Out the motor came. Through 2017 I basically drove half an event. That sucked.
Started tearing it down and surprisingly, everything was in good shape, until I got to the pistons. Piston 1 had cracked ringlands. Piston 2 had cracked ringlands and a 1/4 of the second ring was missing.
Forunately, the crank was in excellent shape and the cylinders were also ok. When I went to remove the timing idler pulley, it was wiggling. I loosened the bolt by hand and all of the threads came with it. Gotta love when people don't understand the importance of a torque wrench.
I was deciding between an oem rebuild(just honing the cylinders and slapping some new NPR rings and some bearings in), or going ahead and using my forged bottom end. Once I found that I'd need new pistons, it was a no brainer. So I started ordering parts.
The basic rundown is Ross 89.5mm 8.5:1 compression pistons, Eagle H-Beam Rods, all ARP hardware, Clevite 77 main/rod bearings, new gaskets/seals/etc. I also decided to rebuild the china oil pump with genuine parts for peace of mind. I dropped the block off to be bored .02 over, decked, and hot tanked. They also inspected the pistons since they were used. Everything came out perfect. I masked everything off and gave it some fresh paint.
The first order of business was dealing with the head. I had one head that was freshly machined but had bent valves. Had another with good valves but stripped threads. So I dropped all the good valves and put them into the good head. I spent a few hours relapping them and was super happy with how it turned out. I also put some fresh Supertech valve stem seals in.
Next it was time to assemble the bottom end. Once my ring filer came in I got to work on gapping the new rings. Going by Ross's instructions, I ended with .018" gap on the top ring and .021" on the second rings. Took my time and all 4 cylinders were spot on.
As I was assembling the rotating assembly I used plastigauge to make sure the bearing tolerances were ok, and both the main and the rods were in the middle of the oem specified limits.
Next was the oil system. I replaced the oil filter housing gasket and rebuilt the oil pump, then threw it on with a new oil pickup.
It was pretty much smooth sailing from here. I took it slow and made sure everything was right and torqued to spec.
Ended the night with an almost complete motor.
If you remember, I had my valve cover hydro dipped and I was super happy with it. However, it lasted maybe 3 times of driving and started cracking. The guy who did it was happy to redo it, but I never got around to shipping it back to him so I just counted my losses. I painted my spare cover in wrinkle black and was happy with the result anyways(kinda hard to mess up wrinkle paint). Painted a few other bits and ended with this
Which is where I am now. I need to clean a few pieces(mainly the intake manifold) and reattach the transmission. I plan to have the motor in the car by this weekend and I can start breaking it in. The next event is in March so I need to get yet another tune schedule before then. In all honesty, I'll probably keep it around the same power. 300whp is dumb on 15's. Second gear is almost as useless as first while drifting now. I'm trying out some grippier tires to help, and I may switch back from the 4.36 to a 3.9.
Hopefully this phase of the motor will last longer.