Caterpillar D353 (D9G) Engine Build

[D8R]

That will be an awesome model! From first pics it looks like a solid piece of steel, later it looks like cast block, which way did you go? Will it be runned on petrol or diesel?

Looking forward to updates
Dan

[catmack]

Dan,

The block is machined from the solid (ductile cast iron), I have drawn it up in 2D and machined manually for roughing, manually machined graphite in the beginning on the right side(except for "CATERPILLAR")* and crank cavity until I retrofitted a small cnc mill to take over that mess. Learning all this is as much fun as the project itself. I have seen yours and it is awesome, I look forward to yours as well. This forum is what gives me more incentive to speed up the progress, like the engine shows we go to every year.
The crank is 4340, the gears will be A2.
The dream and goal of course is to run on diesel however, there is a small part of my brain telling me it may not work. If not or right away, I will run on propane since some of the industrial models ran on mine gas(from what I've been told). I am working on the camshaft, rods, bearings and oil pump now and will post pics when I can. *I started to use my engraving skills on the copper electrode and was working fine but, completed my my mill retro and decided to move forward in graphite.

I have many pics of the process from the start all the way to what it is now, I am having trouble registering on one of these photo sites and frankly don't wish to waste a lot of time with it. If there are pics' of some thing one wants to see, I will load in the mean time. I look forward to seeing your work and everyone elses. There are some really machines out there. As I said earlier, I am impressed with what is happening out there. Colin