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

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Ok, so I torqued the rod bolts and got the oil pan back on. No pictures of that because I didn't take any.

Rings are gapped at 0.019, 0.021, and 0.025 for the oil control rings. That should be a little loose, but I didn't have a choice, as one of the rings was already pretty widely gapped, so I made 'em match. This engine ran hot when stock, so I can't imagine it'll be a bad thing to be a little loose, I'll just check oil levels more frequently.

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Rod bolts are torqued to whatever the paper said to torque them to, I think it was 65ft/lb? Wat-evar, because it's done. I cleaned all the bearing material out of the oil pan, oil pickup last night, that was a miserable experience... So much bearing... So much... I think I picked about a whole bearing out of that oil pan.

I'm going to work on the breather box tonight, to remove it and get that -10 AN fitting on there in lieu of a PCV. Then, clean up the deck again, and maybe try to get the head studs installed, clean the deck again, and then get the head on.

Unfortunately, it looks like the clutch I've gotta use is going to be an on/off switch. I'm going to use the stock flywheel, because there's no reason to change it out yet.

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So, good times. Good times. Gonna keep wrenching, maybe I'll get to drive it this week.
 
I got the head gasket down, head on, studs installed. We'll see if it was done correctly...

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I didn't bother replacing the black box, because I realized I don't have any -10 AN bungs to weld onto my catch can. So, it'll still go to the T.

Tonight I'll replace the head cover gasket, spark plug tube gaskets, and then check the valve lash before I button it up, then get all the hoses and wires connected.
 
All that's left is this. While I'm thinking about it, I need to get the broken bolt out of the turbo exhaust housing too... That'll be fun.

I need to pick up break in oil, coolant, and VTEC Solenoid gaskets on the way home today or tomorrow.

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
 
Whoever wrote that you can't slip the timing belt while removing the head is full of crap.

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That blue mark is before I removed it. TDC indicated on crank pulley and on cylinder #1 as measured by a piece of filler rod.

Got about everything buttoned up, got some oil on the head components and camshaft while re-assembling it. Good times.
 
Just gotta fill up the coolant, put the turbo manifold on, hook up turbo oil lines, and then try to not mess it up seating the rings.

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But first, gotta get this broken bolt out:
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Gonna try a center punch, left hand drill bit, and a hand drill first to see if I'm gonna get lucky this time. Unfortunately, it's a 304 stainless bolt, so probably not...
 
Just gotta fill up the coolant, put the turbo manifold on, hook up turbo oil lines, and then try to not mess it up seating the rings.

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But first, gotta get this broken bolt out:
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Gonna try a center punch, left hand drill bit, and a hand drill first to see if I'm gonna get lucky this time. Unfortunately, it's a 304 stainless bolt, so probably not...

If it doesn't work, at least you have the Jim Beam handy.
 
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I tried drilling a little bit, and it became clear that wasn't going to work pretty quickly. So, I dropped stainless washer on top, filled it up with weld, let it cool, then crank it off with the nipex pliers. Success.

I also got the block notched a bit more, now the turbo actually has a bit of clearance. I also put a "stud" in the bottom hole of the 5-bolt flange on the turbo -- first time I've ever used red loc-tite and actually thought it was a good idea, lol.

It's full of coolant and oil, almost ready to start up once I get the turbo back on.

I think I'm going to start it up, let it idle a few seconds, check for leaks, shut it off, then start it up again, get it up to operating temperature, and change the oil and filter.

Then, with fresh oil, I'll take it for a spin for about 30 miles of back roads and highways to get the rings to seat. Get back home, and change the oil and filter again.

Then, warm it up, and get some steet tuning done, schedule some Dyno time, and hope I don't kill it again so soon. I want to get about 500 miles on it before I get it on the dyno.

I'm hoping I can get 350-400hp out of it, which should be the upper end of the turbo's flow, and the end of these 550cc injectors. I have a new fuel pressure regulator coming in the mail, maybe that'll give some more headroom on the injectors when I up the pressure to somewhere around 45psi base.

If I can't get 350 on pump gas, I'll try e85.
 
Got her almost buttoned up.

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Cranked for what seemed like 30 seconds and got oil pressure.

Now, just gotta tighten some charge pipe clamps, bleed the cooling system, then change the oil. Once that's done, I'll take her out for a 30-ish mile drive for a shake down.

It's going to be interesting to see how it feels driving with the lower compression.
 
Whoever wrote that you can't slip the timing belt while removing the head is full of crap.

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That blue mark is before I removed it. TDC indicated on crank pulley and on cylinder #1 as measured by a piece of filler rod.

Got about everything buttoned up, got some oil on the head components and camshaft while re-assembling it. Good times.

So... Yeah... I did something wrong at this step.

I did finally get everything buttoned up, coolant in her, everything tightened down, exhaust welded up, etc, but... Can timing is off, if I were a betting man, I'd say it's off a single tooth, in the clockwise direction. Lol.

So, yeah, gonna pull the head cover off, pull the cam, and fix that tomorrow morning. I'll probably change the oil too, it took entirely too long to figure out what was wrong...


Interesting thing is that with timing this far retarded, I build boost at 2000 rpm. Lol.

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But, she's on the ground. I was going to take her on a break in drive with my wife and kid tomorrow, but maybe not now.
 
It runs nice.

I took it for a 10-ish mile ride. Its hard to keep it out of boost, like impossible. Builds full boost at 3900 rpm under 40% throttle, and makes a pound at 2100rpm above 10% throttle, lol.

Changed the oil again, it looks highly reflective... Hopefully that's just wearing in, and not a symptom of me messing up the build in a dirty garage.

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I have determined that I'm going to run out of injector before I make 400HP, so I picked up some 800cc/min LS engine Truck injectors. I got some top hats, and I just finished soldering the adapter clips. I test fit them into the old spare d16y8 intake manifold I've moved like 9 times since 2007.

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I don't know if I'm going to go e85 or stay pump gas. Everyone tells me e85 is better, but I'll max out these injectors on e85 pretty quickly too.

I welded up the muffler with stainless steel mig wire, it's suuuuuuper easy to work with, even though the liner in my mig gun is probably contaminating every inch of it. Not bad for left-handed, under a car, with the wheel still on. I should have bought a MIG a long time ago because it's so little effort compared to TIG in this case.

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Good deal. Do I change it often, or let it go for 50 miles? I already changed the "first start" oil, and put a fresh quart in to replace the quart pictured.


Thanks. I hope it holds

I'd do one more quick change (50-100 miles sounds good) then let it run to your planned interval. I changed mine pretty frequently on my build; usually not letting it go more than 1500 miles.
 
Well this sucks. I was going to change the oil+filter at the auto garage at work during lunch today, but I got 3 miles down the road and heard some knocking.

Looks like one of my injectors failed open, because the AFRs went really really rich at one point, and never really went back down, then when I turned the car off in my garage and looked at fuel pressure, it bled down almost instantly. :(


Gonna pick up a new block and crank, hopefully the rods are still good.
 
I'm about to pull the oil pan here in a few minutes to see what actually failed. I think it's a rod bearing, but I could be wrong. We shall see.

The plus side is that this gives me a chance to really check everything over and see what I actually need to buy... I have a few leads on good d16y8 blocks for a cheap, so there's always that if it's too far gone.

I may have to pull the engine and transmission to replace the crank, which I'm hoping not, because then I literally wasted a head gasket.
 
Surprisingly, advance Auto parts had a bearing set. So, I ordered it via phone, and got to work testing into the engine. The oil has so much gas in it I'm going to keep it and use it as mix gas. I drained 6 quarts of "oil" out, and I only put 3.8 quarts in after the first change...

More surprisingly, it's just one rod bearing, nothing else. I may actually drive this car to work on Monday, lol. #2 again. Guess I didn't clean it up as well as I thought.

Question: should I crack the other rod caps off and check those too? There's no discernable movement/bearing squish.
 
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