Subject: automotive engine boring on a mill
From: "Ed Huntress"
Date: 10/12/04 05:53 GMT Standard Time
Message-id:

"Robin S." wrote in message
m...

"Dave Baker" wrote in message
...
I understand there's no particular reason you ought to know what I do or
that
I'm one of the leading specialists in engine design and theory in the UK

"Never trust anyone who asks you to."


So please, no bloody stupid room 101 test questions about where the
datum
point
for measuring the o/d on a piston skirt is because if you really want to
get
into engine theory with me I'll blow you out of the f***ing water.

Now you're getting nasty Dave. You're actually not the only person here
who
cuts metal professionally.

This actually is very funny, and I'm biting my tongue...because I know who
Anthony works for, and that he's very expert at the business of making
high-end pistons in production, and I know who Dave is, and that he's a
genuine expert at making his kind of pistons.

I don't make pistons for a living Ed. It was a one off project about 10 years
ago. I design and build race engines and specialise in cylinder head flow
development. It's just that over the years I've looked at most of the major
components in an engine to see if myself and my colleague could make them
competitively or not. Partly to make work for his CNC shop, partly so I could
get exactly what I wanted without having to rely on other manufacturers, partly
because the only way to really understand a component is to learn what making
it entails.

Even when we decided that something was just too specialised to continue making
them in small numbers without the optimum machinery it was incredibly valuable
in terms of R&D, metallurgical knowledge etc and to an extent just being able
to say to myself, yes I can do this if I want to now. At least now when I need
something specialised I can talk to the suppliers from the POV of actually
understanding the product.

Even something as simple as a valve guide means learning about the properties
of an essentially infinite number of types of bronze, the ideal interference
fit in the head, wear properties, coefficients of expansion etc. Get to
something more involved like a piston or a camshaft profile and that complexity
expands many times over. State of the art in piston design is a million miles
away from what we ever achieved but at least I had the satisfaction of running
an engine where I could say I actually made the pistons from scratch. They were
somewhat agricultural at that stage but they worked, they didn't break and they
taught me where the finer points of the design process lay.
--
Dave Baker - Puma Race Engines (www.pumaracing.co.uk)