Thread: New project 89 vogue

Originally Posted by PhilipA

I don't like the look of the water passages. Not much can be done now except use 50/50 coolant.

The motor also shows neglect in that the oil residue is black which denotes long oil changes. Honey brown is the desired colour.

Just FYI composite gaskets are about 40 thou thicker than steel so the heads should be milled about 40 thou, so that the preloads are within a bulls roar.

Even with 40 thou off the heads I had to shim under the pedestals.

You will lose about 0.5 in compression ratio down to 7.7 or so to 1 without shaving the heads if you use composite gaskets.
If you find it already has composite gaskets you will have to measure the heads as per the manual or get a bit of perspex and a burette and measure the combustion chamber volume 28CC for composite and 32 for tin.

BTW there is not much of a problem if the preload is more than 50 thou , just the lifters may pump up at say 5500RPM rather than 6000.

Regards Philip A

Thanks, I didn't know that a gasket could change the compression!

I should rephrase my statement about the engine condition, I should've said its the best I've seen of any v8 I've pulled apart!

Others have been very gunky in oil galleries and much more corrosion in coolant passages.

There does seem to be a bit of gunk in this cooling system so it might pay for me to get the radiator rodded and serviced.

How can I check that the viscous fan coupling is in working order? I will have a dig through rave.

Got the other head off today. The head bolts at the back are a pain to access!
Apparently that is a roll-cam chain, which is a bit more expensive than a regular timing chain. Is it worth keeping even though it's got a bit of slack in it?


Bit of buildup on the block and pistons. Any recommendations here? Was just planning on cleaning up the block and head faces to get it all level again.


One of the heads. Again, any recommendations for cleaning? Can I just get stuck into it with degreaser, a brush and some carby cleaner?


New cam on left, old cam on right. There is maybe 1mm difference between the front lobes. Haven't got any vernier calipers yet to test.


Front 4 lifters, with a new one on the left for comparison.

You can buy just chain to replace worn one. Cloyes True roller do chains.
And yes they are way better than stock items. My bet is it should also have different keyways to allow you to either advance or retard the cam, to degree it (if you want to do that).

You should never fit a new chain to old sprockets.
Regards Philip A

I have a new chain and sprockets, but they are only standard items.

The standard one's worked fine for many thousands of km's so if you have them, why not use them?

That's amazing that you can actually see the cam lobes are worn down. Is there an easy way you can get the compression raised. eg: heads from a high comp 3.5 onto a low comp 3.9 .... You want a nice high compression if your running it on LPG

seeya,
Shane L.

Here's a better pic of the cam wear. You can really see how the old cam has rounded lobes, where the newer one has more of a raised point to them.