As with most projects and rebuilds, they all start in the same place, mine was no different. However, this isn’t truely the start of my forever ongoing Z project. I’ve owned this car (my second Z) since 2008 when I purchased it from a former member. For the first 5 or 6 years I did the usual mods with suspension parts and basic bolt ons. For reasons unknown, whilst running stock boost, piston 5 cracked a ring land during a track day at Castle Coombe. A forged build and a remap later all was well until a sunny October’s day 2013 at Bruntingthorpe killed that engine with what at the time was a suspected head gasket failure at 181mph..... And this is where I shall start my journal.

 

The Z was stored off the road from Oct 2013 until March 2015. I’d had a major knee operation at the beginning of 2015 which meant I was going to be off work for 6 months. I’d saved up enough to start thinking about a parts list to rebuild her and frankly, after a couple of months of staring at the same 4 walls, I was going stir crazy! I employed the help of a good friend and decided to pull the engine and see what was what.... just a head gasket my arse!

 

March 2015

Problem 1: It turns out stainless steel, exhaust wraps and condensation don’t mix well

 

Before I’d even got the engine out, a new set of downpipes was added to this list. These AMS items were only 2 years old, so I was far from impressed! I contacted the retailer and after a bit of tooing and froing I secured myself a set of replacements for free... how long they will last, only time will tell!

Around .010-.015" will require phasing of the cams to get them back into spec however don't rule out the grind of the cam because there's no such thing as a perfect cam grind. I've seen other cams the Z32 platform use be out as much as 5* as advertised.

Could but then we kill velocity by making the entry ways considerably larger just to save face of trying to match them. Even factory lowers to the heads don't line up correctly. It's all production tolerances.

 

I see your point and don’t get me wrong I am no expert, I don’t build engines, but I think this is an interesting debate.

 

I’m guessing you’re worried about killing the velocity because the inlet tract cross sectional area would increase at the blend, causing the airflow to become momentarily divergent? By leaving it as it is though, the airflow will still diverge but more suddenly as it goes past the restriction, and also induce lots more turbulence.

 

In my head, it seems logical to buzz the “into wind” obstructions to the airflow in its direction of travel in an attempt to maintain laminar flow as show by the red lines below. I’m not thinking a huge amount of material being removed, just smoothing the transition:

 

 

To avoid too much decrease in velocity, I would then leave the lower section (as shown in that pic) as an acceptable intolerance as it doesn’t directly interfere with the airflow. Technically, it will cause a small stagnation point as the flow drops off it, but with relatively little effect in comparison to the into wind restriction above.

 

Doing that affords a quick compromise between maintaining laminar flow and keeping the velocity/pressure as stable as possible.

 

I have no idea how much real world effect the mismatch would cause so it could be all pie in the sky anyway, it just seems a shame to leave it as it is after all the engineering that’s gone into it so far.

I'll try to draw an illustration to validate my statement of sorts however you must understand too that the Engine is not sensitive to airflow being it's forced Induction vs naturally aspirated. Two totally different systems where one does see an affect by minute changes like this where forced Induction it's nowhere near as fussy. FI cares about only 1 thing and 1 thing only....get as much air as fast as possible to the back of the valve. The minor offset shown there will make zero difference in performance. Yes I agree the appeal of what you see in the image doesn't look good to the eye but this is an image taken at a very difficult angle so couple that with the obviousness of what you're looking at it begins to get muddled.

 

I agree though I wish things could look/feel different in a better way but the fact is, is that to fix this correctly which the only way we care to approach issues is to tackle it like I mentioned above.

Around .010-.015" will require phasing of the cams to get them back into spec however don't rule out the grind of the cam because there's no such thing as a perfect cam grind. I've seen other cams the Z32 platform use be out as much as 5* as advertised.

 

So at that point Vernier Pullies /Use a thicker gasket,Or as you stated, build up the head face and Mill them back into spec ?.Do you ever use Tomei HG,s Mitch in varying thickness sometimes to combat this issue also ?

I forgot to mention too that the floors of the intake ports had been altered previously too and we're dropped A LOT which adds even more obscurity to the ports lining up. Please trust me when I say we did all we could to salvage as much as possible but again in order to make this right to where you'd have very little offset/change the ports would of needed to be welded on the floor, decks rewelded etc. WAY more work and at a significant expense that I know Nick did not want to get involved with. Buying new heads was out of the question too. Just want ppl to know this isn't the norm and we've done a lot to try and get this as best it can be within the confines

So at that point Vernier Pullies /Use a thicker gasket,Or as you stated, build up the head face and Mill them back into spec ?.Do you ever use Tomei HG,s Mitch in varying thickness sometimes to combat this issue also ?

 

Thicker headgaskets could help but then you're changing compression ratios once more. Running too thick a headgasket can have issues as well. I do use Tomei from time to time on the rather large builds but I've since moved to our own hybrid MLS gasket that has a few more features tomei gaskets do not

Thicker headgaskets could help but then you're changing compression ratios once more. Running too thick a headgasket can have issues as well. I do use Tomei from time to time on the rather large builds but I've since moved to our own hybrid MLS gasket that has a few more features tomei gaskets do not

 

I knew Tomei gaskets were considered superior to Cometic and now you have an in house MLS Gasket thats even better again.I take it these have been shown on the FB page so i can go take a look ?

Yep they are shown on our FB page. There's an album dedicated for them just have to s roll through the plethora of albums

So after a chat with Mitch, a splash of colour has been added into the mix.

 

Those of you who know me personally probably know I’m not a fan of multi coloured loud engine bays. Just not my style. However, I was stuck in a bit of a quandary. I’ve got nearly 1K’s worth of BDE cam gears that aren’t going to be visible due to the colour of the gears against the black backing plates. The colour scheme of my car has always been black with anodised red accents. So Mitch made a suggestion and after a bit of thinking I ran with it.

 

Bold.....

 

 

They’ve been painted anodised red, by coincidence, the same paint I used on my Plenum many moons ago. The idea was simple, to have a back drop that accentuates the black BDE gears

 

 

Still too bold? Maybe..... but I’d always had in my mind I had smoked timing belt covers. And they’ve done exactly as I hoped

 

 

With the anodized red fasteners, I think this is an in keeping way of highlighting the quality of the products used in this build (a bit like a window in a Swiss watch) without being overly shouty and in line with the rest of the car.

 

Another nice little touch is these

 

Copper exhaust nuts to prevent seizing in the future

Stunning Nick :thumbup:

Looks awesome.

 

Almost a shame to hide it inside an engine bay.

Looks awesome.

 

Almost a shame to hide it inside an engine bay.

 

Plan is to get/keep the car to a similar standard to this engine..... it’s gunna be a long road but it’ll get there

Because the covers are smoked rather than 100% clear, it darkens that red off and it looks the nuts. Good move.

COTY [emoji41]

Getting closer.

 

 

With the change of camshaft it’s paramount that they’re properly dialled in to ensure valve opening, closing and overlap happen when they’re supposed to. Furthermore, as my heads have clearly been skimmed, it’s equally important to make the appropriate adjustments are made to reset the centre line of the camshafts to crank. The adjustable cam pulleys make this possible and are a must when changing camshafts

 

To make use of a large timing wheel (which makes the process easier and I’d guess more accurate) Mitch made up an adapter for the crank snout to enable the use of a bigger timing wheel

 

Then the process began

 

Hopefully this will be topped and tailed later today and the final bits and bobs will be installed ready for shipping

And here she sits, all timed up and ready to rock. Just a few bits to do, like set up the crank trigger bracket and wheel, aswell as the obvious timing covers, water pump etc

 

Edited August 15, 20196 yr by nickz32

And thats one heavy rocker. :thumbup1:

Bet you can't wait to get this back in your car.

 

Any idea when you'll be getting it back?

Just waiting on a couple of OEM parts to arrive at EPR (water pump and matrix pipes) so they can be fitted. I think Mitch still has to build the cradle for it to be shipped on. Hopefully it’ll be here in the next 2 weeks

A well timed update to help make sure JaiKai doesn’t completely run away with the NEC voting poll :lol:

 

Ain’t she a beaut!

 

Annoyingly there’s a missing bolt in my Z spec kit! Hopefully Z1 can get one to Mitch sharpish

 

Just waiting on the crank trigger wheel to be fabricated, hall sensor mounting, ceramic coating of hotside parts and I believe she’s done!

Stunning that mate. Belongs in a museum rather than an engine bay! :cool3:

This is the Hall effect sensor and mount that came with the Ross Performance kit. Obviously, it doesn’t have a ring to match up to and it’s in a different position to where the new ring will sit. The plan is for the new ring to sit at the front of the dampener behind the PS pulley and then spaced correctly to suit. The whole crank pulley will then be realigned to correct the offset with the PS pump

 

This is the Hall effect sensor and mount that came with the Ross Performance kit. Obviously, it doesn’t have a ring to match up to and it’s in a different position to where the new ring will sit. The plan is for the new ring to sit at the front of the dampener behind the PS pulley and then spaced correctly to suit. The whole crank pulley will then be realigned to correct the offset with the PS pump

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]118170[/ATTACH]

So the fundamentals of the trigger system are there

 

 

The front pulley has been machined to remove material to ensure belt alignment for the PS pump is maintained. A Billet spacer is being made for the sensor mount to get everything lined up as it should be.

 

All being well, the engine will be shipped at the end of this week!

Finishing touches include laser etch EPR logo and warming, as well as it being clear coated to protect it from the elements