My engine rebuild

[bimeur]

too flashy :/

IMO, grey's the best colour for an engine

[s13drifter88]

i definitely like it better than ford blue. 2 of my friends painted their engines that color. i did mine in the usual black and then redid the valve covers and timing covers in their OE colors just to give the engine more of a new OE appearance rather than anything flashy or standing out.

On another note the dishwasher and Cascade works wonders for cleaning things like my throttle body and upper/lower intake manifolds lol. just set on heavy/pots and pans a let it go. everything comes out so clean and new looking

[float_6969]

New pics! Build should go a little quicker now than it has been going.

Here is the bottom end mostly assembled


Front of the engine


This is a close up of the Hall Sensor bracket I built for my standalone


The next two show the amount of dome on the pistons I'm using. If you don't know, the stock pistons are flat



And my ARP rod bolts. I took these down to have them checked for roundness after I installed them, but they said that they hadn't deformed at all and were fine. I would assume from the number of other ppl that have used these without having them checked for roundness that haven't had problems, that there isn't an issue with running them and not having them checked.


PROPERLY installed oil galley plugs, LOL

[dhen]

Looks good and keep them coming. I painted my engine the same color, but for a different reason. The original engine in my car was that color.

How long until you can start it up?

[float_6969]

Thanks! I still have a lot of head work to do, but the plan is to be back up and running by October.

[blownhemi]

You've said in another thread, that you've measured 190 psi compression pressure on this 40k miles engine before teardown. Do you have stock CR pistons? (How do you check your compression? At NOT, just like the FSM says? I'm kind of worried that by the time I remove the cover and the coils, and attach the tester, the pistons cool down and contract too much to give a meaningful measurement.)

Also, did you get a chance to measure the cylinder bore for taper/barrel? I'm very curious what CPs do to the cylinder wall in 40,000 miles.

[float_6969]

NOT stock compression. Note the picture measuring the dome on the pistons. I'm pretty sure the compression is about 10:1. Back when I had the motor built originally, I had, what I THOUGHT, was a stock piston out of a pulsar, sent to CP and had the dome copied. Somehow the info I had about the pulsar was wrong, or the piston I got wasn't what I thought it was, but regardless, I was aiming for 9.5:1 and ended up with 10:1.

I do check compression exactly as laid out in the FSM, but don't be too worried about it cooling off and messing up your results. It'll be close enough.

I didn't measure it personally, but the machine shop said all they had to do to the block was give the cylinders a light hone, so I'm assuming it wasn't too far out on taper/barrel.

[float_6969]

12/2/11: UPDATE! This is going more slowly than I wanted, but it's my own fault, LOL! Anyway, the head is basically done. I port matched it to the gasket, polished the intake and exhaust ports, and had a valve job done. I know the guy that did the valve job done and he did some extra things for me that I hadn't asked for. He did a 4 angle on the exhaust side and back-cut the valves. On the intake side he did a radius cut and back-cut the valve as well. I'm pretty excited to see how it acts once it's together.

I know you guys just want pics, but I have to make some comments about the stock head. There is A LOT of room for improvement on the stock head. The main place being where the valve seat is cut into the head. I didn't take any before pictures, but NONE of the valve seats lined up to the bowl of the valve very well. They all had a BIG ledge there. I would guess that on the exhaust side, it obstructed as much as 10-15% of the area of the port at the valve seat. Also, the surface roughness of the ports is normal for a sand cast head, but there is a big area where 2 parts of the head casting were seamed together and there is a lot of extra material there that can obviously obstruct flow.

I would say that I had about 10hrs of work port matching and polishing the head. The UK guys say that this is worth a 10-15% gain in horsepower.

OK, enough of my babbling, on to the good stuff...

[tommey]

Looking good, but it also looks like you have lapped the valves after it has been machined.
I just want to know why?

[float_6969]

I didn't do that. I also noticed that the valves looked like they had been lapped as well. IDK why they did that, but maybe it had to do with back-cutting the valves?

[tommey]

No, i cant imagine thats the reason.
The only logical reason i can think of is that the person who machined it didnt get the valves to seal properly and had to "emergency" fix it with lapping.

I cant see any other reason really.

Are you going to use the stock 4 port inlet manifold?,i guess the 8 port manifold does not fit the 4 port?

[float_6969]

I called and asked the guy that did the work. He's a family friend and VERY reputable (he's built a lot of the heads and engines for National winning SCCA racers). He said that he laps the valves as a way to double check his work. He said that lapping valves removes so little material that it's more like polishing that anything else.

Are you talking about the upper part with the plenum, or the lower part with the injectors?

[tommey]

Ok, guess its all good then!

I dont know if the upper part is the same?
The lover part does not fit i belive.
8 port is rare here in europe.

[bimeur]

Ok, guess its all good then!

I dont know if the upper part is the same?
The lover part does not fit i belive.
8 port is rare here in europe.

It cannot fit

[float_6969]

Yea, the uppper part is the same, regardless of the head, but the lower part is different between the two, including the fuel rail.

[bimeur]

yep, distance between injectors is different.

[float_6969]

12/25/11: Alright, I've got the head bolted on, the turbo manifold, wastegate, turbo, lower intake manifold, thermal gasket, and upper manifold all bolted on. I also got some new injectors to put in, and my brother in law gave me a bunch of Nissan oil filters he had laying around from when he had an S14.

Still have a bunch of little stuff to do, but it's almost there!

Pics of engine with head on from intake side, no intake manifold on yet;


Here is a pic showing the port and polish work I did to the sub-manifold. If I'm honest, this thing is kinda poorly cast. The opening to the upper manifold is considerably smaller than the gasket, and then it immediately chokes down even further once you get in a few mm. I had to remove A LOT of material from this to get it to gasket match. The 8 port manifold was WAY better than this.


Sub-manifold installed with pictures showing Gizzmo Phenolic Intake Gasket. I'm a big fan of this mod. They don't cost much, and it block so much heat from getting to the upper plenum it's amazing. Before installing this, I once burned my arm on the intake after running the engine hard on the highway, and then pulling off and I leaned on the intake to fix a hose that came loose. After installing this, it didn't matter how hard I ran the motor, the upper plenum NEVER got more than warm. Good stuff.


Here are some pics showing the HKS T04E turbo kit. I changed the turbine housing from the .48 A/R single scroll housing, 2.5" 4 bolt outlet that came with the kit, to a .58 A/R twin scroll housing, 3" v-band outlet. I'm expecting this to help it spool a little quicker, give a little better transient response, and help it keep breathing in the top end.


My new Deatsch Werks drop in 1200cc injectors;



And my new Nissan oil filters;

[bimeur]

Where did you get this cast iron top mount mani' ?

Never seen this before, i thought you used a SS one......

[float_6969]

I got it from the Magical Land of Japan. It's an OLD HKS turbo kit. Divided, T4 flanged manifold, external wastegate. Came with a T4 turbo. Compressor is a T04E 57 trim, I don't remember the A/R off the top of my head, Turbine side is an O-trim T4, that came with a single scroll .48 A/R turbine housing, but I changed it to a .58 A/R twin scroll housing.

[float_6969]

IT'S ALIVE!!! I got the exhaust done yesterday. Today I adjusted the fuel pressure, installed Innovate wideband, set ignition timing, did a rough tune, and took it for a drive! Holy crap, this thing is gonna be rediculous. I don't have the wastegate line hooked up yet, so the standalone was cutting out at the 15psi boost cut. But it was hitting that at about 4K rpm, and even then it was breaking the tires loose in 1st and 2nd. Seat-of-the-pants says it's making around 200whp by that point. The AFR's were all over the place, and the ignition timing is very conservative right now. I also have some ghetto rigged intercooler piping right now, and the air-water intercooler doesn't have any water in it yet, so it was basically non-intercooled. I still have a lot of piddly things to do, but I'll have some vids up as soon as it's running well.

[tommey]

Whats a realistic power goal with this turbo setup?
I remember seeing maybe one or two of this HKS manifold on ebay, its really rare.
The Nismo (or maybe it was HKS) ITB`s for CA18 would make a nice combo with that HKS turbo kit

I think you might need to get your suspension looked at if your tires are breaking loose at 200 whp

[float_6969]

I'm hoping to hit 400whp.

They are pretty rare setups. The manifold casting isn't awesome by today's standards, but I think later on down the road I'll have it extrude honed. Couple that with a turbo with modern technology (the turbo I'm using is mid-90's tech at best), and it should be very effective.

They were HKS ITB's, but they're even harder to find than the manifold! I've been looking for years, but never found them when I had the money.

LOL, I wasn't sideways or anything, but they slipped a little. It has more to do with the tires. They're old snow tires I had lying around that I threw on there just so it would roll around. The suspension is pretty well sorted out (NISMO S-tune struts with RSR Race springs and all poly bushings). I still want anti-sway bars and STB's, but after that, it'll be as done as I'm going to want it.

[tommey]

The itb`s isnt hard to make yourself if you really want them. just take them from a rb26
Precision makes some nice turbos with t4 housings.
Are you running e85?

[float_6969]

I've got plans for ITB's actually. The RB's were smaller than I wanted. I've already got a set of GSX-R 1300 ITB's I bought for later on down the road. The plenum is the hard part really.

Yea, I'm thinking either Precision, or Turbonetics. I really like the GT-K series from them. But the new Borg Warner EFR turbo's look awesome as well. This won't be for a couple of years though, so I'll get serious about it when the time comes.

Yea, I'm on E85. Have been for years. I love it.

[tommey]

I really want the BW units to outperform the Precision 62/65mm units, wich seems to be the best choise for me right now.
But i havent seen any good dyno charts or results with them yet

[float_6969]

It's because they're REALLY hard to get a hold of right now. I guess demand is higher than what BW can supply them. My friend that owns a local tuner shop has been waiting for the one that he put a deposit on for like 4 months now.

[boost_boy]

I've been checking out your rebuild and I'm loving it . I think you will achieve your 400whp goal with a little room to spare and still truly enjoy the car without it being too unpedictable. Our cars with 600+whp is very unpredictable and I can't afford to do any damage, let alone take a chance at hurting myself (been there and don't want to do it again). Hurry up and get that thing up and running .

[float_6969]

Thanks Dee, means a lot coming from you!

[cbh148]

Good to see you got it running. Looks like January 6th was a good day for both our engines. Get that piddly stuff out of the way and get to driving it. And change that oil!

[boost_boy]

Mad respect "Brother"........