Trevor

The secret is in the Swedish steel!

I've heard of the dahlems springs for lowering the 505, but they are a bit expensive for springs.. Has anybody had any success getting some custom made coils? Any details?

The weight for rod balancing was taken off the bearing cap. It seems that not much needed to be taken off, but you can see what was done here: http://www.505turbo.com/snax/8-6-05-bottom...ed/IMG_1608.jpg The stock bearing caps do not have that edge ground smooth, instead they are a straight 90 angle. The cylinders were just honed as little as possible. My machinist said they were well within spec. The rings i got were oem replacement deves rings made for standard bore size of 91.7 mm. the package said that they were very slightly oversized and to check gaps. The gaps without any filing were too small, so i had to widen them out to spec as per the instructions. I'll try to remeasure the bore with my calipers this evening if i can but i dont know how accurate it will be since i dont really have something to put down inside the bore and expand. The other night i measured it at exactly 91.70 with the calipers but that doesn't really seem right... i didn't really take my time at it either. There was a little corrosion where the firing rings seal around a few cylinders so that's the reason for the block surfacing. It was a pretty light skim, I think it was .01". I originally forgot the timing covers but i took them over this morning to have him machine those too because the head is still there anyway. Thanks for the reminder ;-). That's interesting about the valve guides. I was actually wondering what was normally done with those during a port job because they look a little intrusive in the port.

http://www.505turbo.com/snax/8-6-05-bottom_end_machined/ Fully balanced, cylinders honed!!11

http://www.505turbo.com/snax/gallery/ There are the galleries of all 3 days. The videos are in Divx format so you'll need the DivX codec to view them. They are mostly just short clips of the cars going by, with sound of course The race was not too horrible for a first-annual. The track wasn't very good for the drivers.. there was literally no passing, and some random chicane was added on the SECOND day in the middle of the straight. There were huge bumps over the light rail tracks on the straightaway which had to hurt. The fast lane through the random chicane was well.. OVER it of course, which looked pretty brutal as well. There weren't enough bridge crossings for onlookers, or areas with a good view... Anyway, that's all the bad stuff, the good is obvious... champ cars flying by at 170+ mph less than 20 feet away from you. The sound was just incredible.... Its really neat to be so close to those things, you can't get that feeling at most racetracks.

That would be pretty trick to use a setup like that. That's what lots of the import guys use (copper headgaskets + ARP studs). I know what you mean about the jigsaw... My brand new headgasket doesn't even have round cylinders.. :-/ Oh well it probably won't make much of a difference anyway. I had heard that the meillors had aluminum seals around the cylinders which made them weaker but a little magnet that i had in my drawer had something else to say about that theory... So i'm probably going to try the meillor that i got, as any other alternatives will delay my rebuild even longer and drain my already-dwindeling cash supply further.

So i've heard some talk about the quality of these gaskets. Does anybody have experience to share regarding which one is better or what you've had success with? I'm especially interested in a fairly high degree of durability for higih boost situations... no grandma driving here! I know there is also a race gasket made by meillor too.

Did anybody attend? I did. I have loads of pictures and videos that i will try to post soon. The track was a bit of a joke but the event was fun, and the cars were amazing as expected. You really do get pretty close to the action at the road courses.

Sounds awesome Rabin! New engine management is really gonna make the 505 into a new monster, i can't wait for that! I'd love to use some better connectors too. The uninsulated oem (engine bay) connectors aren't all that great. Are you going to change those too? My bearings looked pretty good and i do plan on using good oil and changing it often so hopefully i can get away with it.

Thanks for the suggestion, 505T. I'm thinking that for now go ahead and feel free to post that kind of stuff either in general discussion or off topic. I certainly don't have a problem with that. If the demand increases for a dedicated racing forum then we will certainly separate it, but for now, because of the low traffic volume, i think it's best to keep it more consolidated. Sound ok?

Hi Rabin! The rebuild is going along slowly. The machine shop is taking its time... As for parts i'm kind of skimping on some of the stuff. It's not getting new bearings because i just can't stomach even more cost. i figure when those go i'm probably pretty much finished with the 505 or i'll figure something out at that time. I had the machine shop order valve guides and stem seals from dubarr and supposedly that has been a success. I'm getting a 3 angle valve job done on the head, and i've done a bit of porting work to it as well. The block is getting honed and reringed. I'm using the deves rings from WH. Oem headgasket from WH as well, and an OEM bottom end gasket set that august hunted down. I happened to find an exhaust manifold and intake manifold gasket on ebay a while back that i purchased. So it looks like everything is falling into place. Oh yea and the whole bottom end is being balanced as well so i cant wait to see how that works out. I should be back on the road shortly to get my smog done, and then the intercooler and all those fun things will get put back on. I think i'm going to be a little kinder to the motor until i can get some good management going. I've been looking at megasquirt and droooling for quite some time now. I think i may go that route as it has the wideband AF target capabilities, but definitely keep me updated on the TD ecu!

I hope you all like it. Let me know what you think. Also, tell your Peugeot friends about the forum! We want to get this thing going!