Re: Spica attrition; Wes speaks!

["Steve Schaeffer" <borrani@domain.elided>]

Hey All,
I passed some of this discussion on to Wes Ingram, who, by the way, repairs
Kugelfischer pumps as well!  I will paraphrase some of the items he sent me.
I think they will be of interest to all those concerned:

My standard practice for the uninformed is to ask if they have my book, if
not we send them one knowing full well that their pumps may be terminal.
They end
up sending the pumps to me anyway but only after they do all the tests I
give them
from the flow chart on Page 28. This has worked out very well....the
customer fully understands the situation, and when the pump goes back in,
all the
geometrical settings are finished. The book saves me hundreds of hours.

Chrome plating has always been one of our options, but the pieces
(plungers and barrels) must first be trued by precision honing. The
finished product must then be honed as the chrome plating does not guarantee
uniformity. The reason we have not tried industrial chrome plating (which
can easily be done in our shop) is simply that we do not know if we can
apply a super thin coating of .00005 inch. Most platings run in the range of
.0002.

Regarding restoring, as long as our supply of existing P&Bs remains
economically
feasable we won't be doing much experimenting. I've never really done a cost
analysis on this but my guess is that our cost per set of 4 is running us
around $100.00.

If we lose our assembly technician, I would have to find an alternative
method to remanufacture
the P&Bs or simply cease doing Spica pump service, as virtually all Spica
pumps require new plungers and barrels.  (my note:  Wes has a technique
where he hand
fits all plungers and barrels, he knows what they should feel like, and he
mixes and matches
till he has the ideal match).

Our Spica book clearly explains how to check for plunger wear and oil
dilution which removes the need for a low cost test and service. The cost to
bench test for oil dilution runs about $125.00. I quit offering this service
5 years ago because it simply adds to the total cost of providing a finished
product.

There are no short cuts. The loss of our
leaded/sulfided fuels has caused accelerated wear and failure of the
plungers
and barrels. These folks should simply read my book as all my customers
have..... everything is explained in layman's language.

There are several upgrades included in our rebuilds that correct some
factory defects. The little ball on the cam follower must be replaced after
50,000 miles to ensure consistant emission performance and fuel mileage. Our
replacement ball is an oversize that has proven to last up to 100,000 miles.
That little upgrade alone requires 3 micro-machining operations.

 The calibration of the plungers is virtually guaranteed to be off by as
much as 10% since the factory did use enough torque to prevent the tiny
screws from working loose. The calibration alone can add from 5 to 10
horsepower on even a low mileage pump, mileage goes up to 29 and sometimes
over 30mpg. We consistantly produce HP pumps with modified engines with 11mm
cams and ported heads that pass new car smog standards without  catalytic
converters, ECUs or air injection.

It simply isn't cost effective to screw around with a used pump simply to
get by. These cars are gems and with a fresh Spica system offer remarkable
performance. I do not have any interest in providing substandard products or
services  for these cars. There are a few others who have tried and I
believe they have faded away, but unfortunately others will try. Knowledge
is bliss, these folks would save a great deal of time and money if they
would just read the little book.

~~~~~~
There you have it,

Steve S.
Seattle, WA

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