Somender Singh grooves

[MnFocus]

Excellent update ! fwiw once you start with mods...they don't stop !

[usedgeo]

I fueled up again yesterday. These have been short fills because I was curious. 434 miles. 6.084 gallons, 71.3 mpg, 33 mph ave. This is 4.24 mpg or 6.3% over any previous personal record fill. In a case like this the motivation can lead to extra effort. I will never know whether is was the offer of a CD or the grooves that pushed me to new heights . In any case I still think it is pretty darn good for my Saturn. I would place more validity on the steady state numbers than general commuting. Traffic, wind, signal lights and state of mind play a large part in daily driving mileage. My bad runs to work are now about where my good runs used to be though.

Given all that I will say I think the effect has diminished somewhat. If you look carefully at the pictures of the head in the general area that matches the cylinder as oposed to the squish area you can see that the head overlaps the cylinder about 1/8-1/16 of an inch. This forms a mini-squish area around about 2/3 of the circumference of the cylinder. This area was filled with carbon. If I take this head off again I will use the head gasket to pattern match the chamber to the cylinder. I do not know if that will help or not. I do know that even though the this Saturn uses almost no oil it does darken the oil a bit. I blame this on incomplete combustion in this area. The Saturn engine is obvioiusly efficient but I am puzzled by this aspect of the combustion chamber.

Enough for now.

[bzipitidoo]

Right now, we have the head off our '59 Anglia, and I'm wondering if I dare try this. Would hate to ruin the head. But it's definitely a flathead, just the sort of engine that is supposed to benefit the most from such treatment. And this car is desperately underpowered.

I asked the guy at the machine shop what he knew of Singh grooves (were they any good?), and whether he could groove it. He'd never heard of it and said that if he hadn't heard of it, it probably was a bunch of bull. Hmmm.

Head gaskets aren't cheap either. Aren't you supposed to replace the head gasket each time you remove the head, as that rips the seal?

[usedgeo]

Originally Posted by bzipitidoo

Right now, we have the head off our '59 Anglia, and I'm wondering if I dare try this. Would hate to ruin the head. But it's definitely a flathead, just the sort of engine that is supposed to benefit the most from such treatment. And this car is desperately underpowered.

I asked the guy at the machine shop what he knew of Singh grooves (were they any good?), and whether he could groove it. He'd never heard of it and said that if he hadn't heard of it, it probably was a bunch of bull. Hmmm.

Head gaskets aren't cheap either. Aren't you supposed to replace the head gasket each time you remove the head, as that rips the seal?

One of the testimonials of dramatic difference included a flat head Hudson. One needs to carefully determine if there is enough material for a groove. There usually is in older engines. I would not use a used gasket unless it was very fresh and then I would be influenced by how hard it is to get the head off.

Your question is a bit puzzling. The head is already off. Why would you need another gasket. I guess you are thinking about doing the grooves later.

My dad was pretty cheap somtimes and I saw him reuse a head gasket on his own car. He painted it with aluminum paint before reusing it. NAPA used to have a spray on gasket sealer called copper coat or something like that. We never had trouble with the gasket but it is still a pretty poor idea. I reuse gaskets on Briggs and Stratton quite a bit but that is a bit different.

[diamondlarry]

Originally Posted by bzipitidoo

I asked the guy at the machine shop what he knew of Singh grooves (were they any good?), and whether he could groove it. He'd never heard of it and said that if he hadn't heard of it, it probably was a bunch of bull. Hmmm.

This is the kind of thinking that has cars in the US at the FE rates that we have now. You should send him to the website that explains the grooves.

[ShadowWorks]

I have a spare head for my engine that I plan on Singh Grooving, does anybody have information on what the best size and shape is?

[usedgeo]

Originally Posted by ShadowWorks

I have a spare head for my engine that I plan on Singh Grooving, does anybody have information on what the best size and shape is?

I appologize that the host that I put the pictures on deleted them and such. This thread had fallen so far back I didn't think I would bother updating the pics. I reloaded some pictures and put in thumbnails. That is for the 7-13-2007 post. There still is a picture of the B&S head. Those grooves are a bit too big. It ran better with smaller grooves. The change was very slight though. I would look at Somender's site though many of the pictures are just from guys like me.

You may have read that on the Saturn head I was going to use a 1/8 ball mill but ended up using a 3/16 ball mill and going about 1/16 inch deep. I thought these were a bit larger than desired but that is just a guess. MPG Mike has done this more than anyone else. You might try to contact him. I don't know how to reach him.

[Project84]

any updates? I'm about to re-ring my Saturn in a few weeks and while I have the head off, I'm really thinking of doing the grooves too. Although, I have no way of making a steady groove other than using a hand-held dremel tool. I guess that will have to do....

[DRW]

Originally Posted by Project84

any updates? I'm about to re-ring my Saturn in a few weeks and while I have the head off, I'm really thinking of doing the grooves too. Although, I have no way of making a steady groove other than using a hand-held dremel tool. I guess that will have to do....

One way to make a straight groove would be to use a marker and a ruler to draw the shape you want in the head. Then just make sure to grind between the lines.

[jeep45238]

While it may very well work, I'm still a bit hesitant about the idea - especially when the guy who came up with it is using this picture on his website:



Let me explain first before people go trying to rip my hair off my head. I've been selling auto parts for about 4 years now. The cylinder head is using Bosh Platinum +4 plugs. All of the Bosh Platinum plugs are complete junk, especially the ones with 2 and 4 prongs. Why? The center electrode is flush with the porcelin insulator. When the spark arks, it can only ark to one electrode at a time - you're only making 1 spark, not 4, at a time. When that ark happens, it wears down the metal at each end of the ark. Give it a few weeks and the center electrode is now below the porcelain, and you're now trying to force the ark through the insulator - and you wind up with a very weak, very long spark. I've YET to have a single person NOT come back and complain about the plugs, even after I try to talk them out of the plugs before they purchased them - most people come back less than a month after installation.

If somebody is going to do something like this, and claim all of these benefits, but use one of the worst plug designs in the industry, really makes me doubt his knowledge of how things really are being effected in the combustion chamber.

I'll stick to cleaning out casting marks and polishing the chamber, followed by re-seating and lapping the valves and putting in new valve stem seals if I'm going to rip a cylinder head off. Call me an uniformed skeptic, but that's just me