The white-mess, my EM1 Si with a d16y8.

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Got her up on 4x jackstands. I learned my lesson, and this time it's up high enough to ensure I could drop the engine out through the bottom if needed. Drained the oil. Drained the coolant. Both looked like they were 100% what they should have been.

Maybe later tonight I'll take the downpipe off and pull the oil pan.
 
Well, it looks like the oil pickup bearing shifted, and that's causing my issue.

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What?!?

You mean there's not a bearing supposed to be in there?

Oh dear.

This is not good. This is not good at all. This oil pickup was picking up no oil at all. (B might pick up on that one... lol.)
 
That is a bummer for sure. This is why I keep telling myself to wait on boosting my d16 until I can build a motor to handle it. Thank you for keeping up on a great thread and thank you for helping me to hopefully avoid a similar situation.
 
oil pickup bearing shifted... i see what you did there.

so now what is the plan? try and limp it back together or going scrap yard motor? or building something?
 
Eh, it's the bearing in #2. I checked it with the windage tray on, and it moves about 1/16 of an inch. I haven't done much more to it, I'm gonna throw the oil pan back on it and get back to it when I get time again. I'm seriously considering just cleaning the oil pickup, replacing the oil filter, dropping new rod bearings in, and then letting it run.

Of course, I'm looking at engines on facebook marketplace, and I will be picking up a couple to build up right. Going to go with no-notch rods, vitara pistons, and then basically the same rest of the setup. I figure I'll spend about $500 on a new shortblock and the parts to build it up.

The goal here isn't to make massive power, but to have a fun cheap sleeper car to surprise people with.


So I guess scrapyard motor, new pistons+rods, replacing the bearings, oil pump, and new gaskets. So halfway built? No head work, since the y8 head will flow more than enough for 250hp, and I shouldn't have issues with flow until closer to 350. I may also go to bigger injectors and move to e85 since there's a new station close to me.
 
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So... Think I can reuse this crank?
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I dunno, I may try it... Just to see what happens. None of them spun, they're just pretty worn.

Here's piston #2's rod bearing, or what's left of it:
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The rest of the rods aren't moving in relation to the crank, so that's good. I think I'll just replace the crank bearings and piston #2's rod bearing and call it good for this block. I may try the Brillo Pad trick to clean the crank surface, and see if it'll survive.

The goal is to pick up a block, probably a d16y7, and put in some speed factory no-notch rods, 75mm Vitara pistons, and proper bearings. Then just pull the head on the second block (if it comes with one), remove the stock pistons and crank, size the main journal bearings, drop the vitaras in, port the oil pump, slap a y8 head and ARP studs on it -- all while leaving as many of the accessories and as much exterior grime on it as I can. ;)
 
I'm not going to be doing anything with the car for a while while parts arrive, so here's a distraction:

I finally got some time the other day and another 45 minutes today to convert this p06 ECU to vtec. Enjoy the pictures:

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Painted with Brownell's Alumahyde2 in Parkerizing Gray on the frame and Rust-Oleum semi-gloss black on the steel covers. I put a Bluetooth module in it for datalogging with a smartphone, tablet, or laptop.
 
Jesus man, I hope you are paid really fricken well.
It seems you know how to do just about anything.
I consider myself to be a jack of all trades type, but some of the stuff you are capable of really makes me scratch my head.
 
That is a bummer for sure. This is why I keep telling myself to wait on boosting my d16 until I can build a motor to handle it. Thank you for keeping up on a great thread and thank you for helping me to hopefully avoid a similar situation.

The moral of the story here is to change your oil as often as you can afford to do so. The oil was thinned out from running too rich for too long. Had I changed the oil at 200 miles like I knew I should have, I would have blown it up in another interesting way, maybe bending a rod or something like that.

I thought it was pinging earlier last week, but now that I've thought about it, it seems more like I was hearing the rod knock. It makes sense, but unfortunately I just pulled back some timing thinking the gas went bad, I was finally able to hear the pinging after fixing another exhaust leak, or something innocuous like that.


Jesus man, I hope you are paid really fricken well.
It seems you know how to do just about anything.
I consider myself to be a jack of all trades type, but some of the stuff you are capable of really makes me scratch my head.

Meh. I get paid peanuts doing what I do, but thanks. Eventually I'll get a job that's a challenge every day, but until then, I'll be happy with a fairly stress-free job that lets me leave work and not think about it until I come back the next day.

At the risk of sounding like a motivational speaker: You could do this kind of stuff too, there's literally nothing I'm capable of that no other person can do. Just pull the fear out of the equation, and you'd be surprised at what you can do. It's only a failure if you learn nothing.

he's definitely a smarty pants :)

Nah, I've got nothing on y'all.
 
Got some stuff in the mail today.

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Also got some gaskets, but those aren't as photogenic, lol. It's really hot in the garage, so I don't know if I'm going to do anything tonight.

The plan over the next few days is to:
drain the coolant
get the intake manifold removed
pull the head
pull the pistons
dingle-ball the block
clean up the messed up crank rod journal(s)
replace the PCV "black box" with one of those nifty -10 AN fittings and run it to the hideous catch can
clean the block
clean the crank with various sandpaper grits and polishing compound
resize the bearing holes to match the crank oil holes, cradle oil holes, piston rod oil holes, etc.
gap the piston rings
blueprint all the pistons, rods, rings, and rod bolts for future reference
slap 'er all together liberally applying assembly lube into literally everything it'll go in
toss the head on with studs and fresh gaskets
get the intake manifold on without breaking something
get the exhaust manifold and turbo back on and hope I don't have to grind any more of the block away to fit properly
fill 'er up with oil and coolant
say the requisite prayer
start it up
???
beat the living piss out of it and hope I don't break anything expensive

Oh, btw, this is all in the next 3 days because my wife and daughter want to go to Tri State Street Car Cash Days...
 
Got some stuff in the mail today.
The plan over the next few days is to:
drain the coolant
get the intake manifold removed
pull the head
pull the pistons
dingle-ball the block
clean up the messed up crank rod journal(s)
replace the PCV "black box" with one of those nifty -10 AN fittings and run it to the hideous catch can
clean the block
clean the crank with various sandpaper grits and polishing compound
resize the bearing holes to match the crank oil holes, cradle oil holes, piston rod oil holes, etc.
gap the piston rings
blueprint all the pistons, rods, rings, and rod bolts for future reference
slap 'er all together liberally applying assembly lube into literally everything it'll go in
toss the head on with studs and fresh gaskets
get the intake manifold on without breaking something
get the exhaust manifold and turbo back on and hope I don't have to grind any more of the block away to fit properly
fill 'er up with oil and coolant
say the requisite prayer
start it up

Got a couple hours and I got the coolant drained and all the connections (vacuum, fuel, electrical, coolant, etc) disconnected from the head.

I think I'll just leave the intake manifold connected to the head for removal.

I got the fuel filter replaced, and the rubber hose replaced with AN-6 braided steel line, so I'm that much closer to being kinda-safe.
 
I am looking forward to your impressions on the rods and pistons you chose. Those are the same ones I have been eyeballing for mine when I get ready to build it.
 
I thought I wasn't going to have time tonight, but somehow I found it.
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Pistons look good, I wonder how the rings look. I'll find out tomorrow.

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Now I've just gotta figure out how to non-destructively get this head residue gasket off. :/

I also remember d16y8 heads weighing a lot more, but I guess I'm not a scrawny 19 year old anymore.
 
I use a new razor blade in one of those window scraper thingies it seems to work fine. If you had the time, drop the head off to get hot tanked and flattened!
 
Pulled the old pistons out and got the bores stoned with one of those cool bore stone things.

The #1 and #4 rod end bearings were a little crusty, but meh, it'll be alright. I'll polish those journals when I do #2 and it'll be fine.

I checked the bores by using a piston rings and feeler gauges and pressing it into the bore at 25mm intervals the entire stroke, and much to my surprise each one of the bores are within 2-thou end to end, after deglazing/polishing/crosshatching/honing or whatever it is. Not exactly a bore gauge, but it does work to get you a ballpark estimate and will tell you of a huge problem.

Before:
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After:
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It's a little rough, at the top, which is unfortunate, because I'm not going to bore it out or keep honing it to get those depressions out.

Hopefully I'll get time to clean off the head gasket residue and then do the piston ring gap later tonight or early tomorrow morning before work. I need to find my t-handle reamer and get the bearing oil holes enlarged in hopes of it helping in the long run. Maybe I'll get that done in the house since it's 90°+ out in the shop again because of stupid summer...

I did get some of the HG residue off the block by just rubbing with a shop towel, so maybe I can just use a credit card before I use a steel implement on anything.

Anyway, it's progressing. Slowly, but maybe I'll get more time soon.
 
Surprisingly, I found some more time tonight, and I got the HG residue off the head and the block except for the cylinder liners/mating surfaces. I used a razor blade held perpendicular to the surface, and that got it pretty much all off, some spots I had to carefully bring the razor blade to about 20 degrees with a very light touch.

Any tips for getting the gasket residue off the top of the cylinders?

Oh, the head is less than one thou from flat with a precision straight edge and feeler gauges. So that's a win. It looks like the head has been machined before, I'm not so lucky to find a stamp indicating how much it was machined, but oh well.

ETA:
If I have time tomorrow morning and evening, I may legitimately actually get this thing done to drive it Friday night... Lolol.
 
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Looks good man, I like to use a little touch of indian gasket maker on my headgasket surfaces and it doesnt leave residue etc and never let me down. Should be healthy as hello this next go around
 
Pistons are in the block, bearings are all done. Just gotta torque the rod end bolts, reinstall the cradle, reinstall the oil pan, and the bottom end is done.

No pretty pictures this time because my router is dead from a lightning strike. It also took out some of my shop lights and the battery tender the Civic was on, while I was working on it. So, I got a little tingle/pop. Good times.

Street Car Cash Days didn't happen, rained out. I don't think there is going to be a rain date.

But, yeah, big things coming up for this build. ;)
 
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