Hi all!
This section in written in english, so all the friends over there will understand what I mean. *
This is a little project where I try to adapt cylinder shut-off soleniods från a Cadillac 368 to a Cadillac 500 engine. One reason is hopefully it will increase mileage (you don't want to know what gas cost here), but the biggest reason is because this is fun. Technology is cool!
This is actually my second design, but both of them has included spacer bars. The first one used 6 mm bars, but they were not thick and therefor not stiff enough. 8 mm steel bars was just about perfect.
A friend of mine milled the (totally four) piedestal mountings down 8 mm. I thought the V8-6-4 rocker arm mountings had almost the same height ,width, and rocker arm ratio as the stock cadillac parts, but that proved wrong. The Rocker arm ratio is somewhere near 1:1.71 and the height is about 1 mm higher. In summation, milling just 7 mm would have been perfect.
The two inner on the left head, and the outer on the right were milled.
I started with the left head. The first problem was to get the two screw holes at the right places in the bar. This was solved my cutting a 7/16 screw and shaping it in a lathe. With a special tool I made, I screwed it in with the pointy side up. A hit with hammer made a mark in the bar where to drill.
The heads, milled down 8mm.
The screw + tool
Then a countersink prepared the holes for the 7/16 allen head bolts (12.9 strength, that's grade 7 I think).
Now you get it. (You can see traces of the drill accident).. Hehe
From the beginning the idea was to have nuts under the bar for the two long soleniod screws, but the bar itself was very strong (forged I guess) so just threading the holes (M-8) was perfect.
This prevents the two outer bars from rotation. In the final version pop rivets were used.
Complete
Soon ready! (Any year now) Just a few bolts and some paint.
As of february 2008. Note the fuel filter where the mechanical fuel pump used to be.
After a summer of testing, this conversion proved to work just fine! No mechanical mishaps or unexpected behavior. Slightly more noise than a standard valve train but that was expected. V6 mode is not used and the soleniods are manually activated using a switch. One day I'll let the MS handle that instead.
V4 mode gives pretty cool engine sounds. The engine itself sounds like a normal 4 cylinder, but my dual exhaust pipes sound like a Saab or Ford V4 (common in the 70's I think) ,odd! V4 at 4th gear 1050 rpm gives too much vibrations but 3:rd at 1500 works fine!
Something I can't really explain is when 4 cylinder are shut off, the remaining 4 wants 25% less fuel. I don't know if it has something with my weird cam to do.
Fuel consumption seems to be somewhere near 25-27 mpg using gasoline. No EGR used yet.
To be continued.. (This is a very slow going project)
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