New project. 1987 Lamborghini Jalpa. There's no easy way out.

Alright, so, not the best data I've managed to get, but it's also only 15 stacked photos. http://i.imgur.com/fuimzFZ.jpg

Stampie wrote: I'm always amazed when I see something like that and start to think of how many stars and planets are in each little section of the sky.

Let me dig up some of my previous work and upload it for you, i've got a really good shot of orion and pleiades.

Can't get imgur to accept the full size (it caps me at under 10 megs) so these are the resized versions... but.

Here's Orion. Data from 2016.

And some 2016 data of Pleiades.

Very cool!

Doesn't look like any Subaru I've ever seen... Very cool pictures.

Actually makes me think of a new game. Let's all try to find constellations in the porosity of the Lambo heads

SO Very cool. Those are some awesome pictures. Can you give any details on your setup and what you do to take them. I could be convinced to try some of this in my back yard.

Wxdude10 wrote: SO Very cool. Those are some awesome pictures. Can you give any details on your setup and what you do to take them. I could be convinced to try some of this in my back yard.

Here's a picture of it. My entire setup started with almost everything below minus the guidescope. All in all I got into all of it for less than $1k, but I waited until most of it was on sale at Opt-Corp. They tend to do closeout sales when the next year's model comes out.

The setup is a 72mm AstroTech refractor with a field flattener, Celestron CG-5GT mount, Orion 50mm guidescope and guide camera setup, a crappy small starter battery and an old E36 M3ty laptop. For a camera, I'm using a Canon T1i that I ripped apart, removed the sensor glass, and replaced with baader planetarium H-Alpha glass. Once you've done that it renders the camera nearly useless for regular photography unless you like everything looking predominantly red.

The process of taking photos is basically:

• Align telescope with a good polar alignment. I currently was using my camera and a few basic techniques but have since moved back to an oldschool polar alignment scope for this.
• Using a program called "push here dummy" (PHD Tracking), you utilize the guidescope camera on the telescope in the program on your laptop to look for stars. You can then focus one, tell it to track said star, it will calibrate and then follow the star. It's imperative that once you are locked on with tracking you DO NOT touch the controls at all.
• I've got an analog timer button for my canon, and manually watch the time. I prefer to keep my exposures around 60 to 180 seconds with somewhere between 800 and 1600ISO. Too much more than that and you just end up with too much noise, and noise is a pain in the ass to get out when you post process.
• The key to quality photos is to NOT use the eyepiece on your camera to focus. Instead, with a DSLR, you'll want to go into LCD mode and zoom as farrrrrr as you can in on it, and find a star that you can see with the LCD. Once you've got that zoomed in as far as you can, use the fine focus on the telescope until you reach the point where hardly any movement will bring it out of focus one way or another, and focus riiiiight on the edge of where it becomes clear with the zoom. Then.... don't touch a damn thing.
• Take LOTS AND LOTS of pictures. When you take one photo in astrophotography, you won't see much. After you process the photo itself, you can pull detail out of it, calibrate color, adjust curves, and do all kinds of amazing things, even pulling out background noise and light.
• Take LOTS AND LOTS of bias photos, which are the shortest shutter speed your camera can do, with the lens cap on.
• Take LOTS AND LOTS of dark photos. Which are the same ISO and shutter speed as the images you were taking of the object in the sky, but with the lens cap on.

Once you've collected enough darks, bias and lights, you can post process them. I utilize pixinsight. This is a tutorial I did some time ago on how to process photos:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/Nd3gTUMO_J4

Alright... machinist called. A few of the seats are too low. This may mean different valves or seats. I'm growing increasingly frustrated at this point. Heading there after work to see what my options are.

Go seats. Could be seat recession due to no-lead gas.

In reply to corsepervita:

Were the seats not replaced as part of the head work?

Jerry From LA wrote: Go seats. Could be seat recession due to no-lead gas.

Well, my issue is, my machinist isn't sure what seats were used in the head. He's also afraid of harming them because of the crappy aluminum. These were put in during the welding phase when the head was being repaired, and he's afraid of hurting them from heat cycle.

I'll find out what the options are soon. I'm just really frustrated.

HUGE HUGE SNAG. Need HUGE HUGE HELP!!!!!!

SOS. Calling all cars!

Ok guys, I'm going to need to throw this out there and see if ANYONE can help me.

Here's the status:

Head #1 is finished and ready to go. Head #2 is fine in the intake side, but the valve seats on the EXHAUST side are far too down inside. EVEN IF we shave part of the valve, we still fall short by about half of 1mm. We're about 50 thousands off. Bad.

SO... the way around this is the following:

A. Valve guide shims that are thinner. The THINNEST I can go is 3.3mm. The OD is 37mm. So preferably if I could find a set of shims ranging from 37mm OD 3.3-4.5mm thickness, we'll be fine. The THINNEST I Have at the moment is 4.2mm and that's too thick. B. New valves with the stem for the keepers another 50 thousands down than they are now. C. New valve seats. Issue is, my machinist does not have the proper stuff to do the seats for these head. We had them shipped off to portland, or to do that.

He has to be gone, officially, completely moved in 2 weeks. If the engine is not assembled by friday: Dyno day will not happen.

Our best bet at this point is to find some shims. From what I've done some research on, toyota engines and a few alfas use these 37mm OD shims. The thickness varies, and again, I need 3.3 to 4.5mm shims. Right now, the thinner the better. If we could find some on the 3.3-3.7mm side, we'd be gold.

I am so stressed, upset, and feel rather defeated right now because we didn't catch this detail until we dropped the valves in and started measuring clearances today on the seats.

35mm buckets in the spare heads for my alfa. The shims are around 2mm thick but may vary slightly from cylinder to cylindrer. If there's any hope they'll help text me at (tacoma)-224-285niner and I'll send you pictures of what I have.

I also have exhaust shims, but they're smaller and use a pushrod

Good luck

Also, if you send me year make and model of potential alfa candidates I might be able to wake up alfabb and get them on board

Could you just machine down what you have on a mag chuck equipped surface grinder? Or are they not through hardened?

BrokenYugo wrote: Could you just machine down what you have on a mag chuck equipped surface grinder? Or are they not through hardened?

Not through hardened, soft core. I suggested that and my machinist went, "Yeah that won't work."

According to this old thread, others dealing with the same, it would seem the Fiat Argenta shares these shims.

http://www.lamborghini-talk.com/vbforum/f42/jalpa-valve-shims-428/index4.html

I MIGHT HAVE SOURCED SOME FACTORY SHIMS. Pending communication with person.

http://etponline.com.au/product/toyota-2lmk1-3l-5l-1hz-1kzte-1kzt-shims/toyota-1kz-37mm-x-250mm-shims

air freight??

oldeskewltoy wrote: http://etponline.com.au/product/toyota-2lmk1-3l-5l-1hz-1kzte-1kzt-shims/toyota-1kz-37mm-x-250mm-shims air freight??

Unfortunately those are too thin. The thinnest I can go is 3.3. Working out shipping and prices with the other guy in the vintage lambo group on his factory shims. We might be ok!

Alright, I have sent the money and they'll be shipped out monday, be here tuesday. I bought up all the shims the guy had. <3 the lamborghini community with the vintage guys, they want to see the old things running as bad as I do, apparently. I'll have to be sure to make it known on those forums i have his remaining shims so i can pay it forward if anyone else ends up needing help.

Can you give us more star porn to tide us over?

Stampie wrote: Can you give us more star porn to tide us over?

Yes, perhaps later tonight. I went snowboarding today and i most definitely bruised ribs, and might have fractured one. I've loved manual steering in all of my cars until today. For now, I need more whisky and cigars, and maybe a whole lot of ibuprofen. I'll dig up some more for you tonight though.

In reply to corsepervita:

If it helps any I'm on my second Irish whiskey. Enjoying the smoothness but the triple distilling removed a little more flavor than I'm used to.

Wait, you can make them but not harden them?

So, that's actually pretty easy. Buy some good hardened material like A2 and use that, or turn the ones you have where you need them and have them hardened. It's not magic.