any updates?

 

rock on dude, i like what your doing here. even if it is an sr....

LOL

 

Sorry dudes, i haven't been able to do an update as of a lot of personal things. When I get some things settled, i'll be back on this project. Currently, it is still on jackstands and the SR on the engine stand.

 

OMFG an Update

Since my wife and son decided to visit relatives in Japan for a month and a half, I decided that I can actually work on this project again. Right after they flew out, I went ahead and at least moved the SR to my pad. I think my plan now for this is to replace ALL of the gaskets and put in some fresh items (oil pump, water pump, etc.) Now, lemme see if I can finish this before they come home in July....

Current location of SR

After doing the SR, i'm planning on moving the S14 over here and work to get the SR in there...

 

Looks clean. Who'd you order the through?
BTW did you happen to go out this past cruise (Fkn Mean Day Cruise Part 2)

Also if you need help I'm down

 

Unfortunately, no, I wasn't able to hit any of the recent cruises lately. As for the items I ordered, the stuff mostly from online (mostly ebay), and got some other stuff from users here.

As for the help, sounds good to me. BTW, you know a good place here to send the head to get machined since i'm pulling it off to replace the head gasket?

 

Unfortunately, no, I wasn't able to hit any of the recent cruises lately. As for the items I ordered, the stuff mostly from online (mostly ebay), and got some other stuff from users here.

As for the help, sounds good to me. BTW, you know a good place here to send the head to get machined since I'm pulling it off to replace the head gasket?

I'll ask my cousin, she recently got her B18 built and this shop did some pretty nice work.

 

nice build bro

 

i got my engine from jdm hot also(a rb20det) they are good people. but you should sell me those gtr injectors..

 

Rotating Crankshaft Again

Ok. I went and tried spinning the crankshaft again to get the dots on the cam sprockets to line up.

When I got the dots to line up like the FSM, the silver links on the chain IS NO WHERE NEAR THE DOTS! I guess the person who changed it last didn't put the chain in the correct place :WTF:

I'll just stop right here... get back on it tomorrow night

 

I started today by removing the camshafts and sprockets from the head.

I wasn't worried too much about the timing chain too much as I was planning on replacing it with a new one.

My table with the stuff I removed so I don't forget where they go.

Next, was to remove the oil pump. I didn't realize that in order to remove the oil pump, I had to loosen/remove the upper oil pan. I ended up just loosing it ATM to take it out. I also took out the timing chain and guides as well. (yeah, picture is blurry)

At this point, I decided that I should remove the flywheel. Since I have access to it, I should replace the rear gasket too.

That seal was a b*tch to remove. I ended up taking out the rubber part first (gasket is actually mostly metal), and using a screwdriver to wedge it out.

Old gasket & new gasket

Here it looks after I tapped in the new seal using the old seal, a piece of wood and a rubber mallet.

I decided to take a break from the motor and started working on mounting this billet side-feed fuel rail on to my Freddy intake plenum.

After putting it on, NONE of the mounts lined up :WTF:

So I decided to re-drill the lower mounts (using templates made from a manila folder) to make it match.

I also decided to re-drill the top hole to be able to put a bolt to hold the top part of the rail to the plenum.

Looks much better now. Maybe I'll go back and remove part of the lower brackets to make it more clean.

That's it for now. I'm hoping I can drop off the head to the machine shop tomorrow.

 

Looks like yur building yourself a reliable engine

 

Thanks. My plans are to make it a reliable DD, but if I wanted to up the HP, I wouldn't have to re-do things (thus throwing more money at it).

 

Forgot to ask. I scraped what was left of the head gasket on the block as much as I could, but do I need to go as far as not even seeing the previous gasket? It currently looks like this:

 

Damn, looks like you did some work lol. Well she didn't get back to me yet but I'm goin to her house in Mililani sometime this week to get my tires changed out then I'll ask her. Her GS-R is makin 171whp fully built on Low Comp pistons for turbo but no boost yet, just built block.

 

you coming down to Mililani? I'm over in Mauka side now. As for the machine shop, I decided to just bring it to Snyder's.

So before I brought it, I removed the rocker arms and pivots so I don't lose it and get to keep it in the original order that it was in. I then bring it down there, and he mentioned to me that I needed to remove the shims located on top of the valve springs and was about to lump it in a box. Being paranoid, I asked him to let me take them off before I leave it with him. He was okay with it and gave me a larger box to put it in. I leave and after a few mins after, I thought I should put some kind of separator so they don't move around. Yeah, pretty ghetto. haha

After a few more minutes, I still felt paranoid so I ended up picking up a plastic container and putting them in there.

Since I had to wait for the head to finish, I continued to clean and started to paint. Here's the Upper oil pan after I cleaned it up.

I got a call from the machine shop saying that the head is completed and ready for pickup. So I drove down and picked it up. I think it came out pretty nice. I'll take a break for now, and continue later, or if I feel like it today hahha

More later.

 

So I wanted to do some painting of the engine this morning, but the weather here was very flaky, sunny one minute, sprinkle for maybe a minute, and then sunny again. :mad2:

I didn't even want to bother trying to paint and hope that it doesn't rain at the time, so I decided to at least start prepping the s14 to be transported from my parent's pad to my current place.

I couldn't do much as I forgot to bring some of my tools with me, but I got rid of the rat crap that was in the engine bay by using some simple green, a screwdriver to push the stuff off, and a water hose. I looks more presentable and I don't mind going in the bay now...

Here's the before (when I pulled out the KA):

And after the cleaning today:

I went to look for the location that I needed to drill for the cluch pedal and clutch master, but there's a couple of wiring going through there. I'll have to reroute them first (the + for my amps, and I think the other one was for the fogs). That's next on the list of things to do when I go back with my tools.

I got home and the weather looked more promising than this morning so I went ahead and painted (as I already had prepped them last night). I picked up some clear also since I saw that there was clear engine enamel. It looks pretty good, but I think I should have done more coats. You guys be the judge.

Engine Block. Don't worry about the oil pan and water pump. They'll be replaced with brand new OEM pumps.

Head:

Upper Oil Pan and Fuel Injector Caps(I forgot what they were called...):

I'll wait until they are dried completely and then start reassembling the engine. :thumbsup

 

I assumed that the paint should be dry by now so I started working on slapping everything back together.

I started with putting the ARP Head Studs I picked up and tightened them with my hands until I couldn't move them.

I also placed my Apexi Head Gasket.

And the head.

Since my sockets aren't magnetized, I used this trick to keep it from falling off the socket until I could screw it on

So I placed all of the nuts and washers on the studs, and I didn't tighten them down. It looked weird to me as I read somewhere that you shouldn't really see too much of the stud after screwing the nut on. Should I leave it as is, or should I see if I need to tighten the studs more?

I then thought, maybe I should put the new timing chain kit before I have a harder time later. The sprocket was a PITA to put it into place, but it's there and I won't complain too much about it now.

 

I say just Trq. it a leave it. Last thing you need is to over Trq. and possible blow your new gasket...

 

I always make them tight with the studs alone first w/ a hex key on top. Not like crazy tight, but make sure they're nice and snug. - Then I put the nuts on.

Because you tighten twice, I do this each time to make sure that the stud is seated before torquing the nut down.

I've over tightened in the past since you're really after clamping force more than anything else. But only by 5-10ft lbs iirc, some go more, but that was what I was comfortable with.


Also... why buy an aftermarket side feed rail... doesn't really make sense to me.

 

Thanks guys for the input. I decided to hand tighten it as much as I can and then just trq the bolts down.

Also... why buy an aftermarket side feed rail... doesn't really make sense to me.

Well, it was more of a BLING factor because i'm still going to use my stock injectors, but IF I wanted to go larger injectors, I can, and also wanted to use an aftermarket FPR (again, bling LOL).


I have a question regarding the timing chain tensioner. I was about to install the new one, but the gasket form the existing one and the new one were different. Would anyone know if that o-ring is necessary with the metal gasket?

I did more today, but I'll post later tonight.

 

So I started tightening the bolts after I picked up some tools that I needed (the 12-pt socket for the nuts for the head studs). So after the first round of torquing the nuts (35), I start on the next round (70lbs), and my extension broke. At least that wasn't an extension that I didn't buy.

After that I grabbed my other extension and tightened it down to 105lbs (per ARP's instructions), and this time, no tool breakage. After torquing them down, I realized that I'm weak...:lamende:
I then oiled the lifters using a ball-ended allen wrench (worked nicely)

And then installed them into the head.

I then installed my camshafts, and verified that the timing chain is where it supposed to be.

I then started to work on my RAS. I remember that that plate needed to be trimmed. I grabbed my dremel and trimmed it like so:

Installed:

After putting on the oil pump/front cover, I realized that I needed to install a bolt that connects the head and the cover. :1duh I had to wait until my neighbor came home so I could use his impact gun to remove the sprocket.

That got fixed and continued to install the water pump. After putting it on, I realized that I either misplaced or lost the studs. Would a bolt and a locking washer suffice? Or should I just order the studs?

After my break for dinner, I went back and installed the upper oil pan.

Next since i'm going to be using a freddy knock-off oil pan, I decided to test fit it before I put some liquid gasket. Good thing I did as it didn't close completely. That's what you get when using knock offs, issues..

Found out the oil pan was hitting against that plate. I was thinking to either grind down the area in the pan to fit, but decided to cut the plate.

It fits now.

I didn't complete it as my hex bit isn't long enough to tighten all of the bolts. Plus, the Nissan liquid gasket tube was leaking through a lot of small holes around the tube

I'll pick up those things tomorrow. I just wanted to see how it's gonna look with the knock-off intake manifold, so I put it on and took a pic. It looks pretty good.

Hopefully, I can get most of the stuff done tomorrow and get the chassis here on Friday....

 

Ok so yesterday, I wanted to make sure I had all the brackets to mount my A/C, PS and Alternator, so I put it on there just to be certain i'm not missing anything.

After doing some research a couple of years back when I started this thing, there was a guy on the forums (not sure it was here or any of the other ones), that had brackets to adapt the KA compressor to the SR. I decided to pick it up back then as I knew I wanted to go this route since HI's weather is almost ALWAYS summer weather.

Per instructions, I had to remove the bottom tabs to be able to mount this. So using my dremel (and a dozen cutoff wheels), I got the tabs off.

I installed it, but when it came to belts, due to my OBX underdrive crank pulley (so f'n tiny compared to stock), the sizes were all off. I ended up getting these sizes for my belts:

Alternator: K050355
Power Steering: K040335
A/C: K040360

My Alternator and A/C cables that I picked just fit with the adjustment all the way in.

That's it for now. More updates to come. After this weekend, I won't have as much time on my hand as this past week (took a staycation). Hopefully, I'm on track to finish everything before my wife comes back.

 

Damn at the rate your going you'll be out on the next 240 cruise lol

 

lol when is the next cruise? I dunno if I'll continue at this pace though. It was pretty crazy... :12dunno

So today, I couldn't get myself to do much. Stayed up too late (till 5am) to get the garage cleaned up so I can have the car towed over.

First thing I did was to finally bring the car over to my place. I went over to my parent's place to prep the car to be towed (more like get everything that wasn't secured, secured or moved into the car).

I grab my exhaust as I have it sitting on the side, and while I was carrying it it was making some noise as if sand or dirt went inside. So I started shaking it, and rusted stuff was coming out. Also, like a dozen roaches came out and scattered away(the ones that are big enough to fly)! mg:
I think I might get rid of that exhaust.

So the tow guy comes, hooks it up and we're on our merry way to my house. Forgot to take a pic when we were leaving. At least I got one when it got home

I was trying to get myself to start cleaning, but I'll just stop right here for now. I gots to go in to work tomorrow (yeah, it's saturday tomorrow)....

 

good work mang!

 

Thanks.

I couldn't get myself motivated today, (plus had to go into work for a little bit), I remembered that the fuel tank still had a lot of old gas in there. Since my Volvo needed some gas, I ended up siphoning some of the gas from the S14 (just 2 gals) so I don't need to hit the gas station today (I'll do it tomorrow).

I didn't want to hold it, plus my funnel was too small, so I did it this way:

I took apart the KA throttle body (want to see if I can use it for the cruise control), cleaned it, painted it and re-assembled it back together. I think I'll paint the pulleys also..

I don't have my exhaust manifold studs yet, but I wanted to do some test fits. After installing the turbo, I didn't like how the coolant line from the block to the turbo sat. I think i'll get a 45° or 90° adapter so it doesn't stick out.

I looked at my exhaust, and thought I should clean it. It came out nice and shiny after using "Nevr-Dull" and a soft rag. It's an old Apexi exhaust (back from '97), but it still looks decent so I might still roll with it.

Some other goodies came in, but I won't touch them until the SR is in the engine bay. I don't know if i'll run the SSQV, but it was a good deal that I couldn't pass up. Maybe I'll just get the recirc kit for it.

That's it today. I'll hit some of the chassis/engine bay stuff tomorrow as my neighbor will let me use his air tools tomorrow (mostly impact gun to remove stuff, and the air so I can rebuild my calipers.