Good guys

I have found, or rather have small access to a material called aluminum foam. It shares the standard properties of amuminum/bauxite alloys, with one exception, it's a foam. But heated to hot enough, which should be less than 1700° Fahrenheit, this should be most useful if injected upside down on a steel workbench with segmented forms under each cylinder to compress the foam into a solid aluminum alloy filling all gaps, etc.

Will post results when the rest of my colleague's confer as to which material is best for a form & how much pressure to keep on the AL
Foam to void it of air and make a solid deck. Still very high temp but with pistons installed warpage should be at a minimum.

Input/ideas?

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Slant six should have stayed in production.

Why not just weld it since the end result will require remachining most of the surfaces anyway, and probably give better results.

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There's no such thing as too much cam....only not enough engine!

Fear of warping the liners & line honing the journals

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Slant six should have stayed in production.

How is heating the foam to 1700 degrees not going to warp things.

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There's no such thing as too much cam....only not enough engine!

I'm sure it will. This is why I have a test block. And about 100 lbs of dry ice.

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Slant six should have stayed in production.

You might want to do some serious research before hand. The melting point of aluminum is approximately 1300* F.

Roger

Sounds ambitious. I would be interested in learning more about this material. I am basically a materials scientist by trade, although I'm mostly into polymers. Still, I think about all materials on some level...

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines since 1988

That was going to be my next comment. I think either method, welding or the heated foam is going to require you to remachine most of the block. There's just no way around that. Sounds like these blocks could use some better sleeves anyway. The guys that are racing the Vortech 4200 Atlas inline Chevy 6 put Darton sleeves in those aluminum blocks because of the thin walled factory sleeves causing the same issues as the ones in the block you have, they make 290 HP in stock trim with 4.2 liters. They are making over 700 HP in Comp Eliminator N/A, so its a worth while upgrade that would definately benefit these Slant aluminum blocks as well. You might look at that as an upgrade also.

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There's no such thing as too much cam....only not enough engine!

Gentlemen

Thank you thus far for the civilized responses. They are much appeiciated. The aspect of this whole experiment is I have a small store of aluminum slant sixes. One is completley cashed, which I bought from a member, as well as 2 complete (mostly) from kids on the MN/WI border and a stock bore super clean block from another member.

The cashed mule will receive all the abuse. I have a few friends at the UW and MATC so water jetting a deck is as easy as a .CAD file. Plus there's lazer micrometers to measure warping. My fear is cracking by welding -250°F aluminum alloy from Reynolds. Like Reynolds aluminum foil.

We will see this Saturday what happens. If it breaks, I want it to be like the T1000 shot while frozen in liquid No2

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Slant six should have stayed in production.

I still think that CNC'ing a steel (1/8"?) or aluminum (1/4"?) plate that would tap fit over the liners and sandwich between the head and block would be the killer deal. You'd be best off to chuck the block in the mill and minimally CNC around each liner to ensure the OD is perfectly round and true for the "tap" fit. You would mill down the outer rim of the block and leave the liners standing out by however thick the plate is. there is enough extra depth in the head bolt holes to allow for up to about 1/4" plate.

This would involve no heating and no distortion, and should add a ton of strength. Would be best to think some about thermal expansion coefficient matching for the plate material. Mild steel (13) and 304 stainless (17) are in between aluminum (20) and cast iron (11 - all in units of 10^-6 m/m-degC). Steel would be easiest and cheapest.

If I had a buddy nearby with CNC capabilities, this is what I would be doing. Too bad I didn't think of this before I left my machinist buddy in CA...

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines since 1988

Lou

That idea is right on on all accounts, & buster here has the 1/4 inch of aluminum removed already. DD had rings on the top of the liners.

My quandaries are with the head bolts. I've tried 3 different deck designs, one included use of the original gasket plus a parimiter gasket around the block under the new deck. Essentially 1/4 thick inside the block & 1/8 on the lip, lowering compression. This was in anticipation of mild turbocharging. As I saw it not cutting loose the 1/4 inch around the cylinder sleeve at the top would had given enough clearance for a computer guided TIG to seal the combustion chamber with its new like 4.1 compression ratio. Which a garret t-20 & inter cooler would with boost retard would probably cause crankshaft whip or something.

D

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Slant six should have stayed in production.

Removing all the aluminum around the sleeve is not necessary, just a few thousandths to make sure it is round and concentric with the bore (and thus the custom plate. With a 1/8 - 3/16" thick steel plate, I don't see bolts as a weak point.

I need to carry a block over to my engine machine shop and see what they think. Capable place and pretty innovative racers.

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines since 1988