Fireindc

iTrader: (13)

Engine looks fine to me. Has less cross hatching than mine, but also less scoring on the walls. I don't see why it wouldn't be fine with a quick ball hone and re-ring.

Lookin good!

18psi

iTrader: (76)

soak in degreaser and pressure wash dat hoe

bcrx7

iTrader: (5)

Not sure how much it costs elsewhere to machine a head, but it's like $150 here. I would say that is a pretty good investment to get done and make sure it's good, specially if the engine was already questionable.

Efini~FC3S

iTrader: (4)

I have access to a pretty decent machine shop that has done a fair amount of miata engines, and their prices are pretty decent. However cheap it may be, it still will increase my total rebuild budget by too much.

That is, if I spend $150 at a machine shop, that's a 30% increase in total budget for this engine "rebuild".

I guess I should clarify my expectations/goals for this engine. My plan was to do a "rods only" rebuild for as cheap as possible, and use that motor while I slowly build the other motor properly. The motor that is in the car will be pulled out and built properly, rods, pistons, '99 head, BE oil pump, machine work, etc. etc. My hope for this motor is that it will be just "good enough" to hold me over whilst the other motor is being built over a longer period of time. So as long as this motor can last a year around 270hp, and not have too many leaks, or burn too much oil, I will be happy.

Also, I've never built a motor all on my own, so that's another reason for doing this motor refresh. Hopefully I'll learn something so that next time I have at least some idea of what I'm doing.

Thanks for the input, I'll measure the head for flatness and go from there.

Scrappy Jack

iTrader: (2)

This thread is like watching a car drive toward train tracks as the crossing barrier is descending. You are pretty sure the driver is making a series of really poor choices and that it will end with an explosion or destruction of some type...

... but there is still a chance it all works out okay.

Efini~FC3S

iTrader: (4)

Efini~FC3S

iTrader: (4)

Subaru is sold, so now I have some $$$ and more time for this.

Engine teardown will continue today, hopefully I'll post some pics tonight.

Also I pm'd Tekel...

Efini~FC3S

iTrader: (4)

Sooooooooo......

My build thread sucks!

I've done a little bit of work since the last post, but basically none. It's been so damn cold here since Thanksgiving that I would rather pull hair out than spend time in my freezing cold garage.

BUT

It's supposed to be ~50F here the next two days so I'm hoping to get some work done.


Anyway, back to the engine build. I finished the engine tear down and the bearings looked OK, but not great so I bought some new clevite main and rod bearings. I also spent a significant amount of time cleaning the block but still couldn't get it very clean. FAEL.

I'll post some pics and a proper update sometime this weekend. Hopefully I can get the bottom end buttoned up this weekend, and then I should have time to work on the head on Monday.

F*$k the cold!!!

doward

Catching this late, but...

Ive been talking to Larry at the Carquest machine shop off 71 and Silver dr. He said(before seeing it) that he can skim a miata head without removing the valves for $42.99. You could then clean it yourself for the ultimate cheapness. He let me take his jar of dychem home for my porting project last week and did a couple flywheels and stuff for me last year. Pretty cool guy.

With that said, I'll probably have Mike at M&M in Delaware do the work on my bp4w rebuild, which is who I think you're referencing.

Scrappy Jack

iTrader: (2)

"It's hard to get in the Christmas spirit when it's low 80s and not a cloud in the sky," said all the members of Trubo from Florida.

Ryan_G

iTrader: (8)

I am actually enjoying the weather immensely. Outdoor activities galore.....when I'm not at the office.

Efini~FC3S

iTrader: (4)

$43 is pretty effing cheap. I have to remove the valves because 3 of the exhaust valves and 2 of the intake valves faeled the poor man's leak test, so I'm going to hand lap all of the valves.

Thanks for the heads up, I hadn't thought of using a place like Carquest, but yes I was speaking of M&M.


Anyway, this weekend wasn't as productive as I hoped, no engine work. I spent what time I had in the garage installing FM Frame Rails and the Roll bar I've had sitting around. I was hoping that reinforcing the chassis will make me hate this car less, which should hopefully motivate me to keep working on it. FM rails went in pretty easily, a nice product, I highly recommend them. Roll bar not so much, spent a lot of time effing with it. Finally got it "in" late last night, but haven't finished drilling, bolting, re-assembly etc.

OH WELL

I'm going to be working on head disassembly today, maybe a little polishing of the combustion chamber, if not for anything but a little extra knock protection.

I'll post some pictures sometime, I promise...

doward

I'm always up to lend a hand. I also have a set of 6" burrs laying around now if you want to a little more than polish the chambers

Efini~FC3S

iTrader: (4)

Okay, I think I owe some pictures, though I haven't been doing a good job of taking them.

Monday I was able to get the head mostly disassembled. I had a few valves that failed the poor mans leak test, and after taking the valves out I found a couple valve stem seals that definitely look suspect. Anyway on to the

Pictures:

Some are older, this is when I inspected the bearings.

The state of my garage, as of a few weeks ago...poor.






The crankshaft journals looked fine, and my paint by numbers system is still in effect.




And why I bought bearings






On to cylinder head disassembly, I numbered each valve individually, so I can keep all the valve cotters, retainers, etc. all together and put them back in the same spots. 1-8 are intake side, front to back. 9-16 are exhaust, also front to back.





Now, for the leaky valve stem(s). One of the valves that failed the leak test I did showed some signs of the valve stem seal leaking quite badly. This is what I found:






SO, now I guess I'm replacing valve stem seals. I've never done it before and I don't have the tools for it.

Anyone have remover and install tools you recommend? Something I can get on Amazon cheap?

Also, anyone have insights about installing new ones? Obviously, setting the height on them is critical, and I don't necessarily know the best way to do it / measure it.

One more question; as you can see the combustion chambers are quite dirty. I'd like to spend some time polishing the chambers and runners a bit but they are too caked with sh*t to work on. Degrease and scrub with a plastic brush? Anything else that works a charm?

I'm out of town for a while so no work on the head/engine for a bit.

Efini~FC3S

iTrader: (4)

The slope, it is slippery.








(Jeffbucc style hand polishing on the left, as received on the right)

Efini~FC3S

iTrader: (4)

Long overdue update.

So...as you could probably guess from the previous post, I bought some supertech pistons. They are used and were on sale here. 83.5mm 8.6:1 compression. I got them for really pretty cheap. Too cheap to pass up.

Bumping to 83.5mm bore meant the block had to go to the machine shop, so I took the block and the head to a place in Delaware, OH. Block got overbore, final hone, and hot tanked. Head got a valve job, new valve stem seals installed, springs/valves/cotters assembled, and a slight deck job (18psi should be very happy). Grand total was less than $430.

Not counting the head work, which I would have paid to have done anyway, going to forged pistons cost me just over $400. That includes the pistons and the machining. I couldn't pass on that.

Just today I ordered a new OEM oil pump from Rosenthal. I had planned on running the old one, but at this point what's another $140?

OK, pictures.


The block, as received from the machine shop. Don't worry, it will get a fresh lick of paint. It's been too cold here in Ohio to paint anything yet.





Cylinders 3&4




So I took a half day of vacation this morning to assemble the bottom end. Things didn't quite go as planned.

First step (after thorough cleaning) was to put assembly lube everywhere. Even places it's not needed like the back side of bearings. I have no idea what I'm doing...




Next step was to plastigauge the main bearings with the new Clevite bearings. Naturally, I only measured the #1, 3, and 4 mains. 3/5ths... that's about what kind of build this is. A 3/5ths quality build.






It's kind of hard to see in the pictures, but the tiny green strips are the plastigauge before torquing the main caps down.


This is after torquing the caps down then pulling them off again.







The plastigauge kit I bought didn't have a great scale bar for the main bearing clearance. The Mazda spec is 0.0008-0.0014", but my gauge was 0.0010" - 0.0015" - BIGGER. So I couldn't get exact measurements but I could tell if it was less than 0.0015". The #1 main clearance was closer to 0.0010" as was the #4 main. The #3 main was closer to the 0.0015" scale, but slightly under it.

I thought it kind of weird that the #3 would be different from the other two, but I didn't do a great job laying down that specific plastigauge, you can see in the pics it's a little crooked.

Anyway, they were all less than 0.0015", so within the Mazda recommended range. So I said "eff it" and decided to install the crank for good.

Like dis:




As you can see, all of the bolts are numbered in the order they are supposed to be tightened, all of the main caps are numbered and installed in the correct direction. And I made sure to paint the bolt heads after torquing them so I wouldn't miss one.

But I forgot to install the oil squirters, as you can see if you look closely at the picture.

So I had to pull the crank out AGAIN to install those.

Whilst installing the #3 oil squirter I noticed something that looked like aluminum foil stuck to the side of the cylinder wall in cylinder #3. Sure enough it was a nice shaving of aluminum. After wondering wtf (where the eff) did that come from, I noticed the thrust bearing had been fubar'd by my incessant installing and removing of the crankshaft.

Like dis:










for doing that

and

for not installing the oil squirters and finding it.


SO

new thrust bearings on order, new oil pump on order.

Until then I'm going to finish hand polishing the piston domes. Then I'm going to try to match all of the pistons, rods, rings, pins, etc. (the powercell as we call it) so that all four sets are as close in combined weight as possible. Based on the wide variance in piston weights, that might be quite difficult.

Oh and I'm hand polishing a valve cover, for no good reason.

Oh and I installed a new 949 driveshaft which got rid of the awful harmonic NVH issue...YAY!

Oh and I installed all new rotors and pads (NAPA rotors + Carbotech street pads).

Oh and I bought a bunch of 15x7 Volk TE37s. Because #futureracecar


Engine assembly will continue next week.


FINALLY, can someone spoon feed me ring gaps for 83.5mm supertech pistons with new rockauto 83.5mm rings?

PLZ?

GeneSplicer

iTrader: (14)

Oh and one time, at band camp... - street moderate turbo/nitrous - top ring = .0055 x bore (3.287), bottom ring .0060 x bore

rockauto can't be that different from Supertech rings right? lol, use at own risk... best better buying ST rings

Efini~FC3S

iTrader: (4)

Brake job with my junior mechanic.

Efini~FC3S

iTrader: (4)

Posting from phone so only one pic at a time I guess...

Valve cover polishing...huge waste of time

Efini~FC3S

iTrader: (4)

15x7 wheels

If I ever build an STL miata I'll be needing these