How Turner Got Her Groove Back

["Steve Schaeffer" <borrani@xxxxxxx>]

Hey All,

Finally got Turner back on the road last night.  It had been down since the
night before we were scheduled to leave for the Concours Italiano, August
12.  The 1600 motor had started smoking very badly, we thought we'd broken a
ring.  We decided to re-ring the car the day before departure.  Upon pulling
the liners off the pistons, and then removing the pistons from the
connecting rods (tricky when the engine is still in the car!), we found no
broken rings.  However, we did find the guilty party, the ring lands for the
top ring of piston #3 had grown to 0.080" instead of 0.040", the ring had
beaten quite a groove for itself.  The good news was we had found the
problem, the bad news was that Turner would tragically have to sit out the
Monterey trip.

I splurged a bit and we ordered Paul Spruell-designed J&E pistons, 1mm
oversize (79mm), and what looks to be 12:1 compression.  We have a thick
copper head gasket to hopefully enable me to run pump gas.  These pistons
were absolutely beautiful, and all weighing nearly exactly 385g.  We got the
new rings installed Friday night, and then installed the pistons back on the
rods yesterday (Saturday).  Man, those little spiral wrist pin locks can be
a bear.  We then installed the newly bored liners and then placed the
cylinder head back on.  It all went together very nicely and Turner fired up
immediately.  I will keep it under 4500 rpm or so for a short while, but
September 18 is a track day, and I'll be there, rain or shine.  The new
engine is 1608cc as opposed to the stock 1567cc.  I'll take what little
extra punch I can get, that, and a bit higher compression ratio ought to
give me a little more torque.

Reflecting back, maybe I should have chosen to use the old pistons, and
invest the money saved into the 'Panasport' fund, which may have been
smarter, but, ah well.  When the motor is that far apart, I really would
like to see some improvement.

We sent the old pistons to the machinist to see if they could be saved, they
were, in fact he went right ahead and machined the two upper ring grooves on
all 4 pistons, so these very nice, valuable, 101 Veloce 1600 pistons (78mm)
are ready for re-use, we have the rings for them as well.  The upper ring
groove is 0.080" now, and the new rings fit like a glove, so they are
perfectly useable.  Compression is 10:1 I believe.  If anyone has a 1600
motor ready for pistons, these nice, light pistons are for sale, $US300 or
best offer, new rings included.

There is a popular moving showing about North America called 'How Stella Got
Her Groove Back', so I thought it appropriate to name this article what I
did.

Cheers!

Steve S.
NWARC
Seattle, WA
http://nsccux.sccd.ctc.edu/~borrani

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