# Small model V8 motor built at home scratch built



## dixon

Started off with a piece of 4" aluminium about 12 long and it all stemmed from there.

Here is a few pictures of the build up process and a video of the finished product. This is the first model I have built.


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## stevehuckss396

great project! Keep us posted on the progress.


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## ozzie46

Yes!! Definitely keep us posted. Great work indeed.

 Ron


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## Ken I

You picked a helluva project for your first build - impressive.

Can't wait to see more.

Ken


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## dixon

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlCWbpqTXS8[/ame]

here is my video

i have a lot more photos step by step progress if anyone is interested


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## ozzie46

If we are interested? Silly guy, ;D of course we are interested.

 Post away.

 Is that PVC couplers and copper elbows for an intake manifold?

  Ron


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## danstir

Grest engine and nice looking parts. Thanks for sharing!


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## stevehuckss396

Would love to see more pictures.


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## Blue_Rock

What a great looking and sounding engine! 

Looking forward to seeing more pictures... can't get enough of them ;D


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## agmachado

Hi Dixon,

We are absolutely interested in your wonderful project !!!

th_wwp th_wwp

Cheers,

Alexandre


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## Mosey

Wow! I love the sound.


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## metalmad

nice job mate
Pete


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## Harold Lee

WOW!!! When I think of a first project I think of a small wobbler or a single steam engine. BUT an eight cylinder internal combustion engine? WOW!!!

That is incredible and you have my admiration.... Wish we had seen the build...

Keep up the good work.

Harold


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## dixon

ok my daughter has done all the computer stuff the digital readout on my little lathe is enough for me i am just learning how to text  we will see how we go with this  the firing order of this little engine is 12478356 number one is left hand side front number two is right hand side front so 1357 on the left and 2468 on the right . notice full stop. im learning. the firing order could have been a few different ways including 12345678 but i thought i had better spread it around as much as i could. the bore is 1.250 and the stroke is 1.187 .the stroke ended up that size because that was as close to the bore size i could get by putting the jaws in the three jaw in the wrong order . because i had to copy these sizes numerous times. the crank has ball bearing mains 15 mm id x 5 and big ends are needle rollers 12 mm id 90 degrees apart starting from front of crank , not like a couple of other throws that i have seen ... but this isnt where it all began, maybe this can be chapter one ...time here is 7.30 pm aest
aust time


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## dixon

ozzie46, the inlet manifold is made of 5/8 copper elbows and tees (i painted them to hide my ugly silver soldering)


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## pcw

dixon  said:
			
		

> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlCWbpqTXS8
> 
> here is my video
> 
> i have a lot more photos step by step progress if anyone is interested



what would make you think we would be interested in step by step pictures........  
we are not really interested, WE LOVE THEM!!!!
post them up so we all can drool over them :bow: :bow: :bow:
pascal


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## dixon




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## dixon

this is the piece of ally i started with. i bored a hole through it ,cut it in half length ways, put two hose clamps around it so i could grab it in the chuck to put two steady tracks on it . then i drilled and taped 4 m6 holes so i could bolt it together and remove the clamps . then i machined all the main bearing diameters and spaces for the crank counterweights. lots more to come


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## kustomkb

Great engine Dixon!

I like your approach to the crank case. It will be interesting to see the rest.


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## kcmillin

Awesome work on the engine Dixon, it sounds great!!

Keep the pictures coming.

Kel


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## agmachado

I very like of pictures step by step of the build...

Absolutely cool, thank you!!!

Alexandre


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## Blue_Rock

Lovin' the photos, keep them coming.


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## dalem9

Every time I see one of these engine run it just amaziest me ! Great job .Thanks for sharing .Dale


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## dixon

these few pictures above show machining cylinder block/sump . with one showing crank counter weights sitting roughly in position




i will keep you guessing what these bolts are for and put some more pictures up tomorrow


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## ///

Journals?


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## dixon

This was an easy way for me to make valves, they are already half built, hitensile and a buck each at the local hard ware.


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## danstir

I really like your approach to making the valves. It sure saves time waiting for stock to arrive and avoids shipping costs.


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## dixon

here i have the valves all finished and the collets all ready to go (just need lapping in)









I went to the local spring works and purchased 3 metres of spring steel and as you can see in the picture i have drilled a hole in an old bolt that was a bit smaller in diameter than the id of the finished product and just kept winding it around to the desired length with the lathe set on the right pitch. (they were quite easy to make)







































these few pictures show the block being machined, drilled and tapped for the barrels to bolt on, i have milled the bottom half of the block/sump out so as it can hold a bit more oil.


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## dixon

you will notice the jaws are offset in this picture, it was the easiest and quickest way i could mass produce all these pieces. and they are all very close to being the same (nobody is perfect)




con rods being cut out of 10mm alluminum flat bar, no special tensile strength just off the shelf.




all of these radiuses were done pretty much by hand just like in the picture. the 2 blue lines on the vice were an indicator of where to finish the radius.














the jaws grabbed the big and little end just nicely (because i went more than 2/3rds of a circle with the mill and vice grips) 









Reaming to size and pushing the bearings in with the vice.




These pieces were cut on the band saw, we will find a use for them later.


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## dixon

That should keep every one interested for a while, there is heaps more to come.
heads, barrels, cams, rockers, distributor, pistons, rings and the crank.

more comments and questions PLEASE i am enjoying this part of it as much as i did building the engine ;D


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## mzetati

> That should keep every one interested for a while,

Sure it does!
Marcello


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## mzetati

Some notes on how You machined the valves would be much appreciated.
Marcello


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## dixon

the valves. i machined hex off bolt then end for ended it in chuck and centre drilled. pictures show valve head machined first and along stem for a bit while gripped by the thread end. the head of the valve could then be held in the grooves of the jaws ( for stability ) and machined rest of the way leaving centre drilled end to be parted off last after collet groove was put in. you can see stems starting to change colour (going blue). so i had to be a bit careful. after blue they go red and a bit like licrorice. just have to be patient.


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## Ken I

Using cold (hot) headed bolt as stock for a valve - pure genius - 
I'm not sure you could do better - definately worth a karma point in my book.

Ken


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## stevehuckss396

Loving it, keep it coming!


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## agmachado

I too!!!

Very, very cool!!!

Cheers,

Alexandre


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## dixon

here you can see i am trying to get the rockers and cam to work together. on the left hand bank of cylinders the inlet cam lobes do their work on the top side of the rockers and the exhaust cam lobe pushes the rocker from the bottom. and on the other bank of cylinders the inlet cam lobe pushes the rocker from the bottom and the exhaust side gets pushed open from the top side.

























the cam lobes were first roughed out of a piece of high tensile round bar with a skinny cutting disc and grinding wheel on a 5inch grinder (4inch grinders are for boys ) after that they were put in the lathe and filed up to look the part. next i drilled and tapped a 4mm hole on the clearance side of the lobe so as i could adjust each one seperatly on the shaft until i got it in the right position. once they were all in the right position i then silversoldered them onto the shaft. the shaft the cams were soldered to was a piece of 8mm OD thick wall hydralic tube.


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## dixon

ok folks now we have the crank shaft. as you can see in the photo below, i had to modify my pipe bender to use it as a press, i drilled an extra hole right in the centre above the jack. (were the boring bar is going through) which was used to press the crank shaft together.












































started with a piece of bar 55mm OD, drilled a 12mm hole through it and parted of 8 discs (plus a couple for spares) about 8mm wide. then bored the holes to 15mm in the lathe. after this i swapped 2 of the jaws around to give me the offset for the stroke, then drilled and bored each one to 12mm. all discs are now ready.
now i needed big end and main pins which was 12 and 15mm high tensile round bar cut to the required length, it was a lengthy process of one disc, big end pin 2 rods then another disc. i then put it in the lath to make sure it was running true, then pressed a main bearing pin into the centre hole, then a bearing followed by a disc and so on. making sure it was all running true as i went. (within 2 or 3 thou) As you can see i had the lathe tool and beer tin between the discs so as it didnt bend the big end pin.


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## ozzie46

This is amazing!! :bow: :bow:

  Keep it coming. 

 Ron


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## agmachado

Again... no words!!

th_wav woohoo1

:bow:

Cheers,

Alexandre


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## maverick

Great example of ingenuity, imagination and skill. I'm giving you a karma point 
 but if I didn't, I bet you could make your own. Looking forward to more.

  Regards,
  Mike


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## dixon

This is the barrels being made. Started with the aluminium 80mm diameter. Cut it into pieces and bored a hole through it and put some cooling fins in with my 3mm parting tool. (my only parting tool) 3mm gap and 3mm fin, pretty simple with the digital readout. the spaces were so accurate the barrel fins meshed into one another.





showing a picture of a barrel being pushed into the chuck with a piece of steel for stability, especially when parting things.




theres a couple of pictures here pushing the cylinder liners into the barrels.









 cutting fins off in my band saw. 4 had one side cut off and the other 4 had both sides cut off and then i machined them flat and square









the liners were made from old shock absorbers, they were nearly done for me . i machined the outside so there was a lip on the top .the inside was the right size ,just needed honing




i pushed the liners in as much as i could with the tailstock until it started slipping, then i used the vice (must be good for a couple of ton )


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## Blue_Rock

I really like your approach to mass producing parts like the cam lobes, valves and the crank parts. Your use of shock absorber bodies for liners is also a great idea. Do you have a rough idea how long it took you to make the engine? Thanks for the inspiration.


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## dixon

i started on this project at easter this year . i have been doing a couple of hours on it just about every day. i was happy when the first lot of noise came out of it . that was early sept. originally i put 4 wipper snipper carbys from the dump on it but it ran terrible. thats when i made the single manifold and it ran as you see it in the video . i want to neaten the manifold as it was a test piece but its working and i need a spell. i have videos of it running with the 4 carbies. i will put them up when the kids help me. there would have to be around 400 hrs of time spent on it to this stage. if i played golf or went fishing it would be just as time consuming probably with no end result 12.00 midday aest


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## dixon

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TX1ecEVVp8s[/ame]

This is a video I found on my phone recently of the valve springs being made. Notice that they are left hand thread. I wasn't working into the chuck, I was working away from the chuck.


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## dixon

Starting work on the heads with a form tool putting the combustion chamber in. 





Set up in the drill on an angle to do the valve ports and guides. 










Then I turned each head over to do the other side of the valve guide also did the spark plug while it was this way. It was done with a slugger bit. They are used in the construction industry on magnetic drills, and do a nice job as they leave the centre intact. 





Doing some fins, slow and tedious. 





You can see the ports are all done and the fins put in later on. 





This is a picture of the start of one of the barrells.


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## dixon

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIYffpqkSIY[/ame]

This is early on. Probably it's first or second run as you will notice with the four carbies, I couldn't get it to run very nice. It runs a hell of a lot better with the one. 

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jskLJJafrqw&feature=related[/ame]

Hasn't even got header pipes on it here. 

There are a few more videos on youtube if anyone wants to have a look:
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/user/RuffKonduct4x4#p/u[/ame]

I've got some plans that I drew up too that I am going to put up at a later date.


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## stevehuckss396

Cool stuff. Keep the pixs comming. I see by your video the engine is BIG!


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## dixon

Been away folks but im back onto it again . here is some photos of progress along the way.






Earlier on with the 4 carbies, also you can see the distributor coming together.





Other end of the engine sorting out cam timing. notice the drill chuck for easy turning of the cams. The gear on the crank was not keyed to the shaft at this stage, so it was easy to turn the cam shafts. The plastic gear was replaced with and aluminum one.





Starting to machine some distributor parts. This is the housing for the points and cam.





here i have started with a piece of plastic to make the distributor cap.





Its pretty messy stuff if you dont catch the shavings from the start.





Test fitting the distributor cap to the housing.










Here i am have divided the cap into 8 equal spaces using my little dividing head drilling and tapping as i go. After they were tapped i screwed some 5/16 unf copper bolts in there as the little spark catchers.





Here i have the drawing i used to build the distributor, the points were purchased from the local hardware store. (early model holden torana, they were the smallest i could find off the shelf) (is that cheating? ???)





The photo is a little bit blury but this is making the cam. machined the blank up in the lathe then into the dividing head were i used a slot drill and made the shape as you can see. (so rather than flats they are scollops)





the rotor button was a bit big, so my distributor cap was made bigger to suit.





Giving it a test run by hand ;D. (notice the flash battery supply )





making rings out of an old cast iron hydralic cylinder gland for practice.





here you can just see were i have put a little grove in the ring with a file so they would break nicely for me.










here i opened them up and put a 10mm nut between the ends and sat them on the stove. the stove was not hot enough to do what i wanted them to do, so i went to plan B 8)


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## dixon

Few photos of drawings right from the start. Double overhead cam one day, single overhead cam the next. It's all on A4 drawn full size, you can scale it down if you want to. This is all I worked with for the whole job, the only drawing that is not here is the one where I made the distributor but it's in a previous lot of photos. Send me a message or reply on here if you have any questions and I'll try my best because it started back in Easter.


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## agmachado

Very, very cool!

:bow:

Cheers,

Alexandre


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## dixon

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xYS76sGGws[/ame]

another video early on . i dont think i even had rings on it at this stage. it was just to see if everthing went round n round . it sort of did . things rubbed in a few places. the oil was a bit shiney but a bit of die grinding in a few places gave it some clearence .the drill i was spinning it with was good for 2800 rpm and i had it flat out for five minutes or so .it seemed to spin nicely (no vibration at all with no fly wheel either). i did have a problem with crankcase pressure i drilled holes into each pair of cylinders and hooked them all together with plastic hose so as when two pistons were going down they were pushing air into two cylinders whose pistons were going up. (make sense) anyway see what you reckon. that wasnt the only problem


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