B21A Cheap fun NA build.

I'll start at the beginning. Bought a 244 witch was dying slow. Swapped the tired b23 for a t5 with m90. cracked a cylinder wall on
holiday and decided to take a 2jz as next challange. While the build is happening i bought a 242 to drive in the meantime. Made
some mercedes wheels fit on the car and iam driving it now for abbout haf a year. Now while iam waiting on parts i got some time
to put into this one.



The car came with a B21A swapped which is adapted to run LPG. Drives cheap, silent and smooth bud defiantly not fast of fun.
Last week i came across a V cam and decided to put that in.



The cam has more lift but less duration than the original A cam. to my surprise i read that it would lose some mid-range and gain
some top. And guess what, they were right! Car used to pull from 2 to 4.5k and stop there, Now it continues to pull to 5250.

It's equipped with that ****ty manifold with sing stormberg and on top of that a lpg mixer which reduces the inlet diameter even
more. So if iam going to put some time in the engine that'll have to change first. One of the things i have to figure out before i
think of a plan is the compression ratio. I thought these had only abbout 8.5 to 1. While doing some more research it appears to
be only that low in the us. Europe got a higher compression, up to 10.0 to 1.



I know the engine didn't came with the car. So i cant look at the cassis plate witch engine is in. How do i confirm which type of
engine i got? All the machining can be done at work. The easyest way to increase the cr would be by trimming the head, how
much can be removed?

I would like to hear some oppinions abbout this, Already got some side-drafts and would like to bump the cr to abbout 12;1 with a
wild cam and 4>1 exhaust.

It seems hard to get the compression to 12:1. Block needs to be decked so the pistons come out 0.3mm and the head milled 2mm. That would give approx 11.83:1 Would it be possible to take 2mm of a 398 head ?

Pull the head off and make sure you have the flat top pistons and not the dished version first

Engine code should be in the VIN.

If the engine part number is 498810 as indicated by the red tag on timing cover (it's stamped on the block above the distributor), the parts catalog says it should have pistons for 91/93 octane fuel which means it should be 8.5:1.

classicswede said:

Pull the head off and make sure you have the flat top pistons and not the dished version first

Click to expand...

Looked in there with the endoscope, flat tops walls could have looked better dough

I got a 530 head wich can be milled enough i undersood. Read somewhere that it could take 2.5mm How much have you guys safely removed from a 530/531?

c.slopsma said:

Looked in there with the endoscope, flat tops walls could have looked better dough

I got a 530 head wich can be milled enough i undersood. Read somewhere that it could take 2.5mm How much have you guys safely removed from a 530/531?

Click to expand...

How many km on bottomend...what do you call it onderdelen?

Onderdelen, klopt!

I have no idea. The car didn't came with this engine originally. For now iam not going to bother with rebuilding the bottom end. Maybe in the near future search another and rebuild that. Just ordered the GT6 cam, seems like a fun one. about compression, Pistons 0.3 mm above deck and 2.5mm removed from a 530 head should give me a nice piston to head clearance (0.9mm) and a calculated compression round 11.8:1. Hoping someone knows if it's ok to take that much of the head.

The cam profile of the gt6:

VALVE LIFT 12,5
NOCK ANGLE 107?
DURATION IN 312?
DURATION OUT 306?

It seems to be an original design by volvo, wondering what they thought when they made it. If it's to much of a cam to run i'll send my V or A off for a regrind and save this one fore a future project.

You can take that much off the head, but you'll need to use a timing belt with one less tooth. The stock timing belt tensioner can't handle that much slack.

Read about that, ordered the pinto belt. Good to know the head is okay with 2.5. woud like to know what the stock hight is, so I can figure out if it has ever been skimmed before.

Went after the carburettors yesterday. Manifold lines up but had to make a throttle linkage between the solexes. I'll post some pictures of it later.

It's 146.1mm in the green book I looked in.

Thanks a lot!.

Got a 530 head. Took it apart and measured the height. It seems to have never been touched
before. Did some port matching on the intake side for the carb manifold. then skimmed it
2.5mm. Was tempted to go to 3 but wouldn't want to risk the head. B21 head gasket fits
nicely. This evening i'll try to put it back together and measure the combustion chamber
volume left over. Thinking about making my own adjustable cam wheel the weekend, anyone
done that already?

I noticed that there's no oil passage cross-over on the head you have (or it got machined off). It's an oval-ish shaped recess that takes the pressurized oil from the block and moves it over to one of the head bolt holes. You'll need to make sure that the block has this recess, or machine/file/drill a clearance pocket for oil flow. Otherwise you will have no oil flow to the cylinder head.

Second head bolt hole on the exhaust side (pics stolen from TB):

The head gaskets have a teardrop cutout around those holes so, even with a machined down block and head, there's still a thin passage the thickness of the gasket between the holes. The 230 blocks have a blind drill between the passages to provide extra space.

For pistons, here's a couple links showing a variety of B21 pistons. You can copy the part number from the 1st link to the 2nd link to find the Mahle specs.
http://www.cvi-automotive.se/en/articles/20094/5c-pistonsrings-b21
https://catalog.mahle-aftermarket.com/eu/index.xhtml

Goodmorning!
It's been quite a weekend. great notice of the oil path. I've looked at it and saw indeed that mine didn't have it, But so did the head that came of. I guess the teardrop in the gasket is enough. When i bought the car the previous owner told me he had swapped the b21A, But when removing the head it turned out to be a B23A ... The head had a left over volume of 41.5cc Wich results in a compression ratio of 12.5:1. Quite a lot for a daily driver. I hope the gt6 cam will make it work on pump 95. The engine runs now with the V cam which has almost zero overlap and gets hot quick. Do any of you guys ever used the gt6?

Bought a pinto timing chain. Unfortunately mine turns out to have square tooth's and the pinto belt round ones. Anyone knows which ford engine used the square toothed belt?

You could get a set of round tooth gears from a 92+ car.

Good idea. But i'd rather buy a new belt than looking for, and replacing the 3 pulley's.

c.slopsma said:

Bought a pinto timing chain. Unfortunately mine turns out to have square tooth's and the pinto belt round ones. Anyone knows which ford engine used the square toothed belt?

Click to expand...

I thought the pinto timing belt from early 70's 2.0 was square tooth

https://www.rockauto.com/en/catalog/ford,1971,pinto,2.0l+122cid+l4,1135099,engine,timing+belt,5716

I would buy stuff like that from KG in Sweden, at least they used to have the correct belt
You can tell its the a b23 by the "frost"plugs on both sides of the engine. The b21 only have them on one side. The V cam is a good one for a daily , with k-jet it delivered 129/130 hp on the b23. Next up is the K and then the H , the H made 140 engine HP with the b23 in 79 with kjet , wont run at all good with lh 2.4 at idle though.....Both the k and h suffer greatly in low rev ability and economy vs the v , its a more modern profile..... Kind of like a more modern d cam.