Amazing details , no fluff videos that make your days.. this is one of your best series so far sir... so dang informative, I’m a average guy and it’s well above my pay grade . But fascinating and I’m able to understand because your tutorage is spot on, your setting the bar high sir
I remember when I was a much younger in the late 90’s early 2000’s there were people using stuff I assume is like your system but they where hush hush about it and they would only say what is was just that it wasn’t just a wire in a grove like the old school top fuel hoops so that is why in hind sight I assume it must be something similar to your system. I am blown away your honesty and being so strait forward about your system as most people guard anything that works with their life as they are worried about losing customers to other shops if they could catch up with cylinder pressure sealing. I wish I could work for you as I have been building engines since I was a teenager and your stuff is so extremely impressive to me, it is man jewelry (more expensive than most jewelry as well but it should be as much time, effort, and R&D you put in) I have never seen such quality parts outside formula one and maybe Noonan, your the man! 👍🏻
Nice tutorial. Back in the day, 70's = 80's, I used an Isky O-ring tool with a convex bit and had hoops made. The challenge was, at the time, getting concentricity to duplicate in the head receiver using either the Winona or Bridgeport. Ended up building jigs. Still have the O-ring tool in the original box, probably belongs in a museum, heh.
Years ago I worked for a place that did some high end VW and Audi race stuff and we used a very similar method. Although we used manual equipment with a modified flycutter and custom inserts. We'd have an hour or so just making a set of four hoops plus material. I'd tell people what they cost and they'd think I was lying trying to rip them off until they saw them made. People used to have a hard time understanding that they were paying for the chips in the scrap bin along with the part before cnc became so popular.
20 years ago on our dragracing Suzuki motorcycles (gs1100/1150 and gsxr1100) we did the oring the sleeves flange. Then when we got so much nitrous in there and it started not being able to hold it we came up with the receiver groove in the head to catch/clamp onto where the wire in the block embossed the copper head gasket and smashed it into the receiver groove. I’m sure other people (car guys for sure) were doing this back then too but I came up with the idea on my own. We actually clamped the head to the mill table (deck surface up) and bolted the cylinder block (bike cylinders were seperate pieces back then) onto the head with the dowels in place. Sweeper the bored from the bottom of the cylinders to find true center of bore. Then you could lower the table in the z axis and remove the cylinder while the head was still bolted down and mill spindle centered up over the head exactly where the bore center is. Grind the cutter bit to suit the wire used and set the diameter of the boring head to place the groove where you want it to reside in head. After doing all the grooves in the head the cylinders (sleeves flange) was easy. You cutter Is set for the OD from the previous operations. Remove the head from table and mount the cylinder with deck up. Indicate the center of the cylinder and change the bit alone (if you want a smaller/larger groove thickness) to suit the geometry of the groove you want to cut for the wire. Worked great. Now I’m gonna have to try the hoops I wonder if they are made by finding the proper od stainless tube and cuttting the od and id to suit the final dimensions you want the hoops to be, then just part off a small hoop thickness.
Kinda neat. A power plant guy, like me, would recognize a wire ring as a seal while the SME bit is more of a labyrinth with three changes in direction. the last one only need survive a much lower pressure. Plain gasket < ring < labyrinth seal. That's why they give this guy the big bucks.
IIRC, a video from Australia where they did not cut a groove in the block per se but cut the cylinder liner top down an amount and then a matching groove in the head with the ring filling what had been the liner top and the groove in the head. They were using a copper head gasket so very similar.
This was filmed before the last one, I noticed the drawing on the head in the last video. I'm actually really glad he posted this because that was driving me crazy just seeing those written on thad head without explanation.
Now that you're installing the stainless hoop into the aluminum head, how do you prevent corrosion caused by the indifferent metals touching each other?
Just to be clear your fire rings "aka Hoops" do not touch the head gasket. They are the entire combustion containment. The I assume copper gasket just does oil and water if there is any.
You still use a copper head gasket between the head and block. The hoop deal is just a way more efficient design than the old way of doing it with wire . Hope that helps LOL
He says it indents the gasket. So I would assume the gasket is crushed by the fire rings. The rings just increase point force and add more pressure to the gasket around the cylinder
Do you put the hoops in other combos like the BBC,SBC,LS,and LT? I'm just asking because you call it the "SMX" hoops I've also heard them called Top Fuel hoops and Hi-Boost hoops plus other names for them
Question: Could you per say just have your sleeves stick up so much and then cut a groove in your cylinder head to match your sleeves for a lower horsepower motor not making 2000+ and would that work?
What is the most HP you have made out of any small block and what was the combo and how much HP have you made with that small block? My dream is to own a 4.6BS 500+cid all billet aluminum SBC along with a 481X and a Semi Hemi and maybe even an all billet aluminum big cubic inch BBC like a 959-1,000cid but I don't know if I would want it to be nitrous assisted like most of them engines are
I had to install o ring wire on 3 of the cylinders in my 638 on top of other repairs, my cylinder heads dont have a groove but still seal with the copper head gaskets.
I had the same thing done to a AMC 401 about 20yrs ago. Used copper head gaskets no issues with 15:1 compression. I know I did not have boost on it but still it did work fine.
Does anyone know how before the days of cnc mills they would have cut these perfectly circular grooves in? Would they have but the block on a big rotary table and done it that way?
Am I the only one that gets nervous when Steve (or anyone for that matter) has their hands near the rotating spindle? Thanks for another great video Steve, and hello from Traverse City!
No He’s the professional this is the peanut gallery ..where 99.9% have never even been in the same room as machine , and if they where they’d never take on projects like this .
Does thermal expansion have any affect on the rings? I would assume that alu heads would grow/shrink as it heads up affecting the gap that was cut for the ring.
Ma okuma or any horizontal would be spitting them out like pez candy. 20k rpm spindle hsk shrink fit holder around 350 ipm . Take two people to keep the blocks loaded on the pallets.
Are those o rings cut from food grade pipe? I had a project the other day and I had to have the machinist cut my pipe down. Had a 4 inch piece of sanitary 317 stainless. The piece that came off looked like your o ring. I was like damn that would make a good fire ring lol.
We used to use a food grade material for the VW/Audi motors back in the day. I forget the grade but it was some pretty pricey stuff used in factories and food processor plants. But it was an oddball size and a friend had some leftovers from doing work at DuPont. I had some serious sticker shock when I ordered more and a lot was cut away making them. Also we didn't use a cnc, I had custom inserts made to make the hoops and cut the blocks and they worked quite well.
@@southjerseysound7340 That's super cool! Our plant wastes lots of money to make small parts too. They'll bring me stuff that looks unassuming till I spark up a tig to it and it explodes. They make stuff called dairy stainless and its some weird stuff.
you are much smarter than me but how it was explained to me was put the wire in the aluminum and the receiver in the block . the cast iron will hold a sharp edge better than the alumnium
Happened to me, dodgy looking email. But plausible, so phoned the bank. They said no thsts not from us, 3 days later my card has been cancelled by the bank. It was the bank
Unless the hoop was a tolerance fit in the groove it wouldn't seal I don't think? A rubber o ring deforms slightly into the square groove to form a seal. The groove depth is set so it sits flush when compressed which allows both mating surfaces to meet at the same time making it impossible for the o ring to escape from the groove.
Who said anything about rubber o-rings? Also LOL you think that Steve Morris builds a $40K 3000hp engine and doesn't pay attention to tolerances Edit: His 2000+ horsepower LS based engines START at $45k. I'm pretty sure he knows what he is doing.
@@gordonbowe Rubber o rings do the same job as metal hoops. They are exclusively used in hydraulic equipment working at much higher pressures than any engine.
@@cncit I use and design o-ring grooves all the time at work. I understand how they work. This works differently. The head gasket is the compliant material in this case. The stainless steel ring and corresponding groove in the block simply gives the head gasket a defined clamping surface with high clamping pressure. In the case of a hydraulic o-ring seal, the o-ring is compliant and provides the seal all on its own. It's just different. You can't really compare the two and trying to use a metal ring like a rubber o-ring will cause poor sealing. Obviously top fuel teams found that out and went to a style similar to SM for a reason.
@@cncit Yeah I forgot that Steve builds hydraulic equipment. Im pretty sure its not the pressure you would have to worry about with rubber o rings, but the fact they would melt in seconds at full power
