Holy cow, it's been a long time since I've updated this build.
I guess I'll pick up where I left off.
Bolted on the oil pan.
And painted it as well.
Painted the water hard lines too. Take a look at this little hose that nobody likes replacing.
Painted and bolted on the alternator bracket. I was very tempted to buy a lightweight one from RacerX, but I didn't want to spend the extra money on it, nor did I really have any in the first place. Plus I would have to wait for it and possibly postpone the build even more.
Bought some goodies from TwosRus.
Then I went from the shop to where my car was stored, and removed the stock intercooler.
Mocked up the GReddy. Pretty sure it's a replica, but it's good for my current power goals.
Then I mocked up the stock fan, and decided that I wanted the SPAL puller fan from KO. Also ordered the block off shroud at the same time.
Back to the shop. Disassembled the oil cooler, inspected it thoroughly for any metal shards, and replaced all the gaskets and o-rings in it.
Stuck that sucker on.
Hose from Hell and HFHOE.
To keep with my theme of gunmetal/silver paint scheme on the engine, I took all the plugs and hoses off the water neck so I could paint it.
It had a busted cold start switch, must've destroyed it sometime during the teardown. Bought a used one straight away.
Painted the water neck.
Also painted the thermostat housing.
Yummy. Got a call that my head was ready. I have never driven so carefully in my life, transporting it in my Integra from East Vancouver to Richmond. I could have had an empty barrel of nuclear waste in the passenger seat and not have spilled a drop during the drive, LOL.
After gorging over the beautiful head, I went back to work. painted the oil dipstick tube.
And the coolant neck that attaches to the water neck. I don't know the actual name for it, haha.
Unwrapped the head while waiting for paint to dry, continued to drool and became giddy.
Dipstick tube installed.
I couldn't resist, I placed the head on the block just to see what it would look like. Me likey.
Slapped on the Cometic head gasket, head studs and bolted and torqued them down.
Bolted on the water neck. If I had more time, I would have sanded down the piece to be super smooth. But I didn't, so I just threw it on. It's easy enough to access with the engine in the car, so I'll probably do that later on.
Attached some hoses.
Bolted on the coolant neck.
Painted the metal plate between the cam gears and head.
I then decided that I wanted to make my fuel rail pretty. Here it is before treatment.
Took the top piece off to get powdercoated.
Then I cleaned the intake manifold. It wasn't a fun job, to say the least. Took almost 2 full cans of brake clean.
Parts are just strewn everywhere.
Once again, if I had more time and money, I would have sent off the intake mani to be polished and be super shiny. But, I didn't, so it received a few coats of high temp paint.
Cleaned the TVIS assembly.
Threw my valve cover on for mock up. Extremely giddy at this point.
Installed the cam shield and cam gears.
Installed TVIS and the intake manifold.
Cleaned and painted the manifold supports.
Printed out some diagrams for the hoses, and started installing what I could.
Slapped the alternator on.
Tensioner and pulley installed.
Timing belt on.
Put back all the plugs and things on the water neck.
Timing covers on, engine mount bracket installed.
Now for the fun side. Exhaust manifold went on.
Painted the turbo lines.
Replaced the gasket between manifold and turbo.
Turbo re-attached.
Painted the engine hooks too.
And heat shield.
Every little bracket was cleaned and painted.
And everything pretty much ready to go.
Attached the EGR.
Cleaned and installed dizzy.
Slapped on the fuel rail.
Top piece came back from powder coater. Same colour as my valve cover. I had this clever idea of having it as an accent piece, but then it failed when I forgot the harness pretty much covers it and hides it from sight. Sigh.
The car was then brought to the shop!
Fabbed up an oil sender block off plate. I broke the float when I pulled it out, and decided to just bypass it.
Cleaned the gunk off the harness as best as I could.
And wrestled it in to place.
Cold start injector.
What a mess of wiring.
Installed the valve cover at last. Dabbed from RTV on the cam seals.
Stuck in new gaskets, and put that sucker on.
Forgot to paint the throttle body, so I quickly masked and painted that to match the intake manifold.
Stuck all the vacuum lines on.
Painted and installed support bracket.
Mm, shiny KO Racing throttle body inlet.
A friend randomly dropped by and took this picture of my installing my intercooler lol.
Cleaned the engine bay as best as I could, with heavy duty degreaser and a pressure washer.
Got some NGK plug wires and slapped those in. I would have gone for TRD ones, but the red clashes against the blue. I'm weird.
Fabbed up a bracket for the puller fan on the intercooler, and installed it.
Stuck brass bushings in the shifter cables.
Alternator belt on.
Picture of the engine again.
Cleaned the transmission. I failed to find one with good synchros, so I guess I'll deal with my 2nd gear grind until I can afford to swap in an LSD one.
Polished up the intercooler pipes.
And the SP as well.
Ordered an OEM replacement clutch disk from Exedy. It's still pretty much stock, so that's why I went with this.
Car on lift, engine on crane!
Flywheel installed.
Disk and pressure plate on.
It was then I realized I wanted a new throw out bearing, so I ordered one. It wouldn't come in till the next morning, and I couldn't come down to the shop until noon since I had something to do.
Came back to this.
Subframe.
Installed that sucka.
Buttoned everything up, attached intercooler hoses, all the other hoses, and bang, it's done.
It moved out here on its own power!
I don't have a video of the first start up, sadly. It puked oil everywhere though, so we looked for it. Had my dad look at it while I started it, and he screamed at me when I did, haha. I forgot to install the oil pressure switch. Of all things! In retrospect, it's pretty funny. At the time, I was extremely embarrassed LOL.
After putting coolant and more oil in it, I took it straight to Aircare, no fine-tuning timing or anything, LOL.
And failed. LOL.
Went back, and adjusted the dizzy. Could have gone back, but decided to just get 3 month insurance and call it a day.
