounting platform for stepped cylinder liners. This way the major loading for the seating of the liners is transfered to the top of the block rather than the bottom.

The situation at the bottom is quite severe. There are other pictures that Doug has posted that show the hollowed out area adjacent to the lifter gallery (non-thrustwall). In the iron blocks this area is filled in.

You would have a choice of needing custom pistons (pushrods too) in every instance to account for the increased deck height or countermachining the block a commensurate amount. Countermachining would be better as it would allow the cylinders to be machined to sit inside the plate rather than vice versa.

Don't make the plate over the lifter gallery like a standard gasket for the alloy engine. Connect the area adjacent to each head bolt through to the outside rail. Just as Mopar did between cylinders one and two on the block. Just as the makers of gaskets for the iron blocks have done -- gosh, those designers know their stuff.

This is like taking all the rings that Doug made, melding them together and extending their margins over the block surface like a seriously thick head gasket. This would substantially increase the effective rigidity of the block and give a much better surface for sealing for use with higher compression ratios.

In no way is that a simple solution. In no way is it inexpensive.

I have some questions I expect answers for.

Have YOU ever done this? Have YOU ever sleeved anything? Have YOU ever owned an aluminum slant?

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Yeah....Im the one who destroyed this rare, vintage automobile.....

Please do not be discouraged people...

This work is on the level of complexity of making a solid copper head gasket with a waterjet and contacting LA Sleeve. Yikes.

I have one of the old Renault aluminum blocks with custom LA Sleeves to take it out to 1776cc. The sleeves are o-ringed as well.

Expensive? Probably.

You want inexpensive? Use an iron block.

It seems the way to do this deckplate is to machine down the outer skirt of the block about 0.125" and leave the cylinders untouched, then make a steel plate that lightly press fits around the cyls and is clamped by the head bolts and sandwiched between head and outer skirt. Cylinders would be same height as originally.

Maybe this is what Kevin described, but it was not totally clear to me. I've been batting around the above idea for ~5 yrs...

Would take some fine measuring and machining to match the plate to every cylinder, but with a CNC it doesn't sound tough.

I agree that anything low buck should be done with the iron engine.

Electroforming is an intriguing idea too.

Lou

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I think you will need a register or shelf cut into the perimeter of the existing free standing cylinders as Doug has done. Otherwise the plate will not resist deformation from the clamping force of the head fasteners.

Some thought will need to be given to the tightness of the fit of the plate holes for the cylinder sleeves. Perhaps this is an opportunity to create an o-ring channel bisected circumferentionally by the joint. The joint would be sealed and the gasket would have a higher preloading in that area. Win-win.

At that point you can decide if you want to create a new liner with a seating lip or ledge. You could bore out the existing liner or reduce the bore or some combo.

Ford used an interesting auxilliary side fastener setup on the main caps of the Windsor Modular V8. It might be that the perimeter of the head around the lifter galley could be torqued down through the plate into the wall of the aluminum block. This would create a stronger block by making the lifter area functional. You would have to drill existing head gaskets for this or have them cut that way.

Yes, every cylinder would have to be "made round" by a CNC mill and fit with plate would have to be thought through. O-ring groove is an interesting idea.

I have good race engine shop I've been using but not sure about their CNC capacity. I'll run it by them sometime. They've already seen one of my Al blocks for hot tanking.

Lou

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I still like the idea I floated with Lou and Dennis a couple of years ago ...in Lous old garage with an aluminum block at our feet.

Remove all the cylinders . Prepare a deck plate to fit the empty block. Fit the block to the deck . This should be easier without having to index to the cylinders. Overbore the installed deck and block to accept larger siamesed liners. Machine liners for siamesed installation. Press liners into block. I think larger bores might be possible. It might be possible to change the bore centres a little to make them all the same.

This new upper deck (mebbe 1" thick?) is configured to fit the new head of choice.

Advantages are larger bores, more stable cylinders(siamesed) , and a new mounting surface for whatever head and its matching gasket.

What Im concerned about is the lower end of the liners and how the overbore would affect crankcase rigidity. I think Doug would have a qualified opinion on that.

I have done wet liners in Chev 6s where the cast cylinders were overbored paper thin ( and even through) with no problems because the liner was supported top and bottom.

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Yeah....Im the one who destroyed this rare, vintage automobile.....

Charles Meyer was telling me about a siamesed liner build he attempted some time back. There was a problem, but my CRS has done a couple "clear all registers" on me. Anybody remember what the issues were? From what I do remember, the engine didn't live very long.

CJ

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