The T3200E thread

[axeman]

Finally. I have a thin green line.

All about the green.

[silverbullet]

Heads on and oil pump fitted. Milestone moment and a big relief.

[Cecil]

Fantastic.

[mrhutch]

Whoop Whoop

[silverbullet]

Who knew? Nice machining detail by Oettinger





Ps I am in there because even though the inlet runners have been ported and gasket matched, the plenum has casting flash near the inlet mouths...



Soon fix that.



Did I share this detail before? Manifolds were probably machined about the same time as the bus was going down the production line

[silverbullet]

Bandsaw has done its bit. An irritating botch but unavoidable.

[silverbullet]

Knocked up a drill jig yesterday to uprate the throttle elbow fixings from M6 studs to M8 with helicoils, so I can use bolts.
This manifold has been upgraded in the past, the early versions had the throttle body mounted directly onto the plenum, later ones had the elbow and then I altered it again. The M6 didn't look up to the job and one was almost stripped out and they hadn't been done particularly accurately.
The jig had a spigot to centralize it and the tapping size of 8.3mm also worked out for bolt clearance







The plenum needs a bit of a tickle on one side to correct a slight mismatch, I can get that done while waiting for new O-rings to come in the post.

[silverbullet]

Die grinder and half an hour, sorted. Not the easiest thing to hold at the required angle!



The new O-rings put up a fight too, despite a good smear of silicone grease. They need to be firmly "massaged" in and given time to settle.

[silverbullet]

Starting to look like an engine now, some small details still remain to be decided but thats where the time goes: throttle linkage, oil filler pipe (anyone got a really good Aircooled one, that has the stud fixing for the plastic tube?) and finding the correct bolts for the unique aircon bracket etc

[Robsey]

Looking like the dogs nads.
It looks amazing, yet a bit odd in flat-6 guise.

I apologise if you have mentioned it elsewhere, but I am surprised (excuse my naivety) to see no oil cooler / warmer on the oil filter mounting.

My head thinks that such a big lump of an engine would probably need more oil temperature stabilising than it's flat four cousins.

Otherwise why fit an oil cooler / warmer to a 2.1, but not to a 1.9?
I am assuming it boils down to Oetinger's after-thought approach to building these things, and limited engine-bay space.

[silverbullet]

I haven't decided how to go with the oil cooler. The engine should have one, the threaded fitting was removed as part of the case preparation.
The VAG "interwarmer" might be of benefit on this engine because the sump holds 50% more than a 4 cyl (about 6 litres or so) and that will take longer to warm up, before the cooler then starts transferring heat back to the cooling system.
However, some flow loss results when using the "interwarmer" and because wbx engines use a high volume oil system, not a high pressure one, this engine needs all it can get with 2 more big ends and another main journal to feed.
The engine bay gets pretty cramped so the fan-assisted cooler I designed for 2.5 engines may not actually fit behind the LH rear lamp :/
PS the filter is only spun on to keep dust out!

[silverbullet]

Looks like I wont be doing the rocker preload today after all



Yes that a broken (narrow) rocker post. Thankfully I can machine a 4-cylinder one from 22mm wide down to 15mm.

[cobblers]

Oh bugger. But rather now than whilst it was running!

[silverbullet]

Yes, looking on the bright side it could have been a lot worse. I suspect that it had been run with a loose rocker stud, can't remmeber everything I found on the stripdown.
Anyway, where there's a mill, there's a way!

[silverbullet]

Dug out the best flywheel I had left in stock, remachined the 8mm thrust step and mounting face, did a quick check for endfloat (Type 4 flanged rear main so no shims) and it appeared to be bang on with circa 0.07mm (3 thpou')

So that was a strong finish yesterday, torqued it to 160Nm and it still turns freely so I'd say its AOK.