Bringing an 86 back from the dead

[SimonG68 71]

Cool. It is undoubtedly the worst designed part of our interiors - whoever signed off on it needs a slap. Probably the same person who specced the volume knob on the stereo!

And the torque dip....


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[Samwise 155]

A double bill update this week!

 

Just a small one this time as it's something i've already talked about here but In my latest video I go in to depth talking about the future plans too LS engine swap my car (yes i still have it!)

 

If you're interested in the subject or my plans for the engine swap give it a watch!

Unfortunately as much as i'd love to dive in to it this very moment it's not something i'm likely to start until next year as I'll need to save quite a bit in the way of funds to get started on it but it's giving me plenty of time to research and plan my angle of attack!

 

 

 

[Kono 14]

2 hours ago, SimonG68 said:

 

 

And the torque dip....


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and the Prius wheels and tyres 😓

[Luke 193]

The list goes on and on but at least it’s all very fixable. Which is what Sam is doing... isn’t he? 

[Samwise 155]

1 hour ago, Luke said:

The list goes on and on but at least it’s all very fixable. Which is what Sam is doing... isn’t he? 

Perhaps in unorthadox ways but im getting through them one by one 😂

[Luke 193]

20 minutes ago, Samwise said:

Perhaps in unorthadox ways but im getting through them one by one 😂

It’s not a Japanese engine, pack yool things and leave town boy 🤠! 

[Samwise 155]

48 minutes ago, Luke said:

It’s not a Japanese engine, pack yool things and leave town boy 🤠! 

Atleast all the bolts on it use Metric! otherwise i'd have dropkicked the thing in to the ocean!

[Kono 14]

Did you just have that engine lying around? love how you just casually wheel it out like its not biggie haha!

While i get everyone doing LS swaps due to how common they are, I feel like its somewhat of a downgrade (same with people putting 2jz/sr20 ect) because they are older, heavier and less efficient engines. Sure its easier to make them around the 350+bhp mark and parts are super easy to find but the change in COG and difference in fuel consumption and efficiency of the engine itself using old tech always put me off, but if you got the resources there go for it. No matter what engine or turbos etc u got nothing sounds better than a v8 or 12.

 

I think if I ever end up doing a engine swap i'd be looking at one from the current generations of BMW (B5830) since alot of them on stock internals are now pushing 600bhp no issue, and if using the current Z4 3.0 litre its technically from the toyota family too. And thanks to how common BMW are now specially with every inner city posh boy with no driving skill owning them, sourcing one from a scrap yard isnt too hard. 

[ThatGuyThere 54]

34 minutes ago, Kono said:

Did you just have that engine lying around? love how you just casually wheel it out like its not biggie haha!

While i get everyone doing LS swaps due to how common they are, I feel like its somewhat of a downgrade (same with people putting 2jz/sr20 ect) because they are older, heavier and less efficient engines. Sure its easier to make them around the 350+bhp mark and parts are super easy to find but the change in COG and difference in fuel consumption and efficiency of the engine itself using old tech always put me off, but if you got the resources there go for it. No matter what engine or turbos etc u got nothing sounds better than a v8 or 12.

 

I think if I ever end up doing a engine swap i'd be looking at one from the current generations of BMW (B5830) since alot of them on stock internals are now pushing 600bhp no issue, and if using the current Z4 3.0 litre its technically from the toyota family too. And thanks to how common BMW are now specially with every inner city posh boy with no driving skill owning them, sourcing one from a scrap yard isnt too hard. 

TBF, I get 33mpg so I wouldn't call the boxer engine efficient and modern.

Not sure I see the point in an LS swap, when a turbo gives 320hp and weighs significantly less. But, each to their own and I'll enjoy seeing it done!

[Samwise 155]

in response to both comments:
 

The beauty of the LS is that it's not heavy at all - The FA20 engine in the GT86 weighs around 170-180kg: https://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?p=2415250

The LS engine i have (I actually bought it last year with this in mind so I didn't so much have it "Lying around" but this has been my plan for a while and I bought one while I could, they're pretty rare over here!) is also 171kg in the form you see it in my video i.e - no alternator, intake, etc so it'll go up a bit but not by a massive amount.

Granted this does of course mean that the CoG will be higher but I don't think that will be a massive difference over what say the 2JZ would change it by, as that engine weighs in the whopping range of 250-ish kg, and the problem with the SR20 for me personally is they're not actually amazing engines to make north of 350hp on and much like most nissan engines they like to munch oil pumps.

The LS is "old" ish in it's archetecture but unlike the 2JZ or RB series of engines it's not got a load of old 90's tech on it that doesn't stand up to today's standards, it simply has almost no tech at all, it's about as simple as engines come and will easily make well over 400hp without breaking a sweat whereas thanks to it's rather high compression the FA20 is rather highly strung when you try to push past 320hp.. and it doesn't make V8 noises 😋

 

Not to be overly defensive of my choices, they're both valid arguements it was simple a case for me that i found much more excitement in the thought of owning a 2 door v8 coupe that didn't have say an £80-100k price tag or Jaguar/Aston badge on it and building that myself rather than the thought of having a 4 cylinder wth a turbo and worrying if and when my gearbox is going to blow it's guts, i've kind of "been there and done that" in a way and it didn't excite me as much after thinking it through, I did actually originally want a turbo 86 at first. I even researched and still have a list of parts, turbo, pistons, rods, etc i'd go for if i were to build the engine and go down that route. 😁

 

p.s v10's sound better than v12's... in my opinion 😋

[Samwise 155]

1 hour ago, Kono said:

I think if I ever end up doing a engine swap i'd be looking at one from the current generations of BMW (B5830) since alot of them on stock internals are now pushing 600bhp no issue, and if using the current Z4 3.0 litre its technically from the toyota family too. And thanks to how common BMW are now specially with every inner city posh boy with no driving skill owning them, sourcing one from a scrap yard isnt too hard. 

oh just an additional comment in response to this bit

That's a great choice I do love the idea of the "Modern day 2JZ" that is the BMW straight 6's or their v8/v10, etc but I didn't want to be the poor sod to be the first to do a swap no one's ever done before and find out all the hurdles and pit-falls involved much like Jordan has had the unfortune of doing with the 1UZ. I am very much taking the easy route when it comes to doing a v8 swap as there's plenty of info on this exact swap from people across the pond.

[Kono 14]

22 hours ago, Samwise said:

it simply has almost no tech at all, it's about as simple as engines come and will easily make well over 400hp without breaking a swea

Yeah that's the massive plus side to the LS, the less tech and fancy stuff the easier it is to identify problems, fix and mod. First car i ever worked on was my brothers 1.3i Austin mini, so simple u could pull the thing apart and have it back together in a evening :D! Also i didn't know that the ali LS where that light! Being able to say you have a 2 door v8 coupe is cool but I think the engine sound alone will tell people without having to say a word. 

 

Also you might of wanted a turbo 86....but why not have a LS turbo'd 86  

 

22 hours ago, Samwise said:

Granted this does of course mean that the CoG will be higher but I don't think that will be a massive difference over what say the 2JZ would change it by, as that engine weighs in the whopping range of 250-ish kg, and the problem with the SR20 for me personally is they're not actually amazing engines to make north of 350hp on and much like most nissan engines they like to munch oil pumps.

Only way i could really see any engine matching the CoG would be a straight swap for another subaru engine or a porche one. After owning a kayman S for 2 months, finding out it had a scoring on the section the pistons are and its a common problem Porsche are aware of but did nothing, costing £11,000 to repair, I don't think i'd ever trust them again.  As for the SR20 i never understood why anyone would use one instead of a FA20....in a standard s14a its 0-60 is 7 sec, and only does 22 mpg tops. Its old hat and just for the sake of having a common turbo engine, its not worth the downgrade, especially since you can turbo a FA for around 3-5K anyway.

I'm also with you on the side of not being the first, give it a few years and I think at the rate people are destroying LS/RB26 and BMW's are becoming more common and cheap it wont belong before there's a sea of people doing it. Just gotta be patient 

 

22 hours ago, Samwise said:

p.s v10's sound better than v12's... in my opinion 😋

THAT'S FIGHTING TALK MR !! 🤣

[Neil-h 29]

On 8/20/2020 at 4:38 PM, Samwise said:

Granted this does of course mean that the CoG will be higher but I don't think that will be a massive difference over what say the 2JZ would change it by, as that engine weighs in the whopping range of 250-ish kg, and the problem with the SR20 for me personally is they're not actually amazing engines to make north of 350hp on and much like most nissan engines they like to munch oil pumps.

Think you’ll be surprised how little difference it makes tbh, especially in terms of the overall CoG of the vehicle. There was a bit of an argument on Pistonheads about it earlier in the week and one of the more knowledgeable posters made quite a good point. Although the boxer engine has a low CoG, the engine has to sit quite high in the bay to clear the chassis rails. So the overall CoG of the vehicle isn’t much lower than any other vehicle.

By sticking a V8 In you should be able to get the engine lower and the Ls doesn’t have an awful lot of weight high up. So with any luck the overall CoG will be basically the same as when you started.

[DuncanM 9]

I've just joined the forum to say, thank you so much for sharing your incredible project! 

I looked at the first pictures when you bought it, and couldn't believe anyone would buy a car in that state! What you have done is amazing, what talent, and I love the final outcome 😊👍

[Samwise 155]

4 hours ago, DuncanM said:

I've just joined the forum to say, thank you so much for sharing your incredible project! 

I looked at the first pictures when you bought it, and couldn't believe anyone would buy a car in that state! What you have done is amazing, what talent, and I love the final outcome 😊👍

Haha thank you very much for the kind words!

It's really cool to hear you've enjoyed seeing it's story and the journey it's been on, it's been good fun 😁

[SimonG68 71]

Forgot to have a nosey at this earlier today......
Next time.


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[Samwise 155]

So another silly tale in the saga of the 86 - It failed it's MOT last week!

 

Nothing seriously.. only the fact it burnt through it's front set of tyres in 3000 miles.. How? you ask? Well simple.. the alignment was screwed.

 

It's all my own fault ofcourse! I put such an emphasis in to the rear alignment after a load of toe totally scrubbed my rear tyres clean last year that I went about carrying out a string alignment on them which went pretty well but I totally neglected the front end after doing the recent steering arm and bushing replacements, that along with the fact i've never truly done an alignment on this cae meant it was totally out of wack!

 

So after having the tyres replaced and the alignment sorted the car drives a thousand times better, it's night and day with pretty much any and all bumpsteer/tramlining totally gone it feels so much nicer to drive and more importantly safer.

 

Here's a look at my before/after alignment settings, but you've been warned the front is a train wreck! (This isn't the print out i received from the alignment shop, i just simplified it for my video and the original bit of paper has a coffee stain on it now thanks to me!)

 

 

 

 

I go in to much more depth in to this in my latest youtube video where I talk about the effects of Caster, Camber and Toe on a RWD car - I do know these things, I'm just stubborn and tight when it comes to paying people to work on my car. Don't be like me, get your alignment sorted!

 

 

[Kono 14]

Cool vid, i actually learned stuff!

 

When it comes to alignment and what not I'm always on the side of 'better let a professional do this' because I've never quite understood it and had the space or equipment to do it...also I cant afford to be killing tyres every few 1000 miles 😮. I'm surprised you could stand driving that distance though with alignment this messed up, when I got my 86 it was all out by around 1-1.2 degrees and it was like driving a 4wd with a bust diff, car kept sort of skating side to side at anything over 40mph. 

Glad you got it sorted now, hope that's all your steering issues ironed out!👍

[Samwise 155]

Need to preface this latest update by apologising for the lack of Pictures!

I've been so busy I totally forgot to snap away some pics while i've been working on things!


Anyway with that said I have been starting some work on the LS3 which is of course rather exciting. With money the main factor in really moving along with engine related work I wanted to start off by doing a few bits that are free, namely cleaning up the grubby exterior of the engine and starting to disassemble it. Cleaning it up is no rocket science, being that I am planning to strip the engine down in almost it's entirety I decided to go at it in a rather blunt way with simple some oven cleaner and pressure washer. Being that the block and heads are Aluminium there's no real risk of them rusting externally but I largely wanted to get off any oily or loose grime hanging on so I can later paint the block before it gets anywhere near my car and in the process I found a rather alarming issue.. it wouldn't turn over by hand anymore!


That brings me on to the first of my latest videos:

 

Now going on from here I went back the next week to obviously work out what on earth was causing the engine to seize at that point in the crank rotation. I wasn't really worried about the engine being totally seized as I've been periodically turning it over and spraying fogging oil in to it to keep everything nice and lubricated but clearly something was causing it to jam up.. Time to tear it down!

 

So that Weekend with the help of my Dad who's been itching to tear in to the engine with me we stripped the heads off the block and found the engine to generally be in a pretty sludgy oily state, it's by no means bad condition simply used and likely without too many frequent oil changes. The oil that was left in the engine has clearly been in there for a while, probably through a few heat cycles, etc etc. If anyone's an Oily science person (technical term) i'm sure they can give their 2 cents as to what they think

All that aside however simply taking the heads off the block and lightly wiping off any excess sludge and oil from the top of the pistons didn't free up the engine, so next we whipped off the front timing cover and found nothing particularly stuck or otherwise in the timing change, etc. However when we took off the oil pump.. eureka! the engine was freed up again and could turn over as many times as we wanted, nice and smoothly too i might add!

Upon taking the oil pump apart it seems the gears inside were not dry by any means but simple got stuck together or perhaps sliped/jumped a tooth etc, not an issue i'm aware is quite common but perhaps where i've been turning the engine over by hand all this time with no oil in the pump these things happen, it's not the end of the world however as I was always planning to replace it regardless and that gets me on to my plans for the engine...

 

Now plans wise I want to give the engine what I would consider a pretty standard rebuild. I'm not going to be attacking the bores with a bore gauge or the crank journals with a micrometer and subsequently re-boring or grinding them if they don't need it. I will however be checking the head's aren't warped, checking the bearing tolerances (with plastigage albeit, i'm not made of money for the big boy tools!) and re-honing the bores of the block. From my initial inspection everything is worn very well and there are no alarming amounts of scoring that would indicate anything to worry about, everything generally looks in tip top shape just oily.. stained, etc!

 

So with that said here's the list of things i'm planning to do to it:

- New Rod bearings (will check clearances with plastigage, don't really have funds for big boy tools)

- New Piston Rings (Will gap accordingly)

- Hone Piston Bores

- Connecting rod ARP Bolts
- Leaving Crank & Main caps in place, not removing (this might change, i've had a change of heart and will research further)

- New Lifters & Lifter Trays

- New Gaskets and Seals throughout ( Everything from head gaskets, sump, valley cover, front & rear cover, etc)

- Cam Swap + 3 bolt 58 tooth x4 Cam gear

- New Cam Retainer Plate

- LS2 timing chain guide + new chain

- New timing cover /w front main seal + cam sensor

- New Rear cover /w rear main seal

- Rear Oil barbell

- Hardened Pushrods

- Rocker Arm Trunnion bearing upgrade

- New Valve Springs

- Clean, reuse & re-lap old valves to head

- New GM Performance Oil pump + Pickup brace

- New LS3 Intake Manifold /w Attachments

- ATI superdamper (no pulley on engine when purchased)

- New front accessories (none with engine currently)

 

I've posted this to a couple of LS Swap groups and had some pretty good responses and no one jumping at the chance to flame me for being a fool (atleast not in regards to the LS!) so i'm pretty confident that this is a fairly sensible direction to head in. Of course without going the full lenghts of re-boring, crank grinding, measuring with proper tools etc the engine is never going to become some kind of monster race engine but I simply don't have the money, time, etc to do those things nor to be able to pay someone to build the engine for me. These engines are fairly robust ofcourse and as long as don't do anything silly like fit the wrong bearings or try and fit round pistons in oval bores I feel i should be fairly safe.

 

And with that all said it gets me on to my next couple of things... firstly I will ofcourse be utterly soaking this engine top to bottom in degreaser and going over as best I can to clean out any water, oil passages etc. Heck i even bought a little Bench mounted parts washer which is exciting and 25L of degreaser concentrate, so that'll probably last me a lifetime! and further to all that i've already ordered a couple of part that have arrived!

 

What you'll see below is a Texas Speed LS3 Stage 3 NA cam (look it up for the specs or check out my video!) which i'd be pretty conservative in saying should give an additional 50hp to the engine along with their .660 lift dual valve spring kit, hardened push rods, CHE Trunnion bearing replacement (a weak point of LS engines) and the new oem GM high performance oil pump!

 

 

 

and the following video to tie it all together!

 

 

[Samwise 155]

Another small update, haven't got around to doing too much on the car/engine over the christmas break as I was largely taking full advantage of time off work doing naff all!

 

but I did spend new years day doing some fun (read: sad and weird) Valve cleaning and other jobs!

 

Started up by cleaning up the valves both instake and exhaust, thankfully there's only 16 valves in the whole engine but you can see how the LS is renown for its immense airflow with intake valves the size of a dinner plate like this.

I didn't want to use anything too harsh on the valves or do anything that might damage/remove material from them so armed with my new bench mounted parts cleaner, what feels like a metric tonne of degreaser and some brushes / grey scotchbrite pads I went about removing alot of the discolouration and carbon buildup on the vavles, they don't look brand new by any stretch of the imagination but i'd rather not risk damaging them. I'll finish them up by lapping the valves in to the heads when the times comes to put it all back together but for now here's how they look!

 

Old Exhaust Valve / Cleaned Exhaust Valve / Old Intake Valve / Cleaned Intake valve

 

 

 

 

Moving on from there to another small job which is starting to prepare the Rocker arms for the Trunnion bearing upgrade. Briefly shown and mentioned in my previous video the rocker arms or specifically the needle bearings they feature is the largest failure point of a modified LS engine. When subject to a cam with higher lift and high revs/power/etc the Rocker arm bearings can tend to over-rotate which causes them to come apart, with no circlips to hold them in to the rocker arms the bearings break free and loads of tiny needle bearings are dispersed in to the engine causing havoc on the internals. for <$200 the rocker arm trunnion upgrade is a worthwhile and easy to install piece of mind upgrade but first things first is getting the old bearings out and cleaning up the rocker arms.

It's as savage and simple as it looks, the rocker arm between 2 sockets and simply pressed out with my bench vice, repeat this 15 times and you got yourself a pile of needle bearings to throw away.

 

 

 

I'll be going over all of this in my next video and my next steps will be to give theRocker arms and heads a decent degreasing/steam cleaning and then re-assemble it all with the new valve spring kit, bearings and so on! then i'll be moving on to the bottom end!

 

[Samwise 155]

Been slowly moving ahead on tearing down and cleaning up the Internals of the LS ready to go back together with the shiny new parts.
I'm having to be particularly thorough with it moreso than I was perhaps hoping for. As the engine was a core it's clearly sat for sometime and is just mega sludgy and crusty throughout. Definitely the kind of thing that should've been hot tanked but in my ignorance i assumed the cost would be fairly high and wanted to clean it out myself. I might still get the block hot tanked but for now.. on with the show!

Following the removal of the valves and getting the rocker arms apart the next setp was to clean up the rocker arms, they were perfectly useable as is but i didn't fancy putting the oil-black (rocker arms in with the shiny new valves, valve springs etc and as well as that I had to get the new trunnion bearing upgrade install.


The Bearing upgrade I went for was from the more expensive range of trunnion bearing upgrades as it features brass bearings rather than needle bearings once again but the reason i went for this particular one was it's ease of installation as it doesn't require the bearings to be pressed in and simply needs a pair of circlip pliers!


Here's a before and after of the old grimey rocker arm compared to a lovely cleaned and polished up one.







After cleaned up everything get chucked back in to a container of fresh oil to keep it from rusting and also to prepare it for the trunnion bearing upgrade install.
Every component of the bearing has to be covered in oil or assembly lube when being put together so it's easier just to keep them chilling in the oil as they'll likely sit there for some time after until finally being installed in to the heads.


Moving on to the bearing upgrade it was very easy for all 16 rocker arms, the hardest part is simply installing the circlips and making sure they don't launch themselves in to the stratosphere. Once done they look pretty smart!

 

 

 

 

With all of that covered off in the above video I moved on to the next task. Wanting to get the heads all finished before moving on to the block, pistons and crank they were in a severe need of cleaning, muck like the block itself the insides of the heads are filled with gunky sludgy old oil and carbon, buildup from the coolant system, etc.

At this stage i'm thinking it might be better to just bite the bullet and get a machine shop to clean it all but i've already bought the parts washer, degreaser and brake cleaner, etc so feel I may as well persevere for now!

 

Armed with copious amounts of brake cleaner and elbow grease I was able to get one of the heads pretty darn clean if i say so myself. It took around 3 hours and only the most stubborn of oil stains and carbon buildup is left over, largely on the exhaust ports but i'm not overly fussed about that as it will soon build up again or come off after the engine's first "Italian tune up"

 

All of this will be covered in my next video but I couldn't help showing it off as I have to say im rather proud of how they turned out, i wasn't so sure they were particularly salvagable by hand, i still might take the block itself to a machine shop to make sure all the oil passage ways and cylinder bores are cleaned thoroughly but the heads came out pretty well by hand!

Check out the comparison of the old crusty state the heads were in and the new shiny cleaned up head!

 

 

[Hypnosis 12]

I'm actually following you on YouTube now, would love to do a V8 swap myself! 

[Samwise 155]

2 hours ago, Hypnosis said:

I'm actually following you on YouTube now, would love to do a V8 swap myself! 

Haha cheers, means alot! Gets tricky to put out videos frequently these days around juggling work and actually doing enough in a video to make it interesting but it's still quite fun to do!

Sounds good, Can't say mine will be a decent how to: and it's still very early days so far but it's all these little detailed jobs that make the big difference and also take all the time.

[Samwise 155]

Another video update this week!

 

got the heads for the LS3 buttoned up, cleaned up the second head, proceeded to lap the valves and then re-install them along with brand new valve springs, seats/seals and the refreshed and upgraded rocker arms!

 

There's unfortunately not much else to say than that! It took quite a bit of time and alot of elbow grease to get them cleaned up as thoroughly as I could and then all 16 (thankfully only 16!) valves as they were quite heavily pitted, especially in the case of the exhaust valves.

 

Without further ado the pictures to show it all off and the video to accompany them!

 

 

 

 

 

[Samwise 155]

Right well.. it's been a little while since I last updated this post.. and that's not to say there hasn't been bits going on, i've just been so absurdly busy I keep forgetting to take photos!

 

For starters I finally moved out of my parent's house and got my first property, a decently sized little flat which has been an absolute rollercoaster of emotions and made and already very fast-moving year suddenly jump 3 months in the blink of an eye!

 

 

 

But getting back to the part you're all here for the car & engine although I have to pre-warn you as with alot of the recent engine-related posts it's quite nerdy!

 

After sprucing up the cylinder heads I wrapped those up and stuck them up on the shelf back in March and moved on to removing the pistons from the engine.

I flip flopped back and forth exactly what I was going to do with the internals of the engine and to what extent I was going to take it all apart - In the end I decided to not remove the crank & crank bearings down to a few factors, namely the fear of the main journals going out-of-round and replacing the main cap studs & bolts with ARP items which can get expensive already ontop of having shelled out for ARP head studs etc.

As well as this I decided on retaining the stock internals again because the rod journals are known to go out of round if you go with ARP rod bolts and there's so much drama when it comes to forged items if you're on a budget it's such a headache! - I'm glad I did this in the end because as I type this my lights might simply turn off at any moment due to the fact the flat didn't come with a pot to piss in!

 

With all of that I moved on to removing the Cam, lifters, etc and painting the engine block. All very easy and I made a couple of youtube videos covering the topics:

 

https://youtu.be/4Nu4iKF605k

https://youtu.be/1LR8d22JWXc

https://youtu.be/8iSihhg9jcA

 

 

And that neatly brings me on to where I am now, with freshly honed cylinder bores, measured tolerances & bearings and ready to assemble it all again, but as they always say - THIS THREAD IS USELESS WITHOUT PICTURES which was half my reason for a lack of update, i simply keep forgetting so lets see...

 

 

Nicely cleaned up & painted block:

 

 

 

Honed Cylinder bores:

 

Pistons ringed & ready to go!:

 

and the engine block again, this time featuring considerably more pistons!

 

 

 

As for the nerdy bits in regards to tolerances and clearances, here are my findings regarding the top & Middle compression rings and rod bearings:

 

OEM Top Ring clearances:

Production - 0.23‐0.44 mm

Service - 0.23‐0.5 mm

Mine - 0.5mm - so right on the upper edge of a "serviced" engine but It's not the end of the world.

 

OEM Second Ring clearances:

Production - 0.44-0.7mm

Service - 0.44-0.76mm

Mine - 0.56mm - well within even production specs so i'm quite happy with this!

 

Piston Rod Bearing clearances:

Production - 0.023-0.065mm

Service - 0.023-0.076mm

Mine - 0.051mm - Only measured using plastigage but considering this is right in the middle of the range i'm quite happy with this

 

 

And with that the lower end of the engine block is all back together and i've got 95% of the new parts required to close up the engine too!

 

 

If you're a fan of shopping lists boy do I have a fun one for you, in the above pics you're looking at:

 

Brand new intake manifold - /w gaskets, fuel rails, injectors, throttle body & map sensor (purchased "used" but it's very much as fresh as a daisy!)

Head gaskets

LS7 Lifters /w new lifter trays

New Cam Timing gear, chain & guide (required for the removal of VVT)

New Sensors & plugs all over

New cam retainer plate

New Front Timing cover /w seal & Gasket

New Rear main cover /w main seal

More gaskets - Valley cover & Exhaust manifold

New front Pulley

ARP Cam Bolts

ARP Exhaust Manifold Bolts

ARP Head Studs

ARP Pulley bolt

& More bolts, brackets & otherwise as well as the bits I showed off in previous posts.

 

All that really leaves to close up the engine for good is a pair of new rocker covers as mine are rather nasty, a new valley cover simply because I want to and the new Sump pan & pickup tube which comes with the engine swap kit.

 

Next weekend I'm going to get the new Cam, lifters, timing bits and perhaps even the refurbed heads back on and in a way the engine build is then "done"