Painting the rocker covers and the rest of them

On Sunday I have finally decided to paint all the covers for the engine. At first I wanted to put them into an oven after painting of all 3 necessary layers, but after waiting for weeks to be able to get to an oven, I decided to do it at home and not waste any more time on waiting for someone not reliable!

So, few weeks back I have given the covers for sandblasting. Unfortunately at this time I didn't really knew the real difference between sandblasting with sand and with glass beads.

So the covers were sandblasted and therefore the surface was not as smooth as I would have liked to have it. But I thought I'd give it a try and cleaned the parts prior to painting with a silicone remover which has done a pretty good job in the past.

So, my decision was to use a VHT wrinkle paint in Black. Actually I wanted it in a special grey which is used for the Omori Z2 engine but VHT wrinkle was at this time available only in black and red. Also, a very big thanks goes to Denis (Tranq) who has kindly donated 2 black color spray cans and 2 red color ones as I would have not been able to organize those in Austria since the UK guys are not allowed to ship it and shipping from the States is ridiculously expensive. Unfortunately, with the last coat of the last part I ran out of the color so my painting of the inlet manifold will have to wait until I organize more cans from Tranq :)

Hovewer, the process was as described on the can or here: Build Threads

My steps were:

1. Sandblasting the parts
2. Cleaning them with silicone remover
3. Preheating of the parts (not necessary, but since the parts were under 10°C i decided to do it)
4. 1st layer horizontally
5. 5 Minutes break
6. 2nd layer vertically
7. 5 Minutes break
8. 3rd layer diagonal
9. After that You need to have a lots of nerves or a good helper (thanks LiZ) and one heat gun per person to apply heat to the finished parts. I started with 300 °C setting but soon after I realized that this'll take too much time to get the job done so i set up 600 °C and gave it a go. And it worked. You only need to be patient and wait for few minutes and wave the heat gun around the whole parts. Take care not to stay long on one spot as people are describing that it'll sligthly burn the coat and You can start from the beginning.

 NOTE: The available room for this job was far away from clean and dustfree. And I have noticed dust particles on the parts after step 2 but it was already to late as i started spraying. All surface inperfections which were produced during sandblasting were covered by the three coats and allthough after the third one I was thinking that it looks like shit, the result was absolutely amazing. Also, the dust particles are somehow moved from the part surface to the coat surface during the process so after the paint has dried you can easily remove the "painted dust".
NOTE2: please take care not to leave any valuable stuff in the room during this process as the dust during the process is really aggressive and it will fly through the room and stick to everything in the way. Fortunately for me, my cellphone was (even though 2m avay from the painting surface) easy to clean!
NOTE3: please make sure that You paint with this paint in a room which has enough air. The best thing would be to stick to the description on the can and to paint outdoors. I was stupid enough to paint indoors and opened the window very late so I had serious headache for the next 2 days. So take care guys and girls as this paint really is dangerous!!

Now for the pictures:

After 1st coat (as You can see the surface really looks shitty at this stage):

Long after heating of the last coat:

Now, there is something which I have noticed and I don't really know how to avoid this, which is the bends and curves. Still, I'm very happy with the results:

Next thing is to organize more color and to paint the intake manifold, the twin turbo pipe and probably to try and see the effect on the heat shields of the turbos. Especially to find out if it can take the temperatures :)

Until then, stay tuned!

Cheers,
RoB

Some new parts from ISA racing and fitting the new brake system pt. 2

Since my last post, I had an interesting discussion with a friend of mine who is a very talented electrics engineer and does a lot of stuff for different OEMs like e.g. wirings for their cars or programming of some stuff. However since I have posted the following picture he has strongly advised me to exchange the plug on the fans to a connector due to the current flow direction.

Anyway, I'm going to change this as soon as possible.

During the weekend my father has visited me to help me finally finish the car and we moved a big step forward.

The rear brakes were uprated and done very carefully and properly. In order to minimize my efforts, I have cut the heat shield behind the brake disc to fit the new disc as I really didn't want to remove the whole wheel hub as it would have taken a huge amount of time to do so.

I also put a primer on it and painted the front plain black. Just because I wanted to do it, not because it needed to be done!

Futher on, all four sides were upgraded with braided brake lines from Nismo. It was a pretty straightforward job to do so. Unfortunately, I only have a picture of the rear lines but You'll get what I mean :)

Next thing was to exchange the front upper camber arms as I got adjustable ones from Cusco. The same thing was done for the front tension rod as it is recommended to have a fixed tension rod with no rubber bearing as otherwise you will ruin the camber arms pretty fast because they would need to take all the shocks from the street.

Unfortunately, it was not possible to mount the new front brakes because the bolt diameter is 14mm and the standard size is 12 mm. Therefore the hole needs to be made bigger. Since all of my drills accept borer up to 13 mm and I therefore only have a maximum sized borer of 13mm, it was not possible to do this. This will be done ASAP.

Good news is that I have received my mocal oil coolers for the transfer box and the rear differential but I will wait until putting it on my car as I have a lot of other things which need to be prioritized.

Finally, I'm still waiting for my parts from Japan which should have arrived few weeks back already and I really don't know what's happened with them. Without that stuff I cannot proceed with the engine build up process.

Cheers, keep on reading!

Some new parts from ISA racing and fitting the new brake system pt. 1

Hi all!

Last couple of weeks I was busy rearranging my garage, making some space for the stuff I'm waiting for and basically cleaning of some parts.

Last week my ISA racing order (at least a part of it) arrived (within 2 days from Germany to Austria).

It included 2 SPAL fans for my new radiator, fan mountings, Aerocatch bonnet locks, and some small pieces needed to finish the car.

So on Sunday, I was busy finishing the stuff which I could finish.

First thing on the list was to fit the fans to the radiator and to fit the superseal connectors to the cables as I'm fan of those! Here's the result:

Next thing was to fit the new water temperature sensor into this hose adapter. I know, it's a 5 minutes job, but it still needs to be done! The reason for the water temperature sensor is that I'm going to connect it to a programmable micro sps which will monitor my temperature and switch the fans according to my programmed limits.

Further on, I have finished wiring of my reverse and fog light as few months back I didn't have the correct pins for the connector. Now this is done as well. No pictures as there's really nothing to see :)

I also started to remove the rear HICAS cylinder as i will fit the dummy pipe instead. I really don't like it if "something" interferes into my driving. The dummy pipe came from whiteline and was originally painted silver with a clear coat on it! Not to forget, that the silver paint was cracked under the clear coat after the delivery! So, as this was bothering me and as I want nearly all parts to be "under the radar" i stipped the paint off (awful job for this geometry) and painted it matt black. Results will hopefully be seen in the next post.

I also started dismounting the HICAS arms but I had to find out that I didn't have suitable tools for this as I need a 30mm wrench. This will happen during the upcoming weekend!

However, the most motivating thing for me was to remove the rear brakes and put on the new ones. As it was late already for a Sunday evening I only got to mount the passenger side rear brake without the braided brake hose. Anyway this was a very motivating moment for me as I saw that finally something is moving on and things are getting done. Hope that within next two weeks the engine bay will be painted andthat I can finally start assembling the car back together!

Cheers,

RoB

Complete engine restauration

As I work for a company which is testing and measuring engines, I wanted to measure all important bushings and the cylinders.

We found out that the cylinders were slightly out of roundness and out of taper so this was a reason enough why now I'm actually going to rebore and rehone the engine to the next standard size.
Also I have decided, since I'm doing this, I will go with forged pistons and connecting rods as I really don't want to open the engine again next year and buy all the gaskets again!

Another issue were the exhaust valve guides which were not very good either. Those were not cylindrical any more and became conical with the time (from the top to the bottom). So these, together with the new valve seats are going to be inserted into the head.

Oh yes, and the engine is now very clean. It took me about 6 hours to do this and after some machine washing it looked wonderful! The same for the cylinder head! Not like new, but nearly!

Best wishes!

Cleaning the engine bay

Well, with the engine out of the car, I have got a clear picture of the actual mess that was inside the engine bay!

So, i decided to clean and to respray it! Here I have to say a really big thank You to my significant other for helping me out! Even though she was cold, she stood there for nearly 5 hours and cleaned the engine bay and the surrounding nearly without a break! Amazing! Offcourse I did it too, just in case You think I let her work and do nothing!

Also, I have cleaned all the rusty spots and treat them with some Brunox anti rust chemical stuff which is a base coat as well. Now, there are only the lower door hinges which need some treatment and the front is ready to be repainted. Also I have covered everything in foil for the painting process!

A lots of parts were sandblasted last week. E.g. The intake manifold, camshaft, timing belt and ignition coil covers and should be painted this weekend with the wrinkle black color. I'm looking forward to the finished product!
The engine hood hinges, engine carrier arms and some auxiliary mounts were sand blasted too and painted mat black as they will not be visible but I also didn't want to leave them unpainted. It looks cool though! :)
I'll put some pictures up in the next post!

Cheers

Opening the engine

As my father doesn't allways have the time to help me, we found some time on January, 7th to take the engine apart and have a look at it.

I really don't have to tell You how dirty it is, so I won't.

Anyway, my worst fear was it that it after taking out the pistons i would need to rebore and rehone the cylinder because of the broken piston rings. But, to my surprise, we have found out that the piston rings are not broken, the cylinders are in great shape and all of the bearings are like new.

So, basically i would just need to clean the engine and to put everything back together, would I? More about this in a few days!

Cheers

Taking the car apart

Finally I have started taking the car apart.

First job was to dismount the front bumper, front left and right wing and all auxiliary parts at the front in order to have a clear access to the engine to take it out in probably 3 weeks from now as Leo has offered me his help in getting this job done :)

I was really not pleased with what I have seen under these parts and this just makes me doubt more about the real mileage of the car and therefore I have decided to check what mileage the car really has or had during the deregistration of the car in Japan. Looking forward to seeing the result.

Anyway, what I have seen is a bit of rust, a lot of dirt, a lot of burnt oil on the parts which usually don't get in contact with oil and nearly all of the screws were completely rusty and therefore very hard to unbolt. I really find it hard to believe that a car with 100kkm on the clock is this dirty and the bolts are this rusty. Not even my 200kkm '95 citroen which is driven all the time and in the winter with salted streets hast bolts which are in this condition. Anyway, I'll wait and see ;)

On January, 2nd Leo was so nice to come by and help me with the engine removal. Well, the process took about 4 hours which were funny and painful! Also we took showers in water and oil. Once again, sorry for this buddy!

Well, after taking the camshaft cover off the car few days ago and finding a mess under it, i nearly passed out!

Anyway, without rushing in, we waited to see what we would find in the oil pan and then, this was what we found:

This was the time where I actually got very calm on the outside but was raging in the inside as I got very desperate and really didn't know what to do!

To all of that Leo called a friend of his to ask for a possible reason for this and the first possibility was that the piston rings are done! I was really pissed after this as originally I didn't plan to open the engine completely.

I left the engine opening part for later to do it together with my father (another post).

Cheers,

RoB