98 GST Dragon

[HansS]

I've been working on my GST for a little over a month now. It's been sitting since 2005 due to a spun rod bearing. For now my plans for it are to get it back to stock running with a few improvements, then repaint it. At that point I will start modding it piece by piece. Tomorrow I will start with a post that has a bit more history, as well as what I've accomplished so far and more about my plans for it. For a preview of what I've done so far, I've made some posts on my blog regarding it. For now I will leave you with a pic of what started it all:

The latest progress / what I'm currently working on:

Over the last week, I've been working on polishing the head (outside). I've already cleaned the tops of the chambers and all ports, as well as performed a rough port job. I figure while I have everything apart, I might as well go all the way with the cosmetic stuff, especially what wouldn't be possible without pulling the motor again. Here's the latest pic from tonight. I'm pointing to the area that is what it will all look like when it's done (and I needed something to reflect and show the finish). After getting this far I have much more appreciation when I read / see others that have done it. Time and patience...

 

[Galipso]

Same thing sparked my rebuild in 2011, i've just now finished it.

 

[HansS]

So a bit more history:
I purchased the GST from a friend in 2000 and know it was well taken care of. I maintained it well myself, doing regular maintenance on schedule. In fact, just before the rod bearing spun in 2005, I had just replaced the timing belt 6 months prior.
The spun bearing happened on my daily commute to work, as back then I drove 75 miles to work, mostly interstate travel. I was racing another car down the interstate (oh to be young(er) again) and not too far from my destination I noticed a knocking noise. I figured I'd try to make it to work and figure out what to do from there. A couple miles from work, the car stalled at a stoplight and wouldn't start back up. During lunch I towed it to my parents house as I grew up in the area. The next weekend, I went to go look at it and it started back up, but with the nasty knock still. I shut it back down and towed it home. After pulling the pan, I found the #3 rod bearing spun. I parked it for several years and in Feb 2009, being naive in the destruction it could cause, I tried to just replace the rod bearing. It ran for a week or so of short trips to work (work now being 3 miles down the road) before it started knocking again. Since the notch had been worn out of the rod cap to keep the bearing from spinning, it just happened again. So I parked it again until now.
This time around, I'm doing it right. I bought a short block from black_eclipse96 back in March. The ad here stated it was built by BogusSVO, so I feel good about it. The head surface is well within spec (less than .0015" across all measurements), so I am cleaning up everything, porting, polishing the ports, and polishing the outside to make it look good. I plan on lapping the valves, but may need some advice on how bad the exhaust valves are beforehand - I'll post that later.
Next post will be a history of everything I've done to this point to catch everyone up.
Looking forward to everyone's advice and help and providing hopefully a successful build log for others that had the same thing happen.