Ritter racing block design flaw

As many of you may know we have been struggling with an internal water leak on this block since it was new.. causing premature hone damage.. that being said when it runs it runs strong. This is a naturally aspirated engine.. that lives in an extremely harsh environment and it's put to the test every pass.. we tore the engine down to clean install some epoxy in the block And hone.. upon disassembly we noticed the block was cracked at the three Center cam bearings.. the block is extremely thin there because of its design it is approximately approximately 7/16 of an inch wide from the bearing register to the oil drain Passage..

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Couple more pics

I am no engineer however it appears. The way the cam tunnel is closed off from the top and open on the bottom there is a significant amount of movement that's taking place causing a crack in these thin areas.. the cracks were not visible to the eye until this go around.. however the motor would not hold cam bearings very well since day one.. which tells me they have always been there and probably open up with heat causing the bearings to lose their press.. this application is a 55 mm cam

WD...ever thought bout trying one of the newer casting blocks?

The motor would not hold cam bearings until I made these retainers.. this image will kind of give you an idea of what the design of the cam and Valley area look like

only if someone gave me one for free and all the machine work was done to my specs and it wouldn't cost me a dime .. FYI this is a second generation Ritter block.. this is neither a casting or Machining flaw it is structural

curios to know , how many pass's on this block?

150ish mostly 1/8 Mile.

gotcha…. I remember there were a lot of issues with that block when it was first cast.





so what are the plans now?

Very sorry to hear this

VERY disappointing, just more junk made for mopars. very sorry for you WD

Junk? Really? I've seen almost every brand of block crack there.

Have you show this to Ritter?

That would be an exercise in futility

I hate reading this kinda stuff!!Have they come out with a new and improved block? Who else makes an aftermarket block for the W8??

If you are expecting a refund or exchange, sure. They can't fix-or be expected to fix, problems they don't know about. Sending an e-mail with a few pictures isn't really much "exercise".

You can get an aluminum A8 block in a week if you are willing to part with $7000.00
Then buy the needed timing set for another 1000.... but you can get it.

Just out of curiosity, how much is it bored for the 55mm bearings?

Are the lifter bushings tall due to shallow lifter boss or for el notcho lifters?

these are keyed lifters the oil Galley is drilled in the wrong location too high I had to have custom bushings made taller than normal as well as jesel build me custom lifters to make this work.. I can tell you the lifters and bushings we're not cheap

At your power level,,,,nothing is!

more epoxy in the water jacket area.. I think at this point in time we're going to try to epoxy the issues in the water jacket.. clean up the hone and go

WOW! Your a brave soul!

Maybe far fetched, can you figure a way to pull a vacuum and let it pull the sealant?

Is Waterglass (sodium silicate) a suitable solutuon for the application?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_silicate

I've seen it used successfully to seal a cracked head.

Kevin

I’m sure you can’t wait for the new Dart block to come available at least there is hope for the small block Mopar to have a good block again

I'm assuming you were talking about a stock block..

I have a couple of Ritter XR2 blocks at home, I'll have to check how much material is around there. The fact that the cam bearings were moving around so much is very telling

Nope. Seen world blocks fracture there. Ford blocks. I've seen some Dart blocks fracture there too. It's not that uncommon.

all the blocks that you mention have the structural support above the cam.. this block cracked the cam Mains directly into the main structural support below the camshaft

Right. The fracture is from the cam bearing bore down the bulkhead to the main bore. I've seen it plenty. I've never been able to say exactly why they fracture there, other than a guess.

I'm going to do a google image search and see what shows up.

I'm concerned, My new Ritter block shipped out Friday from Ritters headed to QMP. I was planning on having the cam tunnel bored to 60mm but I'm having second thoughts. I hope the newer blocks have more meat in that area. Thanks for sharing Shilo.

my block is there now. I'm not going to say it is the end of the world. Brad just did another one at 60mm. For another member here.. hopefully by the time your block gets their Brad and Mike will have a chance to study mine.. my motor would not hold the center 3 cam bearings since the day it was originally machine. Which tells me it's probably been cracked from day one it may not be a super critical area just a flaw.. in the design. They may all crack in the same area with no issue that is yet to be determined

My block is the one QMP took out to 60mm, I guess time will tell if I have any problems or not. QMP is the right place to send these things and you will not be disappointed with their work.

I think Shiloh got FU@€ED on his block, I wish Ritter would take care of him. Every time I talk to Kent I mention Shiloh’s deal

I think my block is different than Shiloh’s but that is just my opinion
Shiloh has plugs into water jackets in the valley, my block does not have those.
Many of the machining processes done on my block were done with a real good and very sharp tooling.

Anyways I wish Shiloh the best and I'm very thankful for the help him and Brett have gave me

Stay tuned!

Good luck on the rebuild and thanks for sharing the info, hope you get it sorted out cuz you have one bad azz combo

Very sad to see this Shiloh! I hope that you can fix this issues soon!

On your end, I would not worry about the cracks. The engine has been making some serious power without cam or oiling issues since getting it sorted out in the beginning.
Basically, they can’t get any worse.
On Ritter’s end, the casting needs to be changed to a solid bulkhead. It can be gun drilled later to make for a more robust block.
As far as cam bearings moving, even the A8 I have sitting here with 55mm roller cam bearings has retaining screws to assure they don’t move out of the bore. Maybe because of the aluminum block? I don’t think roller bearings tolerate a lot of press fit without the finished ID changing size.
Good luck with whatever direction you go.

I agree.. the roller cam bearings block off the oil passage.. because of the cracks I believe the oil pressure is opening up the cam tunnel allowing the bearings to push out I'm going to drill and tap those passages at the mains and screw in plugs.. I think those that are building these motors now should do probably the same thing. If you are still running a Babbitt bearing and need oiling not sure how how that would work out if the block were to crack

What are you using for epoxcy? Belzona super metal very expensive, but the best I have found.

I don’t think drilling and plugging would be a good choice. From the looks of the pictures you posted, the cam bearings are either fretting or rotating in the block on occasion. The oil may be saving you on that front.
If the oil drillings are .250”... At 100 psi of oil pressure, the exerted force on that square area is under 5 pounds of outward force. Not enough to open that crack in my opinion.

No rotation of the bearing noted this time they were installed with Loctite . where we are going to plug them off is down at the mains.. I think the idea of expansion through heat and and pressured lubrication is less than ideal at this point. This is the fix that is recommended to me by the machine shop that I use.. although the cracks are relatively small in nature multiplied times 3 it could end up being a fairly substantial oil leak causing issues other places in the motor I just assumed stop the oil from going there because it is no longer needed with the roller cam bearings

Probably pretty far out there..... but could this possibly be another effect from when you were beating stuff up in your E85 days?

Jay that's a valid question.. but I don't see how the two could correlate

For anyone who thinks Ritter is not aware of all of these issues with this generation of their stuff you would be sadly mistaken. They are fully well aware of the issues, and they are numerous.

As for the cracks we run a 60MM in a SB Chevy Dart Block that sees a fair amount of spring pressure and makes a bit of power and has no cracks at all around the cam tunnel. We just replaced that block this winter, BTW took 7 months and was well over $7K when done, just for those who think its only Mopar guys waiting for blocks. It did have some custom things done to it but nothing crazy, really just relocating the lifter bores so we could have better alignment with the heads we run and get away from the 1/2" wide cam bearings we had been using..

wondering how your Google search was going.. I couldn't find much information on the web where cracking race blocks was coming

I found several on Google.

I've seen many more with my own eyes.

We've been beating on a 436" SBC (somewhere north of 700 hp) built w/ a Dart Little M block for well over 10 years and never had any cracks. Never heard of any Dart iron blocks cracking like this.

Didn’t find much myself.... just some stuff concerning some old ford FE blocks.

Don’t recall ever hearing this concerning any Mopar block, stock or R3.

I understand the anything can be broke.. if this was a boosted application making 2000 horsepower I can understand some movement and potential cracking.. but there is obviously a design flaw with this area of the block. We are going to run it with the cracks.. maybe it will continue to get worse or maybe the block has done what it's going to do and is stable now. The only thing that I can hope for is if the block goes it doesn't take a whole bunch of quality pieces with it

There have been posts on Yellowbullet about Chevy aftermarket block issues but I didn’t have enough interest in them to read the posts. I do know from my friends that LS engines eat cam bearings rather quickly.

LS engines have issues with the oil pump design that leads to their issues for the most part. Its just the way they drive the pump that becomes an issues with them especially the NA stuff that sees 8500+ rpm regularly where it really starts to show.

I need to ask the painful question here, does anybody else with an iron Ritter block have the same problem as Whitedart? Is anybody else even close on the power output that Whitedart is putting out?

How many Ritter builds are out there?

Mine is months away from being finished and probably close to 9 months before the whole package done (Car).

We just dynode the Vettes SBC, it made ok power

Sorry to hear this.
Wish you could of had a G3 platform to test.
I know it's not in the cards.
Hope you get every bit of life out of that block.
Matt

Lawndart has one. Haven't seen any of his post lately. I had one like Shiloh's. It was a total piece of crap. I was lucky & got my money back.

There's a new Ritter iron block that's been at the ICH Swap for sale for a couple years at least. I asked one of the local Mopar small block guys about buying it. He said to run away because it has "issues". He did not elaborate.

I'm hoping to make good power out of my deal, I guess time will tell.
If mine makes good power and has no issues then what?

I know Dart said they would make a block but that is a couple years away at least.

I'm telling you guys my block is different than Whitedart's but nobody is listening

Whitedart's block was an earlier version and the people that machined it are no longer doing the work for Ritter. Ritter moved all his stuff to a new facility with way better machines. I got blocks #3 and #4, who got #1, #2, #5, #6 and #7?

Nobody on this board I guess

Anyways Whitedart's block has problems and I wish him the best, he has one of the best machine shops in the US working on his stuff so he is in good hands.

These type of build are rare and even more rare because they are Mopars.

Like I said stay tuned.

That don't count Al

Believe Brian (IMM Engines) block was one of the newer pieces. He was going to use it for a new ebrock head build, but sold it and is venturing into a Gen3 build. It had already gone through QMP’s hands and as far as I’ve know had been given a thumbs up.

69 Lawndart may chime in. Hes been busy with family stuff.

I have one and it will be boosted just hit a snag when I had to get shoulder surgery but my block also went to QMP, 50mm roller cam with roller bearings. Have most ready to finish building just need my Lifters and push rods. Hopefully soon I can build it and finish wiring and get it to the dump and post results.

belzona is crazy good. But in this application I need something with a lower viscosity that will flow into the problem area easier.. I'm not a hundred percent sure on the name at the moment

I have heard that the Bernal of the cylinders is much better with the new blocks also that the rough machine work is better.. these are all pluses and things that needed to happen..

Has Kent ever contacted you about doing the right thing and shipping you a new block for free

Our block I had cut for 50mm cam core....

We are building that engine now....will have it running in a few weeks.

nope

Up the page a ways, were you talking about the block's Brinell Hardness Number (BHN)?

R.

I think number of new block that have been bought

it has been a while since we talked about it but if my memory serves me it varies from hole to hole top to bottom I believe from 210 to 240.. it should be getting honed again here in the next couple weeks he will check it again. I guess it makes it difficult when you're trying to achieve a quality hone.

When trying to achieve a certain RA/ RPK/ RVK...

I have one of the new blocks also. Dropped it off at QMP last Wednesday along with a R3 block. The Ritter will get the 60mm cam bearings. Using the Victor heads and going with turbos.

Glad to know I'm not the only one using turbos on a Ritter block.

Still no idea where the coolant loss is, in the block?
I think at this point I would set screw the 3 bearings check it for alignment and go with it if it looked and felt good.

Maybe as a last resort.

That's the plan..