So I finally had enough time to write up a progress thread of my engine build up. The whole reason why I ended up having to rebuild the motor this year was because of a burnt 4th cylinder exhaust valve, so I decided I might as well fix all the problems now while I had the time…i.e. valve seals and oil control rings.


So it begins, with what my motor looked like just after pulling it from the engine bay.










How the engine bay looked, dirty as ----, with wires everywhere















Random pics of the dirty engine










With the head off

























The crankshaft, bearings, girdle, main cap, oil pickup and windage tray





































The almost bare block













How my garage looked after removing everything off the block and head, then putting them in label sandwich bags











What kept my battery charged the whole time while building my engine

 

The other parts I took off the car for the time being.

The starter opened up














The old driveshafts and intermediate shaft



The knuckles and upper control arms



The brake caliper brackets, rotors, lower forks and my Hayame full coilover suspension



The clutch and flywheel









Now onto the progress pictures

I took the block to my backyard and got some engine degreaser and brake cleaner to clean it up. Then rinse it off with some high pressure water.

How it looked after I finished cleaning it up and done drying











Notice the rusty looking cylinders; it was just surface rust, so I wasn’t worried at all. It came off by just wiping it with your finger. I was also boring .25 over so nothing the machine shop can’t get rid of.
Now onto the most time consuming and looked over parts of building a motor; cleaning up the threads of the head studs and main studs holes.

First got to make sure you buy the right sized tap. In my case it was 11mm x 1.5mm. Confirmed by the Helms manual and checking the old head bolts and main bolts that came out of the block.







More proof, the head bolt screws into the main bolt hole perfectly. All the confirmation I need.

 

Chasing the threads of the head bolts hole





The shavings that came out of all the 10 head studs holes (sorry for the blurry pictures)







Onto the main bolt holes, it’s the same process





The results, this is what came out of each main bolt hole. Shocking isn’t it







How the threads looked after, nice and clean



In the meantime the head was sent out to my local machine shop and this is how it looked when I got it back






































Next the block was sent off and this is how I received it back from the machine shop

















The heads done for now until I put it on the block.

The parts I ordered have arrived, sweet.















My replacement distributor king dizzy. My old one was on its way out. Gotta love 3 year warranties.



My injectors before



My injectors balanced and cleaned.




My new jdm itr pistons along with wrist pins and new OEM piston rings











My parts box

 

Next I started to re-assemble the head. Intake outer, intake inner and exhaust outer valve springs, along with valve spring seats and retainers. Intake is the top two springs and the exhaust is the bottom springs. Exhaust valve springs are slightly taller than the intake valve spring for the GSR.







Exhaust valve springs in the back, intake outer up front



Intake valves on the left and exhaust on the right. My burnt 4th cylinder exhaust valve in the middle



The valve keepers a.k.a. ping -----it!

































It’s the same for the exhaust side. Then I made sure that the intake and exhaust oil orifice was in place.









Then next I replaced all the studs on the intake side of the head to accommodate the thicker Hondata intake gasket























I made a bracket for the EVAP Purge Solenoid and connected the rest of the little things





I also replaced the studs that connect the throttle body to the intake manifold.







Next I took the transmission apart and cleaned all the gears and transmission magnet. I also inspected the syncro’s, gears and gear sleeves




























































After all that work, it was time to work on putting the block back together.

****will finish the rest of the progress write up with pics a little later on****

 

damnnnnnnnn T thats some serious work you put in. Glad to see you took pics to show what it was to what it will become. Nuff respects for the effort and patient you have to do that. Can't wait to see how it runs, good work T!

 

Yeah man, nice build. Keep up the good work. Glad to know that there are tuners out there who take pride in their work.

 

Thats a lot of work! Lots of respect for having the patience and time to do it. One question, why didn't you use the ITR lost motion assemblies when reassembling the head?

 

Now that's the way it's done

 

Wayne for a couple of reasons
-price




-mine are still good, except one
-I'm going to use that money for valvesprings instead
-and you can use prelude vtec lma's which are basically the same as the itr's except that they're $180 cheaper


I'll be replacing them anyways when I get cams

 

holy crap trennel, nice work and pics man!

 

Ok guys...here's the truth...I did all the work and Trenell only took pics...

but honestly...you guys have NO idea how much time went into this...I think Trenell knew the Helms manual WAY better than any school textbook! We're all very proud of him...

(hides and runs for being girly...:*****: )

 

WOW! that looks like it took took a while..all hail engine rebuild god Trenelle!

btw how much did it run you in the end T?

 

+1 for hard work, patience, and dedication.

 

REAL SERIOUS.

 

wow man looks realli good, you are really commited which is good. Your hard worked pay off man great job! i wanna see this thing on the track!

 

damn.........thats alot of work!! good ----.........

i would have dropped a LSD into that tranny while you had it apart.......

 

Thanks guys, I'm still not done just yet.

Omar in total with tools, parts, shipping, brokerage, machine work and tax roughly $2200

Lou at the time I couldn't find any LSD's or JDM 4.785 or ATS 4.9 FD what-so-ever, now that it's back together they're popping up all over.

Figures eh

 

i got a OBX LSD coming out of my gsr tranny in about a week........wanna buy it? cheap cheap!!

 

That is a great write-up! great pics! and major props for doing the work yourself! can't wait to see it completed.

 

awesome work T! what work did the machine shop do to your block and head?

 

What machine shop did you send it to? Great work. Damn the dedication.

 

Sorry Lou no OBX for me, thanks though. If you have a JDM final drive I'll gladly buy it


Mark and Scott the machine work was done by Canadian Cylinder Head in North York

 

WOW. Thats all i gotta say. Mad props for the dedication and hard work you put into the motor. Now you have a full summer to enjoy a nice healthy motor!!!

 

Trenell, that is some serious wrench time you put in!!! Congrats on what looks like quite the build. Even though Amanda did most of it . . .

Can't wait to see the finished product at the meet!!

 

Great work T, much props.

www.cylinderheadtech.com does it again!

I'm taking mine there soon too

 

woah.......you came from whitby to north york for machine shop work :*****: .......thats cool........greame does good work........i bring some of my stuff to him also.......

 

Whitby to North York isn't that far....

 

wow thats amazing!!! impressive stuff! wish i could learn to do that or even have the time to do it!

 

LOOKING GOOD MR "T" :ballboy: that's Super "T" For U baller boooyyyeee :finger:

 

T, you are a MACHINE!!!! im stunned

 

Time to put the block back together. How it looked when I got it from the machine shop along with the serviced oil pump and new rear main seal





















Installing the oil squirters





Cleaning up the main bores and bearings for plasitgauging







Bearings





Installed in the mains





Bearings lubed up in preparation of the cleaned up and micropolished crank





Thrust washers are next





Installed





Crankshaft in place







Plastigauging in process







After I finished plastigauging all the mains, they were cleaned up of any excess plastigauge and then lubed thoroughly with engine assembly lube as well as the girdle





Since I had the machine shop install the new pistons on the connecting rods for me, along with installing the piston rings and checking there gap, its one step closer to final assembly. Here they are



Cleaned up the surfaces in preparation of the bearings



Then I needed to remove the cap to install the bearings








Now time to clean up the cylinders for the piston and rod assembly









Then lube up the cylinder walls with WD40



Piston ring compressor





Wiping WD40 on the piston ring compressor





Time to install the pistons, ensuring that all the piston rings are facing up and that the gaps are properly orientated





All installed



Then made sure to use the ARP assemble lube on the nuts and thread bolt end, to have the correct torque for the plastigauging. If you look carefully, you can see the plastigauge in the background



Rod cap on



Lubed up nut





Placed on the rod



Me torquing down the rod bolts to ARP specs



The best way I found to loosen the cap after plastigauging.

 

This is after I had got the cap loose





After finishing all the plastigauging for all the rods, I made sure to apply enough engine assembly lube to the journals



Connecting rod end play within stock specs





Finally I can move on to the rest of the engine block assembly. It took me about 3 hours to plastigauge all the bearings. Done twice, some three times for accuracy.

How the pistons should look within there respective cylinders now that they are torqued down properly



Now for the pictures of the other little/random things that go onto the block


































Now I move onto the oil pump, I prep the surface by cleaning it up then placing the high temp sealant around the matting surface.

***forgot to take a picture of that, my bad***

Oil Pump Installed along with a new oil pickup gasket





Oil pickup cleaned along with the bolts & nuts





The same treatment is applied to the rear main seal





Rear main seal installed along with the new oil pan gasket and windage tray



Oil Pickup Installed



Oil Pan installed along with my magnetic Spoon drain bolt





Onto the golden eagle head studs





Gotta replace that o-ring on the oil orifice



Oil Orifice installed



Next it’s time for the headgasket, only OEM for me





Yup it’s facing the right way



Time to put on the head



Don’t forget those dowel pins



Me lubing the ---- out of the washers and nuts



Head installed



Time for the cams, lube up the cam journals



Same goes for the cams





Installed the cam holders along with the cam holder plates (note the bolts to hold on the valve cover are on wrong, should be on the inner holes)



Valve cover put on



Flywheel Installed



Pressure Plate and Clutch Disk Installed





Putting the transmission back on the block by myself and trying to take the picture at the same time



Practically done pictures















Other things I did while the engine was out





















You didn’t think that I would leave the engine bay that dirty did you?











Picture in engine bay

***will put up when I get home from work***

 

crazy work trenell!!! me and my boy just put on a new fender, and replaced his door and internals, and we felt like the biggest mechanics, and i come home to read this thread...ahaha...

question? did you learn how to do all this work by yourself? helms? internet?

and when you said : "
You didn’t think that I would leave the engine bay that dirty did you?"

i thought we were gonna see some wire tucking pics!!!

but great work nonetheless, and motivates the hell out of me to become more engine savvy!!!

 

Yup used the good old internet & helms

Look closely and you see that I started the wire tucking.
-so far fuel rail is done
-vtec solenoid
-distributor
-driver side near the shock tower
and some of the main harness near the battery. Those were the only ones I could move without cutting and extending wires, since I didn't want to do it and have electrical problems later on causing Nick not to be able to tune my car. Now that it's up and running, I'll finish it up once I stop being so lazy

 

oh, woops...well great job...you and fuzz, all motor twins of 2006!

 

Wow, I am impressed, Something I dont think I could ever do. Goodwork Mr.T

 

except fuzzy's is never gonna be done and when it is, it'll still be slow :laugh1:

 

Amazing work Trenell... scrolling thru your pics is like watching those shows on spike tv on sundays... just amazing... u must be dying to fire it up... if you havent already

 

Pri...it's been fired up and running for almost a week!

 

How exactly do you do the plastigauging?
What is the procedure?