Great thread Tom, Your doin great things for the evo community! I'll be looking to build my motor next winter if my stock block holds up to my goals this summer. I do all my own work, my father has had a shop since i was in diapers lol. Good luck with the build, can't wait to see results!!

 

very nice man. thanks.. i try my hardest to make a positive impact on the community.

it took me so long to find all those tools to get.. the least i can do is help someone thats down the same road some hours and frustration trying to sort through whats good and whats bad.

you guys prob have the best of the best tools if you own a machine shop..

 

which ever method you decide to do, it would always be dependent on what your clearances should be , or for that matter what YOU want them to be.

Just think of it as another feather to throw in your hat.

 

I wish he owned a machine shop He's a mechanic and used to work with him for a long time but now i own a HVAC co. We built a lot of v8's but left the boring/ machine work etc. to a machine shop. He does have a lot of great tools i borrow from him if i don't already own lol.. I'm going to hit u up to help me with a tune i've been working on with new setup.. It's almost there but i'm not as experienced as you! Sorry if a little off topic..

 

true. i have not checked how the arp main studs get torqued yet, i doubt its like the stock main bolts though where they take an additional 90deg turn after tq'ed down. i see how the angle gage can come into play tho if u wanna set clearance based on angle read on the gage when torqueing.. pretty smart actually. is there a specific rule of thumb how much turn degrees changes the clearance?

oh ok. he has the tools though if he built engines, so you got a head start.. and pretty much its the same stuff so you got a helper with experience to guide you.

sure that's fine regarding the tuning.

 

Okay this makes more sense now..This looks like it's going to be fun after your done building it,then tuning this sucker.P.s achilles3000 says hello.lol.

 

i knew your name looked familar

ya it should be a blast to assemble man. we are doing it inside a warm room/garage and everything.

 

I await the details of your build. Thanks for sharing your experience. .

 

Great thread..... Subscribing. BTW Are you guys looking for a certain power level or times with this first engine?

 

sure no problem.

we will shoot for anything over 550hp. the car has an fp black right now. minor bolt ons. its ran 116mph @ 380whp prior.

i think 600 with e85 is reachable even on the stock cams. we will have to see.

i added 2 more tq wrenches to my inventory.. now i have like 8 tq wrenches lol.

2 i use for breaker bars though lol.

added a 5-75ft/lbs CDI to the list and might add this 0-50ft/lbs CDI dial torque wrench

 

Looking forward to seeing the end result. I may end up having to rebuild my engine at some point soon

 

Didn't get a chance to read through the whole thread but I thought I'd add your piston to wall clearance seems some what loose, depending on how much power you're looking for that could be a good or a bad thing. You may want to go with something closer to 0.004 if it's going to not make too much power

Also if you haven't figured out what piston ring gap to use the formula for sizing the top and bottom compression rings is bore size (in inches) x 0.006″, and then add 0.004 for the secondary compression ring gap.

 

heres some updates..

All the machine work was performed by JAM in NJ. Everything looks good so far. JAM did a good job.

piston to wall gap was measured by us at roughly .0040 - The digital dial bore gauge crapped out on us (battery died) so we had to resort to using a dial gauge and my micrometer.

(the way you find the PTW clearance is you take the measurement of the actual piston then write it down. next you measure the cylinder bore with your dial bore gauge and find the highest point of measurement in the bore. sit it at this point and zero out your gauge. next you stick the dial bore gauge into a micrometer and adjust the micrometer until the dial bore gauge is zero'ed out. next you take the diameter of the piston and substract it from your cylinder bore findings and just like that you now have found your PTW.)

We filed and gapped the wiseco HD rings at 20 top and 24 bottom. Wiseco said they default recommend .019 and .023, but said .020 and .024 will be fine for a high hp engine.

The oil ring expander gap we left at .010 - wiseco said to leave this one alone.

I'll make a tutorial type deal and document the build in general. it may have lack of pictures for now but i will update this periodically as i proceed.

Here is a picture of squaring the ring into the cylinder.. basically you put the ring in the cylinder then you use the piston to push the ring down and get the piston lined up and even, you dont want to take it past the skirt area of the piston past the wristpin area.



Next once the ring is squared up in the cylinder you take a feeler gauge and check the ring end gap and see if your measurement of choice fits inbetween the gap, if not you must file the ring with your ring filer of choice.



(to be continued) - Next I will share how to install rings on the piston and what i have found that works best and important prepping that must be done in order to safely do so.

After this we will then share how to measure rod bearing and main bearing clearances without plastigage


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misc pics of further progress.. unorganized for now. to busy to spend time making captions for each step.














be sure when installing rods to pistons that the bearing tangs face the exhaust side!





crankshaft endplay within spec.. never passed 0.005"









looks good right? well its not! JAM didnt notch the block so the rod cap hits the ****ing block..

i am beyond upset.. we had to tear down the entire engine and now we have to shave the block
for clearancing which should of been done by the machine shop not us..

Thankfully everything is measured and plastigauged, so i can re-assemble within 2hrs or so tops.

Also id like to add.. if you're building an engine and not tightening rods by stretch you're wasting your time.
every rod bolt took a different tq to stretch to a certain target.. torque wrench has to much friction therefore
its next to worthless for good accuracy. however all rod bolts were torqued inbetween 50-60 to meet proper stretch limit.

Rod bolts are the most critical bolts on your build. They need to be able to withstand thousands of psi during engine
operation and if they are not stretched properly they will not offer max clamping force!

also do yourself a favor and use Loctite heavy duty anti seize instead of ARP moly lube for measuring tq to get the
bolts preset. it gives much better tq measurement.

We used tq and stretch, went in graduations of 3-5ft/lbs when we got near the target stretch.

final measurements were as follows:

PTW: .0040"
Rod & Main: .0020"
Top Ring .020"
Bottom Ring: .024"
Rod bolt stretch: .0058" - .0060" (ARP 2000)

 

looking good! what did you use as a final cylinder wall lube? i know some recommend dry, but im thinking a very light coat of 2 stroke oil for mine.

 

Tom,

Thank you for documenting this build! You make it feel possible for me to finally do this on my own. Now to go pick up a 2.4L