2.8L M20 build - Now with 2.7L!

[acolella76]

Yesterday I spent a little time cleaning up the wrist pins and pistons with wet 1500 grit sand paper... now the pins slide right in. So thanks for the advice whodwho!

[blueapplesoda]

It is a full floating wrist pin so no press fit in the piston or rod and shouldn't need any heat

This^

Good machine work.

Derek
DedericMS

[The Humjet]

Ok interesting, I've yet to open an m20 so I wouldn't know. Every other standard rod I've seen has a press fitted gudgeon pins.

[whodwho]

It is a full floating wrist pin so no press fit in the piston or rod and shouldn't need any heat

[The Humjet]

We use one of those bernzomatic gas torches to heat up the rod small end to help put the gudgeon pin in. I don't know about heating up the pistons. I thought it was only a press fit into the rod small end.

[acolella76]

Really? I've seen it done more than once before.

I used Lucas Oil Semi-synthetic.

[MR 325]

You're definitely the first person I've seen heat up the pistons to install rods...

What kind of assembly lube did you use?

[acolella76]

Looking good.
Very interesting thread. I'm a first year apprentice as an engine reconditioner so all this stuff looks familiar to me.
I'd definitely get the block deglazed at shop, I've also used the 3 stone honing tool that attaches to a drill it wasn't that successful for me, I couldn't get that nice crosshatch like you get on the machine no matter how fast my strokes were.
We mainly rebuild old American v8's and we always deck the block a fair bit to bring the cr up. Can we do the same thing to the m20 or will it start messing up the timing belt tension if you machine to much off?

I had the cylinder walls deglazed already :) They look nice and beautiful.

Yes you can mill the head or block to bump up the CR but if you take too much off, like the poster above me said, you will start to run into some clearance problems.

[clarkson]

If you machine too much off the block or head you will have piston to head clearance problems, and you need an adjustable cam pulley. Can be done but you just need to be careful.

[The Humjet]

Looking good.
Very interesting thread. I'm a first year apprentice as an engine reconditioner so all this stuff looks familiar to me.
I'd definitely get the block deglazed at shop, I've also used the 3 stone honing tool that attaches to a drill it wasn't that successful for me, I couldn't get that nice crosshatch like you get on the machine no matter how fast my strokes were.
We mainly rebuild old American v8's and we always deck the block a fair bit to bring the cr up. Can we do the same thing to the m20 or will it start messing up the timing belt tension if you machine to much off?

[acolella76]

Started assembling stuff today... installed the crank, got the wrist pings/pistons/snap rings and rods together, etc. Just waiting on the new rod bolts to get in the mail so I can finish this up.



This is the color of the block. It will definitely need some touching up... haha



How we heated up the pistons to install the wrist pins and rods haha



The assembly lube is kind of sticky which I thought was weird. Also it takes a bit of effort to move the pistons/rods. It's perfectly fine when warm but while cold it is kind of hard to move them. Is this going to be a problem?

[acolella76]

Cutting the material off of the piston didn't hurt their structural integrity at all, and by taking as much off the piston as possible, they didn't have to take as much off of the crank. So I am happy with that

Looks like they did good work, glad to see you making progress on this!

Are you going to run ARP hardware?

I am going to run ARP main bolts since they are like $10 more than stock haha, I think it's worth it. I would like to run ARP head studs but I don't know if I can squeeze an extra $225 out of the budget, so I may have to install those later on.

[MR 325]

Looks like they did good work, glad to see you making progress on this!

Are you going to run ARP hardware?

[Myster-E]

Dam your machinist should have taken off more material off the crank instead of the cutting down the pistons. Looks good either way.

[red_e30]

nice man looks good