Speaking of aluminum cylinder bores...
Tim Wescott
how much I know. The ways that I know to implement an aluminum cylinder
are:
1: Chrome the cylinder, and use an aluminum piston.
Does the piston need to be hyper eutectic?
Any limitations on the cylinder alloys?
(Known as "AAC" in the model airplane world,
this is a well-accepted, way cool way to do things.
It's a close cousin to "ABC", with a chromed
brass cylinder, but it's lighter).
1a: Ditto, but use nickel plate. Same questions as 1.
2: Hard anodize the cylinder (inside!), use an aluminum
piston. Perhaps I should call this '1b' instead.
Same questions as 1.
3: Hyper eutectic aluminum cylinder, etched so the silicon
particles are exposed, iron piston (the Vega way --
interesting story on the Vega in Wikipedia:
The author contends that the actual technique was sound,
and is being used successfully in Mercedes and Beemers.
It states that the engine had other problems that made it
unreliable, with the new metallurgy being unfairly blamed.
Apparently the whole car was stuffed down Chevrolet's
throat by the GM Corporate staff, and didn't get enthusiastic
support by Chevrolet engineering).
Are any of these what the motorcycle guys use? Or is there yet another
process?
3 looks like an interesting way to build model airplane engines in the
home shop if the right aluminum alloy could be found easily (I
understand that machining hyper eutectic alloy is a bitch, but I can
accept that) and if the chemical treatment is as easy as a
room-temperature dip in something no more noxious than sulphuric or
nitric acid. Clearly one would have to stick to an all-steel piston, or
set up a truly impressive garage plating shop.
I keep pondering 2 -- but I understand that hard anodizing is a more
difficult process than 'regular' anodizing.
--
Tim Wescott
Control system and signal processing consulting
www.wescottdesign.com
Ed Huntress
"Tim Wescott" <t...@seemywebsite.now> wrote in message
news:vrSdnfqSs8MfljzW...@web-ster.com...
> The guy who wants to build his own airplane engine made me wonder just how
> much I know. The ways that I know to implement an aluminum cylinder are:
>
> 1: Chrome the cylinder, and use an aluminum piston.
> Does the piston need to be hyper eutectic?
There were solid chrome and porous chrome platings. The racing Porsches with
porous chrome used forged pistons, so they definitely were not hypereutectic
aluminum.
> Any limitations on the cylinder alloys?
> (Known as "AAC" in the model airplane world,
> this is a well-accepted, way cool way to do things.
> It's a close cousin to "ABC", with a chromed
> brass cylinder, but it's lighter).
>
> 1a: Ditto, but use nickel plate. Same questions as 1.
>
> 2: Hard anodize the cylinder (inside!), use an aluminum
> piston. Perhaps I should call this '1b' instead.
> Same questions as 1.
This is a guess, but I think that would be equivelant to lining your
cylinders with aluminum-oxide sandpaper. <g>
>
> 3: Hyper eutectic aluminum cylinder, etched so the silicon
> particles are exposed, iron piston (the Vega way --
> interesting story on the Vega in Wikipedia:
I didn't read the Wikipedia article, but the pistons were iron PLATED
aluminum. I don't know what Porsche used, but the rebuilders are offering
Alusil and Nikasil coatings on the cylinders.
> The author contends that the actual technique was sound,
> and is being used successfully in Mercedes and Beemers.
> It states that the engine had other problems that made it
> unreliable, with the new metallurgy being unfairly blamed.
> Apparently the whole car was stuffed down Chevrolet's
> throat by the GM Corporate staff, and didn't get enthusiastic
> support by Chevrolet engineering).
>
> Are any of these what the motorcycle guys use? Or is there yet another
> process?
You've probably seen my other message that mentions the vaporized-wire
method used in a couple of instances by Kawasaki.
>
> 3 looks like an interesting way to build model airplane engines in the
> home shop if the right aluminum alloy could be found easily (I understand
> that machining hyper eutectic alloy is a bitch, but I can accept that)
You can machine it with HSS tools. It wears the hell out of any tools except
for diamond, but if you aren't going into production, you'll get away with
it. I've turned it on my lathe with regular HSS.
> and if the chemical treatment is as easy as a room-temperature dip in
> something no more noxious than sulphuric or nitric acid. Clearly one
> would have to stick to an all-steel piston, or set up a truly impressive
> garage plating shop.
At least some aluminum cylinder engines were made without any etching. They
just allowed the aluminum to wear away, exposing the silicon crystals.
>
> I keep pondering 2 -- but I understand that hard anodizing is a more
> difficult process than 'regular' anodizing.
It's just thicker than regular anodizing (there are other issues, including
lower porosity, but the resulting material is the same -- aluminum oxide). I
think that's the wrong tree up which to bark, but maybe someone else knows
something to the contrary.
Kawasaki got involved in plated aluminum because they were having seizing
problems with some of their racing 2-stroke dirt bikes, because of the
different coefficients of expansion with iron liners and aluminum pistons.
That's been a problem with many other high-performance 2-stroke engines,
particularly when they have big cylinders.
--
Ed Huntress
Dave__67
A 'Nikasil" coating is very common on single-cylinder dirt bikes.
Dave
Tim Wescott
> "Tim Wescott" <t...@seemywebsite.now> wrote in message
> news:vrSdnfqSs8MfljzW...@web-ster.com...
>> The guy who wants to build his own airplane engine made me wonder just how
>> much I know. The ways that I know to implement an aluminum cylinder are:
>>
>> 1: Chrome the cylinder, and use an aluminum piston.
>> Does the piston need to be hyper eutectic?
>
> There were solid chrome and porous chrome platings. The racing Porsches with
> porous chrome used forged pistons, so they definitely were not hypereutectic
> aluminum.
>
>> Any limitations on the cylinder alloys?
>> (Known as "AAC" in the model airplane world,
>> this is a well-accepted, way cool way to do things.
>> It's a close cousin to "ABC", with a chromed
>> brass cylinder, but it's lighter).
>>
>> 1a: Ditto, but use nickel plate. Same questions as 1.
>>
>> 2: Hard anodize the cylinder (inside!), use an aluminum
>> piston. Perhaps I should call this '1b' instead.
>> Same questions as 1.
>
> This is a guess, but I think that would be equivelant to lining your
> cylinders with aluminum-oxide sandpaper. <g>
See my comment below.
>> 3: Hyper eutectic aluminum cylinder, etched so the silicon
>> particles are exposed, iron piston (the Vega way --
>> interesting story on the Vega in Wikipedia:
>
> I didn't read the Wikipedia article, but the pistons were iron PLATED
> aluminum. I don't know what Porsche used, but the rebuilders are offering
> Alusil and Nikasil coatings on the cylinders.
That's the key words that I was looking for. Do you know what the
process is, or should I just do a web search?
There are some nice model airplane engines that use it -- presumably the
oxide layer is lapped until it's smooth, otherwise yes, you'd just be
building an expensive and inconvenient tool to wear out pistons.
AFAIK the technique was developed in Russia when they were still behind
the iron curtain -- while US high-performance model engine makers were
striving for the highest power for the displacement with weight as an
afterthought, the Ruskies were striving for the highest power/weight
ratio of the engine, with absolute power as an afterthought.
RBnDFW
> interesting story on the Vega in Wikipedia:
> The author contends that the actual technique was sound,
> and is being used successfully in Mercedes and Beemers.
> It states that the engine had other problems that made it
> unreliable, with the new metallurgy being unfairly blamed.
> Apparently the whole car was stuffed down Chevrolet's
> throat by the GM Corporate staff, and didn't get enthusiastic
> support by Chevrolet engineering).
Porsche 928 used it, worked fine.
Biggest problem with the Vega engine was a big iron head on top of an
aluminum block, along with old-technology head gaskets. Blown
headgaskets -> overheating -> warped block
GM's solution was to add a $5 coolant recovery system to each one.
We sold a TON of those things.
A shame really. It was a nice-looking small car, and it handled better
than anything near it's price range.
I still lust for a Cosworth Vega. A good friend has two.
Ed Huntress
"Tim Wescott" <t...@seemywebsite.now> wrote in message
Google search. It's been well-documented, and there are many aftermarket
service companies that offer it. If they aren't technical enough to explain
the process, look it up on the SAE website. There are a bunch of papers on
it.
I think that Nikasil is a Porsche or Mercedes-Benz patent. There's some
other brand-name equivalent. You'll find it with a little Googling.
Aha. Well, that's got to be a diamond-honing operation. Those hones are
*expensive*. However, you probably could rig up something on your own.
Good luck. Let us know how you make out.
--
Ed Huntress
Ed Huntress
"RBnDFW" <burkh...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:hnr5eo$grf$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
In the Q&A section of one of the car mags decades ago, someone asked how you
could tell a Cosworth Vega from a regular one, from the outside, if you
didn't get up on top of it. IIRC, the only identifiers were two stripes and
a little badge, and people were faking it by applying their own stripes.
The answer was, "Look under the car. If there's a puddle of oil there, it's
a regular Vega." <g>
--
Ed Huntress
Tim Wescott
Should I try it I'd start by trying to lap it with diamond lapping paste.
Tim Wescott
The customer base said "build us an inexpensive car and we'll buy it!"
GM (and Ford) said "A cheap car?!? We can do that!!!"
I like the styling and the handling -- the reliability and the rust are
a different story.
Ed Huntress
"Tim Wescott" <t...@seemywebsite.now> wrote in message
I dunno. I guess I'd try it. I don't know for sure what material I'd use for
a lap, but you probably want a hard one, and cast iron holds other types of
hard lapping compound well.
--
Ed Huntress
Steve Lusardi
Nikosil (Nicosil), is an electro deposition process that delivers a Nickel, Silicon Carbide coating to automotive cylinders and
pistons. It was developed in 1967 and has been used extensively in racing/high performance applications, but is not in very high
use today. The current applications are in very low life applications like F1. The reason this process,with all the advantages it
has, is not in extensive use is the use of sulfur in fuels. The effect of sulfur is cumulative and very destructive to Nikosil.
Currently there is no substitute for iron cylinders for serious long life and durability. Furthermore, Nikosil's ability to
conduct heat into the cooling system is exactly what you do not want to do for fuel efficiency. Check Wikipedia for more use
history and info.
Steve
David Courtney
news:vrSdnfqSs8MfljzW...@web-ster.com...
> much I know. The ways that I know to implement an aluminum cylinder are:
We send them to US Chrome for NiCom: http://www.usnicom.com/techinfo.asp
Pete Snell
thereof. One of the leading companies for having this done in the
aftermarket is Millennium Technologies in Wisconsin. You can check out
their website at http://www.mt-llc.com/.
Pete
--
Pete Snell
Department of Physics
Royal Military College
Kingston, Ontario,
Canada
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the
strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better.
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919)
Jon Elson
Well, OK looking, I guess. It did seem to handle pretty well for having
a very old-school suspension. I got 76000 miles out of mine, and sold
it to a lady that was very appreciative. it started noticeable oil
burning about 32000 miles, and was getting steadily worse.
It took over 30 years to get something that got better gas mileage, at
least on the highway. Maybe I got a mistake, I think they put the rear
axle for an automatic in mine, but I had a 4-speed manual. I used to
tell people it had 4 gears, 3rd, 4th, half-grumble and full-grumble.
It ate the first clutch at 18,000 miles, and I put in a much larger
clutch plate, and then it became almost undriveable. I finally learned
how to tease the inertia and get it rolling without the most awesome
clutch chatter I've ever seen. My wife actually got it to do a wheelie
from the clutch chatter!
Anyway, I now have a Honda Civic hybrid, and it gets close to 50 MPG on
the highway, and near that (sometimes better) in town. The Vega got
about 32 around town and 40 on the highway.
Jon
Robert Swinney
Bob Swinney
"Pete Snell" <sne...@rmc.ca> wrote in message news:4ba1303f$1...@win9.rmc.ca...
Jim Stewart
Widely used in aircraft cylinders.
dca...@krl.org
>
> > 2: Hard anodize the cylinder (inside!), use an aluminum
> > piston. Perhaps I should call this '1b' instead.
> > Same questions as 1.
>
> This is a guess, but I think that would be equivelant to lining your
> cylinders with aluminum-oxide sandpaper. <g>
>
>
>
> Ed Huntress
More like lining the cylinders with glass but harder. The surface
finish of anodized aluminum is pretty much like the surface finish of
the aluminum before anodizing.
Dan
Tim Wescott
The hard anodized material that I've worked with hasn't been as smooth
as the underlying machining -- more like the absorbed-in lumps that
you'd get from a paint job.
Not sharp, but still something you'd want to smooth out before using as
a running surface.
Tim Wescott
that finish. Hmm.
Don Foreman
<hunt...@optonline.net> wrote:
>> I keep pondering 2 -- but I understand that hard anodizing is a more
>> difficult process than 'regular' anodizing.
>
>It's just thicker than regular anodizing (there are other issues, including
>lower porosity, but the resulting material is the same -- aluminum oxide). I
>think that's the wrong tree up which to bark, but maybe someone else knows
>something to the contrary.
It starts as aluminum oxide but that is then transformed into aluminum
hydroxide and finally aluminum hydroxide monohydrate. This layer looks
somewhat like a honeycomb under 40,000X magnification. It's this
structure that allows the anodize process to continue until the rate
of disollution in the acid solution matches the rate of production by
passage of current.
Robert Swinney
of the average home-shop machinist; my question is this: Can someone speak to the efficacy of
merely machining ordinary aluminum parts for the cylinder and piston of a small engine, and long
term durability of same? I understand the need for a good bearing pair relationship between those
parts, say differing metallurgy (even if alum) between cylinder and piston. For instance, a
difference which would be achievable in the home shop. Basically, is there a way to do it without
iron and aluminum, using aluminum components only.
Bob Swinney
Steve Lusardi
Steve
"Robert Swinney" <jud...@tx.rr.com> wrote in message news:_oKdncWFzo_BzD_W...@giganews.com...
Tim Wescott
I have given thought to a piston made of an aluminum core that forms the
piston top and the wrist pin bearings, pressed into a thin steel sleeve.
It'd be heavier than an all-aluminum piston, but considerably lighter
than an all-steel one.
And the bearing surface should work with a hyper eutectic silicon
aluminum cylinder.
But I have no clue about how well such a two-piece piston would work --
ideally you'd want to be able to press it apart, even if you had to soak
it in acetone and dry ice first. Whether you could make the sleeve thin
enough to make the weight saving reasonable, strong enough not to break,
and make the press fit strong enough to hold up to normal engine
stresses while light enough to be pressed apart -- I dunno.
RBnDFW
>>> 3: Hyper eutectic aluminum cylinder, etched so the silicon
>>> particles are exposed, iron piston (the Vega way --
>>> interesting story on the Vega in Wikipedia:
>>
>> I didn't read the Wikipedia article, but the pistons were iron PLATED
>> aluminum. I don't know what Porsche used, but the rebuilders are
>> offering Alusil and Nikasil coatings on the cylinders.
>
> That's the key words that I was looking for. Do you know what the
> process is, or should I just do a web search?
Process for the cylinder, or the piston?
The block was cast with silicone beads in the metal. Somehow they
arranged the cast so that the cylinder area had the highest, and most
uniform concentration of silicone. Then it was machined as normal.
The final step in the cylinder wall prep was acid washing of the
aluminum, leaving the silicone proud of the surface by a microscopic amount.
Of course, the aftermarket rebuild involved iron sleeves and compatible
pistons.
RBnDFW
Ford built a plastic 2.0L race motor back in the IMSA days.
They used ceramics for the bearing surfaces IIRC
Ed Huntress
We may be mixing apples and oranges here, but the Porsche 928 rebuilds I was
talking about do not involve using iron sleeves. They just re-bore the
aluminum cylinders and coat them with one of the new high-tech coatings:
Alusil, Nikasil, etc.
As for the silicon concentrations, I'm not sure about what they did, but I
can tell you that you can control grain size of the silicon crystals by
controlling the chill rate. Perhaps there also is some migration of silicon
one way or the other due to temperature differentials in cooling the
casting, but it's not something I've heard of.
--
Ed Huntress
Ed Huntress
That was Polimotor, who had a contract to produce them for Ford. I
interviewed Matt Holtzberg, who designed and built the engines, back around
'79 or so. He was using a mixture of ceramic and metal wear surfaces, always
experimenting with how much ceramic he could use. There were quite a few
failures of ceramic parts at first.
They also raced those engines in F2 in Europe.
--
Ed Huntress
RBnDFW
> "RBnDFW" <burkh...@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:hntl1i$luc$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
>> Tim Wescott wrote:
>>
>>>>> 3: Hyper eutectic aluminum cylinder, etched so the silicon
>>>>> particles are exposed, iron piston (the Vega way --
>>>>> interesting story on the Vega in Wikipedia:
>>>> I didn't read the Wikipedia article, but the pistons were iron PLATED
>>>> aluminum. I don't know what Porsche used, but the rebuilders are
>>>> offering Alusil and Nikasil coatings on the cylinders.
>>> That's the key words that I was looking for. Do you know what the
>>> process is, or should I just do a web search?
>> Process for the cylinder, or the piston?
>>
>> The block was cast with silicone beads in the metal. Somehow they arranged
>> the cast so that the cylinder area had the highest, and most uniform
>> concentration of silicone. Then it was machined as normal.
>> The final step in the cylinder wall prep was acid washing of the aluminum,
>> leaving the silicone proud of the surface by a microscopic amount.
>>
>> Of course, the aftermarket rebuild involved iron sleeves and compatible
>> pistons.
>
> We may be mixing apples and oranges here, but the Porsche 928 rebuilds I was
> talking about do not involve using iron sleeves. They just re-bore the
> aluminum cylinders and coat them with one of the new high-tech coatings:
> Alusil, Nikasil, etc.
Indeed, my experience was with Vegas.
RBnDFW
Yep Very interesting. As I recall, the engines ran cool, almost too
cool, and the oil never got dirty. And this was a VERY high
specific-output motor
Ed Huntress
It won some big races. Why it never took off, I can only assume was an issue
of costs.
The last time I talked to Matt was in 1980 or '81. He was operating out of a
dank old shop in north Jersey at the time. From some accounts I've read
since, Matt was not happy about his relationship with Ford. It may have been
him, or it may have been them; I don't know.
--
Ed Huntress
Tim Wescott
and my own, is that you've got to understand big corporate culture if
you want to play their game. The bigger they are and the smaller you
are, the more the relationship starts to look like a guy on a bicycle
racing a steam roller. Treat them like another small business or an
individual, get caught under the machinery, and it'll be 'skreeee!' and
no one up there will even notice a bump.
It can be done profitably, you just have to keep in mind that they
aren't going to act like sensible people. At best they're going to act
like sensible large corporations, and that's "at best".
RBnDFW
I don't think they ever got the reliability they sought.
But I understood it was essentially a "test to destruction" process, on
the racetrack. Proof of concept, until the guys with money lost
interest. They probably could not make a case for using the technology
in production.
> The last time I talked to Matt was in 1980 or '81. He was operating out of a
> dank old shop in north Jersey at the time. From some accounts I've read
> since, Matt was not happy about his relationship with Ford. It may have been
> him, or it may have been them; I don't know.
Ford's relationship with it's smaller vendors is best described as
mercurial.
cl...@snyder.on.ca
If you want something that will run more than a few hours in a four
stroke engine, iron plated aluminum pistons and the right alloy for
the block might be doable - but it will need to be a high-silicon
aluminum.
If you are talking 2 stroke, not a chance unless you are running 16:1
oil ratio or better.
d...@kbrx.com
aluminum can handle as a bearing surface?
Hul
dca...@krl.org
Hard anodizing is within the scope of average home shop machinist. I
have not done it for cylinders and pistons but have done it for
pulleys on sail boats and race cars.
Dan
dca...@krl.org
> Thanks for the information, Don. Any idea how heavy a load anodized
> aluminum can handle as a bearing surface?
>
> Hul
>
inches. So the anodize provides a hard surface, but a really heavy
load will distort the aluminum under the anodize.
Dan
Robert Swinney
"Hard anodizing is within the scope of average home shop machinist."
Thanx, Dan. I should have guessed after other recommendations in this thread. Perhaps I will look
it up and do a little experimenting.
Bob Swinney
<dca...@krl.org> wrote in message
news:e18d3140-551c-4d3b...@g11g2000yqe.googlegroups.com...
On Mar 18, 12:15 pm, "Robert Swinney" <judy...@tx.rr.com> wrote:
> Anyone, please. Now that we have very good explanations of a process which is well beyond the
> scope
> of the average home-shop machinist; my question is this: Can someone speak to the efficacy of
> merely machining ordinary aluminum parts for the cylinder and piston of a small engine, and long
> term durability of same? I understand the need for a good bearing pair relationship between those
> parts, say differing metallurgy (even if alum) between cylinder and piston. For instance, a
> difference which would be achievable in the home shop. Basically, is there a way to do it without
> iron and aluminum, using aluminum components only.
>
> Bob Swinney
I
d...@kbrx.com
the anodized surface can handle as a bearing?
Hul
cl...@snyder.on.ca
NON annodized aluminum works good for camshaft bearings on many OHC
engines - just bored in the casting.
Most engine main bearings are also aluminum - although usually steel
backed. With a pressurized lubrication system aluminum bearings can
take a pretty substantial load.
d...@kbrx.com
intermitently. Along the lines of pc board assembley operations but
possibly heavier.
Hul
Ned Simmons
d...@kbrx.com
style parts bins - floppies - labels on plastic (acrylic/something) cans.
Sticking them to a desktop, scribbling a word or 2, removing with a knife
blade and resticking to a container is possible.
Hul
Tim Wescott
Y'know, I don't think this was a response to my post about aluminum
engine cylinders.
Somehow.
d...@kbrx.com
Hul