I still can't get over how comfortable Pete and Kevin are building an engine from scratch, let alone continuing to one-up themselves. Thanks as always for the awesome documentation, from the questions to the editing.
As a retired engine tech, (worked on Cadillac engines and the NorthStar) Thanks to you, Kevin and Pete for showing us this work. Not many people enjoy this as a few of us do.
Northstar had some issues in its first iterations but overall is super underrated, same with the 4t80e it was parred with! Lots of grand Prix guys swap those transmissions in at least! But the Northstar engine is comparable to the gm coyote. Pretty damn cool
Please personally thank every single one of these people. Thank you to yourself for sharing this and filming it. Please keep going. This is awe inspiring work. Stuff to look up to for my younger generation.
The dawg is my second fave thing in this video... normally id see dogs running from stuff like that but he runs to it with such curiosity!! Great build all this info helps with my engine i wanna design
You guys are amazing! Thanks for sharing these steps. I’m so glad I found this. When the rest of the car builder community catches up you guys are going to explode so please keep sharing so I can learn from all your experience.
Nice job guys, I cringed a little when I saw that he was welding it with the spool gun because there are so many nicer aluminum setups but it just goes to show that what used to work still works and that weld turned out nice. This engine build is inspiring, and I love to see an engineering marvel that combines all the different skill-sets starting with the vision to execute something so complicated, machining, fabricating, welding and the tuning all in one house. Amazing
Wire feed lets you add a lot of material with minimal heat soak. If you were to TIG as much material you'd have a lot more heat soak into the block making it warp even more. TIG is fantastic but for adding lots of material, wire feed is faster, easier, safer and cheaper. Wire feed is used for surface hardening dozer blades/teeth, line boring, and building up material on things like track rollers, turbine wheels and propeller blades just to name a few things. Hell, the vertical steel beams that make up the skeleton of skyscrapers are beveled and wire welded together. All forms of welding exist for good reason and they're all awesome.
A Millermatic 355 with the Aluma-Pro push-pull gun large wire size with the weld following closely behind the block preheat would probably do the job, I think the 252 in the video does not put out enough heat (current). However, if we stay with miller machines for the moment, the Syncrowave 400 TIG liquid cooled torch large diameter rod following the block preheat (as closely as practical) is the better choice to do these deep penetration welds into thick plate. I also think it would be good to have two heating torches and a spot read or thermal camera to see the actual temperature of the aluminum before welding, so two men on torches, one taking temps, and the final a welder. I also think the builders should have a rotating clamping jig to hold all of the main pieces in place under a set clamping pressure (the valley and the two cylinder banks) and alternate welding bank to bank starting with stitch welds so the distortion cancels out, fill in the stitch welds side to side, then do a final large fillet weld over the top again alternating banks. You will need to rotate the assembly so the weld puddle with gravity spans at the correct angle the final weld puddle will be huge the cup will be very large and the shielding gas at a high flow rate. After the final large fillet welds you could then grind down the weld using a radiused grinding wheel, first course then fine. This would help appearance but also provide some weld inspection for porosity.
YEAH! i was waiting for this Edit: Question: apart from it taking way longer, would you be able to TIG something this thick? Does MIG offer greater penetration?
You can definitely TIG something that thick, but my guess is as good as yours. First assumption would simply be accessibility(at least for inside the head), little easier to point and shoot with a spool gun than having to get a torch in there and feed filler at the same time.
Deposit rate. They even said Tig would take forever to fill and a ton of amps to keep it hot. Mig spool gun is actually more efficient but really finicky to get set up right and you only have the tip to base gap to fine tune the heat.
Tig welding aluminum is usually done with AC current so only half the energy goes into the metal. MIG welding uses DC current so all the energy goes into the part and you get much better Penetration.
Imo spool gun was their best option. For main reason that the parts were not cleaned anywhere near enough for tig. If it was me doing it, I would have tigged it. But on the same hand I wasn’t there too see things you couldn’t see in the video
Thanks for showing this its very interesting. A question I have that you may have gone over is why is there such a big gap between the 2 cylinder gaps? Theres 3 cylinders and then spacing in between and then the next 3 cylinders. Is there a reason for this?
It is done that way because the heads are made from Aurora V8 heads. One cylinder cut off, then two are welded together on the uncut ends and the ends are capped. It is an ingenious way of doing it. There is a video all about the 6 liter build on this channel called "How To Make a V12 Engine From Scratch - Part 1" They go over basically every detail on the build.
Where would the threads for the head bolts be located on something like this? Pete mentioned the legs for the head bolts, does that mean they're threaded near the bottom of the cylinders?
@@kevinbraun6272 Hi Kevin, wow you guys really do a great job. Last I knew 5356 was not heat treatable?? I could see a vibratory stress relief? or maybe the HIPP process??
@@samstewart4807 Technically you are correct, the 5356 is not heat treatable, but it does not appear to have any adverse effect by heat treating it. The heat treating is mainly to bring the 6061 back to the T6 condition. The 5356 weld is harder than the 6061 material around the weld. So we heat treat the part and it brings the whole part to a very consistent condition. After cutting into the welds we have never found any cracks or voids, and when I cut into the material it cuts extremely consistent. You cannot see where the base material starts and the weld begins. Now I’m sure we would be able to see the difference if we were to anodize the aluminum, however it seems to be more than adequate for the strength that we need. We have done this process on five engines so far with zero failures.
I Am curious as to why after preheating the base metal, this welder doesn’t use TIG instead of aluminum MIG? I am aware this puts down a lot more material, but the penetration would be far better than this.
is there any way I could get the cad files for this engine? It's incredible to see how these things are constructed. If you cant or dont want to send them to me I understand.
It’s a Herculean effort for sure but wouldn’t it be easier to get 3D Printed sand molds and cast the block yourselves? So many points of trouble with welds.
We actually did a small practice piece, however because of the difference in thickness and actual mass of material, he had to continue to adjust as he welded.
Why are they building a block from multiple parts and welding them together? Especially in this day and age with 4/5 axis machining building a full billet block should not be too hard and actually improves the structural rigidity. None the less still amazing work!
@@jeffmiller3150 It's an question out of curiosity as why Kevin and Pete take this approach. Also a bare billet block does not cost hundreds of thousands. Take for example RB, 2jz and various other billet V8 blocks. There are around 10 to 15k for an bare block.
I still can't get over how comfortable Pete and Kevin are building an engine from scratch, let alone continuing to one-up themselves. Thanks as always for the awesome documentation, from the questions to the editing.
As a retired engine tech, (worked on Cadillac engines and the NorthStar) Thanks to you, Kevin and Pete for showing us this work. Not many people enjoy this as a few of us do.
Oh you poor dear. (Northstar engine).
Northstar had some issues in its first iterations but overall is super underrated, same with the 4t80e it was parred with! Lots of grand Prix guys swap those transmissions in at least! But the Northstar engine is comparable to the gm coyote. Pretty damn cool
@@chillville2938 I took them apart many times and know them, went to GM school to learn about them
I bet the dog cant see shit after watching all that aluminum welding. Lol
id love to hang around that shop! what an absolute treasure trove of knowledge!
If your ever in the San Diego area, let us know. Thank you Greg Q
Please personally thank every single one of these people. Thank you to yourself for sharing this and filming it. Please keep going. This is awe inspiring work. Stuff to look up to for my younger generation.
This is awesome stuff, Kevin and Pete are the engine Mozarts of our time!
These guys are so interesting.
Just in awe.
Very nice Kevin and Pete.
This is going to be an awesome build.
The welder did a nice job.
Thanks for sharing Greg.
Take care, Ed.
Thank you Ed!
He is without a doubt the best welder I have ever seen!
And these guys do this for Fun !!!!!!
I wish this was done more often. Amazing work
That spool gun is set on kill. So looking forward to seeing this build happen, especially the oil/cooling system and cylinder head design. Subscriber.
Love all this thank you keep them coming
The dawg is my second fave thing in this video... normally id see dogs running from stuff like that but he runs to it with such curiosity!! Great build all this info helps with my engine i wanna design
You guys are amazing! Thanks for sharing these steps. I’m so glad I found this. When the rest of the car builder community catches up you guys are going to explode so please keep sharing so I can learn from all your experience.
You blow my mind.
Keep it coming
Nice job guys, I cringed a little when I saw that he was welding it with the spool gun because there are so many nicer aluminum setups but it just goes to show that what used to work still works and that weld turned out nice. This engine build is inspiring, and I love to see an engineering marvel that combines all the different skill-sets starting with the vision to execute something so complicated, machining, fabricating, welding and the tuning all in one house. Amazing
Wire feed lets you add a lot of material with minimal heat soak. If you were to TIG as much material you'd have a lot more heat soak into the block making it warp even more.
TIG is fantastic but for adding lots of material, wire feed is faster, easier, safer and cheaper.
Wire feed is used for surface hardening dozer blades/teeth, line boring, and building up material on things like track rollers, turbine wheels and propeller blades just to name a few things. Hell, the vertical steel beams that make up the skeleton of skyscrapers are beveled and wire welded together.
All forms of welding exist for good reason and they're all awesome.
It's the skill set that gets it done.
@@Motor-City-Mike100 % correct!!
I love seeing these guys!
nice to see I'm not the only one who grinds his welds 😃
Thank you
You're welcome
Great video and series Greg! Well done.
Many thanks! I’m glad you enjoyed it!
Part 2 ?
This is an inspiration to a (semi) young gearhead like myself. Its my drem to design and build my own car one day
Thank you, Check back early next week, we hope to have a new video posted of this weekends race. We will be running the 3L sheet metal engine
Next time they weld. Can you please Put a welding mask screen infront of the camera so we can see too!!
My god I love watching these guys !!! Awesome stuff !!!
Very nice, thanks for posting.
Your Welcome! Thanks for checking out the channel.
Dud knows his shit welding hell yea brother the man takes his job seriously the way every one should but hard to find now days !!
It is said that welding sounds like bacon sizzling, so I'm wondering if that is why the shop pup takes such an interest in it 😁
I wish I could volunteer at this remarkable shop
good movie!
A Millermatic 355 with the Aluma-Pro push-pull gun large wire size with the weld following closely behind the block preheat would probably do the job, I think the 252 in the video does not put out enough heat (current).
However, if we stay with miller machines for the moment, the Syncrowave 400 TIG liquid cooled torch large diameter rod following the block preheat (as closely as practical) is the better choice to do these deep penetration welds into thick plate. I also think it would be good to have two heating torches and a spot read or thermal camera to see the actual temperature of the aluminum before welding, so two men on torches, one taking temps, and the final a welder. I also think the builders should have a rotating clamping jig to hold all of the main pieces in place under a set clamping pressure (the valley and the two cylinder banks) and alternate welding bank to bank starting with stitch welds so the distortion cancels out, fill in the stitch welds side to side, then do a final large fillet weld over the top again alternating banks. You will need to rotate the assembly so the weld puddle with gravity spans at the correct angle the final weld puddle will be huge the cup will be very large and the shielding gas at a high flow rate. After the final large fillet welds you could then grind down the weld using a radiused grinding wheel, first course then fine. This would help appearance but also provide some weld inspection for porosity.
excelente trabalho Greg, eles tem camisetas ? gostaria de comprar
YEAH! i was waiting for this
Edit: Question: apart from it taking way longer, would you be able to TIG something this thick? Does MIG offer greater penetration?
You can definitely TIG something that thick, but my guess is as good as yours. First assumption would simply be accessibility(at least for inside the head), little easier to point and shoot with a spool gun than having to get a torch in there and feed filler at the same time.
Deposit rate. They even said Tig would take forever to fill and a ton of amps to keep it hot. Mig spool gun is actually more efficient but really finicky to get set up right and you only have the tip to base gap to fine tune the heat.
Tig welding aluminum is usually done with AC current so only half the energy goes into the metal. MIG welding uses DC current so all the energy goes into the part and you get much better Penetration.
Imo spool gun was their best option.
For main reason that the parts were not cleaned anywhere near enough for tig.
If it was me doing it, I would have tigged it.
But on the same hand I wasn’t there too see things you couldn’t see in the video
Thanks for showing this its very interesting. A question I have that you may have gone over is why is there such a big gap between the 2 cylinder gaps? Theres 3 cylinders and then spacing in between and then the next 3 cylinders. Is there a reason for this?
It is done that way because the heads are made from Aurora V8 heads. One cylinder cut off, then two are welded together on the uncut ends and the ends are capped. It is an ingenious way of doing it. There is a video all about the 6 liter build on this channel called "How To Make a V12 Engine From Scratch - Part 1" They go over basically every detail on the build.
@@shvrdavid I'll go check that out, thanks
Same guys who made a big bore 4 banger for LSR out of pipe and (thick) sheet metal correct? It was in Hot Rod a few years ago.
Where would the threads for the head bolts be located on something like this? Pete mentioned the legs for the head bolts, does that mean they're threaded near the bottom of the cylinders?
Amazing job as always. Btw.
Groovy!
hi and wow! are you using 6061 aluminum? and what heat treatable alloy welding rod do you use?
Yes it is 6061 and the wire alloy is 5356.
@@kevinbraun6272 Hi Kevin, wow you guys really do a great job. Last I knew 5356 was not heat treatable?? I could see a vibratory stress relief? or maybe the HIPP process??
@@samstewart4807 Technically you are correct, the 5356 is not heat treatable, but it does not appear to have any adverse effect by heat treating it.
The heat treating is mainly to bring the 6061 back to the T6 condition. The 5356 weld is harder than the 6061 material around the weld. So we heat treat the part and it brings the whole part to a very consistent condition. After cutting into the welds we have never found any cracks or voids, and when I cut into the material it cuts extremely consistent.
You cannot see where the base material starts and the weld begins. Now I’m sure we would be able to see the difference if we were to anodize the aluminum, however it seems to be more than adequate for the strength that we need.
We have done this process on five engines so far with zero failures.
Are there classes for electric drive compressor engine? Love it if you can marry the two technically
Have part 2 not been released yet or did the video got taken down ?
How did yall get the crank made ?
I Am curious as to why after preheating the base metal, this welder doesn’t use TIG instead of aluminum MIG? I am aware this puts down a lot more material, but the penetration would be far better than this.
Amazing 👍
Where is the 2nd video??
Why not TIG welding?
Very inspiring.
Why don't they mill the block from a solid chunk of aluminium. Would billet block be multiple times more expensive?
Way more expensive and they would need a big 5 axis to do it.
Where’s part 2?
And then I woke up and realized that's not MY fun house.
I'm envious...
(nope, not jealous, no ill will)
Won't the DOG be blinded if he looks at the welding process?
No you don't get blinded, what you get is eye sun burn.
Dogs are smart enough not to stare at the sun.
is there any way I could get the cad files for this engine? It's incredible to see how these things are constructed. If you cant or dont want to send them to me I understand.
It’s a Herculean effort for sure but wouldn’t it be easier to get 3D Printed sand molds and cast the block yourselves? So many points of trouble with welds.
Not for doing single engines. Especially when they often make tweaks or big changes on each one.
Casting would be good to make a dozen engines once they finalise a design
hmm why are you not setting up on practice material???
We actually did a small practice piece, however because of the difference in thickness and actual mass of material, he had to continue to adjust as he welded.
I think it would be much better to tighten weld versus mig welding
C and c yourself a merlin.I'm sure the unlimited hydroplanes guys might show some interest. Also you might want to look at the cresey sleeve valve.
And the tractor pulling guys too!
Why not machine this out of billet? Would have thought that would be easier and better solution?
You'd need a massive block and a year to machine it.
when you had perfectionist welder, and you think it was beautiful, but it was not,
Master Welder would have used a TIG
Why are they building a block from multiple parts and welding them together? Especially in this day and age with 4/5 axis machining building a full billet block should not be too hard and actually improves the structural rigidity. None the less still amazing work!
You should put together a Go Fund Me page to raise those hundreds of thousands!!
@@jeffmiller3150 It's an question out of curiosity as why Kevin and Pete take this approach. Also a bare billet block does not cost hundreds of thousands. Take for example RB, 2jz and various other billet V8 blocks. There are around 10 to 15k for an bare block.
@@DevilFruitUserLogia Probably 5 times the money of this one though............................. With no boost stress probably not an issue.
Costs a lot to do a one off block, I wonder how much the crank for this cost?
@@Mikesukes crank will be discussed in the next video - thank you Greg