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Picked up a .030 over 6.0 with forged pistons/rods and all the bearings for $1600 off craigslist. More than I wanted to spend, but I couldn't find a decent gen4 6.0 within 500 miles of Wichia.
Put the wheelchair lift in the minivan to good use again!
Mahle pistons and scatt rods.
$120 set of 317's.
Haven't gotten alot done with the motor yet. Working on finishing out the rollcage and adding the parachute. Almost done with that.
8.5 cage is done. Even got the window net to make it all legal like.
Started the newly designed "Ugly yet hopefully more functional hot-side". Removing the 2.5 “T” merge and flipped pass side manifold. Went with a typical cast truck manifold flipped forward and down. Necked both manifolds down to 2”. Full divided 2” to each side of the turbo. This will allow me mount the OEM coils the factory position and use factory plug wires. Hoping it improves spool-up and lowers back pressure as well. Waiting on the WG’s and 1 V-band clamp to finish it up. Used these fancy SS bellows instead of the mesh braided flex sections.
Ran into a snag trying to install the pistons. The standard band type piston ring install tool I use wouldn’t work well enough to get the oil control rings in the cyls. Apparently this is a common issue with the Mahle oil control rings. (CP20’s). They suggest a solid beveled piston ring tool. So I have one coming. I’ll check the oil ring tension once I can manage to get the piston in the cylinder. They may need trimmed.
Looking like its coming along very nicely. That new hotside looks like itll flow much better than before. How do you think the turbo will like the new ci feeding it?
Looking like its coming along very nicely. That new hotside looks like itll flow much better than before. How do you think the turbo will like the new ci feeding it?
The exh. wheel is on the small side for sure. I'd like to get the BW 96mm wheel in there eventually. I'm expecting it to spool pretty quickly. Hope to leave off the foot brake. Picked up a $260 216/220 @ 114 cam to try out with the larger motor as well.
Didn't get as much done as I wanted. Ended up playing with crappy head surfaces most of the weekend.
Dropped my $120 heads off to be "surfaced". Got them back surfaced with a belt sander. Guess I should have been more specific!
Started with this...
And block sanded to this. 320/400/600/800. Hard to get a picture of a shiny surface.
Surface looks great and it seems to check out with a straight edge. I've been calling around and I'm having issues finding someone with a good high speed mill capable of the 25-30RA MLS gasket finish. Not that it's necessary for my build I'm sure. But I figure if I'm paying for a mill job I should at least get a good one.
New cam showed up and I slid it in for now. Then got the 4.8 ready to pull...
Ordered a 10x12x1/2" alum plate to finish block sanding the heads. I'm calling them good enough at this point!
Trying CC dimples this go around as well.
New ARP head studs also came in so I finished putting together the long block. It's ready to go!
Made a new battery hold down setup. Previously using a universal rubber autozone battery hold down kit. It came out nice I think.
Need to address brakes next. Going from the 1979 original 8" disc and "clam shell" single piston caliper to a 4 piston caliper and 11" disc form an 87 turboII Rx-7. Hoping the makes a BIG difference. Slowing down from 160 was getting a little scary with the old brake setup.
Got the new 1985 RX7 Struts on with the bigger spindles. This allows me to run a "Big Brake Kit". Came with a adaptors to run the 87+ Turbo Rx-7 brake Hubs and calipers. Ordered reman calipers form RockAuto (4 piston calipers) with OEM brake lines. Went with the Hawk HP+ brake pads.
New caliper plate and slip on adaptor for TII RX-7 hub and bearings.
Had to cut the oddball 1.25 M10 fittings off and install M1.0 fittings. Other than that, everything bolted right up.
New M10 1.0 fitting.
Threads right into th TII factory replacement tubing
On a side note I played with the struts a bit too. the original OEM struts were made to be serviceable. I took a strut apart and removed the check valve on the extension. Just has a metered orifice now. Serviced the strut with 80w gear oil. Its not really hard to compress and very easy to extend. Pretty happy with it. Unfortunately when I took my other strut apart it had a sealed gas filled replacement strut. So now I have a nice 90/10 type strut and an OEM strut. Trying to find another OEM cartridge I can modify now.
Here is the check valve assy. Just removed it and threw it back together.
Threw on 2 bump stops for wheelie precautions. And cheapo Ebay slip on coil-over using the factory spring.
Engine is in and runs well. Makes boost quick with the new hotside and larger engine. Still haven't found a wheel that fits up front yet. Waiting on a set of FC spare rims to try. Sounds like garbage on the phone vid.
Used some push-lock fittings and metric adaptors to replace my vacuum tubing on the wastegates and wastegate controller in the cab. Came out ok. May spray paint everything black eventually. I dont' like the look of the blue fittings and brass adapters.
I know the cool kids use that pushlock hose on their wastegates like that, but the one time I got fancy and tried it it melted and cost me a motor... Taught me to not try to be fancy! Lol