A friend asked me to put together an engine for his 99 miata. So I thought I would run throught the basic assembly here.

 

I have lots of pics and want to give notes on them, how do I get the pic large in the thread and not a thumb nail?

 

You are not BogusSVO.

 

Very good Hustler!

Dale is the man. I at best am worth to clean his shop. However, some sumbitch said they wanted pictures, I have lots of them to share and other who would never admitt it might like to see them. So, How do I embed them in the thread as full size miages?

 

Like this

But you better figure out how to use flash & macro first.

C

 

yeha my flash was washing out the image....I have other pics that are so....errr Bugus lol. So how did you do that?

 

Hit the QUOTE button on my thread to see. Basically you just need to wrap your picture url in IMG tags.

C

 

Piston 1 weight before balancing 305.6g

Piston 2 before balancing 303.6g


Piston 3 before 306.5g


Piston 4 before 302.9, my target weight

 

There ya go! I removed my images, you're good to go.

C

 

All pistons balanced to 0.1g

 

The crank was polished and balanced. Notice the perfect keyway, I have seen many 1.8's with fucked keyways....

 

I used lots of Cleavite assembly lube everywhere to protect the engine one initial start up.



Make sure all wrist pin retaining clips are fully seated



Beautifully cleaned and prepped head. The keen eye will notice the 5A cam and how the cast flashing was removed with steel shot, peened to look as cast since "porting" is not legal.












Cleaned head, properly surfaced, and valve lash all set. Notice the valves are labeled for proper identification while setting valve lash and hand lapping to the seats.


Also note how clean the water jacket housing is.....




Must have CLEAN DRY air for blowing dust off components and ensure the best results possible

 

The block, cleaned of ALL material. Main bearings line bored to ensure proper oil clearance of 0.0022-0.0024 for the ACL race bearings.



notice how clean the water jacket is, I have never had my engine components come back in such great condition. I will ALWAYS use this shop!






Two coats of engine enamel paint.....





Notice after painting all gasketed surfaces were cleaned of the paint






A light layer of lube on the main bearings...


Installed the crank, spun it to evenly spread the lube



ACL trust bearings also get a fair amount of assembly lube



All of the main bearing caps also get a layer of lube


Notice the 30wt oil at the bearing cap parting line as well as thehead of the bolt. I used a pill bottle to "submerge" the main bolts in the oil to properly torque them. This procedure is common and was also used for the rod bolts.





spread a layer of lube around the cylinder bores before and after the pistons are installed as to fill the cross hatch and trap an adequate amount in the oil rings.


[IMG][IMG][IMG][IMG][/IMG][/IMG][/IMG][/IMG]



I used the submerged bolt method for the head bolts as well



New OEM O-ring on the thermostat housing


ALWAYS use quality grease to fill all oil seals prior to installation

 

Look at me go!!!!
Thanks to Chris for helping me figure out how to post my wonderfully focused pictures.

Me Hustler

????

 

Sweet, i love engine build threads. One day i will attempt this.

 

Awesome, love it man

 

Nice work Chris.

 

Looks good! If you don't mind me asking, how much did the bottom end pieces/machine shop work cost you?

 

Not a damn thing....
Sorry, I had too. I built this engine for a friend. The total machine work was almost $900 but that included some "special" work. The bottom end pieces are all stock, sort of. There might be billet gears in that oil pump.....ACL bearings will run about $150 from TSE, a forum sponser and great guy! The machine shop price includes setting all oil clearances as well as the head work (matching valve springs, cleaning up cast flashing(shhhh), decking the head, valve job, and setting valve lash).