Could the tolerances you mentioned be dialed in with the sleeves, bearings, journals and guides that the aluminum would require for the high wear areas, or were you referring to something else (asked the definitely NOT a machinist guy).
Taylor
Yeah, mostly.
I don't know a lot about engines, but I do know a little bit about machining. Milling the area where the heads attach to the block is already borderline (ought to be ground), but doing it on a Haas while jacked up on a relatively dinky rotary axis it isn't going to be particularly flat. So I expect they already have a grinder with fixtures for that particular operation. Also, I believe the crank sits in babbit bearings that have to be perfectly aligned, sized and round. I figure about the only way to get those bearing seats correct would be to line bore it from the end, with the bearing caps in place. Again, I expect they already have a machine or jig for doing that, so they'd just need to leave a little stock allowance to clean up.
I noticed they at least used a boring head to finish the cylinder bores (that get sleeved), but they didn't stop the spindle, orient, and back away from the wall to retract, they just kept it turning and retracted like they were using a reaming cycle. I'd throttle somebody in my shop for doing that, but I don't think they knew any better.
They said "we noticed some rubbing in a cut" with the cutter they were using, so they "made a new one". They didn't make a new one, they just relieved a neck on the shank.
So, I kind of got the impression they are a race shop that has some machining, rather than a machine shop that has some car work. Which makes their accomplishment all the cooler, but leaves me doubting they can achieve the precision necessary to cut certain features with that mill. But, being a car shop, I'll bet they know what they're doing with engines and have other ways of tweaking that block.
Just hope you were wearing your steel toed slippers.
