[TR] '63 TR4: It lives!

Kentech HomeTech kentech0822 at verizon.net
Fri Jul 13 06:45:36 MDT 2007


Congrats on the engine Jim. Sounds like it sounds like a beast with straight
pipes and a 777 cam - holy carp is this for the street?! 

PeterK

-----Original Message-----
From: J.C. Hassall [mailto:jhassall at blacksburg.net] 
Sent: Thursday, July 12, 2007 8:09 PM
To: TR List
Subject: [TR] '63 TR4: It lives!

I'm pleased to announce that after almost 14 years of silence, my TR4 engine
has once again found its voice, and sweeeeeet it is!  At about 2230 3 JUL
(we have very forgiving neighbors) it barked to life (tubular headers, no
muffler yet) on the first crank.  A *huge* "thanks" goes to Dale Osterndorf,
my buddy and owner of a show-winning TR6, for helping out and keeping me
sane as the preparations neared completion.  The first run only lasted about
5 minutes due to a lean condition - the headers glowed red.  On 4 JUL we
covered about 30% of the Weber throats to richen the mixture and ran in the
Isky 777 cam for 15 minutes.  I kept a room fan blowing on the headers the
whole time just to be sure.

Engine prep: re-profiled, ported and CCd the head (all chambers 1 0.2 cc),
10:1 CR, port-matched the tubular header, 5 angle valve job, all seats
hardened and blended into ports.  Unshrouded the intake valves and cut
matching "eyebrows" in the sleeves (as an aside, I cut the head 3/16" from
the intake valve lip, which caused head gasket sealing problems); Jack
Drews' custom head gasket saved the day.  Intake ports enlarged to match
Canon manifolds.  Weber 40 DCOE carbs with custom throttle linkage.  Rods
lightened, balanced dead nuts, magged and shot peened.  ARP rod and head
bolts.  All pistons balanced dead nuts.  All rotating components balanced as
an assembly (had it not been for the "racket" and heat, you wouldn't have
known the engine was running - it was rock solid steady!), Aluminum flywheel
with 6 ARP bolts.  Lip-type rear seal.  Alternator, extensive use of extra
fuses, Crane XR3000 ignition with Pertronix PS60 coil, Magnecor wires, NGK
plugs. Clearanced the oil pump (had 50 PSI using a drill to pre-oil the
engine, 100 PSI cold, 70 hot).  Competition push rods, lightened and
balanced tappets. 
0.062 shims under the rocker pedestals to maintain geometry, radiused rocker
arms.  Justin Wagner silcone valve cover gasket.

I'm sure there's more stuff, but this list is long enough.  This car will be
about as close to my old DP car as I can get and still be street legal /
driveable.  The rest of the drive train and the suspenders have been heavily
modified as well, but that's for another email.

Yahoo!
--
J.C. Hassall
Blacksburg  VA
64 TR4 in autox preparation
95% finished, 90% to go


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