Can one lathe cylinders by oneself?
 

Lets say, for example in 2.4T there are cast iron cylinders. Would it be possible to lathe cylinders from iron bar or stainless steel?

If the material would be suitable one would just lathe the cylinder, make grooves around it for cooling fins (aluminium, heat fitted to the grooves), and voila!

If one could do this kind of thing, one could also make the cylinders...krhm...Water cooled :) ?? (or oil cooled with existing system)

The part where the heads meet the cylinders could have this "adapter" to raise/lower compression....

Stupid idea?

Oh yea. Keep thinking. Guys have been trying for years to outsmart those engineers in Stuttgart. I can tell you where you're headed with this: A circle. About the best you can hope for is to waste a bunch of time learning why Porsche designed cylinders the way they did in the first place. BTDT.

In fact the job can and has been done.
The idea is to find a sleeve (diesel engine type or similar) measure the o/d of that sleeve...bore the case to fit it...machine the aluminum slug to be an interference fit on the sleeve (heat the aluminum/freeze the liner) and press them together.
You can have any bore size that the case will support, and the benefit is that the liner is already sized and pre-honed to accept the piston (with final honing to clearance them).
Not for the timid....and please have lots of experience in the metalurgy dept. to figure out the crush factor on the liners.
Bob

I can't even imagine taking on a project like that. Be sure to post some pictures.

If you do undertake this project, and I can't figure out why you would :) , be sure and check the heat transfer properties of the material. I think you'll find stainless steel is not good for this application. On the other hand, some billet aluminum cylinders would be cool.

As for water cooling, I'd worry about the heads before looking at the cylinders.

Sure it could be done. But the time (is money) required to acquire the knowledge, the nickasil alloy acquisition factor, cost of a lathe and mill, yadda, yadda, yadda... I don't think it would pay. CMW does (still in business?) make some fine heads.

i think there was a company by the name of American Air Cooled Cylinders or something like that where you could order what ever you wanted...not sure about that name tho. Post pics if you do take this on.

I have done exactly that for an old Harley...2 cylinders...they were just not available from anywhere.
I bored the old cast iron to allow the liners to fit (heat and press) and then trimmed the bottoms of the barrels to get the proper clearance and shape.
The liners I used had a flange at the top...so the sealing to the head was from the liner flange to head...no leaks...and as far as I know...25 years and it's still together and runs (he runs it at antique runs).
Bob

I have a set of sleeved cylinders that were made up by competition engineering. They are sleeved cylinders, with cast iron sleeves and venola pistons. They make a 2.8L out of a stock 2.7L and allow you to use the stock 2.7 heads. Very neat. Work well.

Good luck,
David Duffield

Well, i don't own a lathe, i just come up with these crazy ideas. But, yea, aluminium cylinders with iron sleeves would be cool :) Never thought that sleeve thingie :)

Zendalar, people have made Type I and IV VW CNC clys and heads. Anything can be done. Check this

Zendalar...it's more than just iron sleeves...you can get sleeves made with some pretty exotic materials.
Some deisel sleeves are made of steel with coatings plated into the bore that keep them working for more than a million miles.
Because the sleeves are of only one material at time of manufacture...they can be handled differently than multiple layers of different (aluminum, iron, steel, vanadium, titanium, ceramic, etc) types.
The sleeves are perfectly round because they are spun molded...some even have fins already on them.
Bob