The next chapter begins...

So far so good! No incidents, everything going well! Just today, I did the first recommended break-in service, consisting of an oil and filter change and a valve clearance adjustment. This was right at 750 miles on the new engine.

Everything looked shiny and really smooth when I took the valve cover off, so it seems the break-in process is going well! The valve adjustment went well, it seemed most of the valves were actually a hair on the tight side.

Fresh oil and filter are on, along with a new valve cover gasket and shiny new valve cover nuts! Next oil change is scheduled in another 1500 miles, another part of the break-in process. Before then however, there is a major hurdle to be overcome: SMOG!! I want to get that done once the engine has about 1500 or so miles on it. Hope it goes well!

Houston, we have lift-off!!

Great news!! The motor's oil pump priming went well, although it took while to build oil pressure, which had me on my toes the whole time...

Then it was finally time to put the spark plugs back in and try and fire it up... And it worked!!! The engine fired up perfectly and ran smoothly the whole time I had it on, which was for about an hour. Initially, the ECU had a little trouble holding idle, but that got fixed quite soon.

After that successful test, I finally took the old girl out for a drive, after more than a year! The first outing went well, so now I'm using her as my daily driver! The ride to and from work has never been more fun!!

Stay tuned, the show's far from over! I'm just starting to break her in! :-)

Update...

Just thought I'd post an update, it's a been a while... The engine issues are all taken care of, thanks to JMS Engines! In the past few weeks I've reassembled the engine for the SECOND time, now it's complete and back in the car with the transmission attached.

The powertrain is now completely assembled and the heat shields are in place, as is the center support crossmember. The exhaust is also completely hung, although not all tightened up.

Not too much work remains to be done, just the devilish details! :-) Let's see now, this is what I can remember that's left to do:

• Tighten exhaust system
  
• Attach clutch slave cylinder (this will complete the rear section of the car)
  
• Attach steering pump and hydraulic hoses
• Attach A/C compressor
• Attach oil cooler and oil cooler hoses
• Attach radiator and main coolant hoses
• Connect all coolant lines around engine
• Attach multi-connector for fuel injectors
• Attach and secure dipstick feed pipe
• Attach idle control valve
  
• Attach air filter and intake boot
• Attach fuel lines to injector rail (in and out) and to charcoal canister
• Attach fuel line retainer to cable rail under intake manifold
  
• Attach throttle body cable assembly
• Attach all electronics multi-connectors
• Attach engine grounding strap
  
• Attach cable harness to firewall
• Install spark plugs and ignition wires, connect ignition coil
  
• Attach Oxygen sensor, connect cable
• Install oil filter
• Attach connector for cooling fan to radiator
• Connect oil pressure sensor cable
• Fill coolant
• Fill power steering fluid
• Fill motor oil and additive (to break in the cam)
• Oh, and, once testing is completed, attach the hood! :-)

Wow, that's still a big list... Although I suppose a lot of stuff on that list is small... Stay tuned if you wish, I'll keep posting as I work through it...

Long time, lots of news...

Not all of it good, I'm sorry to say...

So it turns out (surprise surprise!) I wasn't as far along as I thought. It turned out that the engine being extremely difficult to turn after assembly was NOT normal (I had kinda figured). At this point, my conjecture is that I probably swapped at least one if not more of the caps around on the rods.

However, it also turned out that I was given the wrong torque spec for the rod bolts. I actually had no idea until, working with Jeremy at Ireland Engineering, we decided that the best thing to do would be to have JMS Engines re-check all the machine work. They were the ones who discovered that not only had the bolts been overstretched, but also, one of them had snapped inside a rod!

Yes, it was a big step back to dismantle the whole engine again, but at least I saved most of the parts from severe damage by not trying to fire up that engine! The folks at JMS and Ireland Engineering have been really great about helping me out. Specially Ireland went above and beyond their call of duty in this case and provided me with lots of additional parts! Can't say enough good things about these guys!

At this point, I decided that it would be best to have JMS assemble the short block for me. I got the assembled short block back last Friday and on Saturday I started putting the engine back together again. I turned the crank a little after getting it back, it turned with minimal resistance, so that's a big part of the worry off my list!

I now have the oil filter carrier back on, as well as the front seal carrier, which houses both the front crank seal and the intermediate shaft seal. JMS was kind enough to actually seal and install the rear seal carrier for me, which was really nice of them! Next up, water pump, then probably the oil pump!

Getting close!

Got the rocker arms installed on the shafts with retainers and all. It took a while, but finally als0 got the valve clearances adjusted! Hit a snag when I found out that the torx bolt that holds the main cam sprocket to the cam was rounded off, so I had to order a new one.

After I got the valve clearances adjusted and the cam sprocket nice and torqued up, I made sure that the notch on the sprocket was correctly aligned to the notch on the head with the valves on cylinder 1 set to fully closed, i.e. compression stroke on cylinder 1.

Finally, it was time to install the head gasket and install the head itself. Got that done, simple enough. I had also ordered a set of wave washers for the water pump so, one at a time, I unbolted the fastening bolts and added washers.

With all that done, it was time to put on the timing belt (before putting the head on, I had made sure that the notch on the harmonic balancer on the crank was aligned to the notch on the lower timing cover). Timing belt tensioner is on and tight and the valve cover is even laid on!

Could not install the valve cover for now, because the ignition wire cover gets bolted to the same studs that the valve cover is secured with, and my existing wire cover is broken. So I went ahead and ordered the cover, as well as a couple of washers that were missing. Hopefully, that will enable to me to completely put the engine together! Not much longer now!!

Lots of progress!

Lots of progress over the past few weekends! Got the crank installed, main bearing cap bolts and connecting rod bolts all nice and torqued up! Took a while to get the connecting rod bolts done, since I decided to pre-stretch the bolts by making multiple passes tightening them to 47 ft-lbs (10 below the recommended torque) before finally tightening them to the recommended 57 ft-lbs.

Also got both the front and rear main seals installed, as well as the intermediate shaft (and its seal), oil pump drive shaft and the oil pump. With all that done, the oil pan could finally be mounted back on. That was a big step! Finally, I have turned the engine right side up on the stand permanently!

Today, I finished putting on the shiny new rocker arm shafts and rocker arms on the cylinder head, which brings the project a BIG step closer to completion! The rocker arms are not positioned yet, they're just floating on the rocker arms for now. I should be able to finish that up next time I work on it. After that, it should be much less difficult stuff left to do to finish putting the engine together! I'm a little scared but also very excited! More soon!

Freeze plugs are installed!

Go figure... I learned that freeze plugs are actually not freeze plugs at all! They are actually covers for holes that exist on both sides of the block. These holes are used to remove sand or other "padding" material that is used during the casting process when the block is manufactured.

The plugs are actually WAY too tight for them to pop out if the coolant actually ever freezes. Supposedly, there have been hundreds of cases where the block has cracked from the force exerted by the coolant expanding when it froze, while the so-called "freeze plugs" remained firmly installed. Live and learn...

Oh and the obvious: I got the not-freeze-plugs successfully installed!

Next lesson: seals!!