project boyesen"boost" ports

[KTM RACING 559]

Deciding to try out somthin new. I'm sure its been done before, but I've never seen it on here. I took my DIY ported cylinder to the weld shop today, and built up some welds on the outsides near the rear of the transfer ports. My goal is to add enough aluminum on the sides to open up the boyesen ports I drilled to the maximum size possible. not exactly sure if there is any real benefit or hp gain from this mod, but its fun to experiment anywaysI:I If any of you have ever welded cast aluminum, then you know how much of a pain in the a$$ it is LOL. any ways I did a lot of pre-cleaning to avoid porosity , i used a stainless wire brush and acetone cleaner, and It welded A LOT better.
Here's some pics.

This was the first set of welds I did on the left side, didn't do enough pre-clean and it didn't "puddle up" very good leaving an ugly set of beads and alot of porosity(contamination).

Here's a better view

Here's the boyesen ports, too small and positioned too high, a thanks goes to blaaster for pointing that out to me in my other thread DIY porting.

Here's the right side, welded better but showed obvious signs of tungsten contamination(to lazy to re-prep the tungsten LOL) due to the slight black/grayish tint beside the welds, oh well haha still welded decent

Tig Welding was done with an air cooled torch, i was running at about 180 amps using AC polarity with AC balance set to max cleaning action. Anyways that SOB gets hot as hell compared to a liquid cooled torch LOL

Here's the right side after cleaning with a stainless wire brush.

That's all I have done for now, more progress and pics hopfully next week.

 

[bansheedave]

looks good. wish I knew how to tig. it would come in handy.

 

[Blaaster]

By golly you are game.

Did you pre heat the cylinder so that you were welding into hot parent metal, and cool in a tub of lime.

Or do they do it a different way now, I am old school and have not used the tools for a while now.

 

[KTM RACING 559]

looks good. wish I knew how to tig. it would come in handy.

Thank you! Its not hard, Practice is everything man, i was horrible at tig when I first started, but I took a oxy/acetylene weld class and an aluminum weld class last year and been putting hundreds of hours in at my college shop, so the practice has payed off lol

 

[KTM RACING 559]

By golly you are game.

Did you pre heat the cylinder so that you were welding into hot parent metal, and cool in a tub of lime.

Or do they do it a different way now, I am old school and have not used the tools for a while now.

No i didnt use pre-heat , but Acctually you've got a good point, pre-heat wouldve made it a lot easier to start the weld if I was just running pure argon. I just cranked up the amps and ran a helium/argon shielding gas mix to help achieve the same heat input with less amperage, similar to using pure co2 in mig welding to get higher penetrating welds. I'm not sure of the exact science of how that works, but it would be interesting to know. and yes pre-heat is definatly still used all the time. Me and my friend repaired a cast iron engine block a while back and used both pre-heat and post-heat treatments to prevent stress cracking.

 

[Blaaster]

When you pre heat the zone of thermal disturbance is a lot smaller.

In your case it should no make so much difference but I would have been concerned about internal cracking.

 

[gizzy2014]

if you plan to use this cylinder.... how on earth are u going to get a nut in that area to hold it on??

 

[KTM RACING 559]

if you plan to use this cylinder.... how on earth are u going to get a nut in that area to hold it on??

Haha yeah I'm gonna use a die grinder to take some material off, once I'm finished porting it out.

 

[KTM RACING 559]

When you pre heat the zone of thermal disturbance is a lot smaller.

In your case it should no make so much difference but I would have been concerned about internal cracking.

Yeah I learned that in one of my classes, how welding creates a HAZ (Heat Affected Zone).
the molecular grain structure of the aluminum could possibly have changed and internal cracking is a possiblity, but I'm not an expert on metalurgy haha. I used ER 4043 filler rod, high in silicon content, has a lower melting temp than the base metal being welded and is highly resistant to cracking.

 

[dirtysquared]

I have to hand it to you, Your never afraid to jump in and try something! If you lived near me, I'd have hired you by now!

 

[KTM RACING 559]

I have to hand it to you, Your never afraid to jump in and try something! If you lived near me, I'd have hired you by now!

Lol! you ain't seen nothin yet dude haha! The next projects I'm gonna fab up are, an aluminum stator cover similar to 79 Bronco's stator cover, aluminum kickstarter, and gonna try to make my old left bend FMF fatty into a right bend!

 

[dirtysquared]

I have one of your Diamond plate Oil pump covers, remember? lol (Looks good Guys) After I shine It up, Ill install it. Talented Kid here!!

 

[KTM RACING 559]

I have one of your Diamond plate Oil pump covers, remember? lol (Looks good Guys) After I shine It up, Ill install it. Talented Kid here!!

Haha!yeah I remember lol, but I'm talkin bout the left side stator cover! I saw the one 79 Bronco fabricated and I really like the fabrication work that he does! I'm gonna make one similar to it.

 

[Blaaster]

That is really a "smick" bit of gear, as we would say "the Ducks guts".

 

[YoungGunsRacing]

Nice ambition wanting to go this far on a diy cylinder. Word of advice back to an earlier comment - if you plan on getting a nut back on that cylinder where the weld was - I would grind the extra weld off BEFORE you port. Going too far with porting first and grinding second will leave you doing this all over again. Good luck with this! Porting is an art and takes many failures before you get it right