Something I haven't shown just yet....These are the bumpers to the AIT Velocity kit that I bought second hand for a great deal. They still need to be "fitted"...I.E holes trimmed out for the lights, mounting points for the grill and bumper itself. The side skirts are sitting on the rafters in the garage. I'm having a hard time deciding if I even like this kit to be honest.



This is how the fitted product is expected to look







obviously not the ****ty wheels or the color depicted

 

Well today I got the engine on the stand to continue breaking it down and getting it ready for the machine shop.

I need to go and buy the correct tool to remove the head bolts next.

Also does anyone have an idea on how to break the crank pulley bolt loose? My current plan is to strip the black down and transport the block to a friends shop and hit it with his impact gun. BUUTTT if you guys have an idea that will work without the use of an impact please let me know.





For an engine that leaked from everything possible with 225k miles it looks pretty good.





The engine before the tare down and yes that is a ratchet strap. I was using it to help stabilize the weight as I started to construct a wooden support.

 

The block has been fully disassembled and is ready to go to the machine shop in the morning





A better shot on the condition of the main bearings. These things look beautiful as well do my cylinder walls





The crankshaft looks mint....Although I did find some scoring on the connecting rod bearing for cylinder number one...Nothing serious





Here is everything laid out on my nice new steel work bench. I found this bench on Cl for 50$ it included a functioning grinder and a vise.

 

Alright so I made it to Wasserbeck Speed Shop to have the engine machined...While we were there he allowed me to take some photographs for you guys. My friend is also having his 302 built here for his 1970 Mustang so it was nice to see his progress as well.





unloading the lower rotating assembly here





Some of the current builds





Shout out to Ed and his family





One of the engines they are about to start testing on the engine dyno. After my N/A 2jz's assembly we will be putting it on the dyno and see what kind of power a stock engine will put out with the correct timing and exhaust.





Some action from one of their machines





Here's Ed Wasserbeck showing my friend a few things about his 302

 

I also tried power washing the transmission earlier today wow it cleaned up....Now I'm going to make the extra effort and scrub it as clean as possible.





here it is after power washing before deep cleaning





the pans didn't really clean up for ****...so I'm going to take these to a parts washer and try those first

 

Looking good....

Whats the plans......?

 

The plan is to rebuild the entire car essentially...Starting with the engine...The engine will be rebuilt to OEM specification with ARP hardware, aggressive clutch, and an exhaust system. I'll be turbocharging the engine later in the year so the car will have a TT head gasket on it.

I plan on selling my Megan Track coilovers and switching over to a mk4 supra spring and strut combination. Mk4 lsd ..all new arms and dying the interior black until I can source factory parts.

 

Damn, that looks like an awesome project. Wish you could've bought my 1992 SC300, factory 5 speed with 91k original miles that I'm going to sell in a month or so. Complete service history, mint factory paint/body, interior, everything works.

 

I would have bought it haha....I knew what I was getting into with this car though so I'm not upset.

On a random note...While removing the transmission I was pretty surprised to find this in it. The car wasn't modified previously to me...

There are no names and or markings on it.....needed replaced anyways

 

Looks like a competition clutch to me.....

 

Yeah that's what I thought as well.....The bearing plate on front side of the transmission was leaking so everything inside the bell housing was just destroyed with sludge

 

So I most definitely sold the body kit... I'm going with 97 and up stock body with a lip....

Update: The engine has yet to be finished at the machine shop and I'm waiting on my ARP hardware to show up ie. head studs, main bolts, connecting rod bolts, fly wheel bolts

In other news I bought a car for the winter and turns out I'm really enjoying it. With that said I've added another project car to the stable in line after the lexus.

05' RSX base model manual transmission


(Insert Honda jokes here)

 

Lol my gf drives a RSX and its a work mule, they will run forever and we get over 30 MPG on the highway. Good choice man! But yeah, its a girls car

 

Got 179k miles on my EP3. Only thing that's gone bad so far is a stretched timing chain @ 165k miles and a bad wheel bearing. Other than that, it's ran perfect. K24 swap? Hehe

 

Oh those are a ton of fun, one of the best handling FWD cars I've ever driven. The ride is pretty brutal though, even by sports car standards IMO. Reliability wise, my sister had one and sold it with 150k on the clock. A/C compressor siezed, leather seats split, and the dealer never could figure out how to turn off an intermittent air bag light(she had wrecked it in a snow storm, bags didn't go off though), and man it rattled like crazy from that stiff ride. But it ran great the whole time