BLOCK

The engine bay is now in the process of being stripped so I can work out where the turbo and associated bits will fit in the engine bay and then fabricate the manifold out of steam pipe bends.

The engine bay looks like this after one day of stripping and labelling parts and wiring connections.

Further to this we then started stripping down the block and checking the bits and piece's along the way. The engine was prety tired and needed a rebore but other than the already known crank snout issue there was nothing else that arose out of this that needed repair work. We took alot of time taking photo's and making notes as what was supposed to have been a couple of months had by this time drawn out to about 6 months.
In reassembling those notes and pictures were invaluable.

For this part of the work I decided on getting an engine crane to make matters easier and really a necessity and also bought a parts washer from super cheap which were relatively inexpensive. You really need these items to consider doing this yourself. I also had my father on hand who is an engineer/mechanic.

WASH BATH:

ENGINE OUT ON THE CRANE:

ON THE BENCH:

BOTTOM END (A BIT DIRTY):

NO PISTONS OR CONRODS:

With the block stripped down I then tracked down some ACL pistons. These came in a Mahle box..?? However have ACL stamped on them. These were the 2nd to last set of .5 over pistons.
The block was then sent to the machine shop for a rebore and hone. Later on we agreed to oring the block too for sealing so the grooves were cut also.

NEW PISTONS:

CLEAN BLOCK FOR ASSEMBLY (ORING GROOVES):

The standard rods were re-used with the following work being done. Polished, aligned, balanced, shotpeened, and resized for reliability.

CONRODS READY TO GO, PISTONS FITTED:

The crank was metal sprayed and then ground back to size on the snout. All of the reciprocating assembly was balanced and was interestingly not far off.

CRANK IN AND MAINS ON:

The rods and pistons then went in with Kings bearings on the main and big ends. The oil pickup and sump then went on along with the seals front and rear.

SHORTBLOCK ASSEMBLED:

The new Exedy Sportstuff 4 puk brass button clutch went on followed by the gearbox.

We then fitted the orings.
The grooves were cut in a figure 8 around the cylinders as otherwise there would be issues sealing with the distance between 1&2 and 3&4. The oring is just copper wire which we tapped in with the handle of the hammer and then trimmed and filed to get a good fit.

HEAD GASKET AND ORING WIRE:

ORINGS BEING INSTALLED:

At this point we put the graphite gasket and head on and set the timing etc. I had run out of space on my memory card and at 2 am was unwilling to stop and transfer the images onto my laptop.

THe engine was then placed in the car. We cranked it over with no spark and it seemed to get good oil pressure with the 30 weight single grade oil that was recommended for running in.
We then started it up for the first time n/a despite having the plugs in the wrong order it fired up then died we switched these over and got it going enough to warm it up to check for any leaks and shut it down.

I then took it the next day after double checking everything for a run around the block a couple of times and everything seems in order. Now to rack up my 500 kays to run it in.