The last couple weeks were spent wrapping up the motor, and finishing up some little projects that needed to be done before the new stroker gets dropped back in to it's new home.

While waiting on parts, I finished up the wiring harness down by the battery, and got the cables wrapped and tucked out of the way. I also got the coolant overflow painted and mounted next to the CAI, and modified the water neck to plug the coolant outlet for the original oil filter housing. (I switched to a '90 housing and external cooler). I heated the water neck with a torch until I was able to pull out the steel nipple, and then threaded the hole for a 1/8" NPT pipe plug.



To help control under-hood heat and keep as much energy in the turbo as possible, I had all the hot side parts titanium coated, which should be good for about 2000*. (I found a REALLY good deal on this locally...PM me for details). In the second pick below, you can see how I also modified the PS bracket so that the exhaust manifold can be removed. I always hated the fact that you had to battle (or remove) that silly bracket to get to that last manifold nut.



Next up was getting the timing belt installed and degreeing the cams. I installed the t-belt with the help of Jay's Racing Timing Tools, and the .150" drill bit method of checking the tensioner. After an initial scare that I may have some rubbing issues with the eccentric pulley against the bracket, it went really smoothly.

Note: Although you can do a t-belt job without the tools from Jay's Racing mentioned above, the cam locking tool is HIGHLY recommended. It just makes things so much easier...

Once the belt was installed, it was time to degree the FP2 cams....but first I had to modify the degreeing wheel and fabricate some "helper" items. I made a simple 1/8" steel plate that bolts to the cam caps for the dial indicator to sit on, and drilled new mounting holes in the degree wheel. (I bought a Summit Degreeing kit, which worked out pretty well). I also opened up the middle of the wheel so a 19mm socket could slip through it and onto the crank bolt.

To mount the wheel to the crank, I used some old exhaust manifold studs and nuts. It was pretty easy to adjust the nuts so that the wheel was flat and perpendicular to the crank.



The next task was to come up with a solid lifter so that I had zero lash for the degreeing process. In his excellent cam degreeing thread, "treebonker" describes a method for using shims. But being lazy and not wanting to insert and remove the lifters over and over, I created a pair that could be adjusted while in the head just by turning them. (They were swapped out with the stock ones without removing the cams, with a pry bar and screwdriver).

The basic idea is to weld a nut to the top part of the lifter, and a stud (bolt) into the bottom part. The top part then threads into the bottom part, and the height is determined by how far it's threaded in or out. It worked out really well after some tweaking, but there is some welding, grinding, and drilling involved. But, you only have to build a set once. BTW - Have you ever tried to drill on a lifter?

The pics below aren't very good, but they show the lifter parts and how they ended up. The second image shows the modified bolt screwed into the upper part. This is just before I inserted it into the bottom part and welded it in place. I'm planning on writing a detailed tech article on how to build them when I get a chance.



Once everything was set up, it was a breeze to degree the cams. After calibrating TDC, I measured the cam lobes and then the .050" opening and closing points. I also measured/calculated the actual centerline values and compared them to the specs on the cards. Out of the box and bolted straight up, the intake cam was 3* retarded, and the exhaust cam was 3* advanced at the crank. The Jay's Racing cam locking tool I mentioned above made adjusting the cam gears a no-brainer.

In the 3rd picture below you can see that I have retarded the exhaust cam gear 1-1/2 notches to bring the cam back in line with specs. You can also see the cam locking tool in place between the gears.



Isn't she purdy?



By the time part #13 rolls around, I should have the motor and tranny back in the car, and the suspension going back together.

Stay tuned!