tim_s

[tim_s]

Thanks! Car needs some TLC after the ring trip, I've nailed a rear wheel bearing and got a tap from the inlet side. Arg! Think I need a new inlet cam carrier Needs to lose some weight and perhaps some lighter wheels, but it's quite a clean example and I use it on the road a lot. There was a 325 on coilovers out there which was impressive on the twisties, a lot of that was driver though I think. The koni/eibach arbs setup I have proved stiffer and to give more corner speed than bilstein/hnr (went with a few 318is cars), but seemed to be more of a handful in the wet.

[Asserti]

wow! Very nice car and very clean engine bay, I like a lot!

Which Koni/eibach gave the higher cornering speed and my next question is probably a bit noobish, what is arbs?

Last question, what did you do to get your 180bhp that you're having now?

Thank you very much, next time you go to the NS, let me know

[tim_s]

sorry missed this reply! ARBs = anti roll bars, i think guys in the states call them 'sway bars'.
Engine had 2.1 bottom end, cams, flowed head, management etc. Got some new and exciting bits coming soon so should make a bit more power
Hopefully next NS trip will be in october, if the car's ready

[tim_s]

So, major update!
The noise that started happening at the Nordschlieffe turned out to be the bottom end again. So at first I looked into having the pistons reamed to fit a larger pin to resolve the issue, that or different rods, but after pricing it all up and after receiving a reasonable offer on my old engine, I decided to instead go for a new engine re-using my old crank and shells, which actually theoretically wouldn't cost much more. So engine mk2 project!

New forged pistons:



Custom MLS HG, total seal rings, ARP rod bolts etc



Old engine out:


Crank ready for complete bottom end zero balancing by one of the top specialists (I had the whole bottom end and rotating assembly zero balanced inc the new pistons which actually needed some balancing - done by tapering the pins, the crank and rods were pretty good, fly quite bad after the skimming - to be expected)



New 6kg f/w:


Parts ready for re-assembly!


Engine being built! I was pretty worried about breaking rings fitting them to the block as they came from the States and I'm in the UK, so getting a replacement would be a pain, plus I'd had them all gapped and matched up to each cyl, so had to be really cautious!:








bought an upper sump to replace my original because the threads for the lower sump are shot, but after an hour's cleaning it was still nowhere near as clean as mine, so I kept the original, added studs locktited into the sump.

sump i bought (after some cleaning!!!):


my original sump


studs:


engine in (on new e34 mounts)!


After a few teething probs (snapped bolt at oil filter head to inner timing cover gasket), exhaust manifold leak (forgot to do up a stud), leaky thermo housing (replaced by new part from dealer), air leak from injector seals), I'm now running in the engine. The car was off the road for 3 weekends in total, one wknd removing engine and waiting for the balancing to be done (crank had to be removed from old engine), one weekend of fitting engine, one wknd of finishing touches and test runs. I've done around 200 miles so far on it, needs an MOT (yearly test of roadworthiness) shortly but a bit worried about the emissions as the rings really haven't bedded in properly! I've just sold my catcam inlet cam to replace it with a slightly more tame one, the old one didn't give an acceptable idle, so am on a standard inlet cam for the moment until the replacement is delivered. Should be here in a few weeks, then mapping to complete! Still hoping to make the 'ring in october, but may have to be sensible and not drive on the ring itself but protect new engine! Apparently need to run on mineral oil for the first 3k miles. I've got to drive the car as much as possible and iron out all teething issues!!!

[dude8383]

Very nice build up...pretty quick too! Wish I could have completed my swap in 3 weeks! I'm almost at 9 months for my build!

What break-in procedure are you following?

[nickmpower]

hey tim what did you gap the pistons to? they are JE right? also which way is the non symetrical ring supposed to face? I still havent been able to figure out what is wrong with the engine i built up. your pistons seem to be much differently designed then mine. mine have extreme back cut in the ring area.

[tim_s]

Well, funny you should say that, dude! Firstly, I guess I should mention that the parts took around a month to be made and shipped, and the boring/honing, flywheel lightening etc and all part ordering was done in advance. and I re-used my crank, had a perfect flowed cyl head with larger throats etc that i was re-using, same for management etc.
Plan originally was to do all fitting in a weekend, I've done this before! I knew fairly early that this wouldn't work because of the balancing. There was one local guy who was prepared to balance it on a Saturday, but I have my reservations about him (after he pressed a wheel bearing in the wrong way around for a friend, then charged him to press the replacement audi part (which cost $100!) in to the car, despite costing him all that time and money by doing it wrong in the first place!)! So I decided to extend it to two weeks, one wknd to pull the engine, balancing to be done in the week, then engine fitted in the following wknd. That would have worked ok, the engine was pretty much ready to roll at the end of wknd 2, but it had a massive leak from the oil filter head, a seep from the thermo housing, and was untested at 9pm on the sunday, so I thought I'd be well advised to spend another weekend finishing up!
While the BM was off the road, I borrowed this (I took these pics for the friend whom I borrowed the car from):


Polo GT, 800kg and 75bhp, went surprisingly well and was a lot of fun! Reminded me of my mk1 golf, only better put together and slower! Still v impressive for 75bhp!

As for the running in, this is a really pertinent issue at the moment! Many people suggest on the total seal rings to do light load full rpm runs, but I don't quite have the balls. I've been doing light load, varied rpms (hard work on the motorway - I've been doing 70-90mph accelerations, then backing down to 70 and back up again, varying between using 4th and 5th gear!). The rings don't appear to have bedded in that well yet tbh, I've heard of people needing to give the car a good thrash before they seal, so may do the full rpm runs soon. There's so many different strategies, I'm open to comments and criticism!

[tim_s]

hey tim what did you gap the pistons to? they are JE right? also which way is the non symetrical ring supposed to face? I still havent been able to figure out what is wrong with the engine i built up. your pistons seem to be much differently designed then mine. mine have extreme back cut in the ring area.

Pistons are gapped to 0.030" iirc, I went for the tighter end of the scale on the recommendation of my engine builder. He uses these pistons a lot for motorcycle engines he builds. He does a lot of custom engine work and race prep, so simply took his advice. Each cyl was bored individually to a particular piston + gap rather than fixed bore (although tolerances on the pistons were very good, was surprised the balance wasn't perfect though!). Rings I was petrified of fitting myself due to the risk of having to get another shipped over from the US if I broke one, so I let the chap who balanced the engine fit them. I just left the instructions with him and he did the rest! What's wrong with your engine? Any pics of your pistons?

[tim_s]

man down! cyl 4 is oily So when building the engine, one of the rings on cyl 4 was 'hanging' against the top of the block. We pulled the piston, examined it, reset it in the ring compressor and refitted, but looks like a ring must have got bent or damaged. Getting some oil usage (mainly on idle/in traffic) and the spark plug is fouled. Good news is that cyls 1-3 are giving a nice even 210psi across the board (warm) and the sparks look good (other than on cyl 4!), but new rings are on order for cyl 4 and partial rebuild planned for next weekend
So, who knows the easiest way to get to rod number 4? can i undo and pull the upper sump forward just using a trolley jack on the engine mount to gain a little height? Any other ideas?
Cheers
Tim

[dude8383]

I've never been a fan of doing partial rebuilds with the motor still in the car.

I bet you could pull that thing out and have on an engine stand is no time. Sam and I pulled my motor in 1hr 45min! It will probably take that much time to get in there alone.

man down! cyl 4 is oily So when building the engine, one of the rings on cyl 4 was 'hanging' against the top of the block. We pulled the piston, examined it, reset it in the ring compressor and refitted, but looks like a ring must have got bent or damaged. Getting some oil usage (mainly on idle/in traffic) and the spark plug is fouled. Good news is that cyls 1-3 are giving a nice even 210psi across the board (warm) and the sparks look good (other than on cyl 4!), but new rings are on order for cyl 4 and partial rebuild planned for next weekend
So, who knows the easiest way to get to rod number 4? can i undo and pull the upper sump forward just using a trolley jack on the engine mount to gain a little height? Any other ideas?
Cheers
Tim

[tim_s]

yeah i see where you're coming from, and normally I'd pull the engine, but in this case it seems a bit of a waste of time as I only need to remove the cyl head and pop one rod out. If I pull the engine, I still have to pull the head and the sump, so if i can get the sump out of the way of rod 4 to remove it, I'd save maybe 4 hours work (removal and refitting of engine), as I'd just have to remove cyl head, remove sump, pull piston, refit, rather than remove engine, remove cyl head, remove sump etc. I'm hoping this job will be a fairly easy day's work, but have a weekend sat aside for the job (as long as the rings turn up before next wknd!)

[dude8383]

haha i hate waiting on parts that will allow me to continue my build. it happens EVERY freakin week!!

[tim_s]

Fixed, I think! Oil control ring rails had excessive end gap on cyl 4. Not sure why, they must have been mismanufactured! 1-3 all had a gap of circa 35 thou (instructions specify a min of 15 thou, I'm informed that 20-40 thou is typical though), cyl 4 had an end gap of somewhere around 80 thou (it was so huge i gave up measuring). Sadly when gapped only a couple of the oil control ring rails were checked, the gap was plenty, so this manufacturing defect slipped through! Am quite glad it wasn't my fault misfitting the rings though. Done 200 miles so far, was oily for the first 20 miles or so, seems to be fine now though. will pull plugs later to confirm! Sadly seem to have got a ticking noise from somewhere after the rebuilt though, am sure that will get resolved soon.

[tim_s]

It's been a while since I've updated, so thought I'd do a brief catch-up. I've been mainly working on my bro's euro e36 m3 evo of late and leaving the IS alone. Nonetheless after getting the engine more or less run in, I took her onto the rollers for some mapping. The car made really good power, I was really happy, that's 94hp/l without wild cams, ITBs, VVT, a really strong torque curve and a broad power band. Happy days!



There's def plenty more power in there with some tweaks, but I'm in no rush to do any further engine mods at the mo, although later I may. I'm making comparable figures to standard 2.3 S14s on these rollers, the better ones show around the same torque but a bit more power at the top which I believe my engine could achieve with a better inlet.

I still have a rubbish idle, the engine is noisy (suspected chain - will change this wknd probably), uses a bit of oil (I spose this is acceptable given loosish piston-bore clearance) and a leak from timing chain tensioner despite new bolt and washer, otherwise everything seems pretty good. It looks like replacing the intake boot for an 89-76mm pipe might push me over the 200bhp mark, I don't have the inclination to do so though!

A bit o/t, here's a old dirty pic of the car to liven up the post!

[n2motorsports]

nice work, im feeling very inspired to crack open my toolbox (it's been dormant of late).  thanks for the motivation!!!