IH Cub Cadet Pulling and Hot Rodding

[kweaver]

Frank
I have a buddy that bought an old honda 750 water cooled shaft drive that got sold because it needed a very expensive ignigtion module. He went to radio shack and for around $10 bought the parts to make a module from scratch. He says it'll work on anything that can trigger it. I have the engine and module now but I've never drawn up a schematic of it.
Speaking of CNC I'm getting ready to go that route to make foam patterns for lost foam casting. I've already made a hot wire foam cutter. I always wanted to make an aluminum head for one of these little fellers. I'm still wanting to put my Roots style blower on a Kohler.

(Message edited by kweaver on November 25, 2003)

 

[fmorski]

Ken:

Where have you been? You used to post all the time.

Did you ever finish the brake pad project?

Todd:

The ignition system shown on the site fires the plug with each rotation of the crank. I want to only fire it during compression. That will keep the plug cooler and also allow higher voltage/amperage equalling a hotter spark. Nitro has tendencies to put out a spark plug or kill a cylinder(drop a cylinder). Once killed, it is hard to reignite as the whole chamber is cooled rapidly due to the coefficient of transfer of heat of nitro. You want to get as much flame surface exposed to the nitro at each firing and a a cooler plug will result in a fatter flame. Keep in mind that a fuel dragster after the 330 mark has no electrodes left on a spark plug. It has been burned off and the engine is simply running on a spark equal to that of an electric welder jumping around in the cylinder as well as ignition from heat (900 degrees plus causes auto ignition of nitro). Running Nitro is a whole different monster. Have seen a couple of drops of fuel left in a cylinder explode and entire engine, Dave Hirata Bowling Green Ky, 2001.

I want to put a gilmer style pulley on the crank and a similar pullley with twice the teeth on a bracket with the flying magnet so the flying magnet is turning at the same speed as the cam. Could possibly do it by attaching it to the cam too. I like the belt idea better as they use this in Top Fuel dual Magnetos so I know that they will not stretch.

 

[dross]

Frank, I have always wondered why they don't rig up some kind of auto distributor. I can't believe they wouldn't benefit from some kind of advance curve.

 

[dvogt]

Frank ,Dual plugs are allowed in all the class's in NQS. there isn't much out there in the way of hi tech ign systoms at all. We've tested a couple designs now but have not been satisfyed with them as of yet. I can say if you put a timing light on one during a dyno run it is a problem with keeping the timing steady. I've seen some move 4-5 deg.
Russ Nichols has a nitro 30 cube that runs some pretty big loads in with a aluminum head. don't you think you'll run into heat issues with a steel head?

 

[dvogt]

Todd I've never seen that happen before . but if the block took a very hard hit in that spot it could have caused the dent in the cyl. , like if a rod tried to go through it ?

 

[fmorski]

Don:
Is Russ running in the 90+% range? That is what I want to run. I do not believe hea wil be problem. I may be wrong but nearly 50% of the load is burned in the exhaust stroke. Also, wanted coefficient of expansion of head and block to be closer to each other to maintain gasket seal.

May start with a billett aluminum head and experiment with steel later.

Trying t do all the thinking and desigining before I start assembling parts.

One of the areas I suspect I will have to do actual trial and error is in piston compression height/rod length/pop out. Too long on the rod and it will fatigue quickly, too short and the piston will wobble in the hole and short life the rings and skirts.


Has anybody teflon buttoned a piston like we used to do in fuel cars? Put 3 or 4 teflon buttons on each skirt protruding 1 or 1 1/2 thousands. They kept the pistons from wobbling in the hole and prevented galding(blacknening) of the pistons. I know now they teflon coat the entire piston to prevent galding.

 

[bpalsgrove]

I've been running a Crank Trigger HEI coil setup on my SA the past few years, works like a champ! Never have to mess with adjusting points just set it and forget it. Cold plug .060 gap fires every rotation. I used all automotive parts, GM coil, GM module and a GM coil pickup. Its do-able . . . if you do the research.

 

[wcompton]

Frank-
FWIW, when I worked at Deere, on the 4024 and 5030 engines, the only reason the pistons were coated was so they'd last through break-in. I'd bet Mr. Kirk would agree that a properly cut piston is the way to go and that the teflon is a margainal band-aid fix.

 

[dvogt]

We always ran coated pistons till about 2 years ago . new thinking says the coating wears off and fills the cross hatch and ring seal is not what it should be. I've always liked the ceramic coating on the top of the piston to keep heat out . it keeps the piston from expanding faster than the block so you can run them a bit tighter. be carful how far you pop the piston out of the block . poping it out to far cuts off flow through the dump area.so look at that when you start designing things . We've always seen that to short of rod or a bad rod angle hammers the bores but so do the longer strokes. it also seams the poor or to short is hard on the rod also. but it also appears that the faster the piston speed is the harder it is on wear. I think you're damnd if you do & damnd if you don't on some of this stuff. We kind of look at what makes HP , if it works & is worth it , the parts can be replaced or you can find better parts to try to deal with the affects. I don't know of anyone thats actally used the teflon buttons in one. I saw one a guy had made but as of yet he hasn't tried it. I'm not sure how much Russ dumps in. last year I heard in the 70 - 80 % range. If you're in Columbia you'll have to corner him.

Bruce , theres alot of options out there. Our PS & SS engines run at different timing settings so what ever we do it has to be adjustable. 2 or 3 timing curves would be nice also because at different RPMs they run better at different timing settings. multi spark would be cool if it could be worked in some how. it would be nice to have a unit that you could adjust with a lap top to fine tune the curve you want.

 

[kweaver]

Frank
Why couldn't you run the trigger @ 2:1 so it fires at the propper stroke. As for a new head you can get blocks of cast iron which will match the engine block better than the steel would. Be ready to pay for it as it's valued highly. I machined a slab at a machine shop about 4 years ago and it's as expensive as it is messy. If you used a thick enough piece you could have some fins slotted in as well to keep Don kool ;-) but as you hinted at Nitro cools and transfers heat well.

Don
use a laptop ? now you're getting to high tech.

Frank (again)
The bonded pads work better than the riveted pads because the lining is rolled up in storage and even rolled backwards for two years now it doesn't like to lay flat enough for rivets. I don't see any benefit in riveted ones anyway except to the company I ordered the rivets and riveting tool from.

Aw the smell of NITRO and the shake of a Kohler , what could be better ?
The smell of a cold Coors Extra Gold and the shake of a Hooter's girl !!

 

[fmorski]

Ken:

That is my goal. I want to only fire the plug on the compression strike so it cools during the exhaust stroke. I was thinking about some cooling fins.

Russ:

You are firing with each up stroke of the piston, corect? That is what I am trying to get away from. Your are corect that it is very stable and the worry of point float and chatter is a faint memory.

The fuel guys only use the pistons a couple of passes and discard them so that is why the coating is probably used. I personally never coated mine, I used the buttons. Had great luck with the buttons but the cost is higher. That was back when we didn't throw away a set of slugs every other pass. Different animal today.

You can only imagine some of the stuff I have seen and Russ has seen it all too after some of the passes when a lot was on the line like not qualified and it is the last pass or it is the money or points round. Engine comes back totally junk. Nice parts is that it can be welled back up and re-machined to almost new.

 

[farmall gray]

Don V,
I don't think this engine ever came apart. I picked the block up today. It has a crecent shaped
spot at the bottom of the bore about 1-1/2" up that the cutter didn't catch. It is not in the ring travel and it is on the bearing plate side.
I'm guessing that since it is not on the thrust side that the piston probably wont even touch the bore there since the pistons are slightly egg shaped. So I'm going to put it together and try it.

 

[fmorski]

Todd:

I would check that area for a hairline crack or fracture. Use a magnet and filings and it may give you an indication if there is a crack in that area.

I would be suspecious of that , Shounds like something let go once upon a time and wedged in there, i.e. piston. I may be way wrong but it does not sound like something I would want to take a chance with.

(Message edited by fmorski on November 28, 2003)

 

[dfrisk]

DON - I bet I know who did Your Teflon coating on Your pistons.... I buy between $750,000 & $1 million worth of Teflon coating a year at work. I'd have to say I don't think it'd be the "Right Tool" for the job either. The ceramic coating on the piston top, combustion chamber, valves, etc. is a pretty well proven process.
I will say one thing about Teflon coating... It sure makes Me appreciate how good I had it back when I was buying .005" of Hard Chrome plating on the INSIDE of $700/ FOOT pure nickel tubing. At least then poor house-keeping and DUST on the floor didn't wreck a 3-months supply of parts!

 

[fmorski]

Found my 2:1 gilmer belt and pulleys. The sprint car racers use a 16 and 32 combination of 1" gilmer pulleys to drive the dry sump pump. This will work for what I want to do.

Price is $90.00 for the parts.

can get different belt lengths so I can make it fit where I want it.

 

[dvogt]

Denny , actually they put poly moly on the skirts . I've used Swain tech , & A place in Sheboygan, WI. , they both do good work.Both are slow in turn around time.

Todd , I'd follow Franks advice & check it very close

finished putting quik change wheel hubs on all the tractors today. couple more sets of rims to do yet,

 

[drohacek]

Something to think about for those considering the nitro route. You will be putting so much fuel through the cylinder that you will have a tendency to wash the oil off. I ran a couple nitro kohlers a few years back and found tremendous wear in the cylinder resulted. The funny car guys don't care because they run sleeves. I had already opened the block to 4 inches so it was too late to sleeve it. An aftermarket block with a sleeve would be ideal I would think.

 

[fmorski]

Dvid:

That is exactly why I was talking about the teflon buttons. We used them to help eliminate blakening pistons also called galding(Black death). The piston skirt actually rode on the telfon buttons and if the walls got washed down which happens on almost every run, the buttons took over.

Giid idea to change oil after every run too. Sounds like a lot of work but that is just part of NITRO fun. ALso, bearings don't last as long for same washed reason. I used to have a lot of bearings around that we would use in street engines as they were not worn too much for stret use but too worn for racing.

Course we were pumping 75-90 psi on the oil pump and clearance was super critical.

The sleeves are easily removed. Just stick your hand in , make a fist out comes the sleeve. Course if your hand was small, it would require both hands. When I used to try and bore and stroke TAD, TAFC and fuel cars, sometimes the sleeve would pop up with the piston too. Would have to hold down to get the job done.

 

[dvogt]

David I think just piston speed alone is hard on the cyl. walls. even with alky you delute your oil. we go an avrage of 6 runs . once in a while we'll streach it to 8 , thats with synthetic oil. when we ran regular oil it was 4 runs

 

[jabram]

First Message, Woo Hoo!!

Merry Christmas!

FYI, two pulling cams on Ebay.