Mr. G. Brettin's Slow Motion Leg Hump

gbrettin

The Green Apple isn't bad. It wouldn't match anything on the car.

Yeah, I was bummed about breaking the engine down; but, it shouldn't take long to get it back together because I have all the parts this time around.

gbrettin

Picked up my turbos, coil brackets, calipers and 2 piece rotor hats. All coating came out perfect. I ran out of steam last night to work on my car but I did fill in the Turbonetics text with black sharpie. I used a narrow sharpie that didn't fill everything that well. I then remembered I had a medium industrial sharpie (chemical and heat resistant) That filled in everything perfectly. I have some automotive clear that I will brush into the lettering later. Between the pictures of the block and the turbos... I'd say color matching went pretty well for my hack painting skills! lol

gbrettin

Got excited and brought the turbos down to the shop just so I can see how the color worked on the car. I am very pleased with the results. The block had the tape removed and I started working over the deck with a razor to make sure it was perfectly clean.

The block and powder coat color appear to be close... good enough anyway.

gbrettin

I love glancing at the tags. "Jar loves mangled extremities" and " I wiped my dirty ew today" about knocked me out of my seat. lol

A couple nights ago I was at the shop and started assembly of the engine. Having a bit of knowledge was very helpful, more importantly all the bolts and parts! It was such a PITA the first time around. Start. stop. start. stop. start...

I probably would have made the post about the assembly yesterday but I was a bit salty about breaking a piston ring. How did that happen? Well. The piston slipped out of the ring compressor right when I gave the top a bonk. Part of the piston popped out and pinched. These rings only like to do one thing, expand outward. Sooo.... that really pissed me off when that happened. I think there is another ring at the shop still from the last time I broke a ring. (they come as a pack). Other than that the assembly has been straight forward.

Yesterday, still a bit salty about the ring, I received my Titanium Works bleeder valves. I don't think I mentioned that purchase here because I was absolutely embarrassed about the purchase. There's no good reason to have them on the car other than "I like them". 95% of the stuff I put on the car has to have a specific functional purpose. I guess that 5% is the street flare.

I decided too late in the game that I want a "akebono" vinyl sticker. I put it on after the clear. Well... It's a 7 dollar vinyl. I guess I can sacrifice it every few years.

These pictures are way better than the social media pictures I take. Less compression.

ZontheRocks

Oooooooo! Looking fresh!

__________________
'16 Pearl White Sport | Stillen Gen. 3 | Motordyne ART | Motordyne Shockwave | ZSpeed | Powertrix | EVO-R | Aeroworkz | Nismo | Z1 | EcuTek | Tuned by Seb @ SpecialtyZ

gbrettin

I now have an engine assembled (ish). I still need my pushrods and my head drilled and tapped for steel inserts where the intake will go. I'll additionally put in studs so that I don't have to worry about alignment issues and stripping the aluminum head again. There's nothing too dramatic about the rebuild because I had all the screws and parts. Actually, that alone was an amazing feeling. Even better, I knew 99% of the process.

Really good news about the ring! I found the pack of rings at the shop from the last time I broke a ring. Also, the bottom oil ring was fairly easy to put on. More good news... The 10% underdrive gave enough clearance for the belt. Also, I was able to re-use my old belt.

Perhaps I was gifted with a bit of luck because my bad luck with my calipers hit. I was obsessed with getting the akebono logo cleared into the caliper. I did a light scuff (very light) and then cleared over it with some high temp gloss. I tossed the caliper into the stove for 20min @ 200deg. The result of that was catastrophic to the "high temp vinyl". The vinyl separated from the glue and curled. An attempt was made to press down the vinyl and re-clear. Things went bad to worse.

I ended up picking the vinyl out of the clear and then the caliper now has a blurry ghost of "akebono". At this point... I'm going to wet sand the clear and then not worry about even having the vinyl. Moral of the story... Have the vinyl baked into the clear. But... I question if that would even survive.

Now... if anyone reading this happens to see my car in person, look for the Easter Egg of a F* - up.

For what it was worth. The situation might have been fine if the clear was allowed to dry slowly. Oh well. I plan on murdering the rotors with heat. so there's no guarantee the vinyl wouldn't have been liquid under the clear. lol

gbrettin

Ah lawrd. Here I come again, with another update.

I started working on caliper reassembly last night. Things were going pretty smooth until I found out I was shipped a 1 Front Caliper seal kit and 1 Rear Caliper seal kit. So.... I couldn't complete the rebuild. I suppose that's ok, because I was making a caliper reassembly video. Now I can review the footage to make sure it's not a complete dumpster fire. It's going to end up in the DIY section; of which, I will add the torque specs Rusty. I suppose I wont count off Ugga Duggas for everyone.

Rusty - You asked if the seal kit comes with the caliper O-ring that goes in-between the halves. It does. The seal kit is complete, unless they send the wrong one.

Ghostvette

Quick question, what are you using to hold tension on the belt?

__________________
2015 Magma Red 6MT Sport Tech/2012 Fairlady MB 6MT Base (RIP 08032018)https://www.nicoclub.com/FSM/370Z/Coupe/

gbrettin

Manual tensioner.

gbrettin

Caliper assembly completed. I didn't get many photos while I was doing the work this time around because I was busy making DIY assembly video. The end result looks pretty great (to me). The yellow/green works with the darker engine bay and blacked out wheel well.

gbrettin

This video is longer but I think it turned out well.

gbrettin

The heads... Wow. Anything to do with the plenum has been a Greek Tragedy. If you recall, sometime last year I stripped 5 of 10 bolts in the head. The plenum is a floppy donkey and hard to align on the head which caused me to strip the head.

Rusty had a great idea of to drill out the holes and insert steel inserts. I've decided to take it one step further and put studs in as well. This will never happen again and the studs will help tremendously putting on the plenum.

The process has of getting the inserts in has been somewhat of a shi1t show. The holes had to be walked up bit sizes one at a time until I hit the final size specified for the threaded insert. After that, I tapped the hole and then put the insert in with some extra red loctite.

This whole process is a butt clincher. Don't think that I wasn't nerved up doing this. The heads have been decked and also have seat work for the valves. The intake side has oversized valves to boot.

The tap that came with the kit, 60 dollar kit..., broke off in the head due to a bad casting. That was worked out of the head and a bit of time. There is only one hole left that has a bolt broke off in it with a broken bit. I called in my machinist buddy to get that one out. I drew my line.

One head is done and on. Head studs have been torqued down. I'm hoping to have the other head on real soon.

ZontheRocks

Damn man! Way to hang in there!

__________________
'16 Pearl White Sport | Stillen Gen. 3 | Motordyne ART | Motordyne Shockwave | ZSpeed | Powertrix | EVO-R | Aeroworkz | Nismo | Z1 | EcuTek | Tuned by Seb @ SpecialtyZ

Rusty

The broken tap could be a whole lot worse. You got off lucky. You never broke a #8-40 tap off in a piece of inconel.

You're making progress. Even tho it feels like you're taking 3 step backwards at time.

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"The Difficult Anytime, The Impossible By Appointment Only"
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madwi

Sure have! EDM maching to the rescue. Burned it out.