Building a billet motor plate

I had always planned to run a motor plate on my car. When I got my Jesel belt drive and saw how much of the belt was exposed, I figured why not make a plate that would also enclose the timing belt. If I was enclosing the belt, this would also give me a place to mount the cam sensor. So I started templating accessory locations. Went through many paper templates trying to figure out what fit where, does it have enough clearance, etc...



The layout really came down to what fit where, with enough clearance. I then made some wood templates so I could actually hang the accessories. This took a few tries as well to find out where everyone was happy.




With this complete, time to put it in CAD and print a template.





This last pic shows the belt cover/water pump back plate. No need to reinvent the wheel here, so I picked a 4" Meziere billet mechanical pump:




This pump has a back plate that is removable. We will make a new back plate that intersects the block feed holes, provides mounting to the motor plate, and has auxiliary water feeds for the fittings at the side of my block.

Big thanks to Jesel and Meziere for the .DXF files of the timing cover and water pump outline. Saved me a bunch of time and hassle.

VERY NICE work !

It was at this point I got my engineer friend involved. He solved some issues on the backplate and really just went over everything again. He is much more proficient at CAD than I am, and as a bonus, is also a machinist.

I then moved to measuring all the accessories. Huge PITA. Used a surface plate and height mic, but allowed everything to get transferred into Solid Works:



It was coming together, but still not happy with belt wrap, so more tweaks were needed. Ended up adding 4 idlers and a mechanical tensioner to achieve proper belt wrap and length.
Also wanted to incorporate the crank sensor bracket.



Performed some lightening on the plate and then ran some FEA test.


Made a few modifications that affected weight very little but increased strength 35%.

At this point, needed to see if I had a viable piece to machine.
I had the motor plate CNC routered, and the brackets 3D printed.





And bolt it up. Glad I did this extra step, a few small tweaks and it's ready to machine:

Very freaking cool.

What is sad is these blocks are so hard to come by. This is the kind of thing that happens when guys start making power and develop
cool stuff. You can use it with a production block, but who is going to try and make the kind of power you are with a stock block?

You should put a little more time into planning and building.

That is incredibly cool, please keep us updated!

Thanks guys. Yeah, I got a little time in this!

Had one issue I solved the best I could, but you guys are smart, so I'll see what your solution would be.

The motor plate sits against the timing plate and then through bolted from the the plate to the block. Basically sandwiching the timing cover and using it's 8 bolt holes. I need the timing plate to stay sealed to the block when removing the motor plate, especially important because I'm a dry sump. I also need it located. I put O-ring grooves on both sides of the plate to solve any gasket issue of sticking or leaking. I thought about bolt dowels, but then would have to machine the block. I came up with a pin that is threaded on either end with a small hex to tighten. The pin will have a stud on the block side and female threads on the plate side. The timing cover will have the upper two holes enlarged for the guide pins, locating it, and be able to be tightened down, securing it. This leaves a receiver for the bolt coming through from the motor plate:




This will locate and secure the timing cover and motor plate, and the water pump back plate will just have two simple pin dowels. This should also keep the cam and crank sensors in the same positions.

Excellent work and very cool to boot.

Your solution looks very professional and expen$ive. I am assuming you would need to make/ have made, the fasteners. I would think it would be easier to get fully threaded studs with the overall length you need, and use something like an ARP 12pt nut to retain the timing cover to the block. Then, plunge mill the motor plate just deep enough to fit over the small nuts.

That was my initial idea, but I need to precisely locate the timing cover and motor plate. Using a stud would require bolt dowels in the blocks threaded holes. The setup and machining on the block for this seemed more expensive and difficult than turning a precision threaded pin.

Just amazing effort , like making a watch . But more fun .

Tex

Love seeing threads like this. Amazing work!

Cool stuff Craig! Thanks for sharing the whole process.

Thanks guys,

It's been a journey, and the engineering cost way more than I was expecting...like I would have never done it if I knew it would have cost that much!!

But that part is paid and over, so on to machining. Shopping it to a few shops now. I'll update when the chips start flying.

I'm not seeing an engine to chassis mount component in the design.

Kevin

? Not sure I know what you mean. The ear on either side with four bolt holes will attach to a bracket on the chassis.

Well maybe I'm exceeding my amateur engineering skills here but I was thinking that kind of diagonal mounting might introduce some detrimental dynamics into the chassis. The mounting ears on any motor plate I've ever seen are symmetrical.

Kevin

Yep, the layout, with the accessories I run, wouldn't allow a symmetrical layout. I wanted it to be, tried multiple layouts, but simply couldn't make it work.

There will be a connecting bar above the plate, and the plate will act as a cross brace. This is a road race car, so much more load on the engine bay bars than a straight line car. The plate was FEA tested and loaded at 1000 lbs. ft. from the attaching points and only showed 0.002" deformation. Add in the upper bar and lower sway bar tube, and the contact point isn't that important, it becomes a cross braced box.

Its beautiful, but with that investment, I feel like it would be hard to ever in the future change my mind.

You might also consider adding a 3/4 axis CNC to your shop.

Did you mention the alloy?

I have a decent investment in small block stuff. I am hopeful with the latest Ritter block, so don't ever anticipate a change. This old dinosaur will do everything I need it to, and not running a Gen 3 Hemi actually makes it unique. Now if an iron race tall deck Gen 3 block ever became available...




That may be coming once I enclose and air condition the other side of the shop...some day.



6061-T6 for everything except the tensioner assembly and idler pulley standoffs. Those are steel.

Just ............WOW!

Took a while to find a shop willing to make these parts. I shopped it to several good shops, and all but one passed. Found a good shop in Michigan willing to do it and this is what has been made so far. Waiting on a few more pieces before everything comes back to me, then off to anodize.

Nice machine work,
What machine shop did you send it too?

I can see why that part is so pricey.. that started as a THICK piece... very nice

Thanks,

Michigan Machine Worx in Lapeer

Thanks,

Yep, 1-1/2" thick. Needed that much to be able to enclose the timing belt. It's pocket milled front and back. SW shows about 20 lbs. I'm good with that for an accessory drive bracket/motor mounts/and water pump back plate/timing belt cover.

Inverta bolt

Well, there's something we've never seen on ebay!

Amazing stuff.

I'm crazy enough to make something like that. There are a couple tricky parts there for me to machine, but my machine is capable of machining that.....

I was shocked that shops simply said, "nope, not interested". I provided the SW native files so tool paths would be easy to do. Just need a big Z axis for the water pump back plate...or a 5 axis/horizontal bore.

I see no 5 axis machining requirement for that part, Am I missing something??

You are correct. Tall Z axis or horizontal bore.

My mill is a bed mill so I think it would of fit fine. I don't do it for a living - just to play. I can understand why the pros would not have interest.

Not anywhere on your scale - which is very impressive, but this is an adapter I made to fit regular 440 M/T Valve Covers on a B1 head. It was a real pain to engineer, but came out real good.

Impressive work Craig, an admirable piece of work. I only wish I had the time for constrcting something like that.

VEry niCE

Was it ever pondered to do a machineable wax mockup as a trial first?

I would have a little tense until its it in place and installed.

Just finished the last piece:

You mean like 3D printing the parts and CNC routering a wood template?......

very cool project. nice work.

Thanks guys, few more: (yes I am excited, have a huge amount of time and money in this!)

No doubt, that is true automotive art. Beautiful and functional, well done!

Sacrificial Anode!

This is some beautiful work.

Incredible! What is the weight of that piece?

Wow..!! Very Nice!

Well, it fits.

Jesel back plate retained with locating pins (Cerakote on the locating pin portion was a bad idea!):



Then the motor plate:



This is the belt cover/water pump back plate/cam sensor mount:

I hope im not seeing Stainless Fasteners holding your parts togeather!

That looks bad-donkey!
Superb work.

Looks awesome. I can only imagine the time and money out into that deal.

Thanks guys, yes lots of time and money.

They are stainless fasteners.

I say that because you will have bad galvanic corrosion from the dissimilar metals, You may want to stick with a chrome-moly, I would hate to see such nice work go to [censored] on account of the fasteners.
It will be serious issue and it will not take long, Also consider a Sacrificial Anode to save parts also.
Nice work for sure!

my thoughts as well. even using hi-temp anti-seize, galvanic corrosion will still be somewhat of an issue.
as stated above, a sacrificial anode is a MUST.
EXCELLENT machine work, to be proud of !