Rockers upgrade

[wortus]

I think the clean air act 1977 was an American Law, there's a NSW Clean Air Act but that's 1961. It was ADR 27 and 27A introduced in 1976 with the LX Torana and HX range that caused all the troubles with emmission control especially with red 6's, the EGR valves were usually pulled off, the vacuum hoses for dizzy vac advance re routed. Manual cars even had a switch on the linkages so there was no vacuum advance unless the car was in top gear. There was a hot box on the manifold and some kind of vacuum/temperature operated flap to mix hot and cold air. Fords, their EGR valves just used to block up and crumble.
Also I had 2 1973 LJ torana's and they had inlet manifolds that were water heated.

 

[bpefi]

I think your pretty close here with your post - there was one ruling well before 76 where they introduced PCV valves to stop smoke & oil onto the road - tried to check out the ADRS but they have all been upgraded - point is regardless of Brett_jjj's multiple comments about not experiencing carb freeze up - in certain circumstances it can & does happen - just because it didn't happen to him doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Even if he didn't experience freezing I am positive he has experienced situations where vaporization was not optimal & the air intake could have done with some heat.

Yes CAI do work on carby vehicles - no one said they didn't & Bathurst was never run at 2 am in the morning either - so their CAI wouldn't be a problem in that circumstance. My point is that carbys really don't need one because of the vaporization of the fuel cools the intake charge down quite dramatically. Yes on a cold wet day or late at night your car runs better & I think the humidity plays a part here as well but the difference is minuscule for carbs in comparison to EFI. Besides most CAI had a thermal valve which operated a flap in the intake which kept air temp where it was optimal which mine didn't. I was sure that all the red motors had water heated manifolds - but cant remember - wasn't a problem for XY/A/B series as the manifold was part of the head & heated up anyway.

 

[soop]

Red six cylinders had a silly little pipe from the intake manifold to the exhaust manifold to help the hot air rise.

 

[wortus]

There was also an ADR before ADR 27 that introduced the closed fuel tank system of the cannister catching fuel vapours and purging it by introducing the vapour into the inlet manifold when the engine was operating under certain conditions. This was around the time of the LH Torana. PCV valves were on Holden motors in the mid 60's and I think it's only the EH Holden you will see with a pipe to vent the fumes like a grey motor. The system also changed somewhere before ADR27 to a closed system whereby the air drawn into the crank case came from the air cleaner instead of the meshed breather cap. this was to help stop fumes from worn engines escaping without being burnt.
The water heated inlet manifolds on the Red 6's came in around the late 60's with the HT, G and K I think, certainly LC Torana's had the water heated inlet manifold. On the water heated setup the inlet and exhaust manifold are seperate and not connected but on earlier Holden models from memory the HD I recall seeing the inlet manifold connected to the exhaust manifold as the inlet manifold was heated I think by exhaust gas.
As I said before a friend had problems with his Barina carb icing up and that is in Sydney at temps well above freezing because as you say the fuel vapourisation takes heat out of the air and this can cause moisture in that air to freeze in certain circumstances. He put the hot air pipe back between the hot box and air cleaner and it fixed the problem.

 

[Brett_jjj]

Yeah,Im not exactly sure what act it actually was,it mentions it on a sticker thats on the sun visor in my oldies HQ ute.The visors are from a later model though,maybe HX or HZ.I will have a look next time im there and post up what it says.Im not 100 % sure about the pollution gear setups on ford/holden six cylinder engines or older holden V8 stuff.I mainly owned 351 fords back then.. Whatever happened in 1977 or 76 or whenever it actually was,it killed performance and economy for both ford and holden on both the 6 cylinder and V8 engines, they both had a lot of trouble meeting the new emission regulations that were introduced.Heres a piece from a book that is some sort of official book on ford australia.
"The cross flow head on the 6 cylinder, burnt petrol more efficiently,thus achieving the boost in power.With this system, fuel was fed into the cylinders on one side ,while the exhaust manifold extracted the burnt gasses on the other.Unlike the de-emmissioned holdens,the XC did not run at higher temperatures.The hotter operation of the then HX holden resulted from an exhaust heated inlet manifold which was used to warm the car quickly and so reduce pollution.The new fords had water heated manifolds."
I remember comparing the older 308's to the 308's in the early commodores,these commodore V8's copped the full pollution gear,and they were never really that quick in standard form compared the the older 308's.Jeez you could easily get em going good though,Ive driven some bloody quick V8 commodores over the years.Im just glad of computers and engine management systems.We can now constantly have the perfect ignition timing to suit the engine load ,air temp ,fuel quality etc,computers are the best thing that has ever happened to the internal combustion engine. I now tune with the click of a mouse or keyboard instead of actually moving the dizzy or trying different carby jet sizes and having to make compromises with the ignition timing.The tune Ive just done on my VSV6 is way better than the standard one.Way more responsive,better fuel economy and no more laggy auto trans shift times.Years ago it would have taken a fair bit of work and expense to make the physical changes to things to get the same end result that Ive got with a few mouse clicks,way easier.

 

[bpefi]

Getting back to my original statement about the insulators in the VS not being very effective & its mainly the runner length that gives the power difference - I was reading another thread on the Ford forums about the same thing & the calculation is (correct me if I am wrong) 3.8l divided by two (four stroke) = 1.9 L per rpm x 2500 rpm which equals 4750 liters of air per minute through the plenum chamber - as there is a very low heat transfer through air & the fact that there is not much surface area to transfer the heat - then considering the air flow - I believe you would be lucky to lower the temp much at all & the difference in temp on power would be a flys**t. Based on the above bell mouths fitted inside as well as the insulator would improve things quite a bit - I think I could fit a bell mouth in there - but I think a bigger box would be far more effective. The only reason I was thinking of this was because my VS engine being in the Hilux does not have bonnet clearance though I do have a bonnet scoop directing air straight on top to help keep things cool & I have removed the cover which would only trap heat in. I hope this clarifies what I was talking about & if I wrong then I am happy to discuss this.

Just a bit of a comment on what has happened in this thread - I think that there is some underlying problems between other members & there is a more appropriate place to sort this out rather than in the threads - I am more than happy to discuss things here as long as people can think about what I say before posting - if they don't understand or think its wrong ask a question & / or for clarification first. Many of the things said here you would not be game to say if you didn't have the safety of the internet between us - so think about that before you post. I am only here to learn & help others where I can & I wont comment unless I am sure of what I am talking about. So lets keep it clean & positive so we can all enjoy ourselves & help each other out.

I feel that I have proven all my claims so far & I am sorry if I upset anyone & I would hope that anyone that caused drama could be big enough to admit that they where wrong & apologize for their bad form.

So Mace are not in trouble because of false advertising - they claim it cools the manifold down & that it increases HP which it does but not through cooling or increasing the area of the inlet manifold. Yes I would be happy to discuss this with them as well.

 

[bpefi]

My biggest problem with the posts here is that people are advocating improvements to engines & not giving a balanced view - ie fitting the different ratio rockers - without considering things like the age of the vehicle & condition of timing chains & I know that it is something that's always going to happen.

I have had it hammered into me all my life that the first thing you do is fix any weakness in the engine first - then add other stuff as you go. Most parts of a motor (rings & pistons) are now lasting a lot longer with the advent of fuel injection - but other things like the timing chains / oil pumps are not. Putting different ratio rockers in is not really worthwhile if your engine has done 160,000 k & nothings been done to it. Might as well save up a bit more & replace a camshaft & timing chain at the same time & then doing a tune to allow for & match the cam.

 

[soop]

^^
Most sensible post ever.

 

[frdhtr]

I've very much enjoyed reading this and thought I'd put my input in, bpefi I havnt been in the industry for as long as you but in my time I've played with alot of v6 commodores and I've owned 7 of them in total and have flogged the hell outa them except for my latest one, and only done 1 cam bearing, and if you do a cam bearing your engine isn't worth worrying about, my latest toy is a supercharged 6 vp engine with 1.9 ratio roller rockers from mace with pushrods to suit, BEST MOD I have done by far. Steve at mace isn't silly and does have a few good mods for the v6's none of which give 500kw but for the average punter at home there good value for money.
Keep your oil levels up on your vs and don't cook it which goes without saying and if you have a healthy engine I don't see you having an issue.

 

[Brett_jjj]

I think your pretty close here with your post - there was one ruling well before 76 where they introduced PCV valves to stop smoke & oil onto the road - tried to check out the ADRS but they have all been upgraded - point is regardless of Brett_jjj's multiple comments about not experiencing carb freeze up - in certain circumstances it can & does happen - just because it didn't happen to him doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Even if he didn't experience freezing I am positive he has experienced situations where vaporization was not optimal & the air intake could have done with some heat.

Yes CAI do work on carby vehicles - no one said they didn't & Bathurst was never run at 2 am in the morning either - so their CAI wouldn't be a problem in that circumstance. My point is that carbys really don't need one because of the vaporization of the fuel cools the intake charge down quite dramatically. Yes on a cold wet day or late at night your car runs better & I think the humidity plays a part here as well but the difference is minuscule for carbs in comparison to EFI. Besides most CAI had a thermal valve which operated a flap in the intake which kept air temp where it was optimal which mine didn't. I was sure that all the red motors had water heated manifolds - but cant remember - wasn't a problem for XY/A/B series as the manifold was part of the head & heated up anyway.

BPEF one minute you post that hot air going into a carby will make more power than cold air will,then you post that if you tried to run a CAI with a carby ,that it wouldnt work ,as the carby can freeze up and that you know this because you tried this 25 years ago and it didnt work.I post up that Ive tried it a lot of times sucessfully and you just shrug it off as if that means absolutely nothing.I post and say "why did ford engineers use CAI's on carby engines all around the world if cold air makes less power",and you dont answer that. And now you say that icing "could " happen which might cause the power loss.You also post that mace dont know how their own product works and that the spacers dont do what mace say they do,wheres your proof of this?Mace has sold heaps of these,and everyone on here who has bought one is heaps happy with them,so they must know something thats right, wouldnt you think?Heaps of happy customers is proof to me that they do exactly what they say they do.Even in your post Ive quoted above, you say "Yes CAI do work on carby vehicles-no one said they didnt",But you said they dont work on carbys before in an earlier post!! pfff.