400hp or bust

[Supra28]

I just subscribed to this build. Interested to see how this turns out.

I think the offset is going to look goofy with the RSX wheels haha. But who knows, the spacers might solve that problem. I have some Eibach springs if you're interested btw.

 

[TheMechanic253]

What spring rate? How much money would you want for them shipped to 98372?

 

[TheMechanic253]

Just a little update. I stripped everything out of the car. The carpet was all stinky and molding, same with rear seats. I removed the AC condenser from the dash and put the blower box back in without it. I cleaned the blower motor itself, and all of the vents for the heater system. I found old cigarettes in the vents BLEEHHHH. Well I got the dash re assembled, and the entire floor cleaned with window cleaner to remove the black mold. Smells much better inside, not to mention easier on the eyes

 

[IndigoMKII]

Get some dry ice and a dead blow hammer to remove then replace it with a newer sound deadening material.

 

[TheMechanic253]

I pulled the sound deadening out of my civic with dry ice. I'm thinking about leaving it in to, deaden the sound. Maybe in the future I'll pull it out. I guess to reach my 3000lb weight goal it'll need to come out.

What do you use for new sound deadening?

 

[IndigoMKII]

I pulled the sound deadening out of my civic with dry ice. I'm thinking about leaving it in to, deaden the sound. Maybe in the future I'll pull it out. I guess to reach my 3000lb weight goal it'll need to come out.

What do you use for new sound deadening?

Replacing the sound deadening with more sound deadening, you won't really get rid of much weight. I suggested it simply because you were already that close plus you could stitch weld the car for more rigidity.

 

[TheMechanic253]

Haha ok I see. WELL I don't have a welder at my house. I am looking into buying a small Miller MIG welder. I have used TIG but I don't really have the time to be melting holes in the car when it would have been fine to just leave it alone. This car will be driven on the street. Maybe some day I will stitch weld my R32 Skyline that I'll be purchasing.

I am looking to purchase some Eibach lowering springs from a member on this site and I was looking for those Tokiko illumina stuts, but I can't find them. My girlfriends dad lived in Japan for quiet a while and her mom is from there. Maybe he can help me out... New idea.

I still need to fabricate an exhaust when the engine is in. My cousin and I made a "custom" 3" mandrel exhaust for his turbo Civic, so I have a little experience welding. Haha I don't know why I'm even thinking about this gotta assemble the engine first. Should be getting parts back soon. The heads that I brought in have been spliced into one good one.

The first head had a cracked casting around the water jackets on cyl 2 3 4, but the valvetrain was refurbished with new cams. The second head I bought had a good casting, but the cams were bad I guess.


I have a question that I'll ask my machinist, but I wanted to see if anyone on here would chime in. The rods that were in my engine were resized during the last rebuild. I want to put ARP rod bolts in them, do I need to resize the rod ends again when I have the ARP's installed? Or does that depend on the tolerance of the oil clearance?

I put ARP rod bolts in my N/A Civic engine I built. I literally bounce that engine off of 7600 RPM every day for 27k miles and it's still running solid. I'm convinced ARP is the way to go.

I also just received a bag full of ARP Head studs from the kid I bought the car from. Thanks man, way to find them after I already purchased new ones. I plan on using the new ones I bought.

 

[TheMechanic253]

SO after a long wait, the machine shop is finally done with my engine parts. My bill came up to $1,287. This includes a complete cylinder head rebuild. I got a valve job, mill, he fixed some exhaust stud threads, and fixed the coolant tube that was broken off. My crank was polished and balanced, ARP rod bolts installed in the rods, with big ends resized and balanced. Block cleaned, (Was already honed and decked.)

He says the block is ready to drop bearings in. I can't wait to get started. Usually when I get a project going like this I dive into it and get it finished quickly. With my civic engine I went from bare block, to in car ready to fire in a few weeks.

I'm excited to get started on a more sophisticated engine.

I need to do more research about head gasket thickness because I'd like to raise static compression and quench to AT LEAST 9:1 with the milling/decking done. I would assume a stock thickness metal head gasket would get me close.


** I also ended up buying those Eibach lowering springs for 125 shipped. Beats the hell out of cut rear springs and ebay lower springs up front.

 

[TheMechanic253]

I couldn't believe it! I went to the machine shop with cash to pay my bill. I work in an auto repair shop and my boss has known the machinist since he was my age (20) I asked him if he could take $1100 cash and void the tax, he looks around for a bit and says, "give me $900!"

I had him, clean the block, pressure test 2 heads. swap parts over from one head and completely rebuild the other head. Valve job, check cam tolerances, check and set lash, and helicoil some exhaust stud threads. He also polished and balanced the crank with the flywheel bolted to it. He installed my ARP rod bolts and resized then balanced the rods. The entire rotating assembly was balanced, and its getting ready to be assembled.

So here's a few pictures of my engine right when I got it back.



The block was decked with the timing cover when the last kid built this engine, so I had him check the deck, he said it was perfect. The stains on the deck are just from the last composite head gasket.

I've been cleaning and chasing all the threads on the whole block. The main bearings had a thin milky coating from the coolant/oil that got on them. I used some wd40 and a blue shop towel to wipe it off. It was really easy to wipe off with my hands and a rag.





Head looks really nice the picture doesnt show it too well, but the surface is nearly as smooth as glass. The head is being kept in a clean plastic garbage bag in the shop.





The crank looks so nice! I can see myself in the journals.

I was extremely careful and took my time to assemble the last engine I built. Since everything is a much larger scale I am being even more cautious. I have been cleaning all the threads on the main bolts and chasing threads in the block, blowing out the oil gallies with 120psi air nozzle.

I will plastigauge the crank journals this week. I'm sure the tolerances are proper, just a good double check since I have a lot of money on the line.

ALSO I will post some pictures of my other junk cylinder head that was sent out by a machine shop as "Ready to use." It was in my tree house when I took these pictures so I didnt want to go get it hahaha.

 

[ssideways]

looks good man, ill try to keep up on your thread for pics of your turbo.

 

[TheMechanic253]

Thanks! Well here is the compressor housing. The previous owner had a 90* bend welded to the outlet, but I guess he changed his mind and cut it off? So this is what I've been left to deal with haha.



I realize now I need to take some better pictures of what I was talking about with the blades being bent and all. Im not sure what you can make out from these pictures but looking through my iPod these were the only ones I snapped of the compressor wheel. If you look at the bottom right of the picture you can sort of see what I am talking about





THIS damn bolt is proving to be a sucker to remove. I started by drilling it and using a stud removal tool at work but its not really working to well. Tried adding heat, its still stuck. Will try more on Monday.



There she is!




All the exhaust fins seem to be in good order!



69! Haahahah. Gives you sort of an idea. .60 compressor with 3" inlet, .68 hot side with 2" exhaust flange. Will need to flare to 3" somewhere in the DP.


This is the flange for my WG. Kind of confused why the fuck it doesn't line up with the hole in the manifold. Must be the wrong waste gate for the manifold? I'm not familiar with rectangular waste gate flanges. The valve seats in this hole.



Also as you can see this BRAND NEW never even opened waste gate is all rusted from sitting with coolant in it.







and growing some funky coolant crystals inside the cover.




So I took it completely apart



ICK! That won't do. I know it'll get filled with soot but Im not putting that crusty turd on my engine after the amount of time and money going into this build.



Good thing I have a sand blaster I blew everything out with 120psi of air when I was all done. I made sure not to blast the mating surfaces directly. They got cleaned though from light contact with the glass bead. Everything came out very clean I'm and much more satisfied putting thing on my manifold that what it was.






Been having loads of fun working on this stuff out in the shop. More pictures to come. I have been busy with school/work/girlfriend/family schedule. Things are hectic for sure. On a completely unrelated note, did some brazing at school today! Using the torch is pretty fun. Should have been wearing goggles I know, but the teacher never mentioned it, so ehh It's ok. Hahaha. Much easier than welding for sure. I'm happy with the way my joints turned out

 

[ssideways]

yea i had a few small bends like that and had no issues, my turbo builder was actually able to get them out for me the last it was rebuilt. as far as the wastegate flange thats normal for ebay manifolds...the quitaly just isnt there, i try to do my best to blend stuff like that out with porting tools but some cases you can only do so much. best of luck man ill try to keep up.

 

[TheMechanic253]

Thanks! I have the ability to open it up a bit. I wish the previous owner didn't build the car off of ebay and actually put some quality parts on it. Oh well can't complain too much for 1200 bucks.

After a long couple of weeks trying to finally get around to working on the engine, I got the block up on the stand yesterday and looked at the deck. To say the least, I'm not too happy with the deck. My machinist said it was fine, good to go. There are lots of weird stains from the head gasket and a few pitted areas. Im taking the block back to the machinist and getting him to deck it with the front timing cover of course.

After all this money I dont want to blow a hg from a shitty deck surface. I reminded myself to be patient and not assemble it the way it is.

I've done some reading, I was unsure, do the pistons sit at deck from factory? The block has already been resurfaced once, but I just want to try and figure out piston to deck/head. I know I can compensate with a head gasket, but pistons out of deck is scary haha.

edit: more reading about piston to deck, some people say from factory, the pistons sit .018-.020 above deck... and this block has been decked. shit.. anyone know good ways to clean the deck without removing material? Ill post pictures of the deck after school

 

[TheMechanic253]

So my machinist looked up the specs for the 7mgte in his holy grail machinist book. He said that from factory, the pistons sit .012"-.020" above deck. This block was already decked .007".

My machinist told me to install the pistons and rods and set it to TDC. Then put a straight edge across the top of the piston and use feeler gauges in-between the straight edge and deck to measure the clearance that the piston sits above deck then ad .035" and that is the minimum head gasket thickness I should run.

I snapped a few crappy pictures of the deck on my block. The previous owner let the engine sit in the car with no cylinder head, but left the HG so you can see it left spots in the shape of the HG. The deck had some surface rust on it when I bought it and just assumed that I could deck the block. There is slight pitting which is my concern. I don't want to deck the block further, and I certainly don't want to have to buy another block.

I just want some advice from fellow members to see what the best route is. I don't want to have to pull the engine out after all this for some shitty reason.

My co-worker told me that he always uses a brass wire wheel to clean the deck on an iron block with brake clean sprayed intermittently to keep the deck cool and clean. He said it does not remove any deck material, only knocks off the loose debris. So I did that and it cleaned up the deck some, but now instead of a stain left from the HG, there are all these weird spots on it.

My dad keeps insisting to assemble the engine. He's like awww it'll be fine! He's a V8 guy, and always has decked any engine he's assembled and never had one fail or blow a HG.

Well here it is.



This is actually pitting. Ever so slight pitting that my little finger nail hardly catches in.^^ Kind of discouraging really

 

[Bogwon]

I don't have much experience with rebuilding motors but I can tell you that I'd be leery of using any sort of power tools on the block's mating surface, brass or otherwise. I've heard of taking a razor and trying to hand work the gasket stains that way but again I have not experience with this part of these cars, just watch a lot of youtube videos. Seek more advice I guess is my advice!

Good looking build so far! I'm over in Bremerton myself and I know of a few folks over in the Tacoma/Fed way area with MK3s. Welcome to the Supra family!

 

[atmperformance]

a wire wheel will take off material
just get it lapped so you can run a metal headgasket

 

[IndigoMKII]

a wire wheel will take off material

I would turn the block upside down on a surface plate and try to get a .001" feeler gauge to go in anywhere between the deck and the surface plate.

Also, don't use a razor blade or anything else you think might remove ANY material.

 

[ssideways]

surface plate

that is IF you have a plate big enough or access to one and most people don't. on top of that how do you plan on getting in between bores? unless your using an indicator across the top it wont work well. I'd use a good straight edge and a feeler gauge just like the TSRM says to do. more or less the same thing as putting it on a plate but ALOT less hassle.

id also use a razor blade to clean all the bs off then hit it with a lapping plate and some good diamond compound. you dont need to go crazy with the lapping plate just enough to make it look good.


thats what id do but what does a machinist know lol

 

[ssideways]

link to what im talking about

http://www.cygnusx1.net/Supra/Library/TSRM/MK3/manual.aspx?S=EM&P=74

 

[andrew_mx83]

The surface only NEEDS to be good where the gasket seals around the bores and water jackets/oil galleries. Lay the hg over and if you have pitting in those areas then get it decked again, enough to give your desired squish/comp with a 2mm gasket.
If the surface is VERY GOOD (ie no pitting at all) in the sealing areas but lightly pitted in between then then id probably put it together, lap it if you have access to the gear. Personally i just get mine machined to a good enough finish to not require any lapping...

FWIW i have run around 0.028" piston to head clearance a number of times with no issues (in fact more squish is good)