The V8 Owners Forum -

If you have tubular headers, measure the temperature of each, either with an IR thermometer, or use the old school method of spraying water on each and noting evaporation rates, notably cooler cylinders are where the problem is.

Ian, bear in mind pin offset is 0.6mm so reversing the piston will move the top of the rod by 1.2mm, translating to a miniscule amount towards the lower end of the rod, I doubt clearance will be an issue, but always check. I believe a clearance of 2.5mm or 0.1 inch is the rule of thumb.

Build it and check the clearance, if it's anything like close and it's below where the bottom ring is at BDC grind it out, you just made your performance vehicle lighter.

ChrisJC, absolutely correct, swap pistons and rods from one bank to the other, however I'm going to use 4.0 pistons with the 4.6 crank and rods for a bit more compression, so I'll have to change the pistons anyway. I've discovered my 4.6 has some cylinder damage, so I'm now looking for a good used 4...

GDCobra, Viewing that video, you came in half way through the story. There's a chap on Youtube, Uncle Tony's Garage, who is an ex magazine editor who does budget builds, re using some standard parts to the best advantage. There were others who work on current publications, and have have a subscripti...

This stuff is interesting, I build on a budget, if I have an engine stripped and I'm re using factory parts, then why not try it? It's a world away from credit card tuning, not that there's anything wrong with that, but it's fun and satisfying to gain advantage using guile rather than money.

There has been a debate about this on the interwebs, those of you who are old enough will remember tuning guru David Vizard, here's what he has to say about this question.



Never a power loss reversing the pistons.

Modern Rover V8 tubos, new stuff?

Factory 1962 Olds 215 jetfire with turbo and water/methanol injection.

Sorry I've not been on for a few days, work got hectic! The reason for the pin offset in factory engines is to reduce piston slap, so the engine is quiet when cold. On the compression stroke, side thrust on the piston is opposite to side thrust on the power stroke. The side thrust transitions from o...

Omission, obviously cam and ignition timing would need to be retarded to suit.

On most factory pistons the gudgeon pin is offset slightly to the left of centre, when viewed from the front in a clockwise rotating engine, this done to reduce piston slap when the engine is cold. This means tdc for the piston occurs slightly before a straight line through the big end and main bear...

Lean fueling maps required to achieve emissions standards lead to higher cylinder temperatures, I'm sure it doesn't help.

In my endeavours to discover whether my 4.6 block is sound, I need to pressure test it. Obviously I need to blank off the water passages, then pressurise, if there are no leaks it should maintain pressure, if there are any significant leaks then pressure will drop rapidly. What pressure should I go ...

I suspect that slipped liners will be caused mostly by overheating. In my time I've owned cars, tractors, vans, lorries, excavators, generators, the list goes on, if they are serviced regularly and the cooling system is kept in good order and they are never allowed to overheat, even the engines with...

Stevie, thanks for the tip, I'll check it, it was free to me so financially I'm up whatever. Because it was in a building which caught fire, it got hot, but I would think that it would have had fairly even heating, no massive hot spots like if it was running and overheating and as it wasn't running,...