Thread: Sleeving a Block

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Originally Posted by rspears

Capecreations21, you were on target about not being understood on a hot rod forum! The smaller, lighter engines in many European vehicles (especially the exotics) push their peak torque and HP way, way out on the curves compared to American Iron V8's. Heck, some of the Ferrari's hit Peak Torque above 9000rpm, and push out to 13,300rpm or higher. Now I'm not saying that your Nissan V6 is going to hit 12,000rpm, but you need to find a shop that works on the tuner crowd's engine needs vs American V-8's. There's a reason you don't take your Ferrari to a Chevy dealership for service, and the same applies to machine shops, IMO.

I hope you'll keep posting your progress on the Nissan V-6, especially a You-Tube video of it cranking out >10,000rpm on the dyno, complete with the graph of power output!

For sure I see where you're coming from.. If a specific shop works machining X American block the steps and procedures could be different than that of X tuner block. I am from cape cod and on the island I think maybe there are 2 machine shops neither one specializing in anything in particular and I think this is the type of job to go to someone who has built high revving motors before like you said.

Everything is currently taken apart and out of the block and the heads are bare but I'm sure it will be several months until I find a shop to build it for me and the money to do so, def will post pics along the way however for sure. Got to keep doing research. There was a post saying that the Infiniti q45 motor has 94mm forged Pistons that you could potentially bore the Nissan block out to fit. Maybe that's an option.

If you find you want to ship your block to a shop in say Arizona or ??? you might check with your closest Fastenal store. They have a regional centralized shipping system to keep their stores stocked, and they're mostly lightly loaded, with lots of room open on the trucks. You have to pack your item for loading, and any crating is up to you, but a friend needed to get a differential to a buddy and he strapped it to a salvaged pallet, carried it to the Fastenal and they shipped it to another store for a whole lot less than the LTL Freight companies were quoting. Just a thought....

a couple of questions-is your block cast iron or aluminum? Whats the stroke of the crank stock and of the one you want to use? Bore size now? Valve size and stem diameter?

You won't pick up much in cubic inches on small bore engines, even less if they are 4 or 6 cylinder

as for rpms, size of crank bearings make big differences-we are using Honda sized ( less than 2.0 vs over 2 inch rods and now are using 9 roller bearings on camshafts vs old 5 bushings, valve spring pressure is so high that the cams want to break------also valve lifts are near an inch where as stockers around 1/2 inch.

Problem of big bore size weakens block and its hard to save deck strength for head attachment, many blocks studs will go to bottom main area and attach load to same area as crankshaft bore.

Measure your block length for cylinder bore spacing-----maybe theres a head out there that can be adapted ---I'm thinking something maybe like the Nascar RO7 stuff

Originally Posted by rspears

If you find you want to ship your block to a shop in say Arizona or ??? you might check with your closest Fastenal store. They have a regional centralized shipping system to keep their stores stocked, and they're mostly lightly loaded, with lots of room open on the trucks. You have to pack your item for loading, and any crating is up to you, but a friend needed to get a differential to a buddy and he strapped it to a salvaged pallet, carried it to the Fastenal and they shipped it to another store for a whole lot less than the LTL Freight companies were quoting. Just a thought....

Unless I somehow watch enough YouTube videos and and win the lottery I think I will have to ship it somewhere lol. So thank you I will keep that in mind when I go to pack it, I like the idea that I get to pack it myself as well... I've seen some freak shows when it comes to freight shipping. Any particular shop in Arizona? I could google them maybe even call or email just to see what they think.

So why wouldn't you consider shipping it to me??? sometimes you can get a core block locally cheaper than shipping-------

Why didn't you reply to my questions????

Looks like Jerry & I were typing at the same time, but it doesn't affect my reply.

Originally Posted by Capecreations21

Any particular shop in Arizona? I could google them maybe even call or email just to see what they think.

I said Arizona because that's where 69Bee's from, and you liked his advice early in the thread. If it were me I'd be researching OUS tuner info, magazines, etc, looking for the machine shops where the hotshot tuner guys that are pushing serious HP from their OEM blocks go for their specialty work. You're in a different league than just stroking a GM, Ford or Chrysler.
The Fastenal tip is just one that I picked up from a friend, and it may or may not work for you.

So you just think that I stroke Ford, Gm, and Mopar engines????????



If I remember from back in those days of that Nisson engine-didn't they bypass the 24 hours Daytona race because of reliability issues??? I think they did win at Road America or Mid Ohio (in their class)

And I did straighten out a conversion swap of a twin turbo engine into a street car-don't remember just what year or number it was but they had smashed the oil pan up against the oil pump pickup and it would draw any oil flow at much above idle/lower rpms---------

Capecreations21, don't give up. I remember when we where trying to find a machine shop to bore and sleeve a 5.9 cummins to take it to .0120 over. No one around here wanted to do it. They all said it wouldn't hold stock power levels let a lone 1200+hp. But we took it to a machine shop that specializes in tractor pulling engines and he got it done. And guess what? A lot of people are doing it now. I'm sure we weren't the first to do it. We stole the idea from my friend's friend who has a nasty super stock pulling tractor. Now a days guys are building deck plate engines and sleeving them to get them to hold the power. Mainly 6.7s. Apparently above 1800hp modified stock blocks can only take so much.

Originally Posted by jerry clayton

a couple of questions-is your block cast iron or aluminum? Whats the stroke of the crank stock and of the one you want to use? Bore size now? Valve size and stem diameter?

You won't pick up much in cubic inches on small bore engines, even less if they are 4 or 6 cylinder

as for rpms, size of crank bearings make big differences-we are using Honda sized ( less than 2.0 vs over 2 inch rods and now are using 9 roller bearings on camshafts vs old 5 bushings, valve spring pressure is so high that the cams want to break------also valve lifts are near an inch where as stockers around 1/2 inch.

Problem of big bore size weakens block and its hard to save deck strength for head attachment, many blocks studs will go to bottom main area and attach load to same area as crankshaft bore.

Measure your block length for cylinder bore spacing-----maybe theres a head out there that can be adapted ---I'm thinking something maybe like the Nascar RO7 stuff

Sorry I didn't mean to leave you hanging I was on my lunch break when I replied to the threa yesterday afternoon, I didn't know this information off hand so I didn't want to post misleading or wrong information. Anyway, the block is cast iron and the bore is 3.43 and the stroke is 3.27. I would like to bore and stroke it out as much as reliably possible so I really don't know how far you can go with that particular block before the walls are too thin. The valve size and stem diameter are as follows on this chart because I really don't know what these all mean..

Diameter 35mm
Margin .050"
O/A Length 103.13mm
Seat Width .075"
Stem Diameter 6mm/.2362”
Tip Length 3.5mm
Top of Head 17° Dish
Underhead Angle/Radius x5/16"


what does machine work like this go for? Again sorry for the late reply

One of the reasons for turboing it was to get a siqnificant increase in hp---------If you can't make the motor bigger you need to supercharge it---one method is turbos------- There is no way reasonably possible to increase the size of a 3 liter engine to get enough HP to make a really big change on the STREET--------however, if you are going to CLASS race it where you must be NA and stock type engine you could get this one out to around 3.500 and stay with your stock stroke crank--- you'll only pick up 4 or 5 cubes.

If you are going to STREET race stop lite against other ricers, change the heads and add the turbos----- Or put a hemi in it !!!!!!!!!

Really----just about half way down on my first cup of coffee---------you will not increase the size of a small 3.0 liter block enough to go the expence--------Swap in late model alum V8

Hemi or Ford won't fit---you'll need to do LS type

Originally Posted by jerry clayton

Hemi or Ford won't fit---you'll need to do LS type

If all said and done it comes to the vg na block not being build able the way I want I will probably go the vh45 swap, which is an Infiniti v8 motor with forged internals and aluminum block and heads. So many people have done LS type swaps, and I am trying to just do something a little bit different and unique, not the vh swaps are unheard of but certainly less common than LS. That being Said i now have two questions that have Been rasied from Reading your response and those would be... If the vg block is sleeved to 3.3 or 3.5 like you say can you then add the twin turbo set up to that or is the compression too high at this point? The second question is if the vg block turns out to not be the route.. Could the vh block be sleeved, or could any LS type block be sleeved to achieve those rpm numbers? Thank you much! And again sorry that my knowledge base for this is very poor.

Originally Posted by Capecreations21

....If the vg block is sleeved to 3.3 or 3.5 like you say can you then add the twin turbo set up to that or is the compression too high at this point? The second question is if the vg block turns out to not be the route.. Could the vh block be sleeved, or could any LS type block be sleeved to achieve those rpm numbers? Thank you much! And again sorry that my knowledge base for this is very poor.

I'm gonna risk another reply here. I looked back at my earlier posts and I don't see that I said anything negative or "cold". I simply stated that if you're wanting to build an OUS engine to wrap up like a Ferrari MY OPINION is that you'd be best served finding a shop that works on those kind of engines on a regular basis (note Ryan's comment about finally finding a guy that specialized in engines for tractor pulls?). Seems quite logical in my mind.

CC21, you're confused about sleeving a block. Sleeving is used to repair a flaw that destroys the integrity of a cylinder wall, or like Ryan mentioned on his diesel comment, to give a stronger cylinder wall than the cast iron offers, and has nothing to do with "making numbers". It's a repair option, and in your case you've described boring the block out to the point that the bores are into the cooling water jackets, then installing sleeves that give you a bigger bore than you could have ever had before. Like Jerry mentioned, you're only going to pick up a few cubic inches doing this, and the cost to volume increase isn't gonna be cheap. The resulting compression will be determined by your head and piston selection, along with the stroke you finalize - how much you squeeze the charge into the combustion chamber in the head.
How does Ferrari push their peak power out to ~9000 rpm's? They use ultra light valves, rockers, lifters, pushrods, and extreme spring pressures to counter the inertia of the valves; ultra light alloy rods/caps; lightweight forged cranks, etc, etc to make the reciprocating parts as light as they can while keeping them strong, then balancing the whole shebang to make it smooth as silk.
I'd say that you're on the right track with your comment about doing a cleanup bore on the vg block (sleeved or not sleeved, depending on how much money you want to throw at it) and then running the twin turbo's. Sounds like you've been reading too much on tuner forums where guys who've never done it are talking about "what if I just bore out my 3L to use 426 Hemi pistons!! Wouldn't that be cool?"
With that I'll back away from this discussion, suggesting that you might want to get a book on engines and study up a bit. You've obviously got the desire, and wanting to do something "different" is a very good thing, again in my opinion. Hope you have a great day!

When I was racing my Corvette in '10 I had a guy tell me the best way to get better horsepower at higher rpm's on a 5.9 cummins was to destroke it. I thought he was crazy. Turns out he was right but the cost to do it was crazy so I never tried it. Although his truck is a top contender in the diesel scene now. Sometimes crazy ideas work, sometimes you spend double. Been there.

Originally Posted by rspears

CC21, you're confused about sleeving a block. Sleeving is used to repair a flaw that destroys the integrity of a cylinder wall, or like Ryan mentioned on his diesel comment, to give a stronger cylinder wall than the cast iron offers, and has nothing to do with "making numbers". It's a repair option, and in your case you've described boring the block out to the point that the bores are into the cooling water jackets, then installing sleeves that give you a bigger bore than you could have ever had before. Like Jerry mentioned, you're only going to pick up a few cubic inches doing this, and the cost to volume increase isn't gonna be cheap. The resulting compression will be determined by your head and piston selection, along with the stroke you finalize - how much you squeeze the charge into the combustion chamber in the head.
How does Ferrari push their peak power out to ~9000 rpm's? They use ultra light valves, rockers, lifters, pushrods, and extreme spring pressures to counter the inertia of the valves; ultra light alloy rods/caps; lightweight forged cranks, etc, etc to make the reciprocating parts as light as they can while keeping them strong, then balancing the whole shebang to make it smooth as silk.
I'd say that you're on the right track with your comment about doing a cleanup bore on the vg block (sleeved or not sleeved, depending on how much money you want to throw at it) and then running the twin turbo's. Sounds like you've been reading too much on tuner forums where guys who've never done it are talking about "what if I just bore out my 3L to use 426 Hemi pistons!! Wouldn't that be cool?"
With that I'll back away from this discussion, suggesting that you might want to get a book on engines and study up a bit. You've obviously got the desire, and wanting to do something "different" is a very good thing, again in my opinion. Hope you have a great day!

Thank you for the reply and I didn't see any negativity in these comments, def saw some people trying to teach me some things tho so thank you guys for that. To be honest yes it kind of is a lot of tuner forums but only because achieving high horsepower numbers on the NA without adding turbos has been done so few times that all there is are ideas and theories about what could or might work, very few actually build logs or specs to follow. That being said yes I do need to invest in an engine building book and study it from square one. The vh45 Infiniti motor is a swap that has been done frequently and that is a v8 with all forged lightweight internals so that is why I was thinking MAYBE that could be a possibility to turn that kind of range, whether or not it will work is a whole different story but at least with the v8 maybe there is at least more to gain to bore it but then again maybe not.

Originally Posted by DennyW

Roger, would you actually like me to reply ???

I didn't read anywhere where he said anything negative about Jerry or his sons. He just mentioned maybe send the block to Arizona. Maybe he figured Jerry is too busy to do it or who knows.