She died!

[73GreenMachine]

To cut a long story short, I killed at least three big end bearings driving out to watch a drift practise at Port Gawler. Anyway the good news is that the head survived and that my dad had a 250 in one of his XB utes that I could drop in. Over the last few weeks the 250 has slowly worked its way into the Cortina’s engine bay. Although there a couple of problems I need to work out, it runs. Well, more correctly, it FLIES! It gives me some idea how badly my 200ci was built because this motor is old and dying with a 2 barrel, extractors and other little bits and it leaves my 200 with all the fancy stuff for dead. Wheelspin in 1st gear without dropping the clutch and soo much torque.
My list of things learned:
1. Get the camshaft properly degreed in.
2. Connect the vac advance to its proper source(green barb on the carby in my case), NOT intake manifold vacuum.
3. Remember the oil pump driveshaft

If I had done these things in the first place, my 200 would still be alive and running like it was supposed to (not how I had it) after one and a half grand was spent on it. Oh well, live and learn. Hopefully my next motor will work out better.

 

[73GreenMachine]

Bad news: I think I could possibly be cursed My 250 has died! I've traced it back to low oil pressure. The pump is pumping mostly air not oil! The thing is its the same(new) pump I used in the 200. It may be the cause of my problems. All the oil pickup bolts were tightened properly and a liberal amount of sealant was smeared around so I dont know why it doesn't work. Lucky I might be having a 2v come my way if all goes to plan, but it will be thoroughly checked out by a proper mechanic because if I kill that I will not be happy.

 

[xctasy]

You'll be fine. All of us who learn the hard way can go to the next stage on the totem pole. That's the upside of stuff ups.

A serial sucession of 1000 dollar each mistakes in my teen years taught me to go for a bigger cubic inch engine and find the right gearing.

Now your Cortina is perfect!

 

[addo]

Talk to me about this oil pump. One basic possibility is the wrong size drive shaft, resulting in only partial oil pump operation.

Then - excess internal wear - inspect the gears for clearance, flatten the cover inside by milling or (gasp!) a quick linish. Pack it with moly grease on reassembly.

Check the pickup tube for cracking, and for a correct match to your sump. Confirm the mating faces of pump and block are clean, smooth and if desired smear lightly with BLUE HYLOMAR. Clean the bolt threads first and use the weaker Loctite in case they harmonic'd loose.

Is your flywheel definitely zero balance? This will ruin bearings also.

Are (were) all bearings correctly indexed for oil holes, and was oil flow via the head sufficiently restricted?

Bearings are meant to be sacrificial. See if you can't linish up that 250 crank and reuse the other block/rods.

 

[TCSTEVE]

Thats sucks Green machine.
My first car was a KE35 Corolla and it was an Auto and red . Then i brought my first Corty a TD 200 3 speed, went hard and did killer skids, loved that car, but all my stock 250's did it in a straight line.
I recommend that other motor and some bigger tyres :chill:

 

[Danielson]

Sorry to hear the baddd news. No Kidding Your 250 would spin without having to dump the clutch.. What diff ratio are you running ? My XW ute is probably heavier but no way would do that with my 221 unless the road was wet .. Is the 250 a better motor ? I always thought the 221 was the better one but the 250 had more torque.
Help I want more power !!
Dan

 

[73GreenMachine]

One basic possibility is the wrong size drive shaft, resulting in only partial oil pump operation.

I sorta checked this out in a way because my dad and I used an old 200 points dizzy shaft and attached a drill to it to spin up the oil pump. There was definitely engagement there, but the pump mainly pushed air. We took out the oil pressure sender and you could hold your finger over the hole no problems.

Are (were) all bearings correctly indexed for oil holes, and was oil flow via the head sufficiently restricted?

Yes I made sure of that they could all flow because I could see all of the holes. Made a point of that one.

When I pull out the 250 bottom end when the 2v goes in (if I can get it), I will have a look at the oil pump. It will be interesting to see what actually happened.

I used 2 flywheels, the 250 one with the 250 crank and the 200 with the 200 crank.

No Kidding Your 250 would spin without having to dump the clutch.. What diff ratio are you running ?

Yeah I was pretty surprised aswell, they have heaps of torque and I have a 3.5:1 1st gear (Toyota gearbox) with 2.92:1 diff and old 185\75\13 tyres.

The thing revved out WAY better than what I expected. I would recommend opening out the log intake and putting on a 2 barrel to anyone, it makes a huge difference.

Driving in the wet, the 200 would bag it up in 2nd only about 3\4 throttle from any speed. Could be doing 60 and hit the throttle and spin the wheels. I never tried doing it in 3rd.

I personally think that the 221 would be a really good balance between the revvablilty of the 200(which I have got to admit I miss a bit) and the torque of the 250(my new best friend).

Do up the 221 and see where it gets you. I am pretty sure that you will be happy with the results.

 

[SONNY]

250 2v head bolts onto the 221 motor,makes a sweet combo

 

[DYNOED250]

THe gasket between the the oil pump and the pick up.. check this, this can be a BIG casuse of BAD oil pressure

 

[73GreenMachine]

THe gasket between the the oil pump and the pick up.. check this, this can be a BIG casuse of BAD oil pressure

Thats what I'm thinking too. You could be right. I'lll tell you this week when I pull the motor out. Its the only thing I can think of that could have done it. Must have come loose or something.
I pulled everything off the 250 in the car today.. in one and a half hours comfortably. Done it many times recently so I guess I'm getting good at it
I will hopefully be getting the new motor on the weekend if all goes to plan so with any luck it should be alive again relatively soon.

 

[lyonsy]

hey
what grade oil did you run? cause if to low in an old engine then the oil will lose pressure when due to extra clearence.
did you replace all the cam bearing if one of them was half rooted then there goes your oil prssure and a common mistake.
did it use to smoke heaps when cornering hard and giving it heaps and pump oil out of the rocker covers due to being filled up with not enough drain back (mainly a holden problem)
221 os a sweet engine if only it had the same bore a 200/250 so you could use acl raceseries pistons and whould love to build one or put its crank in a 250 block
yeah blowing engines suck i broke a valve on no3 and mashed the engine in my road corty
seazed 2 of my race engine's 1 due to blown head gasket but state title with good postion 35lap race tempgauge 120degC after 2 laps running 4th on 4cly when it started grabing dies pulling in and drove it on the trailer 30mins later 250alloy xflow earned a lot of respect that night
second seized due to reuseing pistons running in grabs lesson learned use new pistons on every rebuild now.
but hey you dont what something's limit is till you brake it
skid

 

[73GreenMachine]

I ripped the motor out recently and it was the gasket between oil pump and pickup that killed it like you guys said. The bolts had worked their way loose somehow. On the upside, I now have a brand new rebuilt 250 bottom end courtesy of one of TCSTEVE's mates. It will hopefully be in my engine bay this weekend. How do I prevent this gasket from leaking again because I REALLY dont want to fry this new motor?

 

[DYNOED250]

just make sure u do it up corectly.... and make sure u bolt the pick up to the main caps aswell... I knew it would be that:>

 

[TCSTEVE]

mmmmm new motor. Good to here your one step closer to getting her back on the road. You could locktight the oil pump bolts and get new ones from the wreckers or something.
Would a loose pick up cause the bolts to come loose and screw the gasket? Let us know how it goes Brett, Cheers Steve

 

[73GreenMachine]

With any luck, I'll have the car going or very close to it by the end of the weekend(weather dependent). Trust me I'll be letting you know how well it goes asap. From my taste of a tired 250 with a carby and exhaust, this 250 should well and truly satisfy my need for speed.....at least for a while. Hopefully this motor will make it long enough to get to the dragstrip(after its run in of course).....and back home again

 

[TCSTEVE]

With any luck, I'll have the car going or very close to it by the end of the weekend(weather dependent). Trust me I'll be letting you know how well it goes asap. From my taste of a tired 250 with a carby and exhaust, this 250 should well and truly satisfy my need for speed.....at least for a while. Hopefully this motor will make it long enough to get to the dragstrip(after its run in of course).....and back home again

Slight problem bout the drag strip thingy dude. AIR have been shut down till October next year. Ouch!
Bob Jane pulled out on the place since it had a bad meet a month or so ago. No tree lights working, tracks in poor condition that sort of thing. Will be brought out soon and referbished but that takes a year or more plus the legal bull before it actually switches hands.
Have a look into it, but ive been told from a fairly good sorce. Hopefully its not true otherwise im driving to Melboure late in the year to test out my beast once she done.
There is a 1/8 mile strip in the riverland somewhere thats still running and theres another 1/4 miule being built somewhere too.
Steve

 

[Danielson]

Is the 2V still a happening or is getting the modded log. I have been thinking about staged dual weber ADM34s on my log instead of the single. I just happen to have another one here and would like to put it to good use...

 

[73GreenMachine]

Unfortunately no 2v head for me...for now at least. There is another $600 and considerable time for me to get that head on, neither of which I have right now, so its getting the very modded log head. Later, the log head will get a 2v manifold built for it, so I will get a nice flowing head eventually. The real 2v head is going to my dad for when he builds up a hot LPG motor for his XB ute. This weekend didn't really work for me because as everyone here knows things take longer than originally thought. The bottom end has been completely reassembled, but the log head isn't back from the machinist so it can't go on yet. Turned out I needed a new balancer, so I got a nice Powerbond Street balancer for it aswell. I am going to drop the new motor in tomorrow night and bolt the head on as soon as I get it. I should have the car going by next Sunday. I am thinking I will get pretty close to 200hp with this setup as the cam is far wilder, the bottom end better, all round better built and this motor has an extra 50 cubic inches than the old one. Dyno figures soon.

I like the idea of double Webers. But why not go three? Nah two should give you plenty of air fuel mix and even out the distribution much better than the old 1 barrel Stromberg ever did. I have heard exhaust flanges work very nicely when braised in to mount extra carbies. Good luck with it. With the staging dont worry about it as the secondaries are already staged on the Webers anyway. It should work nicely.

 

[Danielson]

The idea of staging the Webers was for economy. I realise they are already staged but figured if I linked them so the primary barrel of the second carby didn't open, until the primary barrel of the first carb was about half open then when under economical driving it would be more efficent. The second carby would have to open faster than the first in order to get full throttle on both carbs. I was also going to have the idle cut off on the secondary operated bo a small switch so that it will not be engaged until that carby is. hopefully it will make tuning easier as well.
cheers

 

[Anonymous]

I ripped the motor out recently and it was the gasket between oil pump and pickup that killed it like you guys said. The bolts had worked their way loose somehow. On the upside, I now have a brand new rebuilt 250 bottom end courtesy of one of TCSTEVE's mates. It will hopefully be in my engine bay this weekend. How do I prevent this gasket from leaking again because I REALLY dont want to fry this new motor?

make locktabs or wire it