Hijacker's Money-Ain't-No-Thing Build

[Hijacker]

After what felt like an eternity, I've got the block and head back from the machine shop!













A recap of what the shop did:
-Hot tank the block and head
-Rehone cylinders
-Check and deck the headgasket mating surfaces
-3 angle valve job
-Install Tomei phosphor bronze valve guides
-Install supertech valves
-Install Tomei Type A springs

The wait time was absolutely ridiculous, but the work is done finally. This was a small three man machine shop, but they had experience with a multitude of Japanese motors including SRs and RBs, so I felt it was better to wait for them

I also did some media blasting to clean up the exterior of the block. To keep blasting material out, I reinstalled all of the covers and water pump. I also taped up every possible entry way into the block. Post blast inspection showed no media intrusion, but I'll still do a thorough flush of the interior of the block to make sure any stray media is washed out. One other thing the shop did that I wasn't expecting, was to remove the water pipe behind the water pump/thermostat and the oil blow by drain pipe. My last few blocks, the shops left those alone. This shop massacred the pipes getting them out. I've already ordered new pipes for replacement, I'm just thankful they're still available



I finally got to break out the Mitutoyos and start measuring the crank for roundness and taper as well as start prepping for measuring oil clearances. Hopefully, this weekend, I can get the clearances all checked and start pushing forward with bottom end assembly

[PapaSmurf2k3]

Looks good! How long was the head and block actually at the shop?

[Hijacker]

Looks good! How long was the head and block actually at the shop?

Dropped off Sep 16th. Picked up Jan 3rd

EDIT: Like I said, the shop is small. It's a son around my age, his dad, and a third employee. They have a ton of work coming in. The day I dropped off the block, there were two other techs there with customer parts to be worked on. It was painful that it took this long, but my only other option was a shop in a sketchy part of richmond that did primarily what looked like old american V8s

[PapaSmurf2k3]

That's about how long my miata block and head were at a machine shop before I finally got impatient and went and picked them up. They hadn't been touched at all...

[Hijacker]

The original time estimate was 6 weeks, which would have been mid-November when I finally got him to give me a quote. Then it became a game of "we'll see next week" every time I talked to him. It's done now, and that's the important thing. It gave me time to f*** with the transmission at least

[Hijacker]

It's been too cold this week to get much of anything done out in the garage. I did get new blow by and coolant pipes for the block. The shop had to remove the old ones to get the block into their decking machine. The pipes stood above the decking plane, and unfortunately the pipes were pretty wrecked from the removal. I was able to order the coolant pipe from Mazworx and NIssan US has stock on the blow by pipe (funnily enough, it shows cross compatibility with the R-35 GTR)




-To install the pipes, I froze them in my deep freeze for a few hours. Then I took some anaerobic sealant to the interface of the pipe and then hammered them in with a block of wood


-I also took the opportunity to get the thermostat housing and oil filter relocation adapter installed

The weather is supposed to be a bit better this weekend, so I might be able to find some time to get out there and finish measuring bearing clearances and get the crank installed

[PapaSmurf2k3]

Should have just left those pipes outside... would have been colder than the deep freeze!

[Hijacker]

Should have just left those pipes outside... would have been colder than the deep freeze!

f*** it certainly feels like it. It's been so cold I don't even want to go out in the garage like at all. I finally found a few days of relative warmth to go out and finish miking out the bearings to get oil clearances set up.


-All of the bearings installed and main caps torqued with the old bolts

I had some trepidation over the clearances to run. ACL's application guide recommends running clearances that are between 0.00075" and 0.001" per inch of journal diameter. That roughly equates to 0.0021" to 0.0027" for the mains and 0.0020" to 0.0025" for the rods. Factory tolerance is between 0.0002" and 0.0009" for the mains and 0.0008" and 0.0018" for the rods. I set up all of the rods and mains and torqued everything to spec and then checked my clearances. My rods all came in between 0.0011" and 0.0014". within the Nissan spec. The mains were similar. Between 0.0005" and 0.0007", which is within Nissan spec. I feel more comfortable running the tighter factory tolerance, and it's what I've done in the past with ACL bearings.


-Off came the main girdle and in went the oil squirters and baffle plate


-The thrust bearings sent with the ACL set were also Calico coated, so that's cool!


-I swear by this stuff. Every motor I've ever built I've used this assembly lube. It's never let me down


-Crank and girdle installed with brand new Nissan main bolts and washers


-She turns nice and smooth


-I cut up an old head bolt and used it to clean out the threads to prepare for the studs. I like to do this to get any metal shavings and gunk that gets trapped in the threaded holes for the head studs that the machine shop may have missed. I've had shops in the past that do an awful job of cleaning out the block after a hot tank and this little trick will get a lot of built up gunk out. Thankfully, this block was relatively clean. I did manage to get a few stray metal shavings from the deck milling


-I looked down in the cylinders and all I could think of was this oiler looking back and saying "bonjour"


-Oil pump and gears reinstalled in the front cover. Hardware torqued and locktited as an additional measure


-main oil seals installed. I'll grease them up before they go on the block

I started on the pistons and rings, but I got a bit overzealous on grinding the first pack of rings. The CP rings that are sent have a pretty stronk top ring that takes a bit of grinding to open the gap, so I was expecting the second ring to be similar. It's a softer metal and i went ham on the grinder not knowing how much I was going to open it up. It ended up being like 0.032" gap when it needed to be more like 0.023". So I ordered a new ring pack that will be here later this week, then I can finish installing the rings and get the pistons popped in place

[Hijacker]

Bottom end is done and ready for the head install


-Rings were gapped. I talked with Tony at CP Carrillo about what gap to use as these didn't come with any gapping recommendations and the CP site had at least two or three gapping specs. His recommendation was in line with the specs for the CPN rings (which is what these shipped with), which was 0.0055" per inch of bore, which comes out to 0.019" of gap for the top ring, and then the second ring was ground to 0.004" over the top ring. All of my rings came pregapped at 0.023" and needed no additional grinding to be in spec




-The pistons were then loaded into the tapered compressor and pushed in. Some pistons needed a bit of tapping to get the top ring past the deck, but it wasn't a lot of force. I can't recommend enough to use one of these compressors!


-The Summit Racing stretch gauge tool is excruciatingly loose. You end up having to manhandle it a lot to get a reading off of it, and I don't trust those readings because they can vary wildly depending on how much you're having to hold the tool to center it. So my solution was to install some springs from Lowes to make it act like the nicer ARP gauges. This worked really well and made the results repeatable




-Each bolt came out to just on the low end of the stretch and I stopped at 65 ft lbs when torquing as that's the maximum torque range for the ARP 2000 bolts. This one wasn't fully torqued down, and was probably closer to 55 or 60 when I took this picture


-All pistons installed and torqued


-Windage tray installed


-New timing chain kit from Nissan installed. I zip tie the chain together to keep it from slipping back down and jumping teeth while I'm messing with the front end assembly

I decided to try a new tactic this time as every SR I've ever built eventually leaks oil annoyingly. I installed the front cover, rear seal carrier, and upper oil pan at the same time to ensure that the gasket sealant from each surface mixes and bonds at the joints. What I used to do was put the head on first, and then slip the front cover on after head install. Part of me believes that this creates gaps in the sealant surfaces at the junctions where the pan and cover meet. I'm using Ultra Grey, which uses the 1 hour set time before final torque. So this will give the mating areas plenty of time to mix and form and cohesive bond. We'll see. It'll be nice to have an SR that doesn't dribble


-One downside to doing it this way is that to install the windage tray before the oil pickup makes getting the oil pickup on a nightmare. I should have installed the pickup prior to the oil pan


-Lower baffle plate installed and ready for the lower pan


-The circuit sports pan installed. I'm really digging the pan overall. We'll see how much i like it long term






-Bottom end buttoned up and ready for the head

[Hijacker]

Now I'm rolling on progress


-Inspected the bottom of the head. Everything looks good. New Tomei bronze guides are in and the Tomei Type A springs are installed


-Apexi says not to use silicone on the front cover, but I'm gonna use the factory manual way and put a bead around the front cover JIC. The front cover was milled with the block when it was decked, but this is just added insurance. My biggest concern was keeping sealer away from the oil port for the VTC solenoid


-Apexi head gasket lined up and ready


-The Mazworx ARP head studs are nice because they have these bullnosed ends that can be bottomed out unlike the box stock ARPs


-Lubed up the threads and ran them down into the block. Then tightened to Mazworx's spec of 45 ft-lbs in sequence and then 65 ft-lbs

I switched gears a bit after getting the head installed


-I started installing some of the auxiliaries to get them off the shelf and out of the way. Also, I really wanted to see how well the powdercoated brackets paired with the fresh chromate hardware. I'm really digging the look


-Water pump and thermostat were installed next


-Water neck and GKTech sensor adapter installed


-I cleaned out the exhaust stud holes and threaded all of the studs in place


-Pulleys installed. I think I prefer these over any anodized underdrive pulleys


-Brand new dipstick installed. The one that came with the motor was melted and trashed

Tomorrow, I'll get to the valve train. I've already checked the height differences between the valves, now I just need to modify the rocker arms, grind the shims, and then install everything

[float_6969]

That's some good progress there!

I know you've already done it, but on the KA, the FSM recommends the lower front cover goes on before the head and oil pan. Every time I've tried to do it any way besides that, it leaks oil.

[Hijacker]

That's some good progress there!

I know you've already done it, but on the KA, the FSM recommends the lower front cover goes on before the head and oil pan. Every time I've tried to do it any way besides that, it leaks oil.

My old mechanics mentor swore up and down to do the cover after in case the timing chain slipped. So I’ve always done it that way. And I’ve always had oil weepage

The motor is finished. I haven’t uploaded the photos yet, so I’m hoping I can do that this evening. All I have left at this point is to hang the manifolds and prime the oiling system

I have some more hardware plating left to do, but until it warms up some, I’m stuck. I’m likely eying a late March install. Once the motor is in, I still need to fab up new intercooler pipes to replace the old s*** ones I have

[VStar650CL]

My old mechanics mentor swore up and down to do the cover after in case the timing chain slipped. So I’ve always done it that way. And I’ve always had oil weepage

Everything with hydraulic tensioners can slip if you don't allow it to build full oil pressure before letting it start. Pull the fuel pump fuse or relay, then spin it till the oil pressure rises and stabilizes. You'll never have a jumped chain.

[VStar650CL]

PS - If you mean during assembly, shoot some compressed air into the oil jacket and let it push the tensioner out to full tension. Same effect.

[float_6969]

My old mechanics mentor swore up and down to do the cover after in case the timing chain slipped. So I’ve always done it that way. And I’ve always had oil weepage

That makes sense, but like VStar said, if you get oil pressure before you start it, it won't jump.

Same goes for the turbo. I always pull the oil feed like and get a good flow of oil out of it before I start the engine.

Something that helps immensely with oil pressure before startup is to pull all the spark plugs and disable the injectors. That way, when you crank it, there's basically no resistance inside the motor if everything is done right. This means the bearings don't really see any load until there's oil pressure either. I usually leave the valve cover(s) off as well so I can see that the entire valvetrain has oil. The starter motor doesn't get nearly as hot either since it's barely working.

My engine builder taught me that and it works really well. I've never had any first-start drama since I've been doing it that way. It's probably overkill if you're using a good assembly lube, but it's not that much more work and it's cheap insurance.

[Hijacker]

PS - If you mean during assembly, shoot some compressed air into the oil jacket and let it push the tensioner out to full tension. Same effect.

He was always worried about jumping time during assembly. I get around chain slippage during install by securing the chain with zip ties and keeping it tight

As for priming, we always did the no-plugs, no fuel method of holding the starter and letting it build oil pressure. We always had no drama first starts.

[Hijacker]

Here's the progress on the headwork


-First up was shimming the head. I decided to go with the double guide setup to help protect against throwing rocker arms. I've ran RAS in the past, but this method is allegedly better since it keeps the shim in place and has a harder time flying off the valve stem


-Each valve pair was measured for a delta. The factory spec is to get it within 0.001" of each other. So I tossed a new guide where the flat shim would go and began measuring. The one that needed to be lowered would get worked in a figure 8 on sandpaper until the shims were within spec. It's a slow process that could have been sped up with power tools, but I was afraid of getting the shim ground too far or ground at an angle


-To keep the shims in order, I engraved the back of each with a dremel to identify which valve the shim belonged to (I 1 L, I 1 R, E 4 L, E 4 R, etc). That way if something ever does happen, it's a simple matter of putting the pieces back where they go. I also engraved the underside of each rocker arm






-The leg that rides on the flat shim is slightly wider than the one for the guide shim. The guide shim leg is 5.0mm wide and the select fit side is 5.3mm. So I marked the leg where I needed to remove material and slowly worked it down with my dremel. I slimmed down the leg on both the inside and outside to make sure the shim would be placed on center. The leg was miked for high spots and flattened as best as possible. Ultimately, I made sure that the guide shims didn't drag when the foot was moved inside the guide.

The process was repeated for all 8 valve pairs.

[Hijacker]

-The Tomei poncams were cleaned up and then oiled prior to install




-The lifters were bled and the cams were installed. These are the newer style lifters found in late model S14s


-Cam sprockets installed and timing set. I may try to source a new VTC sprocket in case this one develops the dreaded cam rattle. As far as I can tell, nobody makes an upgraded VTC unit. Hopefully since i don't plan on bouncing this thing off the rev limited, it won't develop any issues


-Heater core hoses installed








-Intake manifold installed. During the last gods know how many years I've sat on this project, I've managed to misplace a few bolts. I'll have to order new ones from Nissan if I can't find them in my shop


-Finally, the GTX2867 installed on the SuperMade manifold




-And that's a wrap on assembly. I'm digging this look. It's almost a shame to hide it under a hood

I have a few bits and pieces of hardware to order, gotta wait for the weather to warm up a bit to get back to electro plating the remaining hardware for the alternator bracket, and I still need to put some oil in her and prime the oiling system. Like I said earlier, I plan on having this ready for install hopefully in March once the weather starts to play nice

[VStar650CL]

I'm digging this look. It's almost a shame to hide it under a hood

No kidding. You could put that in a trophy case. Frapping gorgeous!

[float_6969]

B E A Utiful! Looks great!

[Hijacker]

No kidding. You could put that in a trophy case. Frapping gorgeous!

B E A Utiful! Looks great!

Thanks guys!

My anal retentiveness got the better of me. The GKTech water neck adapter needs longer bolts, so they include some stainless looking deals with lock washers. But they look like generic hardware aisle bolts. The bolts supplied are 30mm long M6 bolts and it turns out the oil pump uses 30mm long M6 bolts So I ordered a bunch to swap out. I also ordered some replacement bolts for some missing ones on the intake manifold that bolt the upper half to the lower half. All of this hardware will get the replating treatment once the weather warms up. I'm also looking at some bolts to swap out for the oil pan to get replace the hardware store looking bolts Circuit Sports included.



I also got around to hooking up the remote oil filter and prelubing the engine. I've included a video below using a 1/2" 9A drill to spin the engine.

[float_6969]

NICE! That's a great way to do that. I never even thought of that. It was cool that you could hear the drill slow down a bit once all the air was out of the system and it was under full load. Regardless, it looks like it primed up pretty quickly. HOPEFULLY, I never have to build another CA again, but if I do, I'm totally taxing that idea!

[Hijacker]

NICE! That's a great way to do that. I never even thought of that. It was cool that you could hear the drill slow down a bit once all the air was out of the system and it was under full load. Regardless, it looks like it primed up pretty quickly. HOPEFULLY, I never have to build another CA again, but if I do, I'm totally taxing that idea!

I stole the idea from Mazworx. They prime all of their motors the same way before they ship them out. The drill was slowing down because it was a cheap Kobalt drill that had started to smoke itself within 30 seconds of operation

[PapaSmurf2k3]

-I swear by this stuff. Every motor I've ever built I've used this assembly lube. It's never let me down

Bro don't jinx it.

As for priming, we always did the no-plugs, no fuel method of holding the starter and letting it build oil pressure. We always had no drama first starts.

Anyway... are you gonna take this thing to Carlisle? Its looking sweet!

[Hijacker]

Anyway... are you gonna take this thing to Carlisle? Its looking sweet!

Gods I hope so. It's been forever since I've been to Carlisle. Given all the craziness this year has brought the family, we'll have to see

[Hijacker]

It warmed up the past couple of days, which gave me a great opportunity to replate the remaining hardware!


-The hardware for the motor mounts was replated and I hung the mounts




-Alternator bracket was also installed


-The CPS hardware was also cleaned up and plated as well as the new bolts for the water neck


-I also shortened the oil feed line from the Aeroflow kit. I trimmed like 60% of the line. I have some new fittings coming in for the coolant lines so I can reroute them a bit more intelligently. The aeroflow lines are nice, and I appreciate they use the high flow elbow fittings, but they have a lot of fitment issues as far as I'm concerned. Especially since they were designed for bottom mount turbos

I had the started and alternator tested. The starter is in good shape, but the alternator unfortunately wasn't operating. It failed bench testing at the local parts store and was smoking on the bench. So that sucks. It was an S13 80A alternator, so I took this as an opportunity to pick up a 90A S14 alternator, which should be in later this week. I ended up buying a P2M unit.

I also had some new goodies show up. First up was the new recirc valve from TurboSmart





I opted for TurboSmart's dual function recirc valve. It gives a little more pop when you let off the throttle but it's not so aggressive and the car doesn't stumble from the loss of metered air. Driving around, it put a nice smile on my face

[Hijacker]

And now for some great news! First up is I picked a brand new Koyorad for the SR



Originally, I had the factor radiator in the car until one of the end tanks cracked in 2006. I was gifted an S14 factory radiator, which has served me well, but I don't like that it fits like hot a**. The brackets alone annoy the piss out of me. A koyo was always on the list. When I bought the car, the PO had swapped an SR into it and was running an A/C condenser fan in a pull configuration hooked up to a temp switch. In 2007, I replaced the temp switch and put it in a SOHC KA radiator hose. The problem with the aux fan is that it doesn't exactly fit the radiator properly and it has no shroud. But I've also never had overheating issues.

Anyways, so I started doing some research on what kind of fans I want to run. A guy on Reddit had posted up pictures of his koyo mounted with a shrouded e-fan from a Hyundai Elantra. But he had an RB koyo rad in his S13. The SR variant is wider since it has end tanks on the top and bottom. I went to the junk yard anyways to see if I could find an Elantra and pull the fan and take some measurements. Maybe it wouldn't be 100%, but it could work! There were some Elantras there, but none had any good fans and shrouds. So defeated, I started my way out of the yard. This yard has an old rotted Z32 with T-Tops that has been absolutely stripped, but I always swing by it to see if it's still there. And it was still there, but I noticed it had a neat fan shroud unit sitting in it like someone had pulled it and then dumped it in the trunk area. So I picked it up and was like "oh hey! This thing is neat!" It has a Bosch fan controller mounted to the shroud, it has louvers, and more importantly, it had what looked like a good rectangle ratio to fit the SR Koyo rad. So I measured it, and it was CLOSE. Like within 1/2" on width and 1/4" height. The only problem was that it had been sitting in the elements for who knows how long and the control module and fan housing were rotted. I snapped some pictures of the nameplates and went home to do research.

It turns out, this unit was from a 2010 to 2013 Mazda 3. I checked the yard's inventory, and they had a couple that could work. So I went back today and pulled one


-I'm happy to say I think I found the perfect single fan shroud to fit on a Koyorad. The louvers are passive, so they'll swing open once air starts to flow over them. The fan is controlled by a Bosch fan controller, so it relies on a PWM signal to soft start and spin up the fan


-Trimming the mounting tabs shows that this shroud is a perfect fit

Right now, I'm doing some bench testing on the fan controller. I think the unit I pulled was fried as I can't get any output from it. My early research into it shows that the fan controller should fail to full speed if the PWM circuit goes open. However, my testing shows no output right now if I hook up the feed circuit to my bench power supply. There's a cheap $20 replacement on Amazon I may pick up to run tests on

One thing to note is that the fan and shroud have FoMoCo labels on them, and the fan and controller were used on quite a few Fords of that era as well. I happen to have access to a few Ford service manuals and I pulled the following info from a 2011 Fusion manual. The Fusion here shows a 50A fuse feeding the fan module, but the Mazda 3 has a 40A fuse, which puts it more in line with the 240's condenser fan. Either or, this fan likely only pulls 10-15A when on full blast anyways. These fuses are usually sized large to avoid blowing open during fan start.





The Power FC doesn't have any kind of PWM signal I can use since the factory EFI harness didn't have provisions for an electronic fan. So I may end up building a small control box that takes a coolant sensor and converts that to a PWM output to drive the fan module. I may also see what off the shelf solutions exist out there

[VStar650CL]

You might want to take a look here and see if there's a true brushless that might fit in your hole. Dave Barton has done some super research on a lot of them, and just about any true brushless will outperform any equivalent brushed DC by miles. There are also some popular ones he doesn't cover but others do, like the BMW 3/5 fans:
https://www.240turbo.com/BrushlessFans.html

If you want a standalone PWM controller, my friends at Widget Man make a very nice one with a lot of options and a small form factor:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/143561612623

Full disclosure, I helped design it, so if you need tech help it's as close as a PM.

[PapaSmurf2k3]

You might want to take a look here and see if there's a true brushless that might fit in your hole.

I was thinking the same thing, but had zero suggestions haha.

Bart - good detective work on finding that shroud and fan assembly! You never know what treasure you find just poking around a junk yard.

[Hijacker]

You might want to take a look here and see if there's a true brushless that might fit in your hole. Dave Barton has done some super research on a lot of them, and just about any true brushless will outperform any equivalent brushed DC by miles. There are also some popular ones he doesn't cover but others do, like the BMW 3/5 fans:
https://www.240turbo.com/BrushlessFans.html

If you want a standalone PWM controller, my friends at Widget Man make a very nice one with a lot of options and a small form factor:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/143561612623

Full disclosure, I helped design it, so if you need tech help it's as close as a PM.

I may reach out to Dave and see what he knows. The fan motor that comes on this shroud is a Bosch GPB motor, which is a brushed unit. I've done some looking into drop in brushless units, and it looks like the Bosch FED brushless motor MIGHT be a fit, but I haven't found any dimensional specs on it yet, nor what cars it may come in. The GPB motor was discontinued by Bosch at some point in the mid-2010s and replaced with the GPG brushed motor.

Link to a screenshot of an older Bosch catalog page with the S1 style of GPB motor

Doing some research on the whole unit, it appears to be a PWM- control unit. The one that came on the shroud was busted. I hooked it up to my bench power supply and got no output from it. The cheap Amazon unit was delivered yesterday, and it's giving me output when hooked up to my bench power. I haven't had a chance to hook it up to a proper 12VDC battery to juice the motor just yet. I'll try to get out to the garage this evening to do more testing.

The Widget Man PWM standalone is perfect and saves me the hassle of having to design something myself. I was likely going to go the arduino route but for the price of the WM unit, it's kind of hard to justify doing a DIY setup.

Bart - good detective work on finding that shroud and fan assembly! You never know what treasure you find just poking around a junk yard.

Honestly, it felt like the car gods giving me a gift since I stumbled upon this thing in a Z32 when it had no right to be there. LOL