Back to the subject of my oil pan, I wanted to put a trap door in my pan and then I got to thinking that the traditional oil pan set up will not work for a transverse engine mounting.
I thought further about this and I’ve come to the conclusion that all of these 60D oil pans follow a rear wheel drive layout !!!
It seems to me that the there are big gains to be had by adding some pan area in the fore and aft of the pan in relation to the car.

You can always send me the new rods for testing, and I will let you know when they break
It may take years though. but at the rate your going just to get the oil pan on, the timming should be about right :P

Aeh.. Don Fiero, the stock rods sleep with the fish.

Those rods sure are pretty aren’t they, when they get here I think I will rub them with a diaper while wiping the slobber from my chin.
Or maybe I’ll put one of the spares on a chain and wear it around my neck.

All it takes is time and money and I have neither…
“Me”

You're going to have to have some serious material removed from that crank to bring it back into balance after changing out the rods.

Will,

Yes, a lot of weight will need to be removed from the crank. I figure a good knife edge of the crank should take care of most of the weight.

I am now interested in information related to aluminum flywheels, to possibly take advantage of lightening the rotating assembly further. This lighter assembly should reduce shock on the drive line components (transmission and axels) and in a way strengthen the crank as there will be considerably less stress on it.
I assume that this is true, but I plan on researching subject of lightening further.
Any information on this subject is welcome.

I let you guys know what I find.

http://www.tiltonracing.com/home.shtml

What do we have here, will ????????

http://www.tiltonracing.com...age=list2&id=380&m=d

This seems like an awful lot of effort for a GEN2 V6-60. Is there a CliffsNotes version of why you chose the GEN2 engine over the GEN3 if you're not keeping most of the original parts?

I initially went with the 3.1 TGP because of the special short block, the block is a special part number that has a high nickel content for strength and an extra oil boss for the feed to the factory turbo. The cost would be easily over a 1000 $ just in machine work just for the crank.

The crank is also a TGP special part it is a 981 AWD van part that has been lightened, the journals have been rolled and filleted, all the oil holes are chamfered and the journals have been nitride coated to a 60 Rockwell hardness.

The rods are 1037 heat treated forgings with 1050 air quenched caps.

The pistons are Mahle hypereutectic 28cc dish turbo pistons.

If you read back through the thread you will see I was going to try and reuse all of these parts, but while putting the piston oil spray in I found one of the rods were bent. I looked at the small Chevy rod swap and ended up finding the aluminum rods on the cheap.

I will be using a Gen 3 heads and intakes on the TGP short block.

Thanks for your interest.

While shopping for some decent steel rods to replace my bent TGP pieces I came across a set of small Chevy aluminum rods starting at 60 dollars with no bids. I was aware of the never use aluminum rods on the street caveat that is found in almost all of your regular hotrod circles.
I was discussing this deal on aluminum rods with a friend, he said that when he bought rods last year he looked into aluminum rods for the street and was surprised by what he found on the viability of aluminum rods for street use and gave me a few links.
I was impressed and appalled by some of the claims made by these manufacturers, so I called a lot of specialty machine shops using aluminum rods and got a different answer from almost all of them. Some no, never not at all, others said no problem what so ever. I also got every thing from 10,000 miles to 200,000 miles.
I had hoped to hear from someone who may have first hand experience with aluminum rods on the street or at the drag strip.
It looks like I will have to find out on my own.
I won the rods on ebay for 92.00 $ plus 13.95 shipping and handling and they arrived yesterday and I was not pleased, first thing I noticed was that they were poorly shipped and there was a small hole roughly .060 drilled in the small end of each rod (below the center of the piston) I assume this is a drip hole for lubrication ???
These rods were supposed to be new and unused, they are not !!! They have obviously not been used in a running engine but it does look like they were set up in some ones block at one time. They still look almost mint but not unused as advertised.
The final blow came while inspecting each rod closely, one of the rods had a tiny crack near the small end on the beam. 1 spare rod down…
Not a good start, I knew that some thing was going to be wrong with them… Good thing I only need 6 of them. All in all I still feel OK, but the cracked rod bothers me. This is a set of forged rods not he cheaper billet style. How did this rod get cracked ??? One thing is for sure, I will stain them with some crack ink to be sure none of the others have a crack.
A hundred and six dollars for 7 aluminum rods is still an unbelievable deal good thing I’m building a six cylinder and not an eight.
I still have a lot of measuring to see if I can actually use these, as I still need to check each rod thoroughly to make sure they are all to spec, work out whether there is enough clearance around the cam galley and what ever else I see that might hit.
There appears to be enough material to narrow them the needed .092 to get them down from .940 to the .848 journal width of my 60D crank.

I will post some Pics and information on this soon.

Today will be my last post on this thread.

My best efforts to use the factory TGP engine minus the heads and intakes reached a low point when I discovered a bent rod. With the rods needing to be replaced, all that is left of the original TGP engine is the block and the crank. The crank is far superior than any other factory crank put in the 60D engines, but I am also sure the modern 3.4 block is a stronger casting than the high nickel TGP block by nature of it’s beefier castings. This point has been made by a lot of members here on PFF and has not fallen on deaf ears.

I liked the rarity of the TGP and felt it would add some nostalgia to my project, but after finding the bent rod and procuring a set of aluminum rods to replace them with I have decided to upgrade the block and heads to the 3.4 DOHC platform and use the TGP crank and recently acquired aluminum rods for several reasons and are as follows…

Strength of the modern block castings.

The DOHC has no cam galley to interfere with the larger aluminum rods.

1200 $ in cam , lifter and roller rocker cost is now unnecessary.

DOHC 3.4 makes 215 hp before I add the turbo/s vs. the TGP at 205 hp with a turbo.

Boost levels will not need to be so high to attain the desired 350 hp goal.

Modern DOHC architecture and 7000 RPM redline.

I don’t know about you guys, but I will be sad to see the TGP go the way of the buffalo. However I will be moving on to much more advanced engine. I will be able to salvage my crank, the aluminum rods, crank scraper, windage tray and the piston oil spray should still work on this engine. So I haven’t wasted to much time as all of the stuff I have been working on will transfer right over to the DOHC engine.

There are two at the local bone yard right now 129.99 pull your self (not to shabby) that I hope to get to this weekend or next weekend at the very latest. I will be starting a new thread called “Turbo 3.4 DOHC Build”

Thanks for all of the information and support you guys have put into this thread, it has been allot of fun I hope to see you guys on my new thread.

Wish me some luck…