289/302 Ford V-8 engine

[gbritnell]

Gentlemen, A very fine builder who posts on one of the other forums, Terry Mayhugh,  finished his version of the 300 inline six from my drawings and his modifications he was looking for a new project. Many of the fellows on the forum came up with ideas. He kind of settled on making a Ford 289/302 high performance engine. When I built my engine many years ago I never made formal drawings for it but rather a whole box full of sketches and scribbles. At that time I hadn't been schooled in CAD but at this point in my life I'm fairly proficient at it so I dug out all the information I had and started making models in Solidworks. Terry and I have been sharing information as he comes up with his own version of that engine. After many, many hours of deciphering my sketches I was finally able to produce models and print them out on my Creality CR-10 V-2. So far I have the block, heads, intake manifold, timing cover, water pump, bellhousing and oil pan. In most cases I tried to model the parts as close to the originals as possible but on the heads I made the porting much like it would be on a model. So here's some pictures of what I have created thus far.
 
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[90LX_Notch]

George,

Very nice.  Are you going to build another one?  Will you be offering a set of prints?  I still have some 90 5.0 long block parts laying around that I can take measurements from if you need any.  I realize that the 5.0 is a different block due to the roller hydraulic cam; but there are enough similarities that dimensions can be inferred.

Bob

[Admiral_dk]

Lovely 3D Prints George - I would call those a Double Success 
..as you got both the Model(s) and the 3D Print right (the later can sometimes be a pain in the proverbial ...).

Per                       

[Greg Tev]

The 3D prints look great, I hate to think how many hours of printing you did.

Greg

[Zephyrin]

great pieces of modelling and 3D printing !

[Roger B]

Splendid   

[ddmckee54]

George:

The printed parts look very nice.  Out of idle curiosity, at what layer height are you printing the parts?

Don

[gbritnell]

Hi Don,
I use Cura for my slicer programs. I used their Standard setting for the block which has layers of .20 mm. (.008 in.) For some of the more detailed parts I used their Dynamic setting which is .16 mm (.006 in.)
I'm still learning to adjust layers, wall thicknesses etc.
gbritnell

[ddmckee54]

I'm still learning to adjust layers, wall thicknesses etc.

George:

I've been printing crap, and some usable parts, for 6-7 years now.  Learning how to get the best out of your printer is a never-ending task.

I printed an R2D2 that was about 75mm tall for a friend.  I got the STL file from Thingiverse, and printed at the recommended 0.1mm layer height.  The amount of detail that can be printed at that layer height is amazing, but it takes a God-awful lot of layers to print anything tall.

Don

[gbritnell]

Well gentlemen I truly believe I'm finished with this printed engine. I told myself I wouldn't get caught up in the 3d print world but it seems like I did. This project just took on a life of it's own. Someone had mentioned to a fellow on the other forum about making Cobra rocker covers for the engine that he's building so I thought, "what the heck" with just a little time I modified the original model part. The final and finishing piece is the air cleaner housing. Going by pictures on the internet I scaled and drew up what I thought was a reasonable facsimile, made the model files and printed it out. The cover needed to be modified several times to get a good print. First I tried it one way with the outer surfaces down but that led to an unfinished looking surface after the support was removed. I then flipped it over and the lip around the edge got filled in with the support material and I couldn't get it out. I ended up changing the model to accommodate the printing process.

[Kim]

Wow!  That's beautiful, George! You are an artist in ANY medium!

What is the size of the engine?

Kim

[Admiral_dk]

Now that is Impressive     

You must have spend a lot of time - not only designing - but also 'Getting around' printing problems, to get this finish and level of details 

Are there any 'Working details inside' ?

Per

[gbritnell]

Crankshaft,  pistons and rods and camshaft.

[gbritnell]

I have been doing solid modeling for quite some time. I did it when I worked but had been away from it for a long time. When i got Solidworks I had to learn it's uniqueness compared to the programs I had been using. For most of the parts on the 302 engine I didn't have much trouble modeling them except for a few instances but then I decided to make a set of shorty equal length headers. I gathered pictures from the internet and started making 2d drawings to layout dimensions and shapes. I must say that working with all the curves and points in space had me practicing as much as the actual modeling. I went to the old standby, Youtube, but all of the videos I needed were being done by someone who had done it many times and just assumed you could follow along. Then there is the accent problem of some of the presenters. Anyway except for a couple of shape deformities I got them done. Another problem is that the left and right aren't just mirrors they are two totally different shapes.
As a side note if someone knows a good video about lofting please let me know. I have a large book I purchased about Solidworks but it doesn't go too deeply into lofting.

[Kim]

That's some very fancy CAD work there, George!

So, is there some specific reason they didn't make them mirror images?  Was there something in the way that they had to avoid on one side or the other?

Kim