Late Night FE3 Musing
 

So I was thinking today while bored at work about building an FE3 to replace my vvt motor once it shits the bed or I get tired of it breaking other parts of the car. Its 1.9 liters and has a rod to stroke ratio of 2.11:1 (yes holy fuck). 88mm bore and 77mm stroke. Literally have it all figured out but one thing.

-FE3 block and head
-F8/F6 crank
-6.4" long small block chevy rods with the small end milled narrower and bushed for a 22mm wrist pin
-Wiseco PN K634M88 pistons might need .5mm skimmed off the top but will otherwise work and result in ~10.4:1 compression
-Mazda F series Clevite 77 bearings
-Toga Racing f2t high volume oil pump
-ARP head studs
-Kia Head Gasket
-BC B18 Vtec double valve springs with ti retainers. inner valve spring slightly ground for head clearance, retainer machined to clear valve lock
-SR20 valve locks
-Manley +1 VG30DETT valves
-Lifters 33mm X what length?

And I break down at the lifters. Does anyone around here somehow happen to have a FE3 lifter kicking around to just get its height measured? Its 33mm diameter, I know that much, which means unless its some mega oddball length that there is going to be some aftermarket or OEM solid lifter solution that will work that is much lighter than the people who are replacing their hla springs with a steel rod.

The other break down is finding a crank that wasnt sold in this country.

Also on this note, if someone could find some 6.8" long sbc con rods then you could use an F2 block instead of the FE3 block with all the other parts being the same and have a 2.25:1 r/s ratio. lol.

I'm no help with your solid bucket issue* but when I priced out wiseco (k1) con rods for my build, custom length/diameter rods were a very minimal upcharge if anything, if you had the months to wait for them. I chose an off the shelf rod and they made the piston to match it, which was the faster & cheaper option. Non-catalog pistons didn't cost me any extra but that may be due to my sparkling personality.

*it may be easier to have Manley spin you off some valves to fit buckets you know exist, or have supertech do some buckets. I've never dealt with supertech, not sure if they have a charge or minimums for that work.

My perspective is limited to the pushrod race engine viewpoint but that said none of the high end "race" pushrod engines use off the shelf/catalog parts. Except the Valve springs & gaskets maybe. Point being it is common for these companies to build small volume (1 engine) components to customer specs.

Thats interesting. I was under the impression that custom rods was going require me to write a check that starts with a 1 and has 3 numbers after it.

And looking at k1's parts it kind of amusing how much lighter the import rods are even when they have to withstand the same or sometimes even more hp/cylinder than the domestic rods and dont have significantly larger big ends. The difference seems to be 3/8" bolts vs 7/16th.

I also realized that the fwd/rwd head gaskets people talk about for these motors is the same as the old and new BP head gaskets. So I actually want the fwd head gasket and a coolant reroute. And even better news is that someone makes and FE3 fwd head gasket.

What ARP head studs are everyone using? I've been trying to find out but there is a lot of hearsay and speculation out there.

I have my FE3 torn down right now, I will measure the lifter and shoot you some numbers.

So over all height of the lifter (I used a mic) is .941 (23.9 mm). Cam contact face to valve tip contact is .776 (19.71 mm).

Cool. When I get some free time I'll see what ought to fit.

Cool thread, I missed this. Looks interesting, could potentially build a sweet engine!

More info on this "Toga high volume F2T oil pump" plz.

I'm about to try to spin my F2T to like.... 7500rpm or something.

Lol it was something I found mentioned somewhere in some build thread and theres only like one place to buy it and it seems sketchy. The kia pump is supposed to maybe be higher volume than the others or maybe it was the non-kia fe3 pump. I forget.

Eh fuck it. It's just a stock bottom end anyways. I'll see what breaks first. Probably nothing, because F2T.

...Or you could do an LS swap for cheaper with less headache. Make more power reliably.

I think Leafy is interested in continuing to run SSM, not XP. :giggle:

Less headache than a custom oil pan and mounts and drilling 2 holes in a miata 6 speed?

Pushrods lol

look into 4g63 pistons.

Havent had a chance to look at dimensions yet but i'll be looking at them for the next build. a quick look sounds promising.

Theres a ton that have the right valve angle and bore. K20, H22, etc.

3sgte.

Puerto Rico dude i talked to ran CP 3sgte pistons in an F2 bottom end, FE3 head. Made power for days.

I'm running H22 high comp pistons. You have to open up the head a bunch for the dome and they don't like pump gas. Prone to det.

Thats the other reason I like the K20's if 10.4 is too much there are larger combo chamber options than the part number I posted.