Motor Build
In August '07, I picked up a blown block, minus the head for $100. It had melted 3 pistons and required a .020" overbore to clean the bores up. After doing some research and thinking, I settled on using a piston pack manufactured by Mahle Engineering. Mahle supplies many of the world's top performance circles. F1, IRL, NASCAR, and a lot of drag racers use their products.
The side skirts are much shorter than the OE pistons and are coated in 2 low friction coatings. One covers the whole piston, giving it that dull grey look, and the other is the teflon-like coating on the side skirts.
Cosworth Engineering supplied the head gasket. 4 layered metal and it offers performance equal to that of Apex'i and Tomei.
I secured the head to the block using ARP studs and nuts, and the bottom end spins on ACL bearings. The rods use standard Nissan bearings sized according to the thicknesses listed from the factory.
Given that this block will only have to endure 350-400 rwhp, I left the rods stock. SR rods are notoriously strong and I have only seen one incident where they were bent. It was also at a power level well over what I intend to be running.
The valve cover was media blasted, hot tanked, and then powder coated by TRG Powder Coating in New Jersey.
The head was given a 3 angle valve job and had all the exhaust valve guides replaced with bronze silicon guides from Jim Wolf Technology.
The whole product was a blast to work on, and it's great to have a motor that is practically brand new in all imaginable ways.
The finished product. She runs strong and looks good sitting in the engine bay.
