ddgonzal wrote:
Custom made pistons are about $100 USD each. See Pistons

rockstardan wrote:
are them pistons custom made or out of somthing else?

D wrote:
Initially I suggested 77mm for stock block a14/15
but since Lemonhead mentioned the wetsleeve setup
Im excited to see someone else thought of wetsleeving
besides me years ago.
This week all engines are 50% off at pick-a-tart
so Ill be in there to get some sleeves and pistons
from a frog engine.

Im excited to see someone else thought of wetsleeving besides me years ago.

jmac wrote:
It depends on where you are from, in some places, wet sleeves is only used to describe engines where the sleeves are the only things in there, there's _zero_ block around them. Even going a very big bore on an A-series, you'll still have some meat around the sleeve somewhere.

On engines with wet sleeves, they can tend to 'want' to move around a little, so it puts more strain on the head gasket. They can also 'sink' a little bit over time so the head gasket doesn't hold out that long. One of the engines in particular comes to mind - the volvo/renault/peugeot collaboration called the PRV v6. It was a v6, and to say the least they had some issues. They had massive issues early on with fuel distribution blocks (mech injected) and they went as far as to redesign the intake to allow better access (by which time that issue was sorted, so now the 'new' intake made it a damn hard job to change plugs - and without the right soft jaw specially shaped pliers it was almost impossible to remove the plug leads from over the plugs without breaking one or two. It was still difficult even _with_ the right tool.

But their biggest headache (tehy also had rockers which wore through the friction surface hardening, openign up clearance and eventually to the point the valves wouldn't open much, and it wouldn't run) was the wet liners. they'd 'settle' down in teh block and stop sealing well, and even if you replaced the head gasket, they just didn't have enough clamping there. To do it 'right' you literally had to strip the motor and fit thicker shims under the sleeves then re-build. I remember doing a hell of a lot of warranty changeover work as an apprentice (worked at a place that did volvos and other high end luxury Euro stuff).

If it's NA and that's what it takes to get massive capacity then for sure go for it, but I'd personally be worried about its use for boosted stuff.

I haven't seen it in person but I have read about guys using ford cleveland v8s in the early days of pro-stock where big and small blocks were used. The cleveland is best described as 'heads by enzo ferrari, bottom end by an accountant' by many people. Basically the bores were thinner than ideal even for NA work with enough power levels (adn to that end apparently the Australian cast/made blocks are the best of the std factory blocks) anyway - they'd do a similar thing - cut the bores to a certain oversize, big enough for the sleeves (and there'd be some material to anchor them to). then heat the block, and drop in sleeves chilled in dry ice, but coated with a sort of bronz, then put then in a big 'oven' and raise the temp to the point it'd sweat the bronze and seal it all up.

On some hondas - with big outputs - they do a thing called 'posting' the block (they are more or less an open deck sleeve setup). this is where they drill holes in the outside of the block in-line with each cylinder, then tap the holes and screw in alloy (usually alloy, soft tipped at any rate) 'bolts' till they just touch the outside wall of the bore and very light tension. It doesn't sound like much but it helps stabilise the sleeve against side/thrust loads when the rods are at severe angles. I don't think the A-series requires it as is, but if you start chasing wet sleeves, it might eventually be necessary to post the a-series blocks.