PTS Flowbench Forum

I will soon be venturing into making my own bore adapter and have been throwing around some ideas and I am looking for others thoughts.

First some background. I was talking with a friend about machining different bores, something I have little experience at, but I do have access to a lathe. He said why don't I 3D print them, something I have more experience at and also access too. If I do I can make any bore I want and I can make flanges for attachment or sealing. So questions are:

1) Do I even need a bottom plate to my bore adapter, can I just make a flange on the bottom of the bore that matches the standard 5 X 5 PTS bold pattern that I have at the top of my bench? Assuming I still have aluminum supports for the top plate and I already have a square seal in the top plate of my bench.
2) How best do I design the bore to attach and seal to the top plate so that the printed bores are exchangeable for different bores? Use the same 5 X 5 pattern as the bottom?
3) Should I design this thing so that the head seals to the printed bore or to the top plate? This may effect the last question.
4) Speaking of sealing in general, how do people seal the head to the bore adapter? O-ring, head gasket, sealant of some kind, other?
5) I was planning on simply clamping the heads to the bore adapter, what do other people do. I expect location to be by removable dowels held by small screws (#6,8,10) to allow for multiple patterns.

Thanks for the help!

I suppose it depends on the size and weight of the head, how its best supported.

A single cylinder motorcycle head is one thing.
Supporting a very long heavy cast iron monster head beneath each combustion chamber, presents a whole lot of other mechanical problems apart from just sealing.

Tony,
I would still have aluminum supports under the top plate, just no bottom plate. I will post my plan when I get it all modeled up.

Here is a 3d file I was working on with a flange/oring design for a bore adaptor. I used a square oring but as you can see the square did not end up very square due to the over hang with no supports. But should give you some ideas

I have not revisited this project for awhile now, I was also only looking at 3d printing the bore adaptor still making the top plate out of of aluminum. The flange and oring would need to move closer to the top.

Have you seen this version on Thingiverse by Jim Wolf? https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:250981

Interesting setup, amazing what can be done with 3d printing!

Here is a sample I printed up for the bottom oring groove, I used a round profile to see how well it would print. It came out fine but might be a tad to large in diameter, the oring is a tight slip fit. This could be the surface texture of the 3d printed outside fixture bore though. That part I'm going to make out of aluminum.

I do not do any head work anymore so this is just a "project" to share at some point with the flowbench forum community