Plateau honing is required for all rings these days. Without it the rings will live a short life.

Ultra-finish honing for a burr-free finish

Any chance you'll be taking notes to share with the rest of us? Always something I've wanted to do too.

evans tuning forums :: View topic - The definitive gsr engine build article

Sure as hell wish I was that organized and thorough. Curly can attest to my slovenliness when it comes to tools and my car. I've got the motor in my warehouse here at work and can only work on it sporadically. It basically looks like the motor blew up and landed in a pile of parts. At least most of the small parts and hardware seemed to land in zip-loc baggies. Organization, documentation and follow up definetely not my strong suit.

Just ask my wife or employees!


Jason, haven't had a chance to ask the mashinist about the plateau hone but with the bore clean the cotton ball test passes with flying colors. No snagging.

Engine building roadmap
 

Here's some suggestions for your engine build, YMMV:

1. Rod's Enthusiast Manual, the Haynes manual and the Mazda Shop manual provide you with just enough information to be dangerous.

2. Beg, borrow or steal a copy of "Engine Blueprinting" by Rick Voegelin and read it, cover-to-cover, several times.

3. Before you even turn a wrench on assembling your new "box of parts", prepare an engine blueprinting record sheet and make sure that you have all the critical clearances, torque specs and other relevant information (valve spring pressure open & closed, coil bind, cam specs for degreeing, etc. etc.) in front of you before you start assembly. Verify each clearance/spec on the blueprinting record sheet (or have your machine do it for items like piston pin clearance) as you test assemble components before final assembly.

4. Assume that your machine shop/vendor did not properly clean all of your parts (block, crank, rods, pistons, head etc). Take the time to completely clean all of these parts until they are spotless and clean enough to eat off of (including bolt holes, threads, water jackets and crank passages). Residual dirt and machining swarf kill a lot of bearings on first startup. Make sure that all oil galley plugs and freeze plugs have been replaced if the block was hot tanked. Failure to do so will result in no or limited oil pressure (oil galleys) or gushing coolant leaks (freeze plugs) on start-up.

5. Don't regard engine assembly as a single continuous process. Most professional engine builders do multiple sub assembly "mockups" to verify critical clearances (crank bearing clearance, rod bearing clearance, piston deck height, cam degreeing, piston to valve clearance, etc.) before proceeding with final assembly.

6. When assembling the rotating components in the block, record the amount of torque required to rotate the crank after it is torqued in place and the thrust bearing setting is verified. Recheck rotating torque after you install and torque each rod & piston assembly to make sure that nothing has gone awry. A large increase in rotating torque after installing a rod/piston assembly is generally a sign of something gone astray.

7. Find TDC with a piston stop (before installing the head) and make sure that sure stock timing marks are accurate (re-mark if off)

8. Degree both cams to Miata/mfg spec before installing front cover & valve cover.

9. Do a compression check before installing the engine in the car. Either rig up a bellhousing/starter to the engine for a cranking test or do a cylinder leakdown test.

10. Preoil the engine before starting by cranking the engine over with the plugs out and ignition disconnected until you get positive oil pressure.

Good luck!

Should we consider plugging the piston squirters as shown at the end of the third vid above?

He said he did it to get higher oil pressure in the bearings, but our motors run pretty high pressure as is. How does this weigh against the benefits of piston cooling in an forced induction motor?

The original 323 turbo motor was designed with piston oil squirters to keep piston temps down. A lot of diesel motors also use them for the same reason. Plugging the squirters is a half-assed way to get more oil pressure. If you really need more oil pressure (e.g., as demonstrated by datalogs on the track at high RPM), go with a quality aftermarket pump with billet gears and keep the oil squirters.

That's what I thought.

Everything else he did seemed pretty quality, but was surprised he would delete piston squirters in a FI application.

Also, he only secured to the end mains before plastigauging the rod journals. I assume this is due to not having access with the large crank girdle.

In our motors we should be able to gauge, lube, assemble and torque all of the crank journals before moving on to con rods right?

Definitely. Ideally you (or your machinist) has already checked main & rod bearing clearance before you start assembly. Last motor I did, I trusted the machine shop's assurances on clearances and I only spot checked 2/7 mains and 2/6 rods with plastiguage. If you are doing a budget build and want to be sure of your clearances, I'd suggest taking the extra time to plastiguage all of the mains and all of the rods.

Kind of a PITA, because you really shouldn't rotate the crank after you have tightened the main caps and smushed all the Plastiguage. So, you have to install the crank, put plastiguage on all the mains, torque the caps in sequence then remove the caps and check main clearances. Then you have to clean off all the Plastiguage off the main journals. Then you have to lube the main journals and bearing inserts, re-install and torque the main caps and then start with checking the rod clearances.

FWIW, you don't need to install the piston rings on the pistons to do the rod bearing clearance check but you should insert a feeler guage/guages between the side of the rod and the crank to take-up any side clearance before torquing the cap. Again, you have to remove the cap on Number 1 and check the Plastiguage before you can rotate the crank to install the next rod for clearance checking.

Sorry, I meant after the plastigauge torque down. Then lube and torque, and move on to rods.

I plan to plastigauge everything since I only have a set of calipers and bore gauge set, which I don't plan to trust .XXXX precision to.

I'd hoped to do the rods in pairs, but guess it really doesn't matter.

All good advice. Any other pitfalls we should watch for?

You can check the rod clearances in pairs if desired. If you are running non stock rods, take the time to talk to the rod supplier and get the bolt stretch spec for the rod bolts.

Doesn't look like your precision tools include a dial indicator; I'd suggest getting an inexpensive one and a magnetic base before starting your build. It is going to be hard to check crankshaft end play or piston deck height or verify lobe lift on your cams without a dial indicator. If you want to degree your cams, you'll need the dial indicator for that too (as well as a degree wheel).

Probably not applicable on a budget engine build. But, I had my crank ground, polished, and nitrided. The crank was then cleaned. However, the crank shop did not take out the plug that Mazda installed after oil galley drilling. My builder took all the plugs out of the crank's galleys, and found a pretty substantial amount of machining slag.

Takeaway: If you are machining your crank (or any other engine part), take out all galley plugs and re-clean the part after machining.

It's applicable on any engine build. If you don't clean out all of the crank, block and head passages you risk trashing your new bearings on initial start up.

sn95,

That is a hell of a write up! I'm hoping you had that written already and just copied and pasted it. BIG THANK YOU for taking the time to share all that.

For a thread I thought I might get flamed for, it's turning into a pretty informative string of information. Can't imagine why that guy would have eliminated the oil squirters.

Glad I could be of assistance. BTW, if your block was hot tanked by the machine shop, make sure that all the oil galley plugs have been properly replaced (shops often remove oil galley plugs and water jacket expansion plugs before hot tanking). Otherwise, you will assemble the engine, put it in the car, start it up and find you have no oil pressure. Then you will say WTF!, take the engine out of the car, take it apart and find that "someone" forgot to plug an oil galley. :vash:

Also, insure that the head gasket is installed correctly or you may block oil passage

Ye right which dickhead would do that.............................................. ......................




Oh ye me