Second Motor Pull This Year, now N/A build time

[z32loverboy]

Well, update time, the supposed date that my pistons will be made and shipped out is 12/10.. supposedly. We'll see. Been trying to get the 97 s10 farm truck running again in the mean time. Dad ran it hot and blew the crap out of the head gaskets so I've finally got those replaced and now have a wiring issue on that one.. Grounds are good but power isn't getting all the way through from the battery to the interior, completely lost on it right now but it's really just to kill time.

[z32loverboy]

I GOT PARTS WOO! ha I'm too stoked about this. This is everything but my pistons. So, Valves, gasket kit, ARP head/main studs, bearings, solid motor mounts, idler studs, ECT... It's a 28 part, parts list. Kinda long but you get the gist. Good stuff. my pistons will ship out on 12/10. So that's all i'm waiting for at the moment.

[Fearspect]

I ask this because I'm about to pull the motor to install a number of parts:

Did you find out what went wrong in your first pull to cause this problem, or was it just the engine's time to die? I want to check things out and make sure its good to go while its out, but I'm not doing a rebuild on this pull (engine is relatively health).

[z32loverboy]

I didn't know until I pulled my motor apart. I thought it was 100% until it started knocking. The only explanation I have for it is that oil contaminants got in my rings. I still haven't figured out where the metal shavings came from. I my timing idler pullies were about to fail as well so, either way it was going to fail. I would say do as many engine health checks as you possibly can to double/triple check on it.

[z32loverboy]

Another update, Block has to be line honed from where it blew bearings, the crank line is out of tolerance. Has to be sent out to another shop in nashville to get that done, should have the block back next week. Pistons will be here in the next 6-10 days and then it's assembly time!

[z32loverboy]

Well, more exciting stuff getting done. Here's my valve work, I went with 1mm oversized ferrera valves:

Getting them bored out!


Clean and shiney!


Starting to install!

[z32loverboy]

Pistons came in! They're lookin sexy.



Valves are being seated now!



Heads getting ported!

[z32loverboy]

Well, sorry for the lack of updates for those who're keeping up with it. My girlfriend moved to new mexico so my time was taken with her and immediately after that was the holidays which I spent out of town so not much happened until the first of the year. I got my motor back finally and I had my machinist assemble it from the oil pan to the heads and time the motor since I was out of town and it was ready. I still have to paint the valve covers and then assemble the motor the rest of the way, but all the hard stuff is done with so far. I'm just waiting for some kind of a warm day coming up to install my engine in the car, the past few days have been single digit degree days with -10 to -15 degree wind chill and I'm not that determined to install a engine in that as I don't have a proper shop to work in. I'll have pics of progress as it comes but I'm definitely excited to get this going!

[zcar93na]

I hear ya man, I'm 10 miles south of the Tennessee line and it's been horrible down here.

[z32loverboy]

Yeah it's lame stuff I can't get anything done. I got my motor in my garage but it's not heated so it doesn't help much. I can't fit my car in the garage either so it's basically useless.

[z32loverboy]

Moar updates! Got the motor put together and installed in the car and shes sitting pretty right now. Apparently the guy I bought my spare block from lied to me and it's a j30 block which has a brass plug in the oil dipstick hole on the drivers side and the dipstick on a j30 goes on the front passengers side. So 4 hours later with a mallet and a punch I got the plug out and installed a new plug in the passengers side. In the process I accidentally broke the casting off the intake which holds the drivers side PCV valve in so I had to swap intakes from my third spare motor. Apparently the EGR tube on the passenger side is different from the 90-92 and the 93+ intakes so those had to be switched out. Good thing is it was around 50 degrees today during the day so it wasn't bad working outside as I'm doing all this in my driveway uncovered and unheated. All I have left to do is: transmission, driveshaft, exhaust, radiator and hoses, power steering, A/C, intake, wiring harness and shifter linkage! I'll have pics to post up later on once I get it does as that's consuming all of my time as well as mom having back surgery in two days. Once I get finished I will post up a 100% complete parts list as well as pics and full write up on breaking in my motor using the instructions that Z1 told me over the phone. It's getting close and I'm as giddy as a schoolgirl about getting this beast going.

[z32loverboy]

Alright, time for the last set of updates to this until I get more go fast parts. The motor is in the car running fairly well and pretty much broke in now. The break in was 15w-40 oil for the first 15 minutes of idle and then oil change to 10w-30. after the oil change I went through 5 heat cycles while driving it at about 40 - 50% throttle. Then I went through about 5 gallons of oil because the oil filter tree refused to seal to the block. I broke the ears off of 5 oil filter trees trying to get it to work. I finally switched to a smaller oil filter and run a mechanical oil pressure gauge to the oil passage plug in the block next to the oil filter. Kind of a rig but whatever, it works. Then I've been driving it pretty much every day about 60-75% throttle after it's warmed up completely 40-50% throttle until it warms up. She's at about 430 miles on the motor and I'll do that until she hits about 700 miles. After that I'll consider it completely broken in and drive her however the mood hits me.

The few problems I do have left are I'm getting a code 34 but I believe that's because I have the plugs switched in my wiring harness. It's hard to tell the difference with this wiring harness (Wiring specialties harness).

IACV and TPS isn't set 100% correct just yet, I have a little more tweaking to do before I get it set all the way. Had to open it up quite a bit since she's bored over and some fairly serious valve work has been done.

My transmission could use a little fluid in it, but I can't get the fill plug open to save my life. I broke my breaker bar trying to get it open. Kinda at a loss on how to get that fixed, I'll figure it out eventually.

That's all that's left before she's 100% reliable and done... for now. I had the mechanist set my rings wide enough to run no2 without blowing up my rings and also tight enough to stop blow by. It's ready to hold about a 125 shot reliably without any issues. I plan on that once I get my ECU tune and tune selector bank. I'll have my normal driving tune as well as the no2 race tune. Thought before I go for more power the plan is: Coilovers, wheels & tires, bigger brakes, clutch and pressure plate, driveshaft, electric fans, EGR delete, new exhaust and new cats.

[ZL8NING]

Congratulations! Nicely done. You still owe us the pictures though!