Honestly, you could probably put it back together with the old prechambers and be fine, it would work for as long as it would take to get a new engine, but I’d expect it to eat a lot of oil and blow a headgasket if it ever gets hot.
My honest answer would be a question: how far through the tops of the pistons do the cracks go? If they go all the way through, I wouldn't count on them lasting for a real long time. If they don't, you could be good for even another year or so. Now my estimates may be way off either high or low. You just can't really tell. When you do get it running again, just go easy on it. In theory, a piston could break apart and cause a rod or wrist pin to go through a cylinder wall. I'd recommend getting a replacement engine ready fairly quickly, just in case.So with cracks like those, how nervous should i be if I run it NA? It seems that these pistons can take a serious amount of abuse and rarely if ever, suffer catastrophic failure.
The good news here is that you could be the top Volvo expert on this entire forum.Ok well I'll think about it a little more and decide in a week or so. Trying to recover from christmas expenses, haha. I'll try and keep the thread updated with my progress and what I decide to do, should be interesting to see the results at least! Thank you for all of the help so far, this has definitely been the best forum I've been on since I built my turbo Volvo with the help of turbobricks.com. Seems like the main stream forums aren't usually as helpful so I'm very grateful to say the least.
If you have any questions I'd be happy to help, I even have two of the now rare D24 idi diesel Volvo's.The good news here is that you could be the top Volvo expert on this entire forum.
If you have any questions I'd be happy to help, I even have two of the now rare D24 idi diesel Volvo's.
Slap the heads back on and run it for a while! I'm not seeing anything that would concern me to the point of stopping me.Even with cracks past the fire ring you think the head gaskets would hold? That's what I'm really concerned about considering the high compression of these engines. I can get all of the pre chambers from diesel cast for around $120 + shipping, but supposedly the heads will have to be skimmed afterward to make sure the pre chambers don't protrude out too much. I don't mind putting a little money into the heads since they could always be removed and installed on another engine but I have a hard time putting money into the block before hearing and seeing it running and knowing for sure that it isn't cavitated. I guess I'm just in a tough spot where either way it's kind of a gamble.