Project 924 S engine replacement - Page 4

Dave101 · 10-14-2009, 08:27 AM

Great write-up!

HondaDustR · 10-18-2009, 08:46 PM

Finally got parts back from the shop. All looks good. I've already measured piston rings, installed them, and assembled the pistons and rods.

They did find some out of balance on the rods. The big ends were ground on 2 rods as well.

Looks like #2 was the lightest and #1 was the heaviest.

Flywheel looks great. They machined the step down the same amount as the friction surface to maintain proper pressure plate mounting dimensions.

The crank looks sweet! It's been measured, balanced and polished.

The entire bottom end has been balanced from the pressure plate to the front crank bolt (except for the oil pump of course). They also blasted and re-painted the front pulleys.

One of the big differences between the Deves rings and the OEM rings is the 4 piece oil ring. It's supposedly made of special steel that heat cures to set into the exact shape of the cylinder.

Dave101 · 10-19-2009, 05:58 AM

Looks awesome!

bazar01 · bazar01's Garage

That's a lot of expense due to the paper towel fiasco!

Good luck!

HondaDustR · 10-19-2009, 10:41 AM

Well, it's part unfortunate circumstance, part "I'm not going to have another chance at this for awhile, so..." at least for the balancing. If I had a set of flat top pistons, I would be truly satisfied, but that's not going to happen this time.

HondaDustR · 06:45 PM

More progress!

This is one good example of why taking lots of pictures is really useful. Luckily I had caught my mistake when I went to put the bearing shells into the block (even though I've been thinking about not getting it wrong for weeks), but if anything does go wrong when I get it running, I have evidence for where I might have gone wrong. I'd be going through the pictures after another catastrophic failure, get to this one and

Sweet! "Houston, we have a crank!"

I've been wanting to do this ever since I got my car but never got around to it. No wonder, since it was a PITA...and that's with it off the car!

Before

After

The pictures don't do it justice. It came out pretty nice. Machined it down with a file, then 220 grit, 400, 800, 1000, some polishing paste, then some turtle wax polishing compound. It had to be filed just right or it either took forever to remove any material, or the file tore the metal, clogged up, and the stuck chunks of aluminum put nasty scratches in the surface that also took forever to get rid of. I could have just had the machine shop shave it down for like $20, but it was a spur of the moment decision during afterhours.

Today I got lots of stuff done.

Pistons ready to go in...and those band ring compressors at the auto parts stores are a PITA to set up.

Plastigage is some cool stuff! All of the bearings measured up very nicely, although the machine shop assured me they were all good.

Virgin bearing shells look soooo clean!

HondaDustR · 07:15 PM

A few more pictures.

About halfway done with the pistons. What a nerveracking experience!

I took no chances with the cylinder walls and the crank, plus it keeps the bearing shell clean while I wrangle the *%&$ thing into the piston ring compressor. The bag was kind of tricky to fanagle out of there once it was in place, though.

Hmmm...now how the hell am I going to get assembly lube onto the rod half of the bearing after plastigaging, but without taking the piston back out? Oh wait! Just push the piston to TDC, turn the crank to TDC for that cyl, drop some on the crank, turn the crank back down (or up from this point of view), and pull the rod back down onto the crank.

All done finally!

Starting to look like a motor and less like a big hunk of metal with just about every kind of intricate machine work possible leading into all kinds of dark places.

Just about ready to go back into the car! I got the oil pump, balance shafts, and oil pan mounted. The only thing left is the flywheel, clutch, and the oil cooler. The rest will go back on once it's in the car. I love working on a clean engine, since not only does it look great, but everything else stays clean, too!

I tell you what, though...those rolls of blue shop towels suck so bad for wiping stuff down with cleaner before assembling/sealing it's not even funny. They shed pieces very easily. I should have gotten some of those kimwipes Pelican sells. It would have been so much easier! I'm pretty confident no stray bits got where they weren't supposed to, but omg it was a pain.

cvriv.charles · 10-22-2009, 08:08 PM

Awesome work dude. Very cool stuff. Good job.

krystar · 10-22-2009, 08:38 PM

oh no! u already put the oil pan back on. reinforce the oil pickup tube!!!

HondaDustR · 10-22-2009, 08:43 PM

That wasn't masking tape it was sharpie. I'm not too worried about it.

What's involved in reinforcing the oil pickup? I know they can crack, but it was out of my old motor and worked fine for years. I didn't give it much thought.

John_AZ · 10-22-2009, 09:12 PM

Awesome, fantastic, brilliant and clear photos! I'm glad you got a new camera.

GL
John_AZ

krystar · 10-22-2009, 09:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HondaDustR

That wasn't masking tape it was sharpie. I'm not too worried about it.

What's involved in reinforcing the oil pickup? I know they can crack, but it was out of my old motor and worked fine for years. I didn't give it much thought.

not much work at all. u just get a piece of flat steel and bend it 90degrees, drill a 1/2" hole or however big the girdle stud is, notch it on other end and weld it to the pickup tube.

HondaDustR · 10-23-2009, 09:32 PM

1/2"...what is that? Oh wait...inches...those things. Those are M12's! Metric FTW!

Thanks for the picture! I may do that some time down the road. I'm not really going to track the car much at all (really want to do a training Friday session at Summit point, though). I really don't want to screw around with the girdle now that it's all torqued down. I just need to get back on the road. Now that I said that, I just know it's going to totally disintegrate as soon as I drive it!

ernie9944 · ernie9944's Garage

Now I know where to go if my motor ever give on me once finish send pics of the cam-cover please.

HondaDustR · 10-25-2009, 07:58 PM

OK the car officially has a motor! There's still a bunch of stuff to put together and it still needs the cylinder head, but it's in and bolted up to the torque tube. It actually wasn't as bad as I thought mounting it without an engine hoist, just a floor jack, a piece of wood, and some help. The clutch feels nice and smooth and easy with a new pivot pin and bearings.

Oil cooler is all ready to go in. For some reason this cooler needs a lot of shims to match up to the housing. It was like that last time I replaced the seals when it was on my old motor. I couldn't find all the shims from before so I ended up using an extra plastic spacer from the old one. I'm glad I got the alignment tool, since it was a total PITA to get the housing lined up just right so the tool would pull out easily!

Shortblock is all ready to come off the stand. It still needs the RMS, flywheel, clutch, and reference sensors before it can go back in the car.

Yeah, this has been empty way too long!

How to replace the release fork bearings without destroying anything and without having to buy another tool. A 16mm socket is just the right size.

Almost there!

Finally! It was kind of interesting getting it in without a hoist, but it worked without breaking anything. Notice the correct way to plug holes with shop towels. They have to be big enough to hang out so there's no way they'll go unnoticed.

HondaDustR · 10-31-2009, 07:43 PM

I'm so close I can almost hear it running!

Got the head and cam housing bolted up. Got the steering rack back on (PITA). I should have taken pictures of the wiring harnes routing, because it was quite the brain teaser trying to piece together how and where everything originally ran. I had to use every trick in the book to figure it out, but I'm pretty sure it's right now.

Unless it's pouring rain tomorrow, I'll have all day to try to finish it. It's possible it will be running before the day's out, but I don't want to get my hopes up yet. It still needs the water pump, cam and balance belts, radiator, exhaust system, intake and fuel injectors, transaxle, new fuel line above the transaxle (rust could slow things here), sway bar, and probably a few more odds and ends.

Notice the correct way to plug holes so nothing falls in. I opted for the horrible flashbacks rather than risk some crap falling into my brand new rebuild.

It was raining later today, so hence the water all over everything up front (no garage

). The cam housing looks pretty good polished up.

krystar · 10-31-2009, 07:52 PM

hit up that logo with some master's metal polish. it'll be a mirror hehe

cvriv.charles · 10-31-2009, 09:07 PM

Thats alot of paper towels

HondaDustR · 10-31-2009, 09:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cvriv.charles

Thats alot of paper towels

LOL. Spark plug holes and oil drains. Those will serve other purposes in time. As most wrenches know, there's sort of a paper towel grading system from new (suitable for engine internals) to oil swabs for wiping out the drain pan. They work down the line as the project goes on. I have a whole bag of them from assembling the bottom end. It's like half a roll to use for the more mundane, less dirt sensitive parts of the project.

I will run over the logo one more time with some polishing compound and then hit it with some urethane liquid glass so it doesn't corrode. It's hard to get a good picture, but it's pretty shiny already.

krystar · 11-01-2009, 06:12 AM

so do u have a preflight checklist item and subitems for removing paper towels this time?