Hi. I am interested in casting a cylinder head for a 4 cylinder car in aluminium. (Let's take the issue of this not being a beginner project as read, it's a longer term goal).

It will be pretty much a copy of an existing cast iron head that I will scan using a 3D scanner, clean up and enlarge to allow for shrinkage. The purpose is to reduce weight and improve cooling.

What is the best way to turn this into a mold? If I get it printed on a rapid prototype machine, can they print a material that can be used as in lost-foam casting?

CNC machine it out of foam? It would have to be done in several parts due to the water chambers and ports.

I'm not too concerned if it ends in failure, it will just be an interesting exercise. I'm going to start by casting some replacement trim parts, hammerforms, and so on, and hopefully work my way up.

Thanks

That would be very in depth procedure.Useing cores and greensand would be your best bet. Lost foam could cause some problems.With greensand you could use the original head as a pattern .Then you would just need to figure out the core for the coolant passages and the intake / exhaust ports.Its a lot of work but it is possible.Are you a toolmaker, because that is a ton a manual machine work to lay out and machine.Wow if a diy person figures all that out then we are going to be on Mars sooner than I thought!

I'd have to say it's a project to work towards. I think you'd have some problems using the original head as a pattern, depending on what it looks like.

I've seen an alum head cast w/ lost foam. I know it was lost foam because I could still see the beading in the casting from the foam. It looked like the foam was cut in slices and then assembled. The slices were ~1/2"-1" thick.
The slices would enable you to get the proper interior profiles you'd need.
If you used these in conjunction w/ some cores for your various coolant and oil passages it might work. Another thought would be to do the slices and then where you have interior features, you could fill them w/ plaster. Let the plaster dry and assembly the slices. When you pour the casting the plaster will preserve the passages you need and you can 'wash' out the plaster..

In the end there is only 1 way to find out :D
If your just banging around in your back yard, what do you have to lose right?

Jerry [I've not cast Alum YET.. but I will be w/in the year if not sooner :)]

What about contraction if I use the original head as a pattern?
Won't my casting end up a fraction of an inch too small?

This guy cast his own engine for his superbike at home. Granted, he is an exceptional case, but it is possible. I remember seeing the video of him dumping the hot casting into a drum of water from his swimming pool.

http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=62090
http://everything2.com/index.pl?node=Britten%20V1000

I have also seen heads from lost foam. And you are right, they slice it, so you can have all the inner holes. They coat it with a refractory slurry, let it dry, and then the same sand that you will use for the mold box is use to fill the inner holes.

Z-Corp has a machine that will print in a material ready for puoring your molten Alum into. I thinnks it's called Z-cast.
You can check out there web site under zcorp.com I think. http://zcorp.com/products/zcast.asp

This guy cast his own engine for his superbike at home. Granted, he is an exceptional case, but it is possible. I remember seeing the video of him dumping the hot casting into a drum of water from his swimming pool.



dumping a hot cast part into a pool of water will will cause havoc to the integerity of the strength in the metal. the part will end up with thermal cracks internally. best best to cool a part is to cool it as slow as you can.

Schemo, that depends on who you talk to. I've heard it said [and read it] that you should actually use water on an alum casting after its set [past the slush stage] as its lock's in the alloy better w/ less precitation of the various metals in the alloy. When you want to make a T6 treated alum, you heat it for like 9 hrs at ~100deg below its melting point and then quench it in water, this improves the grain structure and machinablility of the part. So, it all depends on what your doing. I've heard that castings which aren't cooled w/ water are very soft and difficult to get to machine well, and have low strength..

FWIW..

Jerry [I'm no caster yet, but I've done some reading on the subject]

Hi

Have a look at this website , there are some great pattern makers here in australia making some very nice Ford cleveland V8 heads and some exotic vintage car heads and blocks.

DMD Australia Cylinder Heads - http://www.dmdaustralia.com.au/head.html

DMD Australia Austin Healey 3000 Alloy Block Project Pattern Making Process - http://www.dmdaustralia.com.au/block1.html

DMD Australia Austin Healey 3000 Alloy Block Project Casting Process - http://www.dmdaustralia.com.au/block3.html

DMD Australia Austin Healey 3000 Alloy Block Project Machining Process - http://www.dmdaustralia.com.au/block4.html

DMD Australia Austin Healey 3000 Alloy Block Project Assembly and Testing - http://www.dmdaustralia.com.au/block5.html


These guys , from what i can tell are using the old method of hand making molds .

Hope it is of some help

cheers


PS: Don't be afraid to try something new. Remember, amateurs built the Ark...Professionals built the Titanic!

I'll throw my 2c worth into this, as I am making a few repoductions of Riley heads.
You can use the head that you have to pull a mold from to learn the basic's of mold making. I was given a head to pull a mold off of, but I could not cut it apart, to see how the water jacket's were shaped. So I waxed up the head, and used RTV silicone to make a mold of the head. I made a mold of all 6 sides, then put the 6 sides together and filled the cavity full of wax. Now I had a wax cast of the head. With the wax cast, you now have the locations of the valves, sparkplugs, intake/exhaust ports, waterjackets at the parting surface, and combustion chamber. From here, I get a head gasket, glue it to my surface plate, take a plaster mold of the combustion chamber's, place them in the gasket, then start building the waterjacket, and the runners for intake/exhaust, valve guides.

When you get everything to fit, you put the 5 sides of your mold over your core build up, then pour more wax into the mold. When the wax set's up, remove the head from the mold. Look for defect's, then cut it up to see if your matl is thick enough around the waterjackets. From here, you have to scale it up, to offset the shrinkage in aluminun. It's alot of work, but it can be done!

I joined this group so I could get the info to build a 3 axes router to make moldmaking easier for myself. I just started ordering parts, and will post my build, and the moldmaking for the first head that I do.

Jeffrey

I'll throw my 2c worth into this, as I am making a few repoductions of Riley heads.
You can use the head that you have to pull a mold from to learn the basic's of mold making. I was given a head to pull a mold off of, but I could not cut it apart, to see how the water jacket's were shaped. So I waxed up the head, and used RTV silicone to make a mold of the head. I made a mold of all 6 sides, then put the 6 sides together and filled the cavity full of wax. Now I had a wax cast of the head. With the wax cast, you now have the locations of the valves, sparkplugs, intake/exhaust ports, waterjackets at the parting surface, and combustion chamber. From here, I get a head gasket, glue it to my surface plate, take a plaster mold of the combustion chamber's, place them in the gasket, then start building the waterjacket, and the runners for intake/exhaust, valve guides.

When you get everything to fit, you put the 5 sides of your mold over your core build up, then pour more wax into the mold. When the wax set's up, remove the head from the mold. Look for defect's, then cut it up to see if your matl is thick enough around the waterjackets. From here, you have to scale it up, to offset the shrinkage in aluminun. It's alot of work, but it can be done!

I joined this group so I could get the info to build a 3 axes router to make moldmaking easier for myself. I just started ordering parts, and will post my build, and the moldmaking for the first head that I do.

Jeffrey

You can section an iron head to get an idea of the water passages and the like but you can't use the original head as a pattern. You have to build a pattern that is larger than the original by the amount of the metal you are casting in shrinks on cooling. For aluminum we used 1/4" per foot (about 2%).

So if you use a head gasket as the basis for laying out your pattern when you cast the head it will be smaller than the original head by the amount of shrink. That means your head bolt holes, water passages, and combustion chambers will not be in the correct locations.

Alan

Take a look here: http://www.lindsaybks.com/bks8/chas2/index.html Steve Chastain goes through how he made a cylinder head for a flathead in his second book. Buy it, it's got some good info in it.

jgro

Alan
I agree with what you say, but when I use the head gasket for layout, I'm building a mockup that will be scanned and scaled up on the computer to cut the pattern's. It's easier to have a point of reference like the head gasket, when I'm laying out the runners, and water jackets.

Alan
I agree with what you say, but when I use the head gasket for layout, I'm building a mockup that will be scanned and scaled up on the computer to cut the pattern's. It's easier to have a point of reference like the head gasket, when I'm laying out the runners, and water jackets.

Don't forget, before actually building the pattern, to add material for a machining allowance at places that will need to be machined (like gasket surfaces, valve seats, bolt pads and bearing surfaces).

Alan

Sounds like a great beginners project to me as you will learn what can and cant be done almost immediately. My tip would be to look at the original casting to see how it was made and replicate the head. I've seen Lombardini heads which are lost foam items but never considered making anything with this method as it's too slow (I have no patience lol) Best of luck with your interesting project :beer:

Thanks to everyone for the information. I re-watched the Britten video that I mentioned. In it he makes what appears to be a dohc 2 cylinder bike engine using sand casting with hand made patterns. The quenching in water that I mentioned was actually heat treating after heating it in his wife's pottery kiln. It is not clear whether that casting was actually used, but there is later footage of the bike wheelieing beside the race leading ducati at daytona.

But anyway.. a couple of more noob questions if you could indulge me.

- once you have a bare casting, how do you go about starting the machining? IE how do you get one or two 'true' surfaces to use as references for machining all the other surfaces.

- is there any free or edu-priced CAD software I can use for CNC designs? I have used the emachineshop.com program which has the distinct advantage of telling you when you have designed something that is impossible to make (by them). Is there something available with more flexibility?

I have hit the library but all the books I found talk about theory of different processes, without talking about the practicalities of actually manufacturing something all the way through.

Thanks

- once you have a bare casting, how do you go about starting the machining? IE how do you get one or two 'true' surfaces to use as references for machining all the other surfaces.

Hammers,
you will need to incorporate datum surfaces and edges into the pattern so they appear in the casting. You will need to do this with a clear idea of how you are going to mount the casting to the mill table, allowing space for the cutting tool and spindle to cut the required sections whilst keeping clear of clamps.

- is there any free or edu-priced CAD software I can use for CNC designs? I have used the emachineshop.com program which has the distinct advantage of telling you when you have designed something that is impossible to make (by them). Is there something available with more flexibility?

www.alibre.com

I have hit the library but all the books I found talk about theory of different processes, without talking about the practicalities of actually manufacturing something all the way through.

Yes there are plenty of foundry books out there but most are more geared toward engineering students, lots of formulas, minimal practicle hands on type stuff. Have a look at this site, http://www.myhomefoundry.com/ also http://www.abymc.com/tmoranwms/Metal_Casting.html also http://virtualindian.org/3techcasting.htm also http://www.angelfire.com/tx5/hite/furnace.html also search yahoo groups as there are a number of foundry groups there.

Thanks

Cheers
Splint

Hi Hammers, Hows the project coming? Have you moved from theory to getting your hands dirty yet. Hammers,
you will need to incorporate datum surfaces and edges into the pattern so they appear in the casting. You will need to do this with a clear idea of how you are going to mount the casting to the mill table, allowing space for the cutting tool and spindle to cut the required sections whilst keeping clear of clamps. Yes there are plenty of foundry books out there but most are more geared toward engineering students, lots of formulas, minimal practicle hands on type stuff. Have a look at this site, http://www.myhomefoundry.com/ also http://www.abymc.com/tmoranwms/Metal_Casting.html also http://virtualindian.org/3techcasting.htm also http://www.angelfire.com/tx5/hite/furnace.html also search yahoo groups as there are a number of foundry groups there. Splint quoted as I never realised he'd made a reply (no offence intended just it just looked like a quote and cheers) I agree with him too :D

Any news? Given up! cmon tell us :D

A very great deal depends on if you want to make just one cylinder head for yourself, or go into mass production.

If mass production, then you need to go the proper segmented master pattern, and greensand. Making the pattern will be a huge job. Internal cores will need to be made for water passages, and it would be a very complex undertaking.

For only one head casting, if you have the facilities to cnc foam, I would do it that way, but only cnc out one cylinder. You then cnc out your four identical cylinders from foam, and just glue them all together, along with suitable end structure for the water thermostat, or any other special features. This will be a lot less work, even if it takes several attempts to get a perfect casting.

With only one cylinder to cnc out of foam, you can get right inside the water passages from both ends and do a pretty good job, and judge wall thicknesses and so on fairly accurately.

Once you have a suitable cnc program written and tested, any number of foam patterns (for one cylinder) can then be produced fairly quickly.

MMM nothing like having a long term goal. Had a bit of experience with aluminium and magnesium. An OHV head is probably the grail in regards to casting. Little spurs to cool valve guides, exhaust water jacket volume, shrinkage and porosity are a few of the hurdles you have ahead. Feeders, runners and risers will be the key to the success of your project. It still amazes me that to cast a decent head nearly 50% of the molten metal is used as feeders to prevent problems with the finished part.

If you are starting from scratch I would suggest you section a couple of iron heads and look around at the layout. Because you will be using a different material you should increase thicknesses in a few critical areas like combustion chamber, block face, bolt bosses and valve spring seats. You will be able to get the metal thinner around things like intake ports and spark plugs to take advantage of the new material.

The 3D printer looks like the go for the pattern in my opinion but for my money if you are going to pay for this to get done I would get a pattern milled out of wood to mould your water jacket from sand. Combustion, ports and spring side will also benefit from this. If it's a hobby project get a pattern makers rule and start carving that foam. You can use foam and parent metal posts inside the mould to support the core if it is a bit flimsy.

With a mould you will then easily be able to produce a few to sort the feed issues and make a good clean weld free part. Using sand will also help with internal mould distortion and foam is way to easily displaced to be accurate. Sand will also allow you to cast it faster guaranteeing a better fill and less leiklyhood of a reject part. It will hold the heat longer allowing the cooling to semi solid to take longer. Certain areas will need to be cooled faster to prevent shrinkage, a good rule of thumb is deep holes need chills and in a perfect world you always cast with the combustion face down as gravity will help get a solid shrink free part. Try to cool the combustion face faster to prevent it from back feeding the rest of the hot casting. A thick steel or iron plate under the box will help a lot.

Heat treatment is easy, once your casting is cool and cleaned out warm it up to 500c from memory and quench it as fast as you can. Hot water is the go as cold will get it harder but will probably have trouble getting around evenly and may leave some softer spots. A water quench will have the added advantage of filling up the micro holes in the casting that will allow it to leak. In a fresh casting without corrosion it is really surprising how porous they can be. After getting wet and left to dry for a couple of weeks the micro leaks will be greatly reduced. There are compounds used by some company's that are vacuum induced into the casting to fill up these holes but that costs money and it doesn't really do any better than letting it sit for a while.

Excuse my ramble I get a bit carried away sometimes. :stickpoke ::wee: :tired:
Cheers
Daza