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Long Overdue Obligatory Post Part 1: The engine

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Whoops, been distracted with a variety of life events and hadn't given a thought to updating this. Since there's a decent amount to cover, figure I'll break this up into a couple different sections.

When we last left off, I had found damage to the heads and the flywheel was in need of replacing and I still needed to open up the bottom end.

Super brief list of changes for people who don't want to read.

Parts List:
Kings Bimetal bearings
Rob Beck 13T turbos
Evo 560s
Pampena Front Mount
Forged Crank
Comp Clutch Lightweight Flywheel (14lb version)
Clutchmasters Clutch






Yup, bearings were shot for the mains. Rod bearings were looking none to good either, so they needed to go. Around this time I took a trip up to NY to visit family and friends and went by Pampena's, or Mecca as it might as well be called for a 3/S owner, to sell him my old tranny with new transfer case. Dave happened to have a FMIC kit coming off of a car for the same cost I just got from the tranny, so I picked it up. It was powder coated silver vein. Didn't care for the color, but I'll get to that later.

During the tear down, I discovered that my front turbo appeared to be trashed so it was time for a turbo upgrade. Decided to have them turned into 13Ts by Rob Beck. The power is about as much as I am comfortable throwing at the motor without forged pistons or rods (which were out of my budget now that I needed new turbos), and the ability to easily and cheaply replace it if one blows is invaluable for a perpetually broke college student. Should be enough power to suit me anyhow. I do wish that I hadn't needed new turbos though as my plan had been to get Pampena pistons and shotpeen the rods for now and upgrade turbos later, but that's alright. I'll just buy another block down the road and build it on the side.

I ended up picking up a new set of heads and cams with a free engine block from someone out by Nashville. Sold the block and my old heads to basically pay for the new heads, and had enough left over to pick up a set of 3G lifters. Decided to replace the crank while I was in there as well with a forged unit which I picked up for a very good price. Additionally, I decided to go the distance and pull the pistons out and have the block honed and the rods and pistons checked out to make sure it was all good plus get the block cleaned out of any potential debris. While this added substantially to the cost of this rebuild, I decided I'd rather do it now and be sure it's all good rather than just throw new bearings in and take my chances. The good news from the machinist was that the rods all came back as being in good shape, the cylinders were all in round and just needed to be honed for new rings (although compression was a cold 150 across all 6 cylinder before tear down) and the motor was fully washed out.

While the motor was being worked on, I took advantage of that time to do a few other things for the car (which will be in a different post) including repainting the engine bay, painting and mounting a 2g 3k rear end conversion, painting some inner plastics and stripping and powder coating some engine components. I picked up an Eastwood Dual Voltage PC Gun, and some powders for about 250ish total, and a pair of ovens off of craigslist for 30 bucks. Since my front mount pipes weren't aluminum, decided to use electrolysis to get the old powder coat off. It's basically a set it and forget it method of prep, which left me more time to do other projects:




Using a large plastic garbage can and some baking soda, plus some old scrap metal, cost was around 30 bucks. The old powder coat would literally just come off in giant flakes, much less labor intensive than trying to get it off most other ways. I can answer whatever questions you may have about it, but a brief google search will tell you what you need to know. Don't ever try to electrolyze aluminum, it will literally dissolve.

Upon the return of the block and parts, I sprayed the block with a cast aluminum paint and cleared it. I liked the idea of a bright color that makes spotting oil leakage on the front much easier.


I ended up going with Kings bi-metal bearings over Clevite as I picked up a brand new set for about half price, and it should do for now until I build a forged short block down the road.



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