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Headgames said they see a lot of vvt-i cam caps with one or both of the little rear hex's broken and have found it can be ran without an issue. I removed the hex's before i sent them the head and somehow during cleaning it broke that little rear ear off. Maybe if i left the bolts in it wouldn't have happened? I don't know. But if you flip over the cam cap there is still the main cap bolts that go on either side of the journal, and these ears go under where the valve cover bolts on. I'll just dabble a little extra FIPG and run it.
The stud that ended up breaking was unbroken initially when sent; but it was one of the little 4mm ones and they were able to extract it. So I'll just have to replace the 4-5 little studs they removed cause the threads got smashed and the all the studs have a little bend to them.
And yeah as far as the 82lb single springs, I think they will be alright for 7500-8k and 500-600hp. If I ever upgrade the bottom end will be fully built and I'll go with bigger cams. But for now it feels real nice to have a brand new head with new everything.
Also ordered the Mako motorsports dash which should look pretty good with the MXG street dash, heres my little paint creation trying to mix them because mako hasn't modeled the street version yet.
Just need a driveshaft, which I am leaning towards a full aluminum offering from driftmotion with cause its hard to beat their price for the product and quality.
No update on the harness yet, but I did get the dash and sensors. Right now we're in winter with snow and ice storms so I'm not really pressed to update yet but in a few months spring will be here.
The block took a LOT of cleaning to prep. That was probably the most time consuming part of this buildup. From brake cleaner, throttle plate cleaner, razor blades, wire wheels.. and many many shop rags. The head gasket definitely ate at the block a little bit, hoping I don't have problems with the seal.
Not many pictures, apologies. I was pretty much helping my brother (toyota master tech) with the process, and it was also freezing temperatures the past two days so I was hustling. No finished pictures of the tomei baffle kit buttoned up but you can see some mock up photos before we put it all together. ARP head studs, OEM GTE gasket, tomei pon-cams and a shimless bucket from an MR2 with full BC valves/springs/retainers/keepers. New oil pump, front/rear main seals, the whole pan setup is new, water pump, tensioner + bolt and oem crank bolt is new too. Went with a gates T215RB timing belt, new covers on the front and a fluidamper. Everything went together pretty easy after the massive amount of cleaning.
Thanks! I agree, been real busy with work lately so its nice to have the motor back together. Still need to yank the seats out and pull the carpet back so I can replace the upper transmission tunnel. But I will wait until its warmer to do that work.
Here's a photo of the mako dash and the Link Street MXG. Pretty much the largest screen you can fit recessed and this one comes stock with all the DOT approved indicators.
Just been mocking things up, wanted to make sure the manifold would fit on the shorter studs, had to get shorter studs for my turbine housing; then swapped the .68 housing i had (only ran it because of fitment issues with the SPA manifold); back to an .88 A/R open (difference between open/divided seems very minimal and not worth the $$)
Removing the old housing was a pain, it had rusted on a little from the years of being on, I ended up having to use two studs on either side of the turbo with opposing nuts that I loosened to pull the housing off which was difficult but doable. Then i threw my radium valve cover fittings in the freezer to shrink a little, got the new valve cover fitting removed by putting my valve cover in a padded vice; then using a pry bar meant to remove nails, hammer down driving the fitting out. Putting the new fittings in was a bit difficult, they did require some hammering to get in but I am happy with the result.
Exhaust manifold fitted, had no issues getting all the nuts on. Not advertising who built this as he fked me about on shipping for months and lied constantly to me. Miracle I even got a product.
This is the .68 housing with the new studs i picked up (found out the manifold was tapped for 10x1.5 but the studs i had were too long originally)
I needed shorter screws for my throttle body block off plate, which I believe were 5mm x .80 and I went with these nice pan head stainless allens
After all my fighting to get the housing replaced, I finally got it all together and mocked up for the first time here and was quite relieved.
One of the issues I didn't foresee, is the turbo size with this manifold puts it a tad close to the valve cover which ends up blocking me from fitting the front hook (rear bolt head interferes with turbo). I was thinking I can either get a bolt with a much smaller head and install it before the turbo; but if that doesn't work then I will have to install the motor without the turbo on so I can have the front hook, then put it on once its in the car, which isn't a big deal cause I can mock up the drain and feed lines to the correct length first.
Lastly I got the vvt-i filter and new union bolt waters on, and here is a final photo of my valve cover fittings. Rear exhaust housing also comes a little close to the manifold; so I think I will need to run my valve cover vents forward but we'll see.
Pretty much been ordering little things here and there trying to get my plumbing re-done. I have everything for the injectors now just need to install; and I have been working on the turbo drain. This manifold doesn't give me a straight down option, and the furthest I can "clock" it is ~ 7 degrees.
Previous turbo drain made it impossible to put on the AN fitting being so close to my manifold + stud, so I bought a billet extended one which looks like it will work good. My old turbo drain has a 45° which allowed me to check clearance and start coming up with ideas. It looks pretty good but I still can't tighten it when the turbo is on the manifold. Looks like I may have to have an install-order for this motor and turbo system.
One thing I never liked was how this cx-racing lower radiator outlet made my feed line become a bit obstructed, I can't run the stock one as it would direct into my manifold; so I would need a rotated one. Options appear to be the RAD designs, ichiban or PHR + rotater. I didn't like how RAD dan designed his to not use the stock studs, and I didn't want to use the rotater from the PHR setup so I ordered the thai Ichiban billet lower. Looks nice just waiting for it to arrive.
Checking clearances with my old 45° drain coming off the extended drain, and things aren't too bad but I would definitely need a more flexible hose or different bends to get to my oil pan.
Noticed that my drain hits the manifold when trying to clock it. I ended up cutting off the corner thats sticking out from the turbine housing giving me a little more wiggle. I don't necessarily want to cut on the turbine housing though.
Overall, not terrible fitment and shouldn't be too hard to route the drain. I figure with it only being clocked ~ 4-6° from verticle, plus having the 3" straight down turbo drain, i shouldn't have a problem doing a 45 to get around the manifold here. I decided to order a -10AN female to male adapter #920410ERL. This will kick me out a little bit, and I think using another 45° hose end will bring me back going straight down and I'm debating whether I'll need to have a 45 on the pan or a straight fitting. I wasn't really sure who I was going to go with for fittings this round. I've pretty much used/tried summit, earl's, fragola and aeroquip in the past. After reading reviews and looking at products I almost went with XRP fittings but just in the difficulty of trying to find the fittings and parts I needed online made me decide to run with this earl's adapter and fragola PTFE race-rite pro hose w/ race-rite reuseable fittings. This new hose looks pretty crazy, and the flexibility of it is next level, the 10AN has a 1.75″ bend radius compared to ~4-5" of all the old stuff we used to use; which over time gets stiff as heck.
Still need to get a longer feed line, and I also need to finish off my upper radiator neck because I'm missing the gasket. Also need to take care of the original turbo water drains. I previously looped this; but I was never really happy with it. I think I will remove the pipe and have my friend weld up the rear hole, and just use a high temp silicone cap on the lower. Since this was originally a drain going into the water pump it shouldn't really cause me issues, and my upper water neck has already had the feeds welded shut. Also still need to swap back to the NA oil filter setup, I decided I'm not going to run the filter directly on the block, despite buying a sweet union to be able to do it because I'm going to run a bosch dual temperature/pressure sensor on the original union bolt. Guys at PANIC wire hooked me up with free adapters for BSPT when i bought my sensors from them, so I'll have one for my oil and one for water.
Couple things arrived including my nord lock washers, -4 PTFE feed line 30", 45° earl's fitting for the turbo drain and some loctites. Everything looks pretty good with the turbo drain with the addition of this 45, just what I wanted, heck if i bought another I could pretty much re-use my old turbo drain its so close. 30" feed like should work, 29" may of made it perfect but should be no problem as well and i got it for so cheap in comparison to making my own by ordering custom from fragola; 412-1-2-30 got me the -4 black coated PTFE braided line with a 90° and straight fittings for ~$50.
Good call on Fragola! I used all Fragola for my RX7’s fuel system, making each line custom. Making PTFE lines is a pain in the butt (and the fingers) but it’s worth it. After I finished all the lines, I never smelled fuel again, which is a big problem with rubber lines. Fragola is high quality, but reasonably priced!
I wasn’t familiar with those lock washers. Something special about them?
Yeah these are anti-vibration washers with a dual locking system. Ideally for turbo systems you would want the inconel 718 ones but minimum order is 200 with a cost of ~ $4500; these stainless steel ones are typically carried by fastenal or grainger in smaller packs; these were ~ 40 for the pack of 6. I always use them on turbo systems if I can; learned that when I did the turbo kit on my quad and vibration + heat cycles can loosen stuff up.
Spent a little time on the motor again, the AN fittings I got for my waste-gate have threads that are too long and will need to all be cut down sadly. I'll update more on that later. I test fit them to think about how I want them routed, where my lines will be placed.
In the meantime I got the gaskets to put my upper water neck back together; and started mocking up and test fitting my fuel rail, and got it mostly finished.
Going to have the front capped, it provides a really clean look once assembled and not having to route a line down next to your A/C and power steering pumps. Radium has a clever 90 degree ORB fitting that allows me to have a 6AN feed between injectors 2&3; and i'll have a rail mounted fuel pressure damper between 4&5 with my regulator mounted on the back/return downward.
Injectors were the injector dynamics #1050.48.14.14.6; which fit perfectly with the longer stand-off that radium provides along with the OEM fuel rail spacer part number #90561-08009.
Used some super lube o-ring silicon lubricant for the install on all my o-rings and everything went together easily. ORB fittings i went real slow with to not pinch the o-ring, and they bottom out and sinch down nicely. This radium stuff is really nice.
