Well, well - where on earth do you start on this one? In over fifty years working with internal combustion engines I thought that I had come across everything. Then Simon Erland turned up!
Having just been notified by Dave Andrews about his verbal assassination of our company from various bulletin boards I have no alternative but to react. I understand from Dave Andrews that things have now reached a stage where both he and I are losing commercial work. This is completely unacceptable.
As far as we as a company are concerned we have produced well over one hundred variations of our K Series EVO2 and EVO4 Cylinder Blocks. To date we have not had one returned under complaint. Yes, there have been queries about bore sizing and geometry but once it has been explained that the bores have been hot bored and hot honed with a torque plate all has been accepted as OK. A cold unstressed block can show up to 5thou (approx 125 micron) deviations. Why a person of Mr Erland�s supposed experience did not either understand this or mention it I have no idea. Maybe he still has things to learn.
Honing is carried out on a Sunnen CV616 automatic, an acknowledged top of the range professional machine as used by, amongst others, Perfect Bore - apparently a company known to Mr Erland.
As for the Pistal pistons everything is as Dave Andrews has described. There was a problem with the oil control ring expander dislodging itself when traversing the void above the gudgeon pin. A change to a different ring has cured this, as again has been stated. As far as we are aware all the engines fitted with the original rings have been repaired or the customer notified of the problem.
Despite what SE says, we have not seen any sign of bore scoring or piston damage from the misaligned ring on the engines we have repaired. This I would agree with him seems quite unlikely but is fact, and when the mode of failure is examined it is easier to see why, probably due to the bevelling on the butts of the rails.
To cover all of SE�s comments, innuendos and misaligned information would take forever. Or maybe, for instance, it is down-on-power engines with horrendous ring blow-by that win races. If SE has any problem with any of our services or components let him contact me direct to discuss this further - preferably with an independent third party present. Considering the seriousness of the situation I think this is being very fair bearing in mind other availbale alternatives.
To conclude, may I suggest SE continues chipping away at his sculptures rather than the reputation of Scholar Engines Ltd.
Alan Wardropper
Scholar Engines Ltd.
Scholar engines can be contacted on 01449 767711
As Alan explains the blocks are bored and honed when under the influence of a torque plate and with the block hot, this accurately simulates the engines condition when it is running, machining in this way ensures the closest possible bore accuracy and clearances when the engine is running rather than when it is stripped on the bench.
Even perfectly parallel and round bores will move when the head is bolted on and the engine heats up, so no matter how good loose liners may appear to be, they will not be so good when the engine is running. On some engines this can cause problems on the thrust faces or it can cause blow-by.
The methodology that Scholar use is exactly as many previous successful K series engines have used, specifically, Peter Carmichaels, Mick Smith, Mike Bees, Mark bishop, David Ward and at least a dozen more that I know of. It seems that Simon E knows a lot less about the engine that he is championing than his self proclaimed expertise would suggest.
Dave