Reading this thread makes me want to say WOW, just WOW. I can't believe how some of these motor are being "built". Like i've said before in some of my other post, you can use the best internal components available for your motor, but if you slap the motor together like you would putting a zip tie on an intercooler hose that blew off just to temporarily get you home, is just a waste of time and money.

Having forged pistons and rods and all the other goodies and throwing it all together in your drive way is no way to build a motor, especially not a forced induction motor.

First off, when you removed a cylinder head, you must at a minimum have the head decked--to make sure the head is perfectly flat and squared. Cylinder heads, especially aluminum will tend to warp once it's removed from the block, because of the constant heating and cooling over the life of the engine. No NASA-grade head studs or head gasket material is going to properly seal a warped cylinder head. Decking the head will also give it a smooth, perfectly flat surface to allow the gasket to seal properly.

Secondly, the same appies to the cylinder block, the block must also be decked to ensure a perfectly flat and smooth surface for the gasket to seal properly.

Thirdly, when installing new pistons and rings, the block must at a mininum be honed to provide a perfectly round and relative smooth surface for the piston rings to seat and seal properly. If your cylinder bore is worned beyond the factory limit, you will need to go to the next available larger diameter pistons. In this case the cylinder bore will need to be bored and then honed to size to provide the proper clearance for the larger pistons. With any used motor, there's always going to be a ridge at the top of the cylinder bore were the piston rings never come into contact with the cylinder bore. This ridge must be removed by boring/honing before installing the new pistons and rings.

Fourthly, the piston rings must be properly gapped for the type of application the motor will be used for. The top, secondary, and oil rings all require a different gap. This is a slow and tedious process that must be performed on each and every ring for each and every cylinder. And make sure the piston is oriented properly, ie. the valve relief for the exhaust is on the exhaust side and vice versa. Some pistons will have marks indicating the proper orientation.

Fifthly, when installing the rods, diameter of the rod journal on the crank must be measured and the inner diameter of the rod with the bearings in placed and torque to spec, must all be measured. The difference between the two is the vertical oil clearance and if this is out of spec, the journals must be resized and/or different bearing must used to obtain the properly oil clearance. The rod bolt must be torqued to spec using the bolt-stretch method. That is the each rod bolt must be measure in length when untorqued and using a rod bolt stretch gauge, the bolt must be tighten until the recommended stretch length is achieved per the rod manufacturer's spec. This procedure is performed on each bolt. There's more detail I won't get into--including checking for thrust/side clearance.

Sixthly, the main journals, main bearing, oil clearance, main journal roundness, main journal size, bearing crush, align honing, and so on and so forth has it's own list of procedures that must be performed, too much detail to get into. And let's not forget about the thrust clearance (end-play). Too much clearance on the main bearings can result in excessive bleed-off rate of the oil resulting in insufficient oil supply to the rod journals. To tight of a clearance can result in inadequate oil supply on the main bearings themselves.

Seventhly, balancing the rotating assembly, including balancing the crank from end to end, balance the rods so they all weight the same as the lightest rod, balancing the pistons so they weight the same as the lightest piston. We're talking within a gram and sometimes within a tenth of a gram. Depending on the engine builder. A balanced motor will have less vibration therefore create less wear on the bearings and rotating assembly.

Eigthly, cleanliness is very important. The motor should be cleaned, cleaned and clean again, since some of the bearing clearances are in the thousands of an inch. Just for comparison, the average human hair is .004" (four thou). Some of the bearing clearances less than .002" (two thou). That's less than half the thickness of the human hair. So any small particle that gets into the bearing journals or oil galley can lead to engine failure. Clean all the internal oil galley screen, oil passages, coolant passage.

Ninethly, most modern engine uses silicone sealant instead of paper gasket for sealing the engine block halves, timing cover, etc. The factory is very specific on how the sealant should be laid, including the type of sealant, width of the sealant bead and so on and so forth. Lay the bead to wide and some of the sealant can make it's way into the oil passages and clog up the oil supply to the motor, laid the sealant to narrow and you don't get a proper seal.

Building a motor is not like installing a bolt-on turbo kit. Everything is very precise even down to a tenth of a thou .0001". There's no room for error. There are parts of the engine build that can be done at home with the proper tools and there are others that require precision machinery that only a well equipped machine shop can offer. It's always cheaper to pay a professional to do it right the first time than to attempt to do it yourself--with no prior experience or without the proper tools--and have to redo it right the second time.

I won't even get into the specifics of the timing chain, camshaft timing and balancer shaft phasing. At a minimum buy all new gaskets for all sealing surfaces that has to come apart and spend the extra money to buy a new oil pump and water pump while the motor is being rebuilt. Don't leave anything to chance. An again, it doesn't matter if you have the best component and assemble the motor with precision, if your oil pump fails because of a mechanical failure and not due to assembly, the motor will fail. There's nothing you can do about that, but at least you've taken every measure to make sure the engine will not fail because of careless assembly or trying to cut corners. Also, a bad tune or faulty fuel system that causes the motor to lean out and detonate will destroy any motor regardless of what components you're using.

And one more thing. Buy a factory manual for your car/motor, so you have a reference for the torque spec, clearances, tolerance, diagrams, etc. You can't build or blue print a motor without knowing the specs and the procedures on how certain components should be assembled.

And finally. Everything i mentioned should and must be done with the motor out of the car and preferrably on an engine stand. The 2az-fe motor, unlike a Honda B-series or Evo's 4G63 motor, was not designed to be taken apart and put together with the block still in the car. And this is due in part to the designed of the internal timing chain and cover assembly. The S2000's F20C & F22C motor is one of the few motors with an internal timing chain that allows for the removal & installation of the camshafts and cylinder head without removing the timing chain when the block is still in the car.

Sorry for the long post.

MrC

 

dont be sorry at all.

 

^^so...if she weighs as much as a duck, shes made made of wood...?

 

hey Mr C. dou you think theres any chance you could make us a step by step diy with pics for building a 2az-fe? something kinda like this?

http://forums.evolutionm.net/showthread.php?t=220313

 

That's possibility. There's a lot of details not in the post regarding the whole machining, decking, balancing, clearancing, etc. There's a lot of measuring tools that will be required to actually assembled the short block including some toyota specific tools for the main seals, etc which can easily cost over $1000. What we may do down the road here, shortly, is to offer a complete competition short blocked with the the machining worked done including optional sleeeving and the tedious task of gapping the rings. So you basically get an assembled short with all the internal components properly clearanced, torqued and blue printed.

From there we can provide a detail step by step procedure with photos on how to install all the components to the short block into a long block, including bottom half of block, oil pump, water pump, oil chain, timing chain, sensors, oil pan, head stud and everything else you will need to do to complete the engine assembly before dropping the complete motor into the car.

MrC

 

^^ thats nice to hear.. that would be an awesome writeup

 

i would pay to get a diy of that caliber.

 

lol that post made me wanna cry! ptuning just sell us a built motor haha

 

^^Now THAT would be awesome.

 

OH OH question question!

is there any reason that having a standalone BEFORE you start an engine build would be benificial to the whole thing? or would make it easier?

or should i hold off on standalone and just build it?

 

once again, not positive.
but its not necessary, but it could help you squeeze more power out of everything when your done.

 

other than squeezing out more power, i was wondering if there are aspects that would be easier to maintain having a standalone beforehand. like absence of maf sensor and stuff

 

hopefully you offer an motor before winter which is when i'll be doing my motor. does anyone else currently offer a built shortblock or how much should i expect to have a motor assembled if i provide all the parts at a shop

 

the only thing i have found thats anywhere near what ptuning is talking about is this...

http://www.scion-parts.com/store.html

im not vouching for this company in any way, i have never heard any feedback on them. i just stumbled across it on the internet a while ago.

 

not sure man.
like i said im still learning.
id shoot Ptuning or Dezod a PM or wait for them to reply in this thread.
theyd know better than anyone.

 

as am i man, i was putting that question out there for a bunch of people, not just ptuning or dezod.

besides, i'd rather not PM them this because i want everybody tos ee the answer

 

truetrue.
good call.

 

I got quoted $2,000 to install rods and pistons.

 

that seems like quite a bit when i just checked the side yellowxhoodie posted and a complete built shortblock was $3,800

 

the deal is ok if you dont have a shop that you can trust to do the build