Block Crack… A technical overview…
Well, I was going to add this to the painfully long block guard vs darton sleeve thread, but that turned into mindless willy-swinging match, so instead… a fresh start.
Hi. I'm new here. I am a mechanical engineer, currently working in the Aerospace sector. Previous to that, I worked at an Automotive OEM in the Midwest in their Engine development program. Originally heavily involved in intake/Port design and CFD work, and later designing in reciprocating parts for DI engines. (Piston, rods, and rings). I will admit I never was directly involved with the design of cylinder blocks, but obviously still involved with that aspect, as they heavily influenced my pistons. (mostly focusing on bore distortion as related to piston ring sealing and piston skirt scuffing, It is surprisingly complex. And guess what? Cylinders are never round! Never ever…They are oval, sometimes kinda triangle-ly, more often they are almost clover leaf shaped, (4th order distortion, on the order of a handful of microns, but it is enough the rings which are much easier to keep round, don't seal properly.. Months, nay years, of my life was spent fighting the comformability of rings against funky shaped bores…I still have nightmares..… Anyways, here are some things I learned along the way, some applicable to production engines, some to race engines….
First, the basics. Open deck-vs closed deck. Pictures speak a thousand words…
This is a 4G63 from a turbo mitsu (dsm/GVR4/evo). Note there is a continuous amount of material from the cylinder bore, all the way across the top of the block to the walls. The "deck" is closed. Also, the block is iron, not aluminum. This is very robust and stiff. It's great for sealing head gaskets, and keeping the cylinders from shifting around under high loads. Much like Chevy's LS engines, doubling, tripling or quadrupling the power coming out of a mitsu 4G63 is only slightly more difficult that falling off a log. Stock 4G63s can easily handle 400-500hp all day long. Toss some decent forged rods and pistons in one, and 700-800hp is almost reliable enough to daily drive… However that closed deck block, well, It sucks for heat transfer out of the combustion chamber, as it leaves a large part of the hottest portion of the combustion chamber (the very top) not near any coolant.
This is an open deck block. It's a Honda K24. The tops of the bore are not connected to the walls of the block. This lets coolant surround each bore all the way up to the cylinder head. This is great for cooling and knock toughness, and primarily, these two considerations are why 80% of the engines made today are open decks. OEMs focus on any tiny improvement to BSFC (brake specific fuel consumption) to improve fuel economy, and open decks blocks are a great way to achieve more combustion stability through leaner mixtures and more timing.
Taking that a step further, a lot of open deck blocks will also have a little saw-cut between each bore in the Siamese area. This cut allows coolant between each bore and helps maintain a more uniform temperature and distortion in the top regions of each cylinder. Some newer blocks, like the newest AMG 4 cylinder take this a step further and include a matching little saw cut / slit into the cylinder head. Anything in the name of the almighty god of Fuel Economy, I guess….. Our 2.5L Volvo blocks, only have the saw cut in the Siamese area between each bore. And this little feature is the root cause of a bunch of people acting like dicks on the internet.
Never-the-less… Moving on to more important things....
More Cowbell! When people starting exceeding the original power levels of an open deck block, lots of things can go wrong. I think, most common, is that people start to experience head gasket problems, probably. Open deck blocks are a bit tougher to seal properly than their closed deck counterparts. With higher BMEP from more boost, or higher rpms, the very top of a cylinder bore can start to shift around a little bit. Higher temps can also cause thermal distortion that ruins a head gasket . Lots of detonation or pre-ignition can make those cylinder liners shimmy around like an upside down cow-bell too. That movement ruins a head gasket quicker than Will Ferrell can get naked in the movie Old School…
(Interestingly enough, it appears that before our Volvo 2.5L blocks experiences this phenomenon, they tend to crack at the saw cut area… I'll get to that in a bit..)
Since the beginning of time, people have tried a lot of modifications to fix moving cylinder liners in an open deck. The first ideas had people "pinning" or "bolting" the liners in place. (I have actually seen this, not making it up!) What they do to limit the movement of the bores is, from the outside of the block, drill and tap a holt about an inch down from the top of the block and thread in a bolt that just barely touches the cylinder sleeve. This gives each cylinder a solid touch point to restrict movement in that direction. A variation of this is to press fit solid dowels (about 20mm long between the cylinder and outside wall of the block (this got popular again with a lot or open deck Subaru blocks somewhat recently..) . If I recall correctly, primarily people do this against the thrust side of the block, and leave the anti-thrust side untouched. It kinda works..but there are better solutions... There is a great risk of inducing unknown stress and strain if this is done poorly. There is a great risk of the dowels loosening and shifting around as well. You could end up distorting the sleeve and creating a worse situation than you started. I do not recommend this method.
Taking things a step further, lots of people have developed "block guards". As we have already seen, they are a big piece of machined aluminum (I hope Alum and not Steel or something… that surrounds each bore and fills in the gap going out to the rest of the block. These have been very popular with the Honda crowd, and also some Nissan V6s and I think the Porsche V8 (in the 928) crowd. If well designed, these are great. They solidly anchor the top of each bore against the rest of the block. It doesn't take much at all to hold those cylinders steady, so if you go this route, just be sure the guard you choose has a lot of open passages to allow coolant all the way up and around the cylinder. If you are repeatedly blowing head gaskets, and not due to the head lifting (use ARP studs for that… These are a good solution. I would personally avoid a guard that had the entire top surface flush with the block. These designs are why block guards have a reputation of causing "hot spots". However, with our Volvo blocks, unless that saw cut in the Siamese area between bores is filled in, these may not really prevent a block from cracking in the manner we see on the forums..
This one below seems to have some small coolant passages and a channel to allow coolant to circulate around the combustion chamber.... I would maybe even want some more passages.....
As mentioned, the "nuclear solution" is a fully sleeved solution like the Darton MID sleeves. These reinforce both the entire length of the cylinder and brace the top edge against the block. Theoretically, this should be indestructible and perfect. But they are not. The success in implementing one of these is highly dependent on proper installation. Tight machining tolerances and assembly conditions must be followed to ensure these work. If your shop isn't heating the block in an oven and freezing the sleeves in dry ice prior to assembly, I'd be worried. And just because your machining shop has a shiny pretty surface finish on their parts, doesn't mean they know a damn thing about building an engine. Quite frequently, the super awesome indestructible sleeves end up failing after some time. (Go ahead and google search " engine dropped sleeve". ) Poorly installed sleeves won't be held correctly in the block and can actually fall into the block deeper by a few thou. Properly installed sleeves, over a few hundred heat cycles can fall into the block. It doesn't make sense to me to machine out a factory sleeve only to replace it with one the same sized one but pressed in. I think you end up weakening the block too much to hold the sleeve properly. To be frank, sleeves are best left to dedicated racecars that receive routine tear-downs. I would never daily a car with sleeves. It is just asking for trouble.
To be frank, it is extraordinarily rare that any aftermarket company can achieve the same sleeve adhesion that an OEM can do with a cast in liner. It is extraordinarily rare that an oem block needs the sleeves reinforced to prevent them from rupturing half way down the bore. This solution is overkill and simultaneously potentially can cause a whole new world of issues..…
So… if it was up to me.. What would I do to the Volvo block? Nothing. My S60R is a daily driver with 2 car seats in the back that will probably never get off the stock turbo..
But if I did…….. well, first off, I would attempt to polish down the sharp edge at the bottom of the saw-cut to remove that little stress concentration. (Assuming I could get some sort of grinding wheel down that far or a polishing cord.. Second I would not shim the gap, especially with a steel shim. ( if you are going to shim, at least try to fit a aluminum shim in the gap to maintain some sort of uniformity in thermal expansion between the 2 walls. I would guess the steel shim would move around a bit once everything heat cycled a few times. )
I would bet the safest strategy would be to weld the gap between each bore. Aluminum melts much lower than steel, so I bet you could weld the gap without affecting/distorting the steel liners. The deeper you could fill that gap the better… If you are feeling ambitious, I would even go so far as try to weld the gap in a few areas around the water jacket area. Afterwards, re-hone (with a torque plate) and deck the block, cross your finger and turn up the boost.
[Side note: this exact process, polishing away the stress concentration, and welding the top of the gap is used on a certain manufacturer's Indy Blocks, with about a 95% success rate in keeping the sleeves from cracking in a similar manner]
Or Instead of that, if it was too difficult to weld, I would combine the block guard and a shim. That ought to be fairly robust too, and maintain the sleeve adhesion to the block without the risk of pressed in sleeves moving about… Even better, would be if the shim area was integrated into the guard.
And now a fair warning. I am terrible sleep deprived and have ingested enough cold and flu meds over the last few days to tranquilize a wildebeest. I could be very wrong in a lot of my assumptions. Take everything I wrote with a grain of salt. I could be completely wrong. I could have made all this up as I wrote it… Also, I really want to see a picture of the crack close up, of the actual cracked surface… that could tell us a lot more about what is happening in our blocks..
So that is my 2 cents on the subject, feel free to call me an idiot in the comments below!
TLDR:
Shims prevent blocks from cracking, but do nothing to prevent the cylinders shifting and blowing head gaskets. (if that is a problem)
Block guards are great to prevent cylinder sleeves from moving around and blowing head gaskets, but only help brace the weak point between bores a small amount.. It isn't the main benefit of installing a guard.
Darton sleeves can fix both, but also host a whole new world of potential problems. They are not as perfect as everyone thinks..
Well, I was going to add this to the painfully long block guard vs darton sleeve thread, but that turned into mindless willy-swinging match, so instead… a fresh start.
Hi. I'm new here. I am a mechanical engineer, currently working in the Aerospace sector. Previous to that, I worked at an Automotive OEM in the Midwest in their Engine development program. Originally heavily involved in intake/Port design and CFD work, and later designing in reciprocating parts for DI engines. (Piston, rods, and rings). I will admit I never was directly involved with the design of cylinder blocks, but obviously still involved with that aspect, as they heavily influenced my pistons. (mostly focusing on bore distortion as related to piston ring sealing and piston skirt scuffing, It is surprisingly complex. And guess what? Cylinders are never round! Never ever…They are oval, sometimes kinda triangle-ly, more often they are almost clover leaf shaped, (4th order distortion, on the order of a handful of microns, but it is enough the rings which are much easier to keep round, don't seal properly.. Months, nay years, of my life was spent fighting the comformability of rings against funky shaped bores…I still have nightmares..… Anyways, here are some things I learned along the way, some applicable to production engines, some to race engines….
First, the basics. Open deck-vs closed deck. Pictures speak a thousand words…
This is a 4G63 from a turbo mitsu (dsm/GVR4/evo). Note there is a continuous amount of material from the cylinder bore, all the way across the top of the block to the walls. The "deck" is closed. Also, the block is iron, not aluminum. This is very robust and stiff. It's great for sealing head gaskets, and keeping the cylinders from shifting around under high loads. Much like Chevy's LS engines, doubling, tripling or quadrupling the power coming out of a mitsu 4G63 is only slightly more difficult that falling off a log. Stock 4G63s can easily handle 400-500hp all day long. Toss some decent forged rods and pistons in one, and 700-800hp is almost reliable enough to daily drive… However that closed deck block, well, It sucks for heat transfer out of the combustion chamber, as it leaves a large part of the hottest portion of the combustion chamber (the very top) not near any coolant.
This is an open deck block. It's a Honda K24. The tops of the bore are not connected to the walls of the block. This lets coolant surround each bore all the way up to the cylinder head. This is great for cooling and knock toughness, and primarily, these two considerations are why 80% of the engines made today are open decks. OEMs focus on any tiny improvement to BSFC (brake specific fuel consumption) to improve fuel economy, and open decks blocks are a great way to achieve more combustion stability through leaner mixtures and more timing.
Taking that a step further, a lot of open deck blocks will also have a little saw-cut between each bore in the Siamese area. This cut allows coolant between each bore and helps maintain a more uniform temperature and distortion in the top regions of each cylinder. Some newer blocks, like the newest AMG 4 cylinder take this a step further and include a matching little saw cut / slit into the cylinder head. Anything in the name of the almighty god of Fuel Economy, I guess….. Our 2.5L Volvo blocks, only have the saw cut in the Siamese area between each bore. And this little feature is the root cause of a bunch of people acting like dicks on the internet.
Never-the-less… Moving on to more important things....
More Cowbell! When people starting exceeding the original power levels of an open deck block, lots of things can go wrong. I think, most common, is that people start to experience head gasket problems, probably. Open deck blocks are a bit tougher to seal properly than their closed deck counterparts. With higher BMEP from more boost, or higher rpms, the very top of a cylinder bore can start to shift around a little bit. Higher temps can also cause thermal distortion that ruins a head gasket . Lots of detonation or pre-ignition can make those cylinder liners shimmy around like an upside down cow-bell too. That movement ruins a head gasket quicker than Will Ferrell can get naked in the movie Old School…
(Interestingly enough, it appears that before our Volvo 2.5L blocks experiences this phenomenon, they tend to crack at the saw cut area… I'll get to that in a bit..)
Since the beginning of time, people have tried a lot of modifications to fix moving cylinder liners in an open deck. The first ideas had people "pinning" or "bolting" the liners in place. (I have actually seen this, not making it up!) What they do to limit the movement of the bores is, from the outside of the block, drill and tap a holt about an inch down from the top of the block and thread in a bolt that just barely touches the cylinder sleeve. This gives each cylinder a solid touch point to restrict movement in that direction. A variation of this is to press fit solid dowels (about 20mm long between the cylinder and outside wall of the block (this got popular again with a lot or open deck Subaru blocks somewhat recently..) . If I recall correctly, primarily people do this against the thrust side of the block, and leave the anti-thrust side untouched. It kinda works..but there are better solutions... There is a great risk of inducing unknown stress and strain if this is done poorly. There is a great risk of the dowels loosening and shifting around as well. You could end up distorting the sleeve and creating a worse situation than you started. I do not recommend this method.
Taking things a step further, lots of people have developed "block guards". As we have already seen, they are a big piece of machined aluminum (I hope Alum and not Steel or something… that surrounds each bore and fills in the gap going out to the rest of the block. These have been very popular with the Honda crowd, and also some Nissan V6s and I think the Porsche V8 (in the 928) crowd. If well designed, these are great. They solidly anchor the top of each bore against the rest of the block. It doesn't take much at all to hold those cylinders steady, so if you go this route, just be sure the guard you choose has a lot of open passages to allow coolant all the way up and around the cylinder. If you are repeatedly blowing head gaskets, and not due to the head lifting (use ARP studs for that… These are a good solution. I would personally avoid a guard that had the entire top surface flush with the block. These designs are why block guards have a reputation of causing "hot spots". However, with our Volvo blocks, unless that saw cut in the Siamese area between bores is filled in, these may not really prevent a block from cracking in the manner we see on the forums..
This one below seems to have some small coolant passages and a channel to allow coolant to circulate around the combustion chamber.... I would maybe even want some more passages.....
As mentioned, the "nuclear solution" is a fully sleeved solution like the Darton MID sleeves. These reinforce both the entire length of the cylinder and brace the top edge against the block. Theoretically, this should be indestructible and perfect. But they are not. The success in implementing one of these is highly dependent on proper installation. Tight machining tolerances and assembly conditions must be followed to ensure these work. If your shop isn't heating the block in an oven and freezing the sleeves in dry ice prior to assembly, I'd be worried. And just because your machining shop has a shiny pretty surface finish on their parts, doesn't mean they know a damn thing about building an engine. Quite frequently, the super awesome indestructible sleeves end up failing after some time. (Go ahead and google search " engine dropped sleeve". ) Poorly installed sleeves won't be held correctly in the block and can actually fall into the block deeper by a few thou. Properly installed sleeves, over a few hundred heat cycles can fall into the block. It doesn't make sense to me to machine out a factory sleeve only to replace it with one the same sized one but pressed in. I think you end up weakening the block too much to hold the sleeve properly. To be frank, sleeves are best left to dedicated racecars that receive routine tear-downs. I would never daily a car with sleeves. It is just asking for trouble.
To be frank, it is extraordinarily rare that any aftermarket company can achieve the same sleeve adhesion that an OEM can do with a cast in liner. It is extraordinarily rare that an oem block needs the sleeves reinforced to prevent them from rupturing half way down the bore. This solution is overkill and simultaneously potentially can cause a whole new world of issues..…
So… if it was up to me.. What would I do to the Volvo block? Nothing. My S60R is a daily driver with 2 car seats in the back that will probably never get off the stock turbo..
But if I did…….. well, first off, I would attempt to polish down the sharp edge at the bottom of the saw-cut to remove that little stress concentration. (Assuming I could get some sort of grinding wheel down that far or a polishing cord.. Second I would not shim the gap, especially with a steel shim. ( if you are going to shim, at least try to fit a aluminum shim in the gap to maintain some sort of uniformity in thermal expansion between the 2 walls. I would guess the steel shim would move around a bit once everything heat cycled a few times. )
I would bet the safest strategy would be to weld the gap between each bore. Aluminum melts much lower than steel, so I bet you could weld the gap without affecting/distorting the steel liners. The deeper you could fill that gap the better… If you are feeling ambitious, I would even go so far as try to weld the gap in a few areas around the water jacket area. Afterwards, re-hone (with a torque plate) and deck the block, cross your finger and turn up the boost.
[Side note: this exact process, polishing away the stress concentration, and welding the top of the gap is used on a certain manufacturer's Indy Blocks, with about a 95% success rate in keeping the sleeves from cracking in a similar manner]
Or Instead of that, if it was too difficult to weld, I would combine the block guard and a shim. That ought to be fairly robust too, and maintain the sleeve adhesion to the block without the risk of pressed in sleeves moving about… Even better, would be if the shim area was integrated into the guard.
And now a fair warning. I am terrible sleep deprived and have ingested enough cold and flu meds over the last few days to tranquilize a wildebeest. I could be very wrong in a lot of my assumptions. Take everything I wrote with a grain of salt. I could be completely wrong. I could have made all this up as I wrote it… Also, I really want to see a picture of the crack close up, of the actual cracked surface… that could tell us a lot more about what is happening in our blocks..
So that is my 2 cents on the subject, feel free to call me an idiot in the comments below!
TLDR:
Shims prevent blocks from cracking, but do nothing to prevent the cylinders shifting and blowing head gaskets. (if that is a problem)
Block guards are great to prevent cylinder sleeves from moving around and blowing head gaskets, but only help brace the weak point between bores a small amount.. It isn't the main benefit of installing a guard.
Darton sleeves can fix both, but also host a whole new world of potential problems. They are not as perfect as everyone thinks..