Project Lex

[Halon]

Through Kerry mainly. He used to work at MAP, RavenWorks, and he recently bought my uncles engine machine shop. He will be building mine and Kerry's motor, and sounds like another eventually for his own 2jz project.

[Halon]

Picked up some basic BC Single Springs w/ Ti Retainers from a guy who decided to go a different route. Brand new but for about $100 less than from a vendor, so that makes me :) . General consensus is these should be good for 8k RPM, even on the stock shim over bucket arrangement. So that's my plan for the head. And compared to stock redline of 6500 on my car, and I'm revving my current setup to 7300, so this is pretty much the best bang for the buck arrangement I came up with, which is the goal of this build to be quality while also spending wisely without overspending, and I'm plenty happy with 8k, doubt i'll even go that high and probably stay just slightly under that just to be conservative.
http://mitsustyle.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=16198&d=1476415109

Next I got the motor stripped down mostly here. Dan said that's good enough, so I'll hopefully be bringing this to him within maybe a month or so to start work on the block.
http://mitsustyle.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=16194&stc=1&d=1476415112

Next, I got the issue figured out with the engine not turning over. Long story short, the flywheel bolts were just a tish too long. So I torqued the flywheel down, but the bottoms of the bolts must also have bottomed out on the main cap on the other said of the crank flange, preventing the motor from turning. I was able to stack a few washers under the bolt head to get it to clear, but I will be ordering 35mm bolts so I have the correct size. The stock flexplate arrangement, I measured has about 12.8mm of thread protruding. You can see the pic of 17mm protruding which did not work. But with washers, the 14.8mm protrusion works fine. Once I order the 35mm bolts, it should have roughly 13.8mm protruding, which is about 1mm more than stock, but also about 1mm less than the 14.8 that I know works, so should work out good.

Stock Flexplate w/ spacers and stock bolt (12.8mm protruding)
http://mitsustyle.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=16195&stc=1&d=1476415112

40mm with 2 washers, does not work and bottoms out on main cap (17.0mm protruding)
http://mitsustyle.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=16196&stc=1&d=1476415112

40mm with 3 washers, works/clears (14.8mm protruding)
http://mitsustyle.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=16197&stc=1&d=1476415112

Oh and last thing, it's alive.

[turbotalon1g]

Nice work!

U got some contact info for that dude? I have some questions for him.

[Halon]

Yeah u referring to engine builder? His name is Daniel Koetz. If you just look him up on Facebook. He used to be a machinist at map and at my Uncle shop and I think Raven works too. But he's starting his own company called Precision race engines.

[A//// Guy]

Alive!! nice! Is everything else done you want before you can cruise? Or still buttoning things up?

[Halon]

It's alive, but not healthy yet lol. I need to install the trans and all that stuff again. Which I need the new bolts for the flywheel yet. Also cylinders 5&6 are not firing. Not sure why yet but I believe it's injector related. So either not getting the signal, or stuck from sitting for a year. Need to figure that out. Then there is still a bit of tuning required to get it running correctly. It started and idled on 4 cylinders, but idled nice. But there's still a good bit of tuning before it's cruisable.

[Halon]

Found that injectors 5 & 6 were not firing. Must have been the sitting for so long / e85 got them all jammed up or something. They wouldn't even click when I jumpered 12V to them. Sent all 6 off to Cleveland Injector Hospital. They got them Monday in the mail, cleaned and flowed all 6, and had them back in the mail by Monday evening. Great guy, great work, great turn around! So I should have them back either tomorrow of Thursday. Should take care of that issue!

Ordered a new PS pump because mine is squeeling like crazy, wonder if it just dried up and seals went bad sitting for so long or something. So I'll be putting that in once it arrives. I also have a small leak, so I have a new fitting hose fitting coming to fix that as well.

Got some more parts in the mail. My ARP main studs showed up. Also got a billet timing tensioner from Boostwerx (Dave H) for a steal!

That's about it for now. Saving up for some cams from Real St., and that will basically be it for parts for the motor build.

http://mitsustyle.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=16203&stc=1&d=1476842558

http://mitsustyle.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=16204&stc=1&d=1476842558

[Halon]

Small updates, and also just a few notes for myself.

I had gotten such a good deal on those BC single springs / retainers. But I stumbled across someone selling a Manley single springs / retainers / locks setup. Not that I feel the BC's wouldn't work, but in general I just feel a lot better about the Manley brand. I had thrown Manley a few emails regarding my pistons and rods, and they were very quick to reply, extremely helpful and friendly, and detailed. And when I found these Manley springs for sale I asked them about them and again awesome customer service. For comparison I have sent a couple messages to BC (about cams actually), one of which I've never gotten a reply to, a different later one I did get a nice friendly reply to that time. To me the Manley support was much better and was something I appreciated. So, I threw an offer on the Manley springs similar to what I had paid for the BC's figuring well if I can get them for the same price then hell yeah, and if not no big deal I'll run the BC's. They accepted the offer. They are very similar specs, however the Manley are just a hair stiffer, and also includes new locks (BC you retain your stock ones). The slightly stronger seat pressure I think I will appreciate if I ever do try to run north of say 35psi.

So I threw my BC's up for sale, sold within a day for more than I bought them for which was great :) Amazing the deals you can find if you watch for people selling off their stuff for their 'planned build' and their circumstances changed. So anyway I'll be running Manley Springs / Retainers / Locks now. Not that it actually means anything, but I like the fact that I have all matching Manley stuff now (Rods, Pistons, Springs), just makes me feel like things are a nice match instead of a mixture from x, y, z. If only they sold some cams, lol.

Before I sent the BC's away, I put a spring and retainer on my little scale just for curiosity. Then I just put a Manley set on the scale too. Kinda bummed because I measured the BC stuff in Ounces (didn't realize I could select grams), which isn't really as granular as grams. When weighing the Manley, I realized Grams was an option. Just kind of wanted to see how different they weighed. I'll be weighing a stock setup too once they're out. But anyway, here's the values I got for them. Oz they are a dead match, if I would have measured the BC's in grams, maybe I would have seen a tiny difference but none-the-less pretty much identical weights. Once I get the head-work started, I'm going to measure a stock set for comparison sake.

BC
Seat @ 1.325"= 80lbs; Open @ 0.980"= 158lbs
Retainer 0.2oz
Spring 1.2oz
Total 1.4oz

Manley
Seat @ 1.325"= 82lbs; Open @ 0.985" @ 165lbs; 0.895 @ 187lbs
Retainer 0.2oz / 6g
Spring 1.2oz / 32g
Total 1.4oz / 38g

BC
http://mitsustyle.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=16289&stc=1&d=1479748675
http://mitsustyle.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=16290&stc=1&d=1479748675
http://mitsustyle.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=16291&stc=1&d=1479748675
http://mitsustyle.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=16292&stc=1&d=1479748675


Manley
http://mitsustyle.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=16293&stc=1&d=1479748675
http://mitsustyle.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=16294&stc=1&d=1479748675
http://mitsustyle.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=16295&stc=1&d=1479748675
http://mitsustyle.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=16296&stc=1&d=1479748675
http://mitsustyle.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=16297&stc=1&d=1479748675
http://mitsustyle.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=16298&stc=1&d=1479748675

[Speedfreak]

Some old man advice:. Up your boost, change your turbo, and make any bolt on changes on the current motor(basically make any changes you may be planning on this old motor). Get everything dialed in perfect before your new motor gets swapped in. That way any variances or wear is on the old motor. Swap in the new one with a great tune which only needs a little compensation for the compression ratio and cam/head changes etc. It will make the transition smoother by reducing the amount of newness of the overall setup.

[Halon]

Yeah, that is close to my plans. I do plan to run the current/old setup hard next year. I might not even switch turbos on the next setup, not sure yet. There will be some differences though. The trigger pickup setup is different on vvti. The wire harness in general is different so that'll be a mini project in itself. I want to run a new ignition setup on the new motor (1zz or IGN-1A). So I will do as much as I can to keep changes minnimal, but there will be a couple differences. Good thing is the guy tuning it really knows his shit and will have the tune in place to fire it up before I ever even turn the key.