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I've sometimes came through an article talking of having the engine blueprinted. What is this exactly? Does it mean that all the cast lines are removed and polishing all the internals of the engine (and carbs if used)?
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True blueprinting is where you rebuild the engine to the absolute letter of the manufacturers specs (Blueprints), using all the allowable leeway. Such as you'll select a camshaft with the maximum lift within the manufacturers tolerances etc.
this is used where engines have to be "standard" for a given set of competition rules & can be damned expensive unless you have a complete store of spares to access. This is the case for things like Formula Ford etc.
Blueprinting when rebuilding just means great care when rebuilding the engine gearbox etc. & could include dowlelling parts to align properly, ensuring clearances are the best for performance etc. This could involve removing casing marks etc.
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Blueprinting is a means of getting an engine exactly to manufacturers specifications.
To save on manufacturing costs, components in all engines are built to tolerances rather than exact measurements. This can affect anything from bore size to piston weights to bearing clearances. In standard road trim, you usually wouldn't notice the difference between an engine at one "end" of a tolerance, and a second engine at the other "end" (although we all know of particular examples of cars which seem to go better or worse than other apparently identical models).
When the engine is tuned however, it can introduce inconsistencies and extreme cases reliability problems depending on what part of the tolerance the components in that particular engine. A blueprinted engine is one that corresponds exactly to the original manufacturers "blueprints" so that the tuner is starting from a known base point. It's also likely to be a stronger, more reliable engine if everything is exactly as it should be.
DP
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I read the other week that they're tending not to bother with racing bike engines any more - where they used to buy 20 or 30 conrods to get four that balanced (if a class where you couldn't machine them to balance) they find that modern manufacturing is good enough not to go to these extremes.
Racers used to go to opposites of what you and me would do though - looking for bigger clearances in bearings and bores to cut down friction rather than increase life or reduce oil consumption.
Martin
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