my engine rebuild / parts / etc thread

[biosehnsucht]

My old thread got archived, so rather than try to resurrect it I'll just start a new one with a more fitting title, since I could never edit the thread title...

Old thread

Wednesday, my friend helped me get my 'L' motor along with the new pistons etc off to Automotive Machine in Ft. Worth (recommended by many on DallasImports.net, alot of the crazy HP Supra and similar guys go there), we used his dad's Previa van, which was more than sufficient. I do own a truck, but it's dead.

Before stopping by Automotive Machine we dropped by another shop (name escapes me at the moment) who does shotpeening (Automotive Machine doesn't, but recommended this shop; they're about 3 blocks away); shotpeening for all 4 rods was $20.

For ~$467 I'm getting the block bored, block and head resurfaced and tanked/cleaned up, having them put in my new valve oil seals and leak test the valves to see if they need further work, polishing the crank, doing something to the rods to clean them up from the shotpeening (forget what they called it), all the bearing clearances etc checked and getting the bottom end balanced.

Had to send my friend on a second trip yesterday (I was stuck at work) as we forgot the flywheel and pully and crank main bolts, oops, need those so they can balance), also the rod bearings.. thought I had them, tried to order some from Oreilly's and they didn't get them in time for the first trip, was going to just let Automotive order them for me until we realized we had to make a second trip anyways...

They said it'll probably be done Monday, if not then Tuesday.

WOOOOOOOOOOO

getting closer!

In other news my DSM injectors arrived today along w/ a second resistor box (now I have one for my 2nd motor).

mass thread edit from the great beyond - updating links
Modified by biosehnsucht at 5:19 AM 1/15/2007

[rico05]

DAMN that is cheap. Here in the spring, depending on how your results are, I very well may go take my motor there (I was looking at SGP as well) Keep us posted for sure!!!!!

[float_6969]

I hope mines that much. I still haven't gotten a price from the guy yet...

[biosehnsucht]

DAMN that is cheap. Here in the spring, depending on how your results are, I very well may go take my motor there (I was looking at SGP as well) Keep us posted for sure!!!!!

Well it's somewhat the off-season now, so it may be more later. When I asked back around april-may or so they had said it was ~20/hole to bore if you get pistons from them and ~50/hole if you bring your own, or something like that, but now it was just ~20$/hole regardless

[biosehnsucht]

Had them pressure test the head, valves not sealing at all

I'll probably have them just not do anything to the head and get it fixed locally here, or just use the other head I have.. (I'll find someplace local to test it) (I say locally because I'm in Dallas and they're in Ft. Worth; not THAT far but far enough to be a PITA)

They want $200-$400 to do it (estimate, they'd have to fully take it apart to see what needs fixing)

[biosehnsucht]

Got the engine back.. I'll take pics of the head tomarrow (now that it's been "cleaned up" you can tell how bad the valves are in need of work)...

Pistons w/ shotpeened rods (hard to see but they did remove some material from the rods to balance):

Hard to see also, but they polished the crank all nice again, they didn't have to really do anything else since it was all in spec, not out of round or anything (didn't think it would be, being neigh indestructable, like The Tick):

Oh that beautifully bored (84mm, 1mm over) block:

The bores feel smoother than a baby's bottom. I mean its like solid lubrication smooth, you feel like your hands should be oily after you touch it but nothing there And yes, it does look like one of the spacings is way off, thats just bad angle / JPEGiness (between left two cylinders).

Meant to take pics of the place but when I got there dead batteries in camera The guys there are pretty cool, they gave us schwag (keychain fobs and baseball caps with their logo/etc, not that I'll ever really use either, but free stuff is always good!), or as they put it, the machine work was free - it was just the caps that cost me $400. (After being refunded for the headwork I didn't end up having done (deck / new oil seals / etc, it came out to $391)

anyways, time to pass out.
Modified by biosehnsucht at 5:11 AM 1/15/2007

[iliketocrash]

Does this Automotive Machine place have a website?

[float_6969]

Well damnit, at this rate, you're going to get your back together before me!

[biosehnsucht]

Does this Automotive Machine place have a website?

Don't know what it is if they have one, but their phone # is 1-800-210-8675..

[r34 gtr]

or even more depressing, you might finish your car before ME!! god i cant even remember the last time i drove it. it feels like an eternity. it has been around 6 months though. i think.

by the way, thats a pretty sweet deal for that work. wish there was a place around me that was that cheap. my rebuild cost me some rediculous amount of money i dont really want to try and think about right now.

- tim

[biosehnsucht]

We've started with fixing the supposedly swap ready harness (the person I bought it from expressed doubts about it's trustworthiness).. it's quite fubar.



The pictures speak for themselves.We've removed the ghetto tape-job that whomever "swap-readied" the harness did and started labelling known connectors and have started winding up the wires that should go the the F8/F9/F10 connectors (relay/fusebox area connectors) but don't (i.e. loose wires). It's too bad I forgot my camera the first night, could have gotten pictures of how fubar a job it was visibly before we touched it.

You can see in the pictures the fat grey wires (CAS and MAF), the CAS loops around a few times to take up slack (since originally it needed to be longer) and the "extended" MAF wire was bunged in as another CAS wire (it has a CAS 90 degree connector on it), or so it seems. The knock sensor wire was hacked on as well, and one of the wires going into the fuel injectors dropping resistor has it's shielding cut...

There's quite a bit of crimp on connectors still attatched and there's one point whre all the Red/Blue (IIRC) power wires were crimped together onto a big fat red wire (probably was going to go straight to the battery rather than going through the normal harness connections.

We're planning to try snatching a 89 harness at a junkyard and hack it up so that the F8/F9/F10 connectors (which we don't even have right now, hence reason to pick up a harness or at least some of the connectors) can be wired straight into my existing main / engine bay harness stuff, so that only the EFI harness has to be hacked up.

Bleh.

Hopefully tomarrow we'll paint the engine block, and wed start putting the block together.. tomarow I must go pick up assy lube, check out my other head and call around places for headwork prices to get one or the other head ready to go..
Modified by biosehnsucht at 5:11 AM 1/15/2007

[r34 gtr]

wow, that is gloriously ghetto-fabulous. looks like mine when i was half-done with wiring it all up, though much shadier and carelessly-done. hope you get it all sorted out. ive got a huge mess of wires from my old KA-e harness and some from my CA harness but i dont think ive got the connectors, so i doubt it would be worth me sending them to you. it sounds like youve got it under control as well. let me know if you need my help in any way.. and keep them pictures a-comin'!

- tim

[biosehnsucht]

Pics later but its been painted now, semi-gloss black.

Almost late to work so no time to DL pics from camera, painted it this morning (finally good weather)

[biosehnsucht]

Lots of paint left over in the spraycan, so likely will clean up the motor mounts and various brackets etc and paint them too..

Taped up and ready to go:

Painted, hard to get pictures of it since it's well.. black. Had to crank up the brightness in Photoshop, and it's still hard to see; it looks much better in person.

IT'S WHAT'S FOR DINNER!
Modified by biosehnsucht at 5:12 AM 1/15/2007

[float_6969]

Hey dude, that looks great! But can I give you a little tip? Don't us assembly lube to put the motor back together. Use a heavy weight oil. That lube doesn't always work out right away, and since the oil is supposed to be a barrier between contact surfaces, if the lube is there it doesn't work and you'll quickly get metal to metal contact. If you want more info, go here

[biosehnsucht]

Well that would suck. And I bought some Redline assembly lube on a friend's recoommendation..

[NeedCAforS13]

Hey dude, that looks great! But can I give you a little tip? Don't us assembly lube to put the motor back together. Use a heavy weight oil. That lube doesn't always work out right away, and since the oil is supposed to be a barrier between contact surfaces, if the lube is there it doesn't work and you'll quickly get metal to metal contact. If you want more info, go here

haha, now thats good stuff. my lazy a$$ didn't have assembly lube, so I used heavy weight oil instead! seems to have worked allright...

Sean

[float_6969]

I look at it this way; Does the motor run on assembly lube or oil? It runs on oil. So why would you put it back together with something that the manufacturer never designed to have in there? Mine is going to go back together with a nice straight 50W...

[biosehnsucht]

I never did find anything specifically mentioning assembly in that site but is a PITA to search in..

[float_6969]

Yea, you basically have to read everything. But there is a sentence in there that makes reference to it.

[biosehnsucht]

Removed the masking we did on the block for painting it now that it's dry:

Also today I hit the junkyard and found me some DE power steering lines (yay! only $27) as well as other various random bits of unrelated things, such as the hatch hooks that hold up the rear tray! WOOT! I also snatched some plusg from DSM and Nissan vehicles that allowed me to build a DSM to Nissan injector resistor harness so I don't have to hack up my DSM resistor or my CA harness to plug in the DSM resistor, so if it ever has to be replaced no haxoring.. I can use the subharness for DSM or normal connector for Nissan

Tomarrow morning I plan to get up early and drop of my head to get worked on, which is the last engine related thing to get done before being able to put it together..
Modified by biosehnsucht at 5:13 AM 1/15/2007

[float_6969]

I think it's gonna be a race to the finish man. I'm expecting to have my motor out of the machine shop next week, at which time reassembly will begin. I think you're gonna get done before I do though, but it will be close!

[biosehnsucht]

I'll definately have it in the car by then, I'm sure, but actually running, that's another story..

[biosehnsucht]

well got the rings gapped and on the pistons, wasn't sure what to gap them to at first...

Well, ended up gapping the top rings to ~0.019" and the middle to ~0.025"... didn't gap the 3rd rings, they were all about the same and the FSM specs show such a wide range of tolerances as to not matter..

First reason for these gaps is that no matter which cylinders we put the rings in, we got 0.019 on 3 and 0.015 on the other, so we widened up the 0.015 to 0.019; then for the 2nd ring we had 0.006, 0.008, 0.025, and 0.007, or something to that effect.. so we widened up the other 3 to match.

Now, this might seem big, but looking at the FSM 0.025 is JUST within OEM specs, and being I'm overbored that widens the gap some more. Also, I saw a few places on the web saying 0.04" per 1" bore and 80% of that on 2nd ring, but OE specs make the 2nd ring bigger and a page on Federal-Mogul's website recommends doing the same, they also have a list of recommended bore-gap ratios, and for supercharger and nitrous street (nothing for turbo) they recommend 0.0055 - 0.0065 for the 2nd ring, so we figured being boosted, high RPM, and etc better to go w/ the 0.025 we already had to work with..

So then we were going to put the crank in and such, but nooo, the main bearing set I got off ebay that was supposed to be standard size was 0.025" undersized, so it wouldn't fit.. grr, this morning I'll be ordering some from O'Reilly's or something and we'll finish that tonight. once the crank is in we can finish the bottom end pretty quick, leaving just the exterior bits to be bolted in left (oil pump etc, oil pan, head etc)...

Hopefully today I'll know something about when I should expect my head back from Stoid Racing (which turns out to be just a few blocks from my house, if I knew they were there all along I'd have had them do my block too)..

Also, most of the wiring harness work is done, at this point just mating up the various wires w/ extentions to the harness plugs that go near the fuse/relay box on the passenger side. So much more ghetto **** we've discovered! For one, the FICD connector was replaced or something, it had the wrong color wires and instead of having one wire to ground, it went to the compressor 'on' connector! Hacked that off and made it ground, as it should be. The 'on' wire for the FICD is also the 'on' wire for the compressor, they're supposed to be split up and ground seperately past their respective devices. Lots of amature splices and such too, all the power wires going to the ECU and the ignitor and etc were all twisted together into 2-3 wires which then were crimped into one wire that probably was meant to go to the battery directly, from the size of it

We did make a sub harness to connect the DSM resistor box to the CA harness so that neither needs to be hacked up, that way I can use DSM or Nissan boxes in the future..

all I can remember right now.. time to pass out..

[biosehnsucht]

Damnit, the rod bearings aren't the right parts! O'Reilly sold me the wrong ****, dunno what they're for but the oiling holes are in the wrong place. We did get the main bearings correct size tho so the crank is in, girdle and such bolted in. if we had the rod bearings the block would be done! GRR

They'll accept a return on the wrong parts however.. I ordered them, they'll be in tomarrow morning/afternoon.

Later I'll post pics so far, including how to fit an engine hoist into the 240SX! (Well, not put together, in fact we just bought it... still boxed)

[float_6969]

Keep up the good work man! I should be getting the correct rings this week and I hope to be assemblying the block this week also!

[biosehnsucht]

I forgot to mention, also got the head back from Stoid Racing... going to hopefully get that put more or less together tonight also..

[biosehnsucht]

Too tired to crop/resize images for posting, but short summery since last post:

- got the right rod bearings and finished putting the block together as far as pistons/crank/block stuffs goes- currently letting lifters sit in kerosene to try and clear out all the old disgusting oil- picked up NISMO motor/transmission mounts- opened up the two JDM (automatic only) / euro CA18DET oil coolers I had, one of them the ball for one of the one way valves is GONE, who knows where!? I've got the other one which was in better condition in all ways soaking in kerosene too to try and clean it up- moved block back from friend's house (with clean, engine-building friendly garage) to mine (with dirty, engine-swapping friendly garage). we built a sort of bed for it out of four peices of 2x6 and lifted the block w/ engien stand mount still attatched into the back of his van, then put in the stand seperately, pulled it out at my house and lifted it back onto the stand.

ugh, so early.. late.. ? It's been a near 16 hour day, of actual activity, not more normal sitting around in front of a computer day.

[float_6969]

Poor guy! Here's some xenadrine...

[biosehnsucht]

MASSIVE PICTURES UPDATE TIME

Firstly, how to fit an engine hoist in a 240:

Pistons w/ rings installed, and then with bearings:

Squirters installed:

Main bearings in, and with assembly lube:

Crank installed:

Pistons/Rods installed:

Notice the shaved spots on the rods, where they were balanced Also the piston tops at this point look disgusting because they have assembly lube + the whiteout we used to mark the pistons smeared around.

Then we packed up the CA19 so we could transport it to my house and keep it safe until time to install it:

In the first pic, what's on the floor behind it is the head still wrapped in a plastic bag from Stoid Racing..

As you can see in the final two pics, the Toyota Previa makes a good hauler, whether it's people or cargo!Check out the Transformer fold up seats!

And finally it is back in my garage:

Thats it for now..
Modified by biosehnsucht at 5:13 AM 1/15/2007