roadtrip_69
15+ Year Contributor
- 38
- 3
- Apr 18, 2008
-
Cincinnati,
Ohio
The how I got here part -
Alright so about 6 weeks ago, cruising along at 75 mph, in a hard rain. (And just a few days since I last checked my oil) Cruise Control on. Engine oil dumby light comes on and seconds later, engine starts to seize. Turns out, ran out of oil, via a leak that still has not been identified. Figured it had to be a crack in the block....Took it apart myself found that the Rod Bearings were seized completely. But no obvious holes or cracks.
I took the block to the machine shop, I've had heads flatted /spec'd at before. They hot tank it, find that its a good block, so I tell them to bore it out, let me know what size pistons I'll need but its already been re-bored during a previous rebuild.(I bought it about 7 years ago as a reman engine from Surefire through Autozone (Made it 77K miles). At the time I didn't have the cash or the spare car to have mine down for an extended period of time. And it came with the balance shafts already deleted so thought the build must be at least decent.
Anyways they didn't want to bore it anymore. (Although from what I have read you can go UP to 87mm? They were already at 85.5, and they werent sure 86.0 would be enough to fix the damage. And had doubts on how strong it would be if we had to go up to 86.5. Crank was scarred up, rotating assembly was pretty much shot.
So I found a long block at a local junk yard. Its balance shaft belt broke, destroying the balance shaft bearings. But other wise looked in decent shape.
Had it looked at, it was a virgin block with 130K of wear. No cracks, holes or flatness issues. Crank looked good, stock pistons and rods weren't too wore. Cylinder walls looked clean. Looked like i could just get new rods/pistons and bearings and be good to go, with some cleanup of the crank. But they didn't like that crank either, for whatever reason. Tried to find an OEM crank to save 450 bucks (Since I have heard the stock cranks are pretty strong as is, and I don't plan on going full drag ever in the car. 400-500 HP at best, but no one had them in stock) so decided to just buy a whole matched rotating assembly and call it a day,
So I have them bore the new block out. Over-bored just 0.20 or to 85.5 mm. Ordered a full Manley forged rotating assembly, stock 88 mm stroke, acl race bearings, both rod and main. Pistons are all balanced to within 1g of each other and are 85.5mm.. All ARP hardware. And ARP assembly lube. Spec'd out to hold 600+ HP
Dropped off everything with the machine shop to put it together about 2 weeks ago, just to get a call today that their engine builder quit (got fired?). So now i have a checked head, hot tanked/machined/bored/honed? block, all new rotating assembly and no one to put it together for me. I have called a few other local shops and everyone is backed up for MONTHS. One was 4 months before they could get to it.
The question/Advice
Now the question, with all new parts, that were straight from the manufacturer, how hard would it be to assemble myself. I know I can rent a ring installer/compressor, the wrist pins are circliped not pressed so that part is easy. What concerns me is the clearances with the rod and main bearings. I have watched a few videos on using Plastigage to measure the tolerances, but shouldn't they all be in spec with all new matched parts anyways? What if they are not by some chance? How do you correct it, aside from re-machining something? Also I do have the entire Mitsubishi Service Manual so specs and torque settings and instructions I have.
I consider myself a high level amateur mechanic, I have pretty much done all there is to do external of the internals of the engine/transmission on my Eclipse, on multiple 4x4 trucks, various other fwd and rwd cars. I just lack machinery and machining tools so I only usually take things some where when those are needed.
This assembly I know I CAN do at the basic level, with existing tools, or borrowed tools but I don't want to do it wrong and end up wasting 2k on a simple clearance issue/miscalculation.
What advice/guidance/recommendations can anyone give me.. Should I just do it myself? Or is it just too advanced for someone who has never done it before. I want it to last as long as possible, its mostly a daily driver/autocross car that may see some stop light type abuse but not drag strip abuse.
Before the mysterious oil leak, the stock block was holding over 400 BHP, with a tune, accompanying bolt-on mods, and a 20g at 22-23 psi. And aside from a mystery occasional loop at idle was running great.
Thanks!
Alright so about 6 weeks ago, cruising along at 75 mph, in a hard rain. (And just a few days since I last checked my oil) Cruise Control on. Engine oil dumby light comes on and seconds later, engine starts to seize. Turns out, ran out of oil, via a leak that still has not been identified. Figured it had to be a crack in the block....Took it apart myself found that the Rod Bearings were seized completely. But no obvious holes or cracks.
I took the block to the machine shop, I've had heads flatted /spec'd at before. They hot tank it, find that its a good block, so I tell them to bore it out, let me know what size pistons I'll need but its already been re-bored during a previous rebuild.(I bought it about 7 years ago as a reman engine from Surefire through Autozone (Made it 77K miles). At the time I didn't have the cash or the spare car to have mine down for an extended period of time. And it came with the balance shafts already deleted so thought the build must be at least decent.
Anyways they didn't want to bore it anymore. (Although from what I have read you can go UP to 87mm? They were already at 85.5, and they werent sure 86.0 would be enough to fix the damage. And had doubts on how strong it would be if we had to go up to 86.5. Crank was scarred up, rotating assembly was pretty much shot.
So I found a long block at a local junk yard. Its balance shaft belt broke, destroying the balance shaft bearings. But other wise looked in decent shape.
Had it looked at, it was a virgin block with 130K of wear. No cracks, holes or flatness issues. Crank looked good, stock pistons and rods weren't too wore. Cylinder walls looked clean. Looked like i could just get new rods/pistons and bearings and be good to go, with some cleanup of the crank. But they didn't like that crank either, for whatever reason. Tried to find an OEM crank to save 450 bucks (Since I have heard the stock cranks are pretty strong as is, and I don't plan on going full drag ever in the car. 400-500 HP at best, but no one had them in stock) so decided to just buy a whole matched rotating assembly and call it a day,
So I have them bore the new block out. Over-bored just 0.20 or to 85.5 mm. Ordered a full Manley forged rotating assembly, stock 88 mm stroke, acl race bearings, both rod and main. Pistons are all balanced to within 1g of each other and are 85.5mm.. All ARP hardware. And ARP assembly lube. Spec'd out to hold 600+ HP
Dropped off everything with the machine shop to put it together about 2 weeks ago, just to get a call today that their engine builder quit (got fired?). So now i have a checked head, hot tanked/machined/bored/honed? block, all new rotating assembly and no one to put it together for me. I have called a few other local shops and everyone is backed up for MONTHS. One was 4 months before they could get to it.
The question/Advice
Now the question, with all new parts, that were straight from the manufacturer, how hard would it be to assemble myself. I know I can rent a ring installer/compressor, the wrist pins are circliped not pressed so that part is easy. What concerns me is the clearances with the rod and main bearings. I have watched a few videos on using Plastigage to measure the tolerances, but shouldn't they all be in spec with all new matched parts anyways? What if they are not by some chance? How do you correct it, aside from re-machining something? Also I do have the entire Mitsubishi Service Manual so specs and torque settings and instructions I have.
I consider myself a high level amateur mechanic, I have pretty much done all there is to do external of the internals of the engine/transmission on my Eclipse, on multiple 4x4 trucks, various other fwd and rwd cars. I just lack machinery and machining tools so I only usually take things some where when those are needed.
This assembly I know I CAN do at the basic level, with existing tools, or borrowed tools but I don't want to do it wrong and end up wasting 2k on a simple clearance issue/miscalculation.
What advice/guidance/recommendations can anyone give me.. Should I just do it myself? Or is it just too advanced for someone who has never done it before. I want it to last as long as possible, its mostly a daily driver/autocross car that may see some stop light type abuse but not drag strip abuse.
Before the mysterious oil leak, the stock block was holding over 400 BHP, with a tune, accompanying bolt-on mods, and a 20g at 22-23 psi. And aside from a mystery occasional loop at idle was running great.
Thanks!