Vtecmec's 4th Gen

[Vtecmec]

So, it's been a while.

Many thanks to photobucket for drokking up this build thread, the chances of relinking the 850 or so photos is, well, it's just not going to happen.

Anyway, let's not let this stop the march.

True to form, I moved house again a little while back. This time to somewhere that has plenty of workshop space.

20180215_161737 by Paul Crake, on Flickr

And in there the car has sat for the last 9 months or so, the new house is a decent project and so has taken most of my time.

But I've been getting bored with that, so back on the spanners for a while.......

I've not been a fan of the lowering springs on the car, theres nothing actually wrong with them, just I want a more compliant ride.

I think the best way to do this is to get some adjustable springs and shocks and tweak them to suit.

I picked up some Tein super Streets ages ago, these seemed in decent condition (but with usual rust), but on arrival it became apparent that all the adjusters had siezed.

Anyway, this meant several hours of graft to get them free again and in true form then it was onto derusting the buggers.

20180804_150334 by Paul Crake, on Flickr

Stripped.

20180804_145451(0) by Paul Crake, on Flickr

Primed.

20180804_145505 by Paul Crake, on Flickr

Painted.

20180804_171716 by Paul Crake, on Flickr

20180804_171727 by Paul Crake, on Flickr

Sweet, still yet to fit them, that will happen after the other little thing I have planned for the car.

So the engine in the car is a sweet running lump, but I know that the bores are scored and resultantly it suffers from blow by and spits oil back intot the intake, meaning a less than desirable oily smell when stationary at traffic lights.

Can't have that really.

So I decided to buy a spare second hand engine and the original plan was to partially strip it, refersh the seals etc and then swap it into the car.

20180831_110310 by Paul Crake, on Flickr

Well, the further I scratched into the lump, the further I went.

20180907_191338 by Paul Crake, on Flickr

Err, thats not original.

20180907_192106 by Paul Crake, on Flickr

Till eventually I'd only gone and taken the whole bloody thing to bits.

20180908_173224 by Paul Crake, on Flickr

20180908_173236 by Paul Crake, on Flickr

20180927_144738 by Paul Crake, on Flickr

20180927_144733 by Paul Crake, on Flickr

Then I stepped back and thought that I could just rebuild it, but effectively thats a lot of work just to get rid of an oily smell at traffic lights. While I'm in there I should really make some 'improvements'.....

So at first I thought I'd do a decent NA build, started to amass some stuff to make it happen, but eventually realised that I'd be spanking a significant amount of cash and could still end up wanting more...

So I changed my plans again and decided to go full retard and slap a turbo into the engine bay.

[Vtecmec]

So I put a post up here looking for stuff for the build. I managed to get a good amount of stuff.

First came an ATR intake manifold, which needed work to get just right.

So I port matched it to a new insulated gasket.

20180927_165217 by Paul Crake, on Flickr


20180927_165224 by Paul Crake, on Flickr


20180927_170911 by Paul Crake, on Flickr

20181001_154439 by Paul Crake, on Flickr

Then widened the intake side to match a 70mm Skunk 2 Racing throttle body.

20180929_115351 by Paul Crake, on Flickr

Did some mods to make it fit with a new AEM fuel rail, which needed a bracket fabbing to work.

20181005_181040 by Paul Crake, on Flickr

Then fabbed a bracket to make the prelude IACV work.

20181006_102346 by Paul Crake, on Flickr

20181006_102441 by Paul Crake, on Flickr

Then splashed a bit of paint onto it.

20181006_170539 by Paul Crake, on Flickr

And assembled with the fuel rail, some 450cc injectors and a Sard fuel regulator, also with fabbed bracket.

20181012_212515 by Paul Crake, on Flickr

20181012_212533 by Paul Crake, on Flickr

[Vtecmec]

So onto the cylinder head, can't well leave that untouched now can I?

So I went at it with the dremmel, removing the casting marks and widening the port entrances to match the intake.

20180930_172705 by Paul Crake, on Flickr

Then where the valves have been inserted, I removed the sharp edges that are left over from the manufacturing process.

20180928_162206 by Paul Crake, on Flickr

Once this was done I set to the sharp edges that reside in the bowl area.

20180928_162212 by Paul Crake, on Flickr

20180930_172728 by Paul Crake, on Flickr

20180930_172740 by Paul Crake, on Flickr

Then a bit of cleaning out and polishing.

20181014_103954 by Paul Crake, on Flickr

20181014_131554 by Paul Crake, on Flickr

20181014_144101 by Paul Crake, on Flickr

So that's that, the exhaust valve guides are a little loose, so I'll be getting those swapped out and a light skim on the mating surfaces.

[sol-lude]

The legend continues.

Some epic work there mate, very impressive as always.

[NafemanNathan]

Great work Paul. You won't regret it

[wurlycorner]

Been busy...

Glad to see pics back!

[Drax]

wonderful so glad someone else is doing a nice, detailed, picture filled h22 build lovely lovely stuff

[wurlycorner]

Until he has his next strop and deletes his Flikr account

[Vtecmec]

Coincidentally, I've just been looking into hosting my own pics.......

[Vtecmec]

I've done a bit more......

So the replacement engine was absolutely filthy inside, here's a shot of one of the cam caps to give an idea.

DSCN3303 by Paul Crake, on Flickr

And some other engine shots........

DSCN3307 by Paul Crake, on Flickr

DSCN3308 by Paul Crake, on Flickr

20181016_150858 by Paul Crake, on Flickr

20181016_150929 by Paul Crake, on Flickr

20181016_150905 by Paul Crake, on Flickr


Nasty and clearly badly treated in the past.

Last time I cleaned an engine internally, I used Nitromorse to great effect, ,unfortunately due to Eurocracy, it's no longer the same formula and completely ineffective for this task.

So I started testing all kinds of different things to shift the cack.

I tried white spirit, turps, mineral spirits, drain un-blocker, diesel, kerosene and acetone, none of them did the trick.

Cellulose thinners did an ok job of removing the chunky bits, but not the dark oils stains.

Then I tried Mr Muscle oven cleaner, which did a good job, until I finally settled on Oven Pride, which ate the crap at a rapid rate. Unfortunately it also reacts with Aluminium rather aggressively and quickly, so it requires a careful and rapid workflow of application, cleaning, drying and oiling. I eventually cracked it though.

Some shots of the external block area being soaked in diesel.

20181016_173429 by Paul Crake, on Flickr

And inside with Mr Muscle.

20181020_102322 by Paul Crake, on Flickr

20181020_113448 by Paul Crake, on Flickr

And cleaned.

20181021_135920 by Paul Crake, on Flickr

20181021_140037 by Paul Crake, on Flickr

20181021_140005 by Paul Crake, on Flickr

20181021_135939 by Paul Crake, on Flickr

The exterior still needs shot blasting, I plan on doing it with soda as a medium, so we'll see how that turns out.

Some shots of the internal parts all done now.

20181112_142020 by Paul Crake, on Flickr

I went over the cylinder head one last time before it goes off to have the valve guides replaced.

20181109_194322 by Paul Crake, on Flickr

20181111_140707 by Paul Crake, on Flickr

20181111_140714 by Paul Crake, on Flickr

A bit of cheeky trial fitting some parts......

20181018_203520 by Paul Crake, on Flickr

And some other shiny parts...

20181025_132353 by Paul Crake, on Flickr

20181114_142507 by Paul Crake, on Flickr

And a stack of other stuff......

20181111_132502 by Paul Crake, on Flickr