"Ford Kent Engine Back In Production"

[garyeanderson]

The equivilent to the Lotus block is the M 6010-L16 (maybe)
This block will need to be bored to the final dimension (it is already bored to a larger than stock bore diameter) and decked to the propper height. Stock is 7.78 inches

$1599.00 U.S.



The legendary Lotus block is reborn with an all new grey iron casting that is stronger than the original!

* Standard 7.900" deck height with extra material for decking
* Cylinder bores semi-finished to 3.260" diameter to allow the engine to be built to desired clearances
* Lifter bore diameter .565"
* Block cast from 40,000 PSI grey iron
* Lower clutch housing bolt bosses reinforced
* Select areas around main bearing webs strengthened
* Center main will accept upper and lower crankshaft thrust bearing inserts
* Includes cam bearings
___________________________________________________
This block it the 1600 height block is (was?) designated the M6010-K16

It ios not metric either it will also need the same work as above to make it work. neither on is going to be inexpensive to build up. The deck height on this block is 8.328 inches (211.5312 mm)


The legendary Formula Ford Kent block is reborn with an all new iron casting that is stronger than the original!

Standard 8.200" deck height with extra material for decking
Cylinder bores semi-finished to 3.186" diameter to allow the engine to be built to desired clearances
Lifter bore diameter .565"
Block cast from 40,000 PSI grey iron
Lower clutch housing bolt bosses reinforced
Select areas around main bearing webs strengthened
Center main will accept upper and lower crankshaft thrust bearing inserts
Includes cam bearings

US $1299.00

Block weight is 87 pounds

[CBUEB1771]

Last Friday I picked up tall deck S/N 81 from Forte's Parts Connection, the local Ford Racing retailer in eastern Massachusetts. I ordered it on November 10th and Forte's received it just under a month later. My bathroom scale showed 83 pounds (38 kg) with main caps installed. That probably means I am at least four pounds fatter than I believed. Everything looks good but I'll have to source the crankshaft thrust bearings. Standard 701M/711M ones are too small on OD to be captured by the cap and web. They also need to be keyed to prevent rotation with the crank now that you use two on each side for full 360 degree contact with the crank. More as the inspection continues......

[bcmc33]

Looks good, Russ.

1. What is the bore size?
2. What size will the thrust bearings need to be?

[CBUEB1771]

1. What is the bore size?
2. What size will the thrust bearings need to be?

The cylinders are semi-finished at 3.186" bore diameter, 0.002" under the standard bore for the Kent 1600. An inspection report came with the block and I will post it as soon as figure out how to reduce the size of the file, I scanned it to a PDF and it is just under 8 Mb. Of course I'll be boring to suit standard Twin Cam pistons. I have not measured the outer diameter of the recess that locates the crankshaft thrust bearings yet but it appears the outer radius needs to be something like 0.1" larger than the old Kent parts. The center main cap also has a notch to accept a tab on the bearing which would prevent rotation with the crank. Ford must have designed around a different thrust bearing set so I need to determine what it is.

[rgh0]

Looking forward to seeing some ultrasonic wall thickness data to see the OD of the cylinder casting and how central the bore is in the casting. I normally do a scan along the full length of the bore at 90 degree intervals ( front back and each site) looking for the minimum thickness on each axis and looking for the orientation of the bore to casting offset and then check more carefully around the minimum thickness area more generally. I also scan in the area of the cross drilling to try to see where it is versus the bores ( not easy to do sometimes as hard to actually pick it up with the probe I use)

Make sure whoever does the testing properly calibrates their probe on the casting itself using an area on the casting where you can measure actual wall thickness directly with a micrometer as the standard calibrations factors for cast iron are not accurate enough and block to block variation in the metal composition from the foundry affects the blocks speed of sound for the ultrasonic waves used.

I suspect lots of thick walls I have seen quoted actually result from poor probe calibration or not scanning properly for the minimum thickness areas

When you then bore out the block offset the bores as needed to centre them in the cylinder castings to achieve even wall thickness all around the bore.

cheers
Rohan

[CBUEB1771]

Rohan,
All good points, thanks!

PS: Rohan, how may points do you measure going up and down the bore? I was thinking about three to four points along each of the axes you mention.

[rgh0]

My probe has a continuous scan function and it automatically selects the minimum as you scan along the length of the bore. If you dont have that then measuring at about 5 points along the bore in the water jacket area between the solid top deck area and the solid bottom section should be suffient to identify any thin spots

cheers
Rohan

[CSICO]

Hi!
does anybody know what happened to the Kent / Lotus blocks on the Fordracing website?? A few days ago they where advertised, now everything is gone. Any ideas or informations??

just curios to know.

[garyeanderson]

Hi!
does anybody know what happened to the Kent / Lotus blocks on the Fordracing website?? A few days ago they where advertised, now everything is gone. Any ideas or informations??

just curios to know.

M-6010-16K at 8.32"(Kent)

http://www.fordracingparts.com/parts/pa ... ield=12142

M-6010-16L at 7.90 (Lotus)
http://www.fordracingparts.com/parts/pa ... ield=12181

Both products are still reachable via dial up!

Gary

[CBUEB1771]

I finally got around to re-sizing the PDF of the inspection sheet that I scanned. This came with my tall deck block, S/N 81. Hopefully I'll have time this week to sort out the crankshaft thrust washers. The Ford Racing site doesn't help much with how to post questions. I'll also put it into a chassis this afternoon to check on the required length of the exhaust-side engine mount spacers.

[bcmc33]

I finally got around to re-sizing the PDF of the inspection sheet that I scanned. This came with my tall deck block, S/N 81. Hopefully I'll have time this week to sort out the crankshaft thrust washers. The Ford Racing site doesn't help much with how to post questions. I'll also put it into a chassis this afternoon to check on the required length of the spacers.

Russ,

If it's not too much trouble, please tell me the depth of the exhaust side engine mount and the cylinder head stud tapped holes.

[CBUEB1771]

If it's not too much trouble, please tell me the depth of the exhaust side engine mount and the cylinder head stud tapped holes.

Brian,

Sorry not to answer all at once but we here in the northeast of the US are finally being dealt weather much like what the UK and Europe saw earlier this week. Something like 0.5 meter of snow due tonight. Gary is due for ocean flooding early on Monday morning so I hope Beau has his Wellies on.

Back to the questions. I found that the spacers between the exhaust side of the block and the engine mount need to be about 0.64 inches (16.3 mm) long. This means that the new Ford Racing block has the same dimension across the outside faces of the inlet and exhaust side mount bosses as the South African AX block. I recall that the standard 701M block requires spacers about 1.25" long. On the exhaust side I think that 5/16"-18 x 1.5" bolts will be right after I run a bottoming tap into the four bosses. I have also fitted one of Steve Taylor's (Elan Factory, now Lotus Marques) heat shields to protect the exhaust side engine mount. I'll post a photo of this tomorrow. The heat shield is very nicely made but it puts metal closer to the centerlines of the bolt holes on the rear pair of bolts such that you can't get a socket on with normal hex head bolts. Fortunately ARP 12 point headed bolts resolve the socket interference, Allen head bolts would work as well. I don't have an answer for the cylinder head stud attachment yet. I did note that Ford counterbored these tapped holes deeply, at least 1/8". This prevents metal from being deformed upward in to head gasket area when the head studs or bolts are brought up to tension. I'll get back on details in this area tomorrow.

[CBUEB1771]

2. What size will the thrust bearings need to be?

Brian
After a rather frustrating conversation with Ford Racing I think I have the thrust bearing resolved. The fellow at Ford Racing insisted that I use two sets of the standard thrust bearings to which I replied "wrong, they are the wrong size and have no keying feature to prevent them from spinning now that there is a recess for them in both the block and cap". He asked for my email address and said he would send the reply he got from the engineering group. The engineering group's response was "yes, use two sets of the standard Pinto 2000 thrust bearings". Arghh! I checked Pegasus Racing's web site and found that the Pinto 2000 thrust bearings indeed have a tab to prevent them from spinning and the new 1600 block has a machined pocket for this tab. The Pinto 2000 uses four thrust bearings so only one set is needed. I have a set coming from Pegasus, hopefully arriving Friday so I can confirm the fit. I also realize I made a daft comment about the tapped holes for the cylinder head studs. Counterboring to prevent the threads from pulling up into the gasket space is nothing new, my original Twin Cam block is of course machined the same way.

[batfish]

Are these new blocks suitable for use in FIA spec engines which must use the rope seal crank and the round main bearing caps?
Regards

Andy

[garyeanderson]

A rope seal block is determined by the rope seal holder, the Crankshaft and the oil sump. The pickup will be different (press in verse?s screw in), If I were you I would send a letter to the sanctioning body asking for clarification. I guess I don't know the answer but maybe you ought to buy one anyway, I think they have 701 cast into them, I haven't seen one yet but the one that Russ bought has 711 cast into the block.

Gary