Sylvia's Sister - The S13

[JP]

Well say hello to Sylvia's sister, the standard CA18DET'd S13 whom I've not given a name to despite owning her for over a year now! Shortly after I bought her from a fellow SX Owner I discovered she was low on compression! :cry: So the pain & wallet-ache began...

Over the past year she's had the engine (very) slowly but surely rebuilt from the bottom up and back down again! :smash:

Here are some pics of her from during the year before any of the work started:
http://www.sxoc.com/vbb/attachment.php?attachmentid=55620&stc=1&d=1215395751

http://www.sxoc.com/vbb/attachment.php?attachmentid=55621&stc=1&d=1215395751

http://www.sxoc.com/vbb/attachment.php?attachmentid=55622&stc=1&d=1215395751

[JP]

And it starts... engine out:
http://www.sxoc.com/vbb/attachment.php?attachmentid=55625&stc=1&d=1215396566

The head kit and a rake-load of gaskets, seals etc:
http://www.sxoc.com/vbb/attachment.php?attachmentid=55626&stc=1&d=1215396566

Minus the gearbox, we reveal all standard Nissan parts :)
http://www.sxoc.com/vbb/attachment.php?attachmentid=55627&stc=1&d=1215396888

With the cams gone, everything's still looking ok:
http://www.sxoc.com/vbb/attachment.php?attachmentid=55628&stc=1&d=1215396888

And the ancillaries, won't be needing these for a while...
http://www.sxoc.com/vbb/attachment.php?attachmentid=55629&stc=1&d=1215396888

[JP]

Head off - not much sign of det etc... yet! :smash:
http://www.sxoc.com/vbb/attachment.php?attachmentid=55630&stc=1&d=1215397613

A very dirty head:
http://www.sxoc.com/vbb/attachment.php?attachmentid=55631&stc=1&d=1215397613

No really...
http://www.sxoc.com/vbb/attachment.php?attachmentid=55633&stc=1&d=1215397613

Carbon buildup anyone?
http://www.sxoc.com/vbb/attachment.php?attachmentid=55634&stc=1&d=1215397613

:hurl:
http://www.sxoc.com/vbb/attachment.php?attachmentid=55635&stc=1&d=1215397613

[JP]

The good bit was the valves weren't bent in any shape or form, the bad news was they needed a proper cleaning before they could go back in. The valve stem oil seals were replaced on all of them while we were at it.
http://www.sxoc.com/vbb/attachment.php?attachmentid=55636&stc=1&d=1215398775

A very big difference...
http://www.sxoc.com/vbb/attachment.php?attachmentid=55637&stc=1&d=1215398775

Note the serious amount of det on the ridges in between the ports and the poor condition of the valve seats:
http://www.sxoc.com/vbb/attachment.php?attachmentid=55638&stc=1&d=1215398775

Cylinder 1 valve seats before...
http://www.sxoc.com/vbb/attachment.php?attachmentid=55639&stc=1&d=1215398775

And after! :)
http://www.sxoc.com/vbb/attachment.php?attachmentid=55640&stc=1&d=1215398775

[JP]

Before we (Stiv, Scott & myself) started any of the work, chrisdsx and I found trace amounts of oil in the water and the oil level was decreasing noticably. The oil was both getting into the water through the headgasket but also leaking through the cam-cover gasket on the passenger-side. It made the whole car smell of smoke as the oil dribbled down the hot side of the engine and smouldered away before leaving stains on my friends' driveway while parked up before.

Needless to say that's where new cam cover gaskets came in, and we got the head skimmed as apparently that was the major reason for it being down on compression, the valves were probably a contributary factor as well judging from the look of them.

The machine shop told us the head was very badly warped so we're keen to see what kind of compression figures we get this time. :D
http://www.sxoc.com/vbb/attachment.php?attachmentid=55641&stc=1&d=1215399747

Here are the valves after being reseated:
http://www.sxoc.com/vbb/attachment.php?attachmentid=55642&stc=1&d=1215400041

There'll be no bother with sealing & no det holes were left anywhere along the sealing ring to provoke future premature wear:
http://www.sxoc.com/vbb/attachment.php?attachmentid=55643&stc=1&d=1215400041

With the valves reseated all that was left was the clearing the rest of the head of det marks; sandpaper some blood, sweat, skin & a lot of patience later it looked like this:
http://www.sxoc.com/vbb/attachment.php?attachmentid=55644&stc=1&d=1215400041

Skimmed, det marks removed & valves all ground in, the cylinder side of the head's ready to go! :thumbs:
http://www.sxoc.com/vbb/attachment.php?attachmentid=55645&stc=1&d=1215400041

[JP]

The bottom end was next, we could see the crank had been reground and rebalanced already (the bearings were oversized but still in good nick) so it's not the first time this engine's given trouble in it's 100,000 mile life by the looks of it:
http://www.sxoc.com/vbb/attachment.php?attachmentid=55646&stc=1&d=1215400635

The cylinders weren't scored or damaged in any way but they were getting pretty shiny so a rehoning was all that was needed:
http://www.sxoc.com/vbb/attachment.php?attachmentid=55647&stc=1&d=1215400635

On the left you'll see what the pistons should look like & on the right what they were transformed from:
http://www.sxoc.com/vbb/attachment.php?attachmentid=55648&stc=1&d=1215400635

They really did shine up well - a massive thanks to Scott for all the time he put into cleaning them! :thumbs:
http://www.sxoc.com/vbb/attachment.php?attachmentid=55649&stc=1&d=1215400635

[TM_S13]

nice work mate.
always good to see a ca18det coming back to life

[Jezz_S13]

jp, don't use the Ajusa Exhaust gaskets, get some nissan ones.
The ajusa ones don't have the metal fire ring on the inside of the port, so last about 1.2 minutes.

Head's looking shiny. :thumbs:

[Ebbo]

Nice to see such care being put in a 13

[schumi84]

That is an amazing difference, looks brand spanking new now :thumbs:

Hope the rebuild goes well and the compression issue has been sorted.

[JP]

jp, don't use the Ajusa Exhaust gaskets, get some nissan ones.
The ajusa ones don't have the metal fire ring on the inside of the port, so last about 1.2 minutes.
I think we used the old ones cause they were in grand nick but can't remember it's been so long! :confused:

The car's now running but after driving 150 miles or so in it (we used the old piston rings because they were well-within the tolerances) there's a small knocking sound coming from what sounds like the bottom-end again. :annoyed:

Now everything's been meaured by a machine-shop: the crank, the new bearings etc, the new oil pump's in there now so there's no way it could be the big-ends again. We now suspect the mini-torque-wrench we used to tighten the bottom-end bolts wasn't meauring what it was supposed to (Stiv's theory after reading up on them) so the next task is to whip the engine out again and see if it's just a case of tightening up the bottom-end bolts and praying the big-ends aren't fecked again. :smash:

If it is I'm tempted to burn the thing cause I've owned it just over a year & driven it a total of 3 times for approximately 100miles!! :rant:

Oh yeah, & the compression's through the roof so we're very happy with the work we did on the head! :D I'll see if I can dig out the compression figures from wherever we wrote them down or just do another test next time I'm down at it.

[Scougar]

Oh gutted!

Hope everything turns out ok!!

Matthew

[slammedmind]

Jp i can officially say it.....youre worse then me for taking on cars lol, nice project mate hopefully you get the knocking sorted so you can clock up a few extra miles on it :D

[JP]

Lol! Why, what else have you got lying around? If I don't end up driving a few more miles in it before September I'll be tempted to burn or strip'n'cage it then do something stupid like put a rotary engine in there for good measure! :wack: