Engine Rebuild (NLC) **Now with Dyno Results**

[BigD]

Well after a hectic few weeks I've finally got time to post my Engine mod pics.

As some of you will know my Head gasget went on FF7 so I decided to upgrade while I was at it. Decided against a pure rod swap since my pistons may have been weakened when the head gasket was gone and I continued to use the car, hard at the Nurburgring. Thought it was safer, (if slightly more work) to replace the rods and pistons for foged items. Also I had ran out of time to sent the rods/pistons away to be machined. Decided on Manley rods and Wiseco pistons, stock size.

You will see from the pic below my bores were still in pretty good shape. You can still see the original cross hatching. There was slightly more wear where the piston skirts touch the cylinder wall. But again you could still see the cross hatching. The bores were very glazed though.

Pic 1

Pic 2

Pic 3

Pic 4

Got the head skimmed as below.

Pic 5

Fitted the new cams. GSC S2's.

Pic 6

Once I got the old rods and pistons out I plastiguaged the crank with the new rods and bearings to check for clearance. These should be 2 thou and seemed spot on. The old bearings showed no sign of wear or overheating so the crank should have been OK. Worth checking though if only not to end up like the Spannish Tuner thread.

Crank
Crank
Crank

New Rod and Piston unassembled.

Rod & Piston

Assembled and fitted the new Rods/Pistons after giving the bores a light hone.

Assembled
Assembled
Assembled

Fitted the ARP head bolts and new head gasket. Stock size at 1mm.

Bolts and Gasket

Bolts and Gasket


Almost together with the new timing belt etc.

And Finally all back together and ready to start.

Luckily I hadn't missed any plugs an it fired up first time after I had turned it over for a bit without the plugs in to let the oil get round the engine.

So all that was finished at 4am in the Friday night Saturday morning before Time Attack Snetterton. Went to bed for a few hours and headed down the A68 to break in the engine the hard way.

Went very well at Time Attack feeling very strong and slightly more pace about it once I upped the boost slightly.

[ed]

Loving your work D, how many ponies you reckon now?!?!

[philthy]

Nice work, think you were right to hone the bores as the thrust side looked a bit glazed.

Did you redo the timing or just mark where they came off at?

[BigD]

Nice work, think you were right to hone the bores as the thrust side looked a bit glazed.

Did you redo the timing or just mark where they came off at?

The crank is easy to line up with a mark for TDC. The balance shaft and oil pump shaft have marks too although you can get them out of phase by 180 degrees. It was easy to see where they should be with the sump off though so I just made sure they didn't move when I put the sump back on. The cams have good marks on them too and the gears can only go on one way, offset dowel. They are just timed straight up as per stock at the moment until I get on a dyno and see what is better. Although with cam timing all you are doing is moving the power or torque band about the rev range not actually increasing it. The higher lift longer duration cams should help there. Is that what you meant??

Ed, not much more on the power front but more torque by way of running more boost. Should be safe enough at 2.2bar now. Rog's (The Admiral) car is 440/440 so anywhere round about or slightly under that would be pleasing.

[philthy]

was just wondering if they were set up for standard timing. Who did you get to do the hed skim and bores for you?

[BigD]

was just wondering if they were set up for standard timing. Who did you get to do the hed skim and bores for you?

The engine was in situ so did the bores myself. Head skim was done by .................... Engineering at the transport museum for the grand total of £30.

[kenny]

Top work D lovin' your work

[BigD]

Well after rebuilding my engine with some forged items and getting the Evogreen turbo to work properly and changing the cams I finally got it on a dyno. Thanks to Russ at Wallace.

On high boost she was making 443bhp and 429 torques. Pretty pleased with that considering I rebuilt the engine myself.

Low boost was pretty good also with 438 bhp and as expected 382 torques. I'm loving the area under the high boost torque curve.

Run1 was high boost (peaked at 2.35 bar but held over 2 bar), Run2 was my original low boost setting of 1.6 bar and Run3 was a tweaked low boost setting at 1.7 bar.







An interesting comparison was with my original setup and standard turbo to see what difference in spool there was.

As you will see the Green actually spools up slightly quicker than the stock one it replaced and goes on to make more power and torque, even at the same bost level.

Both runs are using the same boost, (the boost plots are almost identical), of 1.6 bar and you can see how the green spools up quicker.

[ed]

Proper job! Loving your work!

[steve_weegie]

Good skills D, reminds me of my happy turbo days

What are you using for an ECU??

[mwmackenzie]

awesome!! do you use Extreme by bathgate, I thought they were the place to get EVO work done?

Mark

[BigD]

Good skills D, reminds me of my happy turbo days

What are you using for an ECU??

Stock. Mapped by my good self.

[BigD]

awesome!! do you use Extreme by bathgate, I thought they were the place to get EVO work done?

Mark

John and George at Extreme are very good, I use them too. I try and do most of my work myself other than stuff that need ramps etc which is when I use Extreme. Gearboxes, diffs etc. Russ at Wallace is very good and lets me use his Dyno to tweak the maps and gives excellent input too. Then I usually do some road tweaking also.

[gambler]

Good effort. Especially doing the work yourself. My mate who is an ex wrc mechanic does all the work on my car. I would not have a clue where to start. I just make him tea and get the spanners!

[mwmackenzie]

I had asked John to map my Esprit but he'd not done a DTA before so shyed away from it but I belive them to be very good, the did do a bit of work on my Esprit and I have no complaints with them great work and great guys, they just didn't have the time to complete my car which is a shame as it was done by someone else and the top of one of my liners burnt off in a matter of months, I was told this was due to the ignition timing being out.... Gutted as i now have to get it rebuilt again and them get it remapped and the only guy I can think of to do it other than the guy who did it is in Kent...

awesome!! do you use Extreme by bathgate, I thought they were the place to get EVO work done?

Mark

John and George at Extreme are very good, I use them too. I try and do most of my work myself other than stuff that need ramps etc which is when I use Extreme. Gearboxes, diffs etc. Russ at Wallace is very good and lets me use his Dyno to tweak the maps and gives excellent input too. Then I usually do some road tweaking also.