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95 Sprite Rebuild & 16V Conversion


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#346 alchall

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Posted 19 December 2017 - 09:16 AM

Have you decided on which route you're taking with filtration, as it's quite tight at the front. Take a look at the picture I previously posted of the front end of my car, make sure you dry build it before you spray your car, just encase you have to alter anything.

 

I was going to go with the same filter you have which I could have ordered from SC along with the rest but I'm not 100% sure yet what I want to do, will probably be able to make a clearer decision when I've test fitted engine to car then I can see how much clearance I actually have to play with....



#347 alchall

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Posted 19 December 2017 - 09:19 AM

One thing I wish I knew before fitting my engine, is that you can machine some material off the bell housing (where the engine mount bolts onto), this may allow the extra drop and tilt of the engine, so you can maybe avoid a bulge in the bonnet. 

 

I'm going to be test fitting the engine anyway so will be able to make some decisions about how I deal with any bonnet clearance issues when I see how things all fit together, but that's useful to know, I presume you just machine off some of the material from the surface that meets the engine mount?



#348 Northernpower

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Posted 19 December 2017 - 11:18 AM

 

Having machined off quite a significant portion of the structural arch it's imperative when fitting a main strap to make sure the strap sits on the machined face exactly. This is normally only carried out when the machine shop has the two components. If the machining does not exactly match the two components together there is a strong possibility the main cap and strap combination will be weaker than a standard unmodified cap.

 

OK thanks for the advice, in which case I'll find somebody locally that can do this for me....

 

It will be worth every penny and give you great peace of mind.



#349 alchall

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Posted 30 December 2017 - 12:13 AM

OK time for a post Christmas update!

 

Decided that while waiting for bits and bobs to turn up I'd set to cleaning up the throttle bodies, a bit crusty!

 

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Fuel rail a bit tatty so I'll strip this and re-paint it....

 

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Injectors are a rusty mess!

 

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I've done a clean up and stripped rust and paint back on them but they're in a bit of a sorry state, now considering replacing for some new ones, just a question of what I should buy, direct replacements are very expensive and probably not the very best for the job....

 

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So then on to some oily work, crank complete, had to take a couple of thou off the thrusts with wet and dry to get the end float right which took some time but it's now all good.....

 

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So I then retrieved my engine stand and engine crane from my girlfriends dad (don't quite need the latter yet but grabbed it anyway as he's now finished using it himself) and set to on the rest of the build, and spent a good bit of today in the garage; pistons in, end plate where the timing gear would normally go fitted and the oil drain / breather fitted to the oil pump mounting on the back of the block. I've also popped the ARP head studs in place as well.....

 

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This all went reasonably smoothly, albeit I took pretty much a full day doing it!

 

In the end, having torqued up all the big end caps, I found that the crank was extremely stiff and I could not easily turn it by hand, I had to pop the pulley nut on the end of the crank and could then I was able to  turn it with a ratchet and although it turned very smoothly it didn't seem right to me.

 

So I loosened all the rod bolts, hand tightened them again one piston at a time starting a 1 and working my way along through to 4; all good, I was able to turn the crank by hand, albeit with more resistance than before the pistons were fitted so I was confident I hadn't managed to get anything too seriously wrong.

 

So once again, one piston at a time, I torqued up the rod bolts in a couple of stages testing out turning the crank between each and while again the crank got progressively tighter by the end I could still turn the crank by hand so I can only assume that I'd over torqued one of the pistons along the way the first time around.

 

I think this is now good, the afore mentioned father of my good lady will be round again over the weekend and as a seasoned engine builder himself I'll have him check over my handy work before proceeding any further.



#350 alchall

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Posted 30 December 2017 - 05:01 PM

Realised today I'd not re-checked the crank end float, happily it's bang on 4 thou....

 

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#351 alchall

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Posted 07 January 2018 - 07:06 PM

Engine build coming along steadily, also making some slow progress on the throttle bodies which I decided to strip down completely. One of the nuts at the end of the pivots was seized on and the threads stripped as I removed it, could not find these individual components anywhere so had to source another set which should be with me next week. In the mean time I polished up all the good parts and the bodies have been vapour blasted so looking good as new, I'll post pictures of this once complete.

 

So on to the head, cleaned up the inlet gaskets, new o rings and bolts and fitted to the head, also tried the cam cover again for size :-)

 

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Took the cam shafts out and gave the bottom a good clean ready to meet the block, you can see the old galleries that have been filled, the new section at the drive end that fits up to the top plate and the two new oil drain outlets at the back (bottom left on the photo)....

 

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Next I gave the surface of the block a good clean, fitted the ARP head studs with ARP thread sealer and the excess round the bottom cleaned up (that's one expensive tube of paste! but I can also use it for the oil unions), and the gasket popped on....

 

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Head on....

 

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You'll see I've installed the fitting for the oil inlet here too (top left).

 

I very carefully and steadily followed the guides instructions for torquing up the head studs, better safe than sorry here so took my time over it, I also had checked with SC whether I should be torquing the ARP's as per the guide (which contains info relating the standard studs rather than ARP's) and they recommended I aim for 40 - 42 Lb/ft for the ARP's rather than 45 from the guide.

 

Gave it a little clean up, also gave the cams a little clean before re-fitting after I assembly lubed the lobes and buckets, my bike torque wrench came in handy here as the cap bolts only require 8NM, it all turns smoothly so assume all is good, set them to the positions the install guide suggests to start from for timing.

 

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Front plate fitted also fitted the verniers but not yet torqued them up, I've a couple of questions for SC before I do so as I think the guide pre-dates these latest parts. Starting to look good now :-)

 

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I also started to tighten up the idler pulley but could not get it to budge, determined the woodruff key on the jack shaft was at an angle and probably to blame but could not adjust it easily in place, so I took the shaft out, replaced the key with a new one I'd already bought, test fitted the pulley and bingo; it slide on nicely. Not torqued it up yet, not sure if it should be as it would have been for the timing gear so will check with SC, popped on a new lock tab here as well, doesn't seem that everybody uses them on these builds but going belt and braces here.

 



#352 g111mds

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Posted 07 January 2018 - 08:39 PM

Looking great!

#353 mini13

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Posted 07 January 2018 - 09:56 PM

the things for binding the crank in my experience are getting a rod the wrong way round as they are biased, but you probably realize that,

 

Also, main bearing cap miss alignment, the std dowels can get loose, so I always use the swifune billet ones ( although I see MED have starded doing them too) at 15 quid a set its a no brainer.

 

any crap behind the bearing holding it off and decreasing the clearance, this includes any identification stampings, its worth buffing over these with a bit of wet and dry to see if theres high spots, this goes especially for the thrusts.

 

when the bearing slides into the rod/cap/block it can scrape on the bearing and hold off, i top i picked up from Ian at Avon bar is to justtake the sharp ege off the rods/caps/block here to easy assy.

 

its always with having some plastigauge handy to check overall bearing clearances,

 

also on a freshly honed bore the rings can really hold up, especially at 90deg from tdc, and if they are a bit dry or the lube is thick, different ring manu's say different lubes etc...  its often worth doing a build withput rings first. I ahve alos heard of builders using a spring gauge to check how hard it is to pull, the pistons down the bore sue to ring friction.



#354 alchall

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Posted 08 January 2018 - 09:15 AM

the things for binding the crank in my experience are getting a rod the wrong way round as they are biased, but you probably realize that,
 
Also, main bearing cap miss alignment, the std dowels can get loose, so I always use the swifune billet ones ( although I see MED have starded doing them too) at 15 quid a set its a no brainer.
 
any crap behind the bearing holding it off and decreasing the clearance, this includes any identification stampings, its worth buffing over these with a bit of wet and dry to see if theres high spots, this goes especially for the thrusts.
 
when the bearing slides into the rod/cap/block it can scrape on the bearing and hold off, i top i picked up from Ian at Avon bar is to justtake the sharp ege off the rods/caps/block here to easy assy.
 
its always with having some plastigauge handy to check overall bearing clearances,
 
also on a freshly honed bore the rings can really hold up, especially at 90deg from tdc, and if they are a bit dry or the lube is thick, different ring manu's say different lubes etc...  its often worth doing a build withput rings first. I ahve alos heard of builders using a spring gauge to check how hard it is to pull, the pistons down the bore sue to ring friction.


Thanks for the input, I reassembled it to be 100% sure, everything is the right way around and in the right order, no sign of any scoring in the shells to indicate anything has been binding in there and they were clean.

I had checked clearance of mains and big ends with plastic usage before I built it up and it was good.

I think its just as you say a combination of newly honed bores, thick assembly oil (using millers assembly oil and it is very thick and sticky), my girlfriends dad also checked it out and hes experienced in engine building and he agrees and it is tightest at 90deg from TDC so makes sense and Im comfortable now that its good.

#355 1330RG

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Posted 15 January 2018 - 03:31 PM

This is the route i want to go down over the next year or so. Im hooked. Cant wait for more updates

#356 alchall

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Posted 15 January 2018 - 05:32 PM

Small update from the weekend, didn't get enough time to make any real progress on the engine build but I did finish clean up and re-build of the throttle bodies, looking quite good now, having completely stripped and rebuilt them using the best parts of two sets I had to do some tweaking of the balance as they weren't quite all in sync but the look good to my eye now....

 

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As you can see ram pipes also fitted, I also have used new screws and new rubbers that join to the inlet gaskets along with new clamps that hold them onto the TB's.

 

That's it for now!


Edited by alchall, 15 January 2018 - 05:33 PM.


#357 Marco1972

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Posted 15 January 2018 - 05:49 PM


Very nice

Like that engine colour planning on doing mine a similar shade of blue

#358 alchall

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Posted 15 January 2018 - 10:31 PM

Very nice

Like that engine colour planning on doing mine a similar shade of blue

Looks even better in the flesh, not sure what it's called, it was one of SC's standard colours, was going to go black with blue pulleys but they were out of stock of the blue pulleys so reversed it and actually I think this is better.



#359 72hump

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Posted 16 January 2018 - 07:04 PM

Looking very smart, regarding your idle pulley, I used a rag wrapped round a few times to protect the pulley, then used a set of oil filter pliers to hold the pulley before I torqued it up, worked a treat. Oh, I did have a helper to hold the pliers!

Edited by 72hump, 21 January 2018 - 08:37 PM.


#360 alchall

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Posted 19 January 2018 - 05:36 PM

Looking very smart, regarding your idle pulley, I used a rage wrapped round a few times to protect the pulley, then used a set of oil filter pliers to hold the pulley before I torqued it up, worked a treat. Oh, I did have a helper to hold the pliers!

 

I was wondering how I was going to torque it up, was thinking of getting my helper to put a big screwdriver or crowbar in the slot at the other end of the jack shaft but not sure if that will work!






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