My 72 Europa SS

[Sofa King]

At the seam where the rod surrounds the crank bearings, instead of being cut, they are fractured, so that the mating surfaces are irregular and fit back together like puzzle pieces.

[BDA]

Very interesting! I've never heard of anything like that!

[Rosco5000]

Hey BDA the fractured rod is supposed to be stronger under high loads, not only does it only fit one rod to one cap the idea is that the rod cap cannot shift at all and always maintains a round bearing.  Old style rods can have microscopic shifting between the rod and cap face under load causing failure under high loads is my understanding.  Also like Sofa said the 6 bolt mains are strong, 4 bolt standard and then 2 cross bolts that make the main caps and bottom of the block form a rigid cradle like structure.  Such a great motor. If you are interested I can post some of my Escalade pictures in the off topic section.
Ross

[BDA]

I finally found a picture of a fractured rod and a description of how it is accomplished. The sintered steel (I assume it's steel but it seems to be generally called just "powdered metal".) must be very brittle, or notch sensitive (don't ask me to tell you the difference. I just remember the term "notch sensitive" from engineering classes) to make it work. The advantages of the cap not moving relative to the rest of the rod are pretty obvious. I think the primary advantages versus a forged steel rod seem to be economic and the fracturing is certainly less expensive (and includes benefits you mentioned) than a machining process. The molds for a sintered piece may also be accurate enough to reduce some machining steps. One site I found compared "wrought forged" to "powder forged" and wrought forged was a little stronger and harder but the difference wasn't very significant. Then I saw a post from someone claiming to be a PhD student in "aser processing of materials" who suggested that sintered steel strength could approach cast steel strength. Of course, all that is interesting but doesn't really get to the heart of the LS6 rods since we don't know how they were made and what alloys were used. The thing we do know is they work!

I would appreciate any pictures or text you want to send me. I'm sure there is A LOT more to the story than the quick searches I made can tell. Manufacturing processes have advanced SO far since I was an engineer (a previous life) that it shouldn't surprise me that processes and materials are different than I would expect. Remember, pistons used to be cast iron!

[Sofa King]

You both have surpassed my knowledge of the LS engines. I was done after the few sentences that I’ve shared. I’ll just sit back and learn as you explore the world of LS!

One other tidbit that I do know, is that the aluminum and iron blocks both use the same molds. Since the blocks are designed to be strong enough when cast in aluminum, they are even stronger in iron. The iron truck engines are not only stronger, they are much cheaper. The only penalty is about a 75 pound increase in weight. Not desirable in a Europa, but not bad in a traditional muscle car.

[BDA]

No doubt using the same molds is an economic decision. Production machinery is largely designed for economic considerations, but the as the technology advances, new and "strange" methods and materials become economically feasible.

Not being up to speed on current technologies, it was strange to me that they didn't do things that would have made sense to me when I was a young engineer - i.e. forged aluminum pistons, forged steel rods, etc. But technology marches on as well as requirements and voila! Everything is different!

[Sofa King]

It’s alive! (Again)

[BDA]

Excellent! 

How's the oil pressure? Do you have a video?

[Certified Lotus]

Wa Hu !   

[Sofa King]

Oil pressure looks good, but I didn’t have time to run it long enough to warm up. It always had oil pressure when cold. But it sounded great. I’ll get video tomorrow.

I did have a little trouble getting it to run! It would crank but not start. Sprayed it with starting fluid and it ran. Obviously not getting fuel. Pump was running, had fuel pressure at the rail. Pulled the number 1 injector plug and connected a “noid” light. Not firing the injector. Went back under the car to see if I had missed a ground. Everything looked good. Did some more head scratching and went back up top. After a few minutes the problem became pretty obvious! Did you know that you have to plug in ALL of the injectors? Who knew??!! I had forgotten to plug in the passenger side injectors! Oops! Ran perfectly after that. On the plus side, I did prove that LS motors are not idiot proof!

[BDA]

I prove that I make worse mistakes everyday on this forum! I'm glad you found it quickly. I'm looking forward to the video!

[Sofa King]

I have posted the engine start up video on YouTube. I haven’t figured out how to link it here yet, but it’s titled “LS6 Lotus Europa Start up”.

Does your Europa sound like this?

[BDA]

I found the line (I think): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcHcfFsdmN8

Congratulations on getting your baby humming! Now you can enjoy the cooling weather (or at least soon to be cooling).

My Europa does not sound at all like that! I'll post a video of it so you can tell.

[Sofa King]

Thanks for posting the link! I have to spend some time learning how to navigate and use YouTube.

[dakazman]

 

 Got my thumbs up 👍👍. Also a put a huge smile on my face 😃
Dakazman