[Isaac Zackary]

I'm putting the cylinder head temp sensor on the spark plug gasket. It's a 3/4" reach spark plug. Also this won't be a good example to follow for direct injection. This engine is carbureted. The goal in this engine will be to "cook" as much fuel as possible to get it to vaporize before entering the combustion chamber. On this engine with its raised intake manifold this is done by means of heat risers that conduct exhaust along the intake manifold. Also preheated air that is used to enter the carburetor controlled by a vacuum operated thermostatic valve. I'm going up with the compression ratio but not by much.

Another thing about the Temp Sensor. Sadly it's a thermocouple type that's not ambient temperature compensated. I'm trying to figure out some sort of box to keep the cold junction the same temperature.

As for reducing or increasing NOx, the thermal barrier coat should reflect more heat back into the combustion chamber. But it should also keep hot parts from dissipating more heat into the combustion chamber. Also I'm cheating the exhaust ports so overall head temps sound be lower for that reason too. Who knows how much heat will contribute to or discourage the production of NOx.

So far I'm having problems with the rod bearings. I'm not sure yet if it's from the ceramic coatings. The problem is that a couple of the rods feel tight. Yet when I stick a Plastigauge on them they read fine. I'm suspecting that the rods are out-of-round. I'm going to have them resized and then see if that fixes the problem. I've already found that the wrist pin bushings are out of spec so I'll need to have them thoroughly checked anyway.

I did have the piston skirts coated too with the lubricant coating. As well as the valve stems.