BLOZ UP

I was under the impression these were plastic. I'm looking for the piece that closes off the area near the back of the headlights.

Ok, this isn't so hard. And that's just 10 mins with a Dremel. Luckily I don't need to open up the ports on the exhaust side at all since the 1-1/4" Sch. 10 pipe matches up with it almost exactly (~35mm), so I'm just removing casting marks and polishing it up. I may do some grinding near the valve, but I have a lot more reading up to do before I get there. I think I might pick up that Harbor Freight flex shaft grinder (this thing). I could use air tools, but my compressor's really not up for it. I'll need it for the carbide bits but I think sanding and polishing will be more time efficient with the electric tool.

I wouldn't know from the color. They're all about the same, it might be the camera flash. Not sure if I'll pull the pistons out, I just need the pan and some things on the side of the block.

They're really nice. Whenever I stop splurging on engine parts and stuff I'm replacing the 3 center gauges as well. Only regret with speedhut is that they don't offer some kind of analog out so I can datalog the gauges.

I have a few spare Z31 distributors. I've also got and extra DIYAutotune trigger wheel, if you are interested.

77

After checking it out some more, the scratch isn't that bad. A little more honing and it would be gone, but I opted to run it as is since it doesn't catch my nail. You can feel it, yeah, but just barely. Oh well. I am getting another motor to do a serious build from any how (VG33 or LS, we will see). Got new rings in the mail, and they are crappy compared to the JIS ones I used. Good thing I just need the oil ring, which is, AFAICT, identical. Short block needs the oil pump, rear main, and an oil pan, and it should be good. Took the heads off the old VG30 motor, pistons and such look fine. Didn't look at the valves. Pretty clean, surprisingly. Could be burning coolant that cleaned it up though. Head gaskets showed no visible signs of leakage. Took the cams out with minimal frustration. That front cam seal is dumb, they should have had a relief on the OD to make it easier. Those are being packaged up and sent to Schneider as cores for their 274 grind. And finally, I cleared off my welding table and am getting things organized to start grinding away on the 3.3L heads. I will start out with the lower intake to get the hang of things (since I have a spare), then I'll go to town. Just by looking at the two (VG30 and VG33), I can tell the VG33 has much nicer castings. Hopefully this will all be together and running by the end of March, but I'm starting to have doubts. Still have to redo intake piping (including a new BOV flange), port and polish both heads and intakes, powder coat lots of stuff, and possibly ceramic coat a few things if I have time.

Looking for the front fender liners. Paypal ready.

I got my VG33 longblock for $250...

Really? Just a little TIG pass over, no filler or anything, low amps. Just to kind of smooth it out? Any protruding edges would melt down into the scratch. I think. Then I could sand and hone it again. One of the rings was the reason for the scratch, so yeah, the rings reach it. I think it's pretty smoothed out anyway but whenever my new rings come in I'll venture back out in the garage and check it out and touch it up if it isn't (with sandpaper, not a welder). Sucks though. It's going to be one of those things in the back of my head now when it's all assembled.

Not laughing, that's nice. Wonder what the load capacity is though, the angles of that suspension looked odd. Hard to tell though. I'm surprise no one has come up with that sooner. I've thought about trailers with some kind of unlock and tilt system that uses control arms rather than straight axles and raises the axles up (or rather, lowers the bed down). Then again, I'm a computer scientist not a ME.

No, see there're just intake ports and coolant ports. Not sure where the oil came from.

The manifolds swap out just fine. The block and heads are the same, IIRC. Wonder if the cams are different. Get a VG30ET in there, for great justice.

Here are the cleaned 3.3L pistons, ready for rings. Guy did a half-assed job cleaning them. They were also torqued to hell, I'm guessing he did that to press them all the way in. Great. Could have done that myself. 5/6 done... and.... dammit: Ordered a new set of rings. $30, not the end of the world, but I already had to reorder main bearings as well just to replace one. So not being careful has cost me a total of $70 on this build so far. The bore was scratched, I rehoned it which took care of all of it save one main scratch. I think I'll sand down any ridges and call it good. Ugh. I'm tempted to run my TIG torch along it at just at low power, but I think it's really not a huge deal. So I ordered new rings, port and polish kit, some cheap carbide burrs for my dremel (already have some for my air grinder). And since my ancient Dell tuning laptop died I also remembered to get a 2.5" IDE adapter so I can pull the data of it's SSD. Yeah, that's right, it had a PATA SSD in it. I believe I'm getting a full size laptop to replace it. Kind of a pain to handle in the car, but the screen resolution upgrade will be a godsend. Sick of 1024x768, that's for sure.

New intercooler. It's a bit bigger than the previous one. It's going to require some fabrication work to avoid cutting out the radiator support surrounds.

Pulled off the valve cover for the old VG30. Not too bad. Was expecting more sludge. I've put a lot of seafoam and maybe even some ATF through it though. Pulled the intake as well, there was oil filled to the brim of the bolt hole. All intake ports were pretty nasty. Except one which had signs of coolant seepage. I'm surprised this thing didn't knock. Or maybe I just couldn't hear it. Besides all the custom external components such as cooling system mofications and such, I really just need good cams from this motor as cores. I'm planning on using Schneider's (yeah, them) 274 grind, which is a bit wild, but I'll eventually have adjustable cams and I think the combination will really help bring out the 3000-6000 range I'm aiming for.

Cool find. I've wanted to pick one up and use it as a parts/track car hauler. Think I'm going a step bigger with an M35 though. Thought the carb'd VG30s were all non-US market.

Underhood temps, that's really the main reason I'd be doing this. My headers come pretty close to the brake heat shield, which gets really hot after running. I'm not sure how much of a difference it's going to make though. I think I'll coat the turbine at least, since it's mild steel and getting pretty ugly.

Ah, that's it. Let us never speak of this again.

Should just be able to paste the full youtube (not youtu.be, or other short URLs) from the address bar into the post. Also be sure it's not a link, just text.

Is this 2ms PW when warmed up? Is TPS accell enrich on? I would turn it off until this is sorted. How far off-scale rich would it take to stall it? How lean can you go? I guess what I'm saying is are your plugs black if you get it to idle nicely at the desired RPM? You have an L28, right? My 3L V6, with lo-z 550cc injectors, set at 44 psi base pressure, idles at ~14.0 AFR with 1.9-2.0 ms of PW, once fully warmed up. Cold it's much higher. I'm leaning toward faulty O2 sensor/controller.

I couldn't think of the right word. I tried to avoid using [censored] but it was the only thing that came to mind. Warped, twisted, distorted. There.

Interesting. So, can you richen up the 900 RPM VE values to force a idle PW of 2.0ms, or would that be too rich? Do you get any misfires when it starts to die?

So, I ordered new main bearings because I dented the #1 bearing. I swear I dented it. It was pretty bad, on the inward facing edge. I put the crank in, torqued it, slept on it and the next day ordered new bearings because it was stupid to not replace it. Bearings come in, I dissassemble... they are all pristine. I don't understand. Not a scratch anywhere. The crank journals are fine. The only thing I can think of is that the soft bearings were compressed back into shape. Regardless, I replaced #1 and #4. Turns out the new #2 and #3 bearings were scratched during shipping/handling. Luckily I didn't need those, and now I also have an extra set of rod bearings so I can select only the ones in best condition. Not that I should have to, but still. Got the pistons back from being cleaned and ARP bolts put in. Had my exhaust manifold worked on to expand the 8mm holes to 10mm, and sliced inbetween the runners which sort of tweaked it--but it should bolt down in place fine. Dissassembled lower intake on the old VG30, found oil filled up to the top in one of the intake bolt holes... Spilled coolant all over garage when trying to empty the block out Should reassemble the short block shortly (ha!), and it will start to look like an engine.