NikwoaC's "Commitment Issues" Engine Build

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I have the plain tall summit ones, i like em, check your hood clearance with the R too. you may need a cowl, even without a spacer.

I have vert mounts and no insulation under the stock hood, so I'm really hoping to get away with it. Buying a cowl hood would officially put me over budget on this project, and that's a deal breaker, haha.

Get a set of the fabbed aluminum covers from the bay. If I had a taller hood I would get a set in a heart beat.

Ebay, hmmmmm....

black car, black powdercoated intake with black powdercoated valve covers...

I tried the black intake look with the Explorer, I wasn't a huge fan. I think you have to have a very clean engine bay, otherwise the wires and stuff begin to really stick out.

powdercoat is overrated. just use a sharpie.

:poodance:

Nik: you have to come to the southside and ride in my 94 gt, we took it out tonight, man 6900rpm feels good lol.

Haha, dude, I definitely do!
 
All I can say is....Man I have been in the south TOO long. The depth of this discussion goes way beyond the "Reckon I'll have me some of them french fried pertaters" I'm used to.

I have to ask you Nik, What do you do for a living? I gotta hand it to you, when I saw you started an engine build thread, I was wondering just how much you could say about rebuilding an engine that hasn't been said before. But you've certainly managed to. I thought I checked up on a potential purchase,..nahh you got me beat hands down. :hail2: Can't fault you on your research ethic, you certainly spend your money wisely.

I had TEA do a complete 225 cc CNC port job on a set of TFS R's for me several years back on a 438w that was in my Mitsubishi Starion. They looked great.
Unfortunately, I sold it before I could really thrash it to see how much faster we could get it beyond the 5.60's it ran out of the box.
 
What is involved with making the stock VCs work? I've heard you can stack gaskets to avoid grinding and removing the baffles. Anybody with experience there?

All I can say is....Man I have been in the south TOO long. The depth of this discussion goes way beyond the "Reckon I'll have me some of them french fried pertaters" I'm used to.

Jus had me summa them lasnight. :D

I have to ask you Nik, What do you do for a living? I gotta hand it to you, when I saw you started an engine build thread, I was wondering just how much you could say about rebuilding an engine that hasn't been said before. But you've certainly managed to. I thought I checked up on a potential purchase,..nahh you got me beat hands down. :hail2: Can't fault you on your research ethic, you certainly spend your money wisely.

Haha, thanks man. I'm a design engineer at a consulting company. I've been involved in projects in the automotive and aerospace fields, but oddly enough, most of my experience is in biomedical engineering (orthopaedics, trauma, sports medicine, etc.).

I eat, breathe, sleep and dream cars, though. If you read anything by Stephen Hawking, he talks about how he thinks about physics and the universe from the time he wakes up in the morning until he falls asleep at night. That's how I am with cars, just not on the "genius" level like him, haha.

I've always said I'm going to have to make a career of this, or I'm going to go insane. Someday! Just not moving to Detroit, that's for damn sure. :D

I had TEA do a complete 225 cc CNC port job on a set of TFS R's for me several years back on a 438w that was in my Mitsubishi Starion. They looked great.
Unfortunately, I sold it before I could really thrash it to see how much faster we could get it beyond the 5.60's it ran out of the box.

Those TFS Rs are just absolutely insane. I would love to build an engine eventually with a full-tilt set of those on it. We talk about the big head/small engine thing... With a serious set of those, you're talking ENORMOUS head/BIG engine, haha. :evil:
 
What is involved with making the stock VCs work? I've heard you can stack gaskets to avoid grinding and removing the baffles. Anybody with experience there?



Jus had me summa them lasnight. :D



Haha, thanks man. I'm a design engineer at a consulting company. I've been involved in projects in the automotive and aerospace fields, but oddly enough, most of my experience is in biomedical engineering (orthopaedics, trauma, sports medicine, etc.).

I eat, breathe, sleep and dream cars, though. If you read anything by Stephen Hawking, he talks about how he thinks about physics and the universe from the time he wakes up in the morning until he falls asleep at night. That's how I am with cars, just not on the "genius" level like him, haha.

I've always said I'm going to have to make a career of this, or I'm going to go insane. Someday! Just not moving to Detroit, that's for damn sure. :D



Those TFS Rs are just absolutely insane. I would love to build an engine eventually with a full-tilt set of those on it. We talk about the big head/small engine thing... With a serious set of those, you're talking ENORMOUS head/BIG engine, haha. :evil:

I was gonna guess engineer, but down here I would've offended you w/ a guess like that. AND I was gonna make a "Billions and Billions" Carl Sagan reference,...but had I done that in my crowd of chevy boy friends: ...................................................................................................................................cricket noise, followed by:

"shuddup damn know it all yankee, where you from anyways?"
 
I was gonna guess engineer, but down here I would've offended you w/ a guess like that. AND I was gonna make a "Billions and Billions" Carl Sagan reference,...but had I done that in my crowd of chevy boy friends: ...................................................................................................................................cricket noise, followed by:

"shuddup damn know it all yankee, where you from anyways?"

Hahaha, yep. I'm an enginerd.
 
Cool, Nik. Sounds like we have a little more in common. Growing up, I was immensly interested in astrophysics, and spent a lot of time reading various books, including Hawking. That went away when I went off to college, oddly enough...:D
 
Cool, Nik. Sounds like we have a little more in common. Growing up, I was immensly interested in astrophysics, and spent a lot of time reading various books, including Hawking. That went away when I went off to college, oddly enough...:D

Haha, yea. The first time you sit in a lecture hall and listen to a crazy old Asian guy talk about quantum and particle physics, you go, "Whaaaaaat? Can we just go back to talking about how a baseball flies through the air, please?"
 
Just a little dumb progress to show here. Painted the block, timing cover, oil pan and bellhousing in this engine enamel cast iron color. It's still wet in the pics, it actually dried to a more satin finish. Looks decent, IMO.

I've primered the thermostat housing, but have not settled on a color yet. Think I should just paint it the same as the block or try to match the intake once I get it (silver)?

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are you going to paint the trans as well?

Nah. Don't really have any plans to right now. Didn't really need to paint the bellhousing, but I thought it might look good mated up to the block. The block and pan needed painted really bad, though. Didn't want either of those to rust.

Sick progress Nic! :nice:

Thanks, man!
 
It may have been a good idea to mask the mating surface to the trans on the bellhousing off, i usually run across myne with a file every time i reinstall it to get rid of any burs that might be on the surface
 
It may have been a good idea to mask the mating surface to the trans on the bellhousing off, i usually run across myne with a file every time i reinstall it to get rid of any burs that might be on the surface

I didn't think it'd be much of an issue since it's not a sealing surface, but I can easily clean it up if I find any issues. I imagine I'll have to scrub the over spray out of the dowel pin holes, but that will be easy with a wire brush.
 
I didn't think it'd be much of an issue since it's not a sealing surface, but I can easily clean it up if I find any issues. I imagine I'll have to scrub the over spray out of the dowel pin holes, but that will be easy with a wire brush.

I dont think it would be a problem, but coming from a machinist backround i always like to see mating surfaces flush with a clean surface, the paint is prob a few thousanths thick