Meet Graham Bahr. Fixing cars and building engines for 40+ years, racing BMWs since the late 90s. Husband, Dad, Granddad, now the Owner, Founder and Chief Mechanic of Penguin Motors Limited.
Damn Graham thats unfortunate, I hope it was only a faulty valve and you can fix it simply replacing it, and take a very close look at that head. Luckily the piston is still usable and nothing is bent in the bottom end. Cheers from Spain!!
im 99% certain the head could of been saved, trouble is im also 99% certain no 4 exhaust port has gone porous, im which case it is scrap. because of the bore damage (although slight) I will put the block aside and use it for something else, so im going to be almost starting again, oh well its not like ford ever intended us to double the engines power!
I've been following this build with great interest. I had a 1971 Pinto Hatchback which ran a best of 16:45--80 mph flat with only the addition of headers and richer jets in the carb. At that time the National record was 16:25---83 MPH. I never had the funds to campaign the car. It needed a locking rear end and bigger rear tires. Also the transmission had the very low 1st gear causing a power drop after the 1-2 shift. A transmission change was needed also so it had a more favorable gear. Fun little car though.
hello there hope you can help . I have friend that has a 1959 Australian built ford Zephyr flat bed ute 'i believe there are only 60 may be 70 left in the world . Slowly he's on his way to get back it on the road but rear axle oil seals need replacing . He does have an original work shop manual but the some of the pages of the chapter for the rear axle have crumbled away and are illegible , could you tell me if there are any special tools required to remove and replace the seals. thanks
yes it is a lot, but not that rare, the short circuit racers used to screw them round to those rpm lap after lap, and they use standard ford valves! Through the wonders of you tube I know what a spintron is, dont know anyone in the uk with one though. in fact its hard to find a uk engine builder that has there own dyno!
oh bugger... when i used to maintain a hire fleet of pinto transits, cracked heads were a pretty common problem, constant high revs + running weak were a factor i reckon only once did i have a problem with valve stretch, freshly rebuilt head lost all the clearance [10 thou i think] on the exhaust valves after 100miles
they usually close up a bit, but once reset usually stay put, but this time they closed up a couple of times and by a fair bit. overheating them will cause issues, but timing certainly wasnt retarded, and it wasnt lean, plugs looked a bit white but AFR gauge said not ( i tried a new wideband just in case) and adding more fuel didnt changing the power poving it wasnt lean
Interested in the plug you used on this motor ? Whats your thoughts on plug indexing influencing flame propagation and overhaul power gains - if any. You could measure valve stem length and see if there was any stretch on no.4
@@PenguinMotors LOL old timer had me always index plugs on his race car when I help out. Told me it was especially important on xflow. Maybe he was pulling my chain. Thanks for the reply
some modified high compression engines you have to index the plugs or the piston hits them. That would be the case with this engine if it had standard plugs
1st of all, good to meet you the other week at Elvington. I was on the Honda Bluebird. Damn shame the ole pinto dropped a valve, never nice to see but it’s not as bad as some I’ve done 🤦♂️
Arhh yes, nice to meet you too. i really didnt expect to be recognised! Dunno why, everywhere i go theres always someone who clocks me. I live and die in a Penguin shirt but deliberatly didnt wear one on that day. Never one to do things the easy way im now trying to figure out how to make my old Tl1000 actually go fast, although i was pretty pleased with 161mph on an almost stock bike which only had a claimed 165mph new. I know i can go nearly 200 on a stock Hyabusa, But wheres the fun in that? its rather like my work tuning old pintos etc when a modern 16v lump can make far more power.
You had the hat on for disguise too, but ain’t no disguising that voice. 161 was a great result for the near stock bike !! I only just equalled the factory figure on mine with Akra 4-1, K&N filter, power commander and dyno setup. Really pleased to say the bike has done 96K. I’m taking it back next month with bare minimum fuel (rather than the near full tank I had in) and lower it a touch to get better launch. You coming back next year to beat the factory figure ?
yes, i might even be back in september, bike is down at the bike dyno now to see if theres anything to be had in mapping a power commander, that and to find out where it actually makes peak power. I found a few more mph by dropping the rear sprocket a tooth as by the 1.25 mile is was definatly past peak power in top. What i probably will do is fit some swing arm extensions, that way i might be able to launch it, currently it just wants to wheelie, having to wait until the wheel comes down near the top of 2nd gear before i can give it full throttle must be costing speed through the speed trap
@@PenguinMotors yeah that was my issue too. I’m only doing September meeting on the Bluebird to properly beat the 176mph, then it’s back to just road use. So I’m just going to lower it, and take a tooth lower for rear, instead of swing arm extenders. Got a stock Busa to play with for next year. And a 1200 Vmax that i want to take just to see what top speed it will actually do.
That's horrible after so much time and work how come u didn't go 2.1 I remember seeing a harris drag race pinto it had that much compression it wouldn't hardly turn over are u trying to build an engine that can be used on the road as well
Ahh man. Sorry to see this happen. Can’t predict this but stuff like this is always out of your control and has to happen at some point. And are those headers 1 5/8 OD or 1 3/4 OD?
We (Carobu Engineering) do a leak down test on all our engines after the dyno testing. This way, we have a baseline and it verifies that the engine is in good condition. A compression test is quick test, but the leak down test gives more information. Typically, we see 1 to 3% leakage on a fresh engine. Anything over 5% needs an investigation. None of this relates to the damaged engine - sorry for your loss!
Valves, well thats if they are a product of the last few years Graham. You've built loads of these over decades, the only thing that's changed over the years is the quality of parts for the worse sadly.
Sadly nothing seems to be well made anymore. You wouldn’t believe the trouble we have with replacement alternators these days, what ever brand we buy has a high failure rate, I now won’t fit any aftermarket ones, which means we lose jobs over the cost, but better that than doing the job twice and losing money
@@PenguinMotors Spot on, it's reached the point where buying top branded aftermarket or new genuine parts doesn't mean quality. New, old stock if you can get hold of it is worth the money.
yes, block has very minor damage to bore, it would probably go again no trouble, but for its intened use thats not really good enough, i could have the block linered, but that reduces strength, as i have another block better to start again and put this one aside for somethine else
Hi can you tell me the type of oil I can use in my 2liter pinto standard road car just with a fast cam engine was built new thanks Denis from Ireland 🇮🇪 🙂
Its hard to beat comma classic 20w50, cheap and i have put thousands and thgousands of dyno pulls and hours on the stuff. I believe halfords classic 20w 50 is same stuff
standard pinto AP6FS or APR6FS every time, just dont buy fake ones off the ebay/amazon/internet, make sure you go to someone who will be selling the real deal
Hi graham Having terrible trouble with my pinto. Timing done to 108 degrees has thr fr32 kent cam on 45s. Timing set to 12. Engine ideals rough Engine shakes. Plugs are very wet any ideas. Sound like it firing on 3 really rough. Compression is 180 to 200. Sent my carbs back to weber they said nothing wrong with them. They replaced the ball and weight. And the thread as it was leaking fuel out top. Any ideas
180-200 compression sounds a lot on an FR32, especially with 12 degrees timing ( although that doesnt mean much without knowing the rest of the curve) BUT none of that is going to make it missfire. are you sure your ht leads are fully inserted into the distributor cap and coil? Dont go by the position of the rubber boots they are often need pulling further away from the end of the lead to allow full insertion to cap/coil
@PenguinMotors hi yes checked leads all OK. I have removed the 45s now and put 2nd 32,36 on all seems alot better. My only issue now is it's smokey. I did 2 tunes out on mixture smokes. Screwed in all way still ran and smokes???? I thought it won't run if mixture screw is all way in.
if it runs with the mixture screw all the way in its probably idling on the main jets, IE the throttle is a long way open, that might be because its low on intake vacuum. when you say you set the cam timing to 108, how did you do that?
@@PenguinMotors piston 1 tdc with a dti. And dti on inlet valve 1 fully open found the point where the dti didn't move before and after . Then I undo the cam pully and put a spanner on cam so it didn't move and moved crank to 108. ?? Is that right
no that doesnt sound right, crank is at TDC for several degrees and cam will also be at full lift for several degrees, so you cant just read full lift you have to find the middle of teh full lift period. with your method you could be a fair way out. Burtons describe how its done here www.burtonpower.com/tuning-guides/tuning-guide-pages/camshaft-fitting-timing.html
Great video again Graham. You sure know how to find the ponies in these motors. Have you ever tried unequal length headers on one of these? Supposedly good for midrange, which could prove useful in certain applications. Keep up the good work
i have a manifold sitting under my milling machine waiting for me to get round to it, i think the biggest problem is trying to take out teh port divider, easy at the manifold end not so further up
I'm a bit late to the party having just seen this and it's not that different to mine - my knackered 4.6 heads were saved with a set of very very slightly bigger valves (ones that don't need new bigger seats) and like you I used the standard cam, carbs, airfilter, etc off the old 3.5. My 3.5 exhaust manifolds had been built for looks from box section and I thought were awful for flow but I still got the same as you, 201bhp and 291lb/ft so maybe they're not so bad after all. The difference in driving is just staggering, it's definitely the best engine mod you can do IMHO. 4mpg better fuel consumption too :)
