Benny's BA2 Prelude - Project Shakotan.

[nucleustylzlude]

Very nice. Ah, another tempting me to buy a byass valve and run new lines to the rear too, what you doing to my already long list of jobs!

[NafemanNathan]

He's done the same to me Rob

[4thgenphil]

Very nice. Ah, another tempting me to buy a byass valve and run new lines to the rear too, what you doing to my already long list of jobs!

He's done the same to me Rob

you mean pete106 didnt already?

[NafemanNathan]

Nah... He's not running hard lines

[Benny]

Little purchase I made . . . Mmmm Carbon Kevlar . . .










The seat was made in '92 so not toooooo far from my 80's period theme. It suits it pretty well inside thanks to the grey suede shoulder pads. It's SILLY light.

Just need some side mounts now and a super rare old skool looking harness. Probably buy a new harness as buying an 80's harness probably isn't a good idea lol

[rob quilter]

I likey

[Benny]

Got this from my engine man.

Well I'm just doing the best I can with an old spare engine, Budget and time reasonably restrictive so I've given this head a street job but only in the sense that the stock valve seats are retained as Benny likes to cruise around all night clocking up miles so race seats are out as they only last like 20-30k miles at best. And I've also kept the guides stock length to keep them from wearing out quicker but I have shaped the guide ramps and the guide ends a little to help flow as much as possible, I've also added my own little special finish to the vavles and the inlet ports are pretty rough as it's direct port injection, the inlet manifold has been smoothed out leading towards the head.

Given that the pistons are stock but I've shaved .5mm off the head and block to boost CR ratio up a bit, the Throttle body is a few mm bigger and tweaked, F22/23 cam pulley's modded to fit B20A set to 4 degree advance on inlet and 4 degree retard on exhaust, B20A5 header and downpipe modded to fit, CAI kit fitted, FSE power boost valve fuel pressure reglutor set a tiny bit higher than stock, nicely modded head and we should hope to get around 170-180bhp but I think 190bhp could be possible but with stock cams I'd be stoked with 180bhp still some Cat cams in and 200bhp is easy! more for certain if we went webers or ITB's but Benny is keen to keep mpg sensible! lol! but to be honest we won't really know what we will get till we get it up and running.

Well I've been a very busy boy nearly done with all the prep work and I've just started to assemble the block so nearly there home straight in my sights! It's mad to think that all these hours in stripping down, prepping, cleaning, more cleaning, then some more cleaning and quite a lot of time doing headwork then more cleaning and to put everything together probably doesn't take much more than 8-10 hours! lol! Oh well hopefully get a good nights sleep get up at 7am and crack on!! Hope to have block pretty much built then get the head assembled which is a few hours work. And then pack everything and anything I can think off to head down to Benny's to get this sucker back in the car!!

[Benny]

Right well I've not updated in a while mainly due to the fact I've been flat out working on the barsteward since I got the engine!

It's not all been plain sailing though and every night and weekend I've been working on it trying to get it ready for JAE on the 7th of September.

Richard turned up with the engine and we built it up in the garage as it was raining all day.




And assembled ready for gearbox . . . Mmmm new posh cam gears





Then the next day it was super sunny and me and my buddy Joe got the fkker in!




The day after that about 8 of my crew came over and we all came together and helped put all the plugs and pipes in the right places and finally got it all together ready for a test start . . .

It fired up!

But it was idling like jobby and wasn't firing on cylinder 1 even though it had a spark and fuel?!

After a few nights of fannying we finally realised that we'd forgottten to redo the valve clearances. 10 mins later and BOOM! She was running so damn sweet!

Compression check revealed 225psi on each piston which should produce some nice numbers once on the dyno and will even get stronger once the rings have bedded in.

All was going well apart from the pesky battery light was staying on and the alternator wasn't giving any charge. After a while I got impatient and charged the battery up in the garage and then took her out for a drive. Can only go up to 3K revs at the moment but it pulls really well!

While showing some of my mates what the exhaust sounded like the engine pulled in a loose bit of cam belt cover gasket and it got all tangled up in the cam belt and made it jump 6 teeth on the cam gears. This was literally an FML moment I nearly cried. The engine had 5 miles on it and It could be ruined.

Rob very nicely towed me home using his Evo and then I set about removing the debris and re timing then tried a start up . . .

OMG it ran, it idled fine and the next evening after finding a compression tester I had (when cold) 210psi of compression on all cylinders :O IT'S ALRIGHT!

I am so so so lucky it didn't bend a valve! I Don't know how but it's a good thing!


So tomorrow I'm driving it to get a wheel alignment at 8:30am then it's off to the Auto Electrician as the brand new alternator isn't charging it so it's got to be wiring related and I've spent way too many hours fiddling with it!

Then in the evening I'm sorting the rails for the new seat and bolting that mother in! All ready for 11am Friday morning for it's trip to Kettering.

Cutting it close? I THINK SO! :O

[honda-hardy]

this has just given me goose bumps, me heart was in my mouth then i calmed as i read on. you are so lucky. what stand are you on?

cant wait to see this car again. well done.

[NafemanNathan]

Too much drama! My heart was racing a little bit reading about the tooth slippage

So glad it's all fine. How the hell did you manage that?!