Drax's JUN Prelude: Papa Smurf edition

[Drax]

How much would a replacement block set you back, and how would you know it would be good to go?

Personally I would sleeve the block for reliability and you could then use any pistons you feel like, get the perfect piston to wall clearance and be sure the bores are uniform all the way down. Its pricey though, you'll be looking at a minimum of £2k for sleeves fitted and pistons bought to suit.

i'd just need a good bottom end again, Phil kindly sorted me last time (I owe him many many BJ's) so i'd just need to source a replacement and rebuild it from scratch - no biggy. It's not like ive done it multiple times now haha!!

Sleeves vote for you, ok good stuff - i'm still keen to build it myself and i know many machine shops who could sleeve it. any particular sleeve make recommended? or any will do? i need to research this.

Just found the TPW tag they did

[Drax]

Sorry to hear the bad news

its not THAT bad car hasnt set on fire, engine hasnt thrown a rod through the side, it's all stuff that we can move forward with

[Vtecmec]

Sleeves vote for you, ok good stuff - i'm still keen to build it myself and i know many machine shops who could sleeve it. any particular sleeve make recommended? or any will do? i need to research this.

I used Darton sleeves, the ones with a little lip on the top to keep them steady. Effectively I gave the shop my block, the sleeves and my new pistons (for measure), they then fitted the sleeves and honed them out to match the piston to wall clearance that I had asked for. After that I built it myself.

[Drax]

Sleeves vote for you, ok good stuff - i'm still keen to build it myself and i know many machine shops who could sleeve it. any particular sleeve make recommended? or any will do? i need to research this.

I used Darton sleeves, the ones with a little lip on the top to keep them steady. Effectively I gave the shop my block, the sleeves and my new pistons (for measure), they then fitted the sleeves and honed them out to match the piston to wall clearance that I had asked for. After that I built it myself.

righto, sounds like a plan!

[Drax]

Phil has pointed out another avenue, to use the F23 bottom end he gave me (in which i robbed the F23 crank & rods), as this is is an aluminium block. so maybe the thought of using this with brand new high compression 86mm pistons in this.... saving sleeving the h22

thinking out loud, at the moment i'd prefer to reuse the current h22 bottom end - get that sleeved, then buy brand new 10:6:1 pistons instead of second hand ones. Keep the f23 crank & rods.

If not, still sleeve but swap back to a stock h22a7 crank & rods, then buy new high compression h22 pistons instead

[wurlycorner]

Ah man, just caught up. Sorry to hear the build hasn't worked out.
A couple of my thoughts based on the compression results:

• Low compression would cause fast crank, rather than slow crank.

• Low compression could be rings, but zero compression I would have thought more likely to be something 'definitive' like a holed piston, valve not closed etc. (excluding catastrophic stuff like snapped rods, which you'd certify know about already!!!)?

Have you got an endoscope camera you could use to have a look inside through the spark plug holes and IM/EX manifold, before condemning it?

[Drax]

It's no biggy Iain, onwards and upwards with her

Last time she melted the pistons, even taking the head off didnt confirm what happened/failed, i had to remove the pistons via the bottom end to truly see the extent. I'd siding towards the bores not being in as good condition as i'd judged, could them being in poor nick cause the (brand new, yet again) rings to blow maybe?? or cause the pistons to melt (again) ??

I may borrow the leak tester from my mate again, hook it up to my air compressor and see what that says - it told me pretty reliable info last time.

[Drax]

working on a friends 4g over the winter, the one i built an engine for


someone else plopped the engine in for him as i didnt have time, but he has a big vac leak, i suspect the inlet mani gasket as he gave me a h22 one to use but i built him an a7 head & intake on a h22 bottom end (with 11.1 pistons), so ive take the inlet mani off and swapping the gasket for an a7 one, plus replacing the tb gasket as that has a leak for sure

[wurlycorner]

Lovely to see the lude love being shared around and helping out another luder
You probably know (and have fixed it by now anyway!) but if you don't have access to a smoke leak tester, an easy way to check for vacuum leaks is to spray brake cleaner at each of the hoses/gaskets on the intake system one at a time. If the revs increase, there's your leak.

[Drax]

Just an update on this red 4G of a friends - i still have it haha. Cheers Wurly for the above tip

So after Jan i pulled the inlet manifold off and swapped the gasket to a better quality one, plus for the TB.


When i put it back on and it had made no difference i soon realised that the old A2 TB stuck out bottom left and was letting a lot of air in as its sat on the A7 inlet mani, not the A2 one now.


So along with the new TB gasket, i modded a piece of spare CF...


and sealed them together to see if it made any difference. i was missing the A7 TB so this would have to do for now, but seemed to work well


i now had 2 error codes to get rid of, one for the IAT which turned out to be damaged


so swapped that, one code down. the other was the TP sensor which was appearing due to the very low idle issues i now had, and i had to adjust the throttle cable up much tighter which helped but in turn caused the last error light.


Conscious that i'd built the engine myself, i double checked the compression (i'd already done this when putting the engine together but it hadnt run by this point). All 4x cylinders were very good, no problem there - phew!

I then wanted to get a better TB so i sourced an s2k one, and when that arrived i soon found the A7 one i'd been missing....doh!! ah well it's a spare. They seem to be exactly the same on measurement width, pipework fittings etc. just one has the original top mount sensor on which i can't use. The A7 TP sensor is pinned on, not bolted so you can't swap or adjust it, whereas the s2k and A2 TP sensor you can unscrew and remove/adjust.


Anyway, a LOT of swapping and fiddling with TB's, TP sensor positioning etc etc wielded no results of getting the idle UP, yes UP! plus there seemed to be a slight misfire. I then swapped the injectors with a couple of spare and things improved but not perfect, hence...


yummy! right, where we are currently is i am about to get all 4x (plus 3x spare) injectors tested locally, as they seem to also be "ticking" on idle which doesn’t sounds quite right. Hopefully i'll be able to get 4 good ones from 7.

Currently the car starts, idles ok and drives ok BUT i have have the code 5 warning light for TP sensor as i've had to adjust the throttle cable much tighter still, otherwise it wont start nor idle high enough. also while driving there seems to be a slight misfire still, so cross fingers the injectors are the last hurdle.....