sorry to be a dummy but what is meant and done when an engine is blueprinted?

cheers david

 

good point ...

 

i allways thought it meant everything was balanced?

stew

 

It means that the engine has been built within very high tolerences, though they say that STi engines are blueprinted they are not, a "real" blueprinted engine needs rebuilding every 1-2k miles because by then its out of the max tolerences (F1 cars and the likes have blueprinted engines)

Tony

 

As Tony says it's a very high spec engine. I ran a rally car with a blueprinted engine. The spec was one I came up with, but the detail was dealt with by the guys doing the machining/balancing/building...the further you go with the "detail" the more time/money is spent...The end result though was blinding...smoooth, free reving...powerful...but needed a top and tail every 2-3k....which sounds quite bad, but in practise wasn't too bad....For what it's worth the engine builders thought the spec was going a bit too far...they changed their minds when they witnessed the results...it was that good

 

When an engine is designed the designer will say the tolerances will be set as 'X' but can also be 'W' or 'Y' which means a couple of thousand either side of 'X'. When an engine is bluprinted everything is set to the 'X' tolerence.

Hence the term 'blueprinted' as this was the original Blueprint design.