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AQ130 (B20) rebuild for a 122

I have a junk cracked EFI head that I got for practice porting. Free to anyone who will pay for shipping.

A few beers gave me the confidence to just dive into my freshly machined head. I just used a dremel, going was slow, but on purpose. Closely studied every port picture Canuck ever posted. Very happy with the results.
 
A couple of screwdrivers in the holes of the crank gear is usually good enough to get under the spacer sleeve and pry it up if you don't have access to the factory tool. It fits inside the sleeve and expands to grab it.

The crank gear will probably require a puller. They're usually on there pretty tight. I have the IPD puller, but a steering wheel puller will work as well. The gear installer is nice to have. Before I got the tool I used to hammer the gear onto the crank, but the tool does it without the possibility of damage. There's a different tool for 6 and 8 bolt cranks.

Use a pair of pry bars on opposite sides to remove the cam gear. The fiber gear might break, but you should change it anyway. The factory tool sucks for removing the gear. It's difficult to find a location where all three legs can fully engage the holes in the gear and if they aren't, the tool will slip. Even when fully engaged, the legs will bend and the tool will slip if the gear is really tight on the cam. The cam gear install tool on the other hand, works really well.

Cam&CrankTools.jpg
 
The B20 in my 66 220 is an AQ130. Had a B20 from a parts car with a cracked cylinder but it was a low mile Volvo rebuild.
Boat engine was stock bore with an 8 bolt crank. So I had the boat block bored to fit the .03 pistons from the car block and used the 6 bolt crank.

The boat head had bigger valves than the carb car head and hardened seats. The machine shop drilled the boat head like the car head. Pretty simple stuff really.

I think the only "mod" the block needed was removing one pin that located the boat timing cover.

If you have the 8 bolt crank my boat engine came with a flywheel that looked just like a regular flywheel. A pressure plate would bolt right to it. Exept the dammed thing was rusted to the point I wouldn't use it. I also had no use for the heavy 8 bolt rods.

The steel cam gears alone were worth the 60 bucks the AQ130 cost! Hardened exhaust seats were a bonus. Might be better flowing heads but it's plenty snappy for me.

Throw the dual downdraft boat carbs and junk in the scrap heap. Or sell them to some moron who wants to put them on a car. SUs are the way to go.

Don't rember how much the deck and head had to milled. The deck is flush with the pistons now anyway.

In retrospect just sleeving my original B20 might have been easier. But being able to tell people it's got a boat engine is worth something. :)
 
cwdodson88 said:
If you have a little bit of cash the schneider cams are pretty sweet. Personally I like to rev the piss out of these old pushrod blocks, so my first choice would be a schneider 264F or 274F depending on other mods. For a streeter, the 264F is probably the better choice.
Click to expand...

I've put a few 274's in engines over the years. When I contacted Schneider last year, they were not selling their grinds at that time. Maybe things have changed, they still list them on their website. Has anyone bought one in the last year?
 
Canuck said:
I've put a few 274's in engines over the years. When I contacted Schneider last year, they were not selling their grinds at that time. Maybe things have changed, they still list them on their website. Has anyone bought one in the last year?
Click to expand...

I have not, but I might just need to pretty soon, I'm not sure that I'm going to like the K cam I have on the shelf for my turbo....
 
sspony said:
The crank gear has three holes in the face. Unthreaded if I remember correctly.

Edit: yup that's it in the second pic.
Click to expand...

Whoops, I meant the cam gear has three holes haha. I see what you guys are saying now. I have a steering wheel puller I can use on the crank.

About to post some pics!
 
Also I brought a digital caliper home from work only to find someone swiped my battery. So I just pulled the closest measurement I could. The bore appears to be right at 4.5". So my suspicion is that it's never been rebuilt.
 
Also, looks like a good candidate for a little shave, clean the rust out and cc those chambers, then you can start figuring your CR and what not. That block may need a little more than a hone and re-ring, might need to go oversize on your pistons, but have the machine shop check after tanking.

if you have the block bored or honed, have them deck it too.
 
The block appears to be mostly dirt/gunk. Unfortunately I don't think I have the funds to go oversize and replace all the valves on top of everything else.
 
So you think I should take the head and block fully assembled to a machine shop? Or tear down and take them?

I'll have to measure the valves when I get a functioning caliper haha
 
Disassemble the block and head. It will give you a better chance to see what the condition of the parts is like.

You should be checking the crank main and rod bearings. The machine shop can do the measurements for you; but, you could do a preliminary check with your calipers if the journals look OK. If the caliper measurements work out, you should plan for new shells and double check with plastigauge to make sure its OK. Probably better to just let the machine shop do the measurement!

Have the machine shop look at the valves. They may be able to clean some of them up; but, I bet the cost of cleaning them up will approach the cost of new valves. You should definitely be planning for new guides. Rock Auto used to sell B20 valves fairly cheap. Also, if you want to upgrade to the steel timing gears, Rock Auto sells the Cloyes steel gears at a real low price.

I think it will also be prudent to plan for replacement with O/S pistons. Those bores look pretty bad. That said, you might luck out and get away with new rings and a hone.

Planning for a clean up of the head and block surfaces would be good. Check the height of the pistons in the block. You will probably need to deck the block to at least get them flush. Depending on the head gasket you use (Cometic appears to sell the thinnest gasket) you may want to deck to get the piston crowns slightly above the deck height depending on what quench band you think you want. Getting a correct quench band will go along way to controlling the B20 detonation blues.
 
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That's an older AQ130 than the one I have. Different head and it's got the 6 bolt crank. Should be steel cam gears and they should be ok.

What's the head look like where the car water pump fits? Looks like a plug there? You need the little copper pipe under the thermostat.

If you don't mind getting dirty a wire brush in a drill will clean up that head so you can look at it better. If the valves are pitted on the stems get new ones. Dropped valves really suck.
 
By the way, going on the compression numbers you posted, even a stock B18 in good condition would be peppy in comparison. You will be ecstatic once you get a fresh motor in it. Car magazines of the day always wrote about how impressed they were with the B18/B20 lump.

I wasn't unhappy with my B18 even here at high altitude. I had 110 compression across all 4 cylinders and it held 70 on the freeway no problem. It would hold 50-55 up steep mountain hills too. By my calcs I was pushing maybe 60 wheel horsepower and it wasn't unpleasant to drive at all. I always kept up with traffic and merged on the freeway easily.

But this year some time it will be really fast. Oh yes, it will be really fast.
 
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