Super happy fun Swift engine build time

Alright, well I may as well start a thread to keep all my stupid questions and stuff in one area. I'm building up a new engine for the Swift after the old block ripped off the mounts on one side.

I have the old engine torn down, the block/internals were all stock except for the cams. I started tearing down a spare engine for the block and then I was going to decide which pistons/crank I was going to use after seeing the condition of both engines. I have new seals/main bearings/conrod bearings waiting.

However, I'm screwed on the teardown of the spare engine. The old engine has ARP studs + 12 mm 12 point nuts that I want to re-use. This stock spare one has 8 mm allen head bolts, and the very last fucking bolt rounded out when I went to remove it. I tried hammering in the next size imperial, it didn't help things.

What's the best way to get the head off now? Drill out the bolt with a drill bit as close to the hole size I can get and pray I can get the head off and then remove the stud with channel locks? Take it to a machine shop to see what they can do?

Don't even dare suggest an EZ out, I had one break off once and I never want to deal with a broken EZ out again. Plus these head bolts are torqued to some ungodly number.

It's an Allen so it's pre-center drilled. What's the diameter of the other head bolts just below the head? Get a drill bit about that size and go to town. The head of the bolt will probably break off when you get close to going through the head.

Remember, low RPM and lots of pressure if you don't want to burn up your drill bit.

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Pete Remner
Cleveland, Ohio

1984 RX-7 (rallycross thing)
1978
Silence is golden, but duct tape is silver.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/08/2014 05:11PM by Pete.

Bang in a big torx bit, then call some friends over and while holding a breaker bar steady, drink Koskenkorva untill the whole room spins around....that should solve the problem.

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John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

Alright, I'll try drilling as a first attempt. Then drinking and torx bits if that fails. But I'm sure if the first attempt fails the second won't work either

If I ever meet the engineer who decided putting in fucking allen bolts for head bolts was a good idea, I'm going to zap his balls.

Sometimes you can smack the bolt head with a hammer and punch. That can both loosen the threads and maybe tighten the allen hole a bit. I'd try the torx before drilling. Probably had a seeping head gasket and rusted the threads.

Quote
heymagic
Sometimes you can smack the bolt head with a hammer and punch. That can both loosen the threads and maybe tighten the allen hole a bit. I'd try the torx before drilling. Probably had a seeping head gasket and rusted the threads.

Good point. ANY stuck bolt first thing is to give it a serious blow with a proper hammer--not some little toy for carpenters, a manly metal workers 4-6lb hammer..Channel your chi flow,




1)


2)

3) meditate:


scream your war scream ( I suggest you hold the punch with a set of vise grips to lessen the chance of breaking bones in the hand----never said I'm smrat--took a couple serious impacts to the left hand before I fingered it out) and bang that sonnybeach.

Might thing about protecting the head for when you it a glancing blow---I's presuming you want to keep the head---be a real pity to smash a chunk off the corner...

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

Alright, I'll see. I'm hesitant to try a torx because this bolt pretty only much has the minimum amount of room for the allen socket bit to get in there (hence why the ARP head bolt kit only uses 12 mm nuts, a 12 mm socket just barely gets in there)), but I'll look at it. Off to Princess Auto again tonight I guess.

I'm going to try and save the head if I can, but it has an extremely rusty/shitty exhaust manifold that doesn't want to leave either, and I have probably 2 spare heads kicking around in addition to the prize hot cam one, so I'm not worried.

Content! Kind of. After doing all sorts of house stuff, getting rooms painted and such, I've come back to the engine building. For the record, I ended up drilling the head of the head bolt because I bought a torx set, discovered I hadn't bought a set with a torx bit big enough to stick in there, got pissed and immediately went drilling. After about 5 minutes of lubing, drilling slowly, lubing, drilling some more, it came off with a satisfying pop.

So, at this point I have had the block decked, cleaned the block, put the (also cleaned) crank back in with new bearings + thrust washers, checked clearances (a-okay) and then checked piston rings. That all went fine.

Then for the pistons/con rods, two of the new conrod bearing halves had a burr. I tried to remove it with my fingernail and I couldn't. I tried with a shop towel, no go. So I found the finest sandpaper I could find, removed it with light strokes and then cleaned the shit out of it. It is smooth, but not as smooth as the unsanded area. I can't feel any scratches with my fingernail. Clearance is good across both the sanded and unsanded area. Is this okay, or is that a no-no and I should just use a set of bearings from the old engine(s)? Sorry, no pics of the bearing halves at this point because I'm dumb.

Edit: Oh, and I've also turned it by hand and it turns fairly easily. There's a bit more resistance at BDC/TDC, but I think that's just the piston rings in the bores, and it's still well within turning by hand.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/11/2014 11:20AM by AlexeiS.

Does this mean a re-match of we both get our acts together for Pines?

99% not going to happen, my intent is still to fix the engine and try to sell the car. I'll likely be way too busy in November to run. Hell, I don't even have my medical or licence this year.

However, never say never!

Common Alexei you can do it.... We should have the Talhoon ready to go as well.

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RallySputnik
www.rallysputnik.com

This bitch runs





The engine fired up on the first try (after jumping the battery, fuck), but the exhaust got pushed back like 1/2 to 1" when the engine fell so the wideband was reading completely lean, heh. That got fixed this weekend with a bit of a lengthening of the exhaust, I don't know where exactly it gained that length (headers? brackets? didn't see any obvious bending) but it's done.

Okay, next big problem. The rear suspension. I want to go back to spring + shock, I highly doubt this car can handle a proper coilover on a rough gravel rally.

Does anyone know of a shop/place that can make a custom spring? I've been looking, and the only real options I've seen thus far out there are:

Mk4/5 Geo Metro rear sedan springs. 1" taller, maybe a bit higher rate. I can't find any of these things so far, and I'm concerned they won't be stiff enough.

1997 Ford Ranger front coil springs. They're the correct bottom diameter, but the Swift rear spring tapers to a smaller inner diameter at the top, plus I don't get a warm and fuzzy cutting springs for a rally car.

F-150 springs of some sort. Can't find any dimensions on this thing so far.

AFCO racing parts: There's maybe some springs that may fit nicely at 11", with a 5" outer diameter (Swift inner diameter is 3.67" roughly) but I'm again concerned about the same diameter spring throughout and the top of the Swift's mount point on the body being smaller, and the spring moving around.

I'm starting to ask rally shops, but given all the knowledge here someone must know a good alternative. I really shouldn't be thinking about Tall Pines with a kid on the way, but wifey gave me the okay to go if finances are okay, and it would almost be a shame if I don't run Pines after all this work (and if the car hasn't sold before then).

I've bought from these guys,

http://www.bluecoilspring.com/coil.htm

Don't know if they can do a tapered spring...

---

SteveL
This is the point in the killing spree when you really should turn the gun on yourself

Quote
AlexeiS
This bitch runs





The engine fired up on the first try (after jumping the battery, fuck), but the exhaust got pushed back like 1/2 to 1" when the engine fell so the wideband was reading completely lean, heh. That got fixed this weekend with a bit of a lengthening of the exhaust, I don't know where exactly it gained that length (headers? brackets? didn't see any obvious bending) but it's done.

Okay, next big problem. The rear suspension. I want to go back to spring + shock, I highly doubt this car can handle a proper coilover on a rough gravel rally.

Does anyone know of a shop/place that can make a custom spring? I've been looking, and the only real options I've seen thus far out there are:

Mk4/5 Geo Metro rear sedan springs. 1" taller, maybe a bit higher rate. I can't find any of these things so far, and I'm concerned they won't be stiff enough.

1997 Ford Ranger front coil springs. They're the correct bottom diameter, but the Swift rear spring tapers to a smaller inner diameter at the top, plus I don't get a warm and fuzzy cutting springs for a rally car.

F-150 springs of some sort. Can't find any dimensions on this thing so far.

AFCO racing parts: There's maybe some springs that may fit nicely at 11", with a 5" outer diameter (Swift inner diameter is 3.67" roughly) but I'm again concerned about the same diameter spring throughout and the top of the Swift's mount point on the body being smaller, and the spring moving around.

I'm starting to ask rally shops, but given all the knowledge here someone must know a good alternative. I really shouldn't be thinking about Tall Pines with a kid on the way, but wifey gave me the okay to go if finances are okay, and it would almost be a shame if I don't run Pines after all this work (and if the car hasn't sold before then).

You probably don't want to do this but if you did it would work really well:

As you know the stock strut thing pulls in and hangs down way way low below the back knuckle..Might even be the lowest thing in the car.... Measuring from the TOP of the pinchie thang to the body leaves room for way way too little travel....
Solution is easy and is done on millions of cars everywhere else in the world...
And done on every World Rally Car and all the R2-3-4 whatever they call them now

Towers... Like this (these were made for a Suzuki--after checking ad measuring and trying everything to get more than 4 inchs/100mm of travel)


Position, Sharpie a couple of lines in the wheel archs, sawz-all, cram in and weld.

Then ordinary strut with 190mm travel and something like this welded on to the bottom to poke in and get pinched


Turns out the diameter of the Xratty?Focus strut bottom is about 1mm different from the bottom of the Suzuki so like one minute on a lathe and then a few minutes to mill that groove for the pinch bolt, and poof you're done...

Adding towers would probably mean shortening the length of the cage tubes, but shortening is easy--measure 5-6 times cut 3.

Mod the shell once and the car will go much better and replacement struts and springs will be easy..

You have any idea what the rear half off the car weighs?

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

those would look sexy on about any thing

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I would rather drive a slow car fast as a fast car slow!
first rule of cars: get what makes you happy, your the one paying for it!