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- Newsgroups: rec.autos.tech
- Path: sparky!uunet!news.larc.nasa.gov!news
- From: kkm@cyclone.larc.nasa.gov (Kenna Macauley)
- Subject: Re: Blueprinting - What is it.
- Message-ID: <Bt74K8.6nz@news.larc.nasa.gov>
- Sender: news@news.larc.nasa.gov (USENET Network News)
- Reply-To: kkm@cyclone.larc.nasa.gov (Kenna Macauley)
- Organization: NASA LaRC
- References: <1992Aug18.042141.6162@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu>
- Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 20:21:43 GMT
- Lines: 27
-
-
- Blueprinting is the process of building an engine to design specifications.
- When an engine is designed the engineers design that engine using optimum
- clearances. The trouble comes when you try to mass produce engines. It would
- be impossible to build them all to the exact dimensions called for by the
- designer, so what they include with a particular dimension is a tolerance.
- (i.e. for a crankshaft journal the dimension on the drawing would be
- specified as 3.245 plus or minus .003) What this means is that all crankshaft
- journals between 3.242 and 3.248 would be considered usable. When one has the
- desire to "Blueprint" an engine he has his machinist build his engine to
- design specifications (meaining his crank journal would measure exactly 3.245)
- Theoreticaly this should result in an optimum engine that produces more
- power, since it was built to the exact dimensions for that engine than one
- that was mass produced.
-
- As far as port matching and polishing unless you're in competive racing
- where tenths of a second matter I don't think it's worth the effort, Usually
- I think you'll find that you're time and effort could be better spent
- elsewhere for larger performance gains. Also there is a school of thought
- that for most purposes intake ports should not be smoothed too much.
- Apparently the tubulence in ports caused by the rough sand castings actually
- helps atomize the fuel for a more efficent and rapid combustion. And as a
- matter of fact I know of one high performance manifold (Edelbrock Torker)
- that is actually designed to be offset from the port to create turbulence for
- the same above reason you should leave the ports rough.
-
- kkm@cyclone.larc.nasa.gov
-