*New Build* - Rebuilt motor / SC / And more
 

Hello,

New here and I am looking for a little advice on my build. I recently bought a built motor (got a great deal) that has :

- Weisco pistons
- Eagle h beams
- Arp main studs
- Arp head bolts

I have a vortech SC on deck to add and i want reliability. Any recommendations for additional items?


https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/my350z....ff3d4bcbd1.jpg



I took the engine apart. I don't have a lot of experience working on engines so forgive me if my questions are off or my terminology. The bearings are shot.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/my350z....54cc204fe3.jpg

So I have a replacement crankshaft on order and I am going to order some bearings. Here are my questions:

What brand bearings should i go with?
I'm going to need to turn the crank to get at the piston rod cap bolts. Will this mess up any timing or anything? Trying to avoid any goofs.
What clearance should i have when i put it all back together?
Anything I should do while I am in here?

Thanks for your help!

Yea - a lot of built engines suffer damage when bearings give out...I lost mine a few months back. My cylinder #4 went - not my thrust bearings.

ACL makes good bearings but you want to get the 'Race' Series not the performance. It'd be wise the get the HX +001 which give you a thousandth inch more oil clearance.

Plan on disassembling the entire engine - if you have bearing materials floating around the engine it'll cause problems down the road. Have the block clean/hot-bath'd($150), Replace all the bearings ($160), get the new crankshaft ground & polished to OEM spec($150), consider getting the big end of the rods honed to OEM Spec ($90). Then you will need to have your rods/pistons/bearings/crank pulley installed on the donor crankshaft and balanced ($250). From there you can reinstall everything.

It'd be smart to take the heads off and have them cleaned & machined ($200) and install new head gaskets ($100 for OEM gaskets).

Now would be a great time to get that Dynosty billet main girdle ($300)

Add an oil cooler ($100)
Add an oil return port to your upper oil pan($50)
Add an oil pan Spacer & oil pump pick up extension ($80)

what are you tuning with?

it's only money right??

On my rebuild - I'm aiming in the .003 range for oil clearance -

Thanks for the response man. I will go with the ACL bearings.

From my understanding the guy who I bought the motor from (he owns a speed shop so he has some knowledge) had it recently built and he said that the builder didn't torque properly or check the clearance. He said the engine only had 40 miles before he heard the bearings go.

Do you think I still need to do all of that? Everything inside looks really clean and all the gaskets are new I noticed the baffle of the filler neck was missing. Would you still recommend all that if i don't see any shavings? Pistons have to come out regardless right?

I was hoping to not have to take apart the top end. But If i do I can. My OG motor is still running and I have a daily truck. Just don't want to waste time if I don't have to. I don't mind spending the money to get it right (within reason) I sorta planned for this.

• As for Oil cooler the engine came with a sandwich plate so i'm gonna buy the mishimoto 19 fin and some lines.
• How and where would you tap the upper? I assume there is some DIYs here?
• I also plan on a new radiator and the pathfinder cooling mod.
• As for tuning I haven't planned anything yet. I would appreciate any recommendations.

Thanks again.

I'd disassemble everything and only listen to a portion of what we tell you here. Your best bet would be to be-friend your local machinist and/or your local performance mechanic and let him measure the components and compare them to OEM spec. You may not need to hone your rods. You will likely have to grind/polish the crank and have the assembly balanced.

Is the oil that came out of the engine still around - do you see any gold flakes / speckles??

If it was me and what I'm doing is taking everything out and everything apart for cleaning and inspection.

I daily a pickup as well...smartest thing I ever did!!

I'm not a huge fan of mishimoto … I like Setrab personally for oil coolers and I really like C&R Racing for radiators but they don't make a Z replacement.

You can drill a hole in the upper oil pan and use a screw-style AN fittings...probably like a AN -8, -10, -12. or you can drill the hole and weld it in. If you send me your pan I'd weld it on there for you (no charge - just cover shipping) just let me know what size fitting you want. I put a AN -12 on mine. It came out like **** the first time I did it and I re-did it last night and it came out better. I'll upload pics to my build thread. I've never seen a DIY thread, most people use a spacer which I didn't like - I think it caused excess smoking on my twins.

If you want to purchase my old oil pan which as two threaded in AN -8 fittings I'll sell it to you pretty inexpensively.

Uprev, Haltech, Link are the main players for the 350z tuning world.
who knows why/how your engine failed - there is a member here by the name of TCode who is very smart and knowledgable and he speculates that the oil tolerances are too tight, especially for FI (turbo/supercharger) and as things expand due to heat oil passages get choked off and metal on metal ensues.

Thanks so much. Exactly the type of advice i was looking for. Let me gather my thoughts and take some pics tonight. I'll post a proper reply tomorrow.

yea - for sure … start a build (rebuild) thread and post to it (might as well use this thread) and people can chime in and help. There are a handful of vortech guys on here that will also provide guidance that have successfully navigated through and are pushing great numbers.

Also a good resource - it's subscription based ($19/month) is High Performance Academy. They do tuning, engine building, and wiring content. Their stuff is pretty good and I'd say worth the money. HPacademy.com.

Thanks! I will check it out. So last night I only had about an hour to get into it so I took off the rod bolts and the bolts off the rear main seal. I had a look down the cylinder walls and it looks like #5 has some scratches on the walls and some small metal fragments.
Here is a good photo of the oilpan and what was in it...

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/my350z....eb51210ffc.jpg

No gold flakes but it does look like full disassembly is gonna have to happen?

I also noticed one problem with the rear timing cover:

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/my350z....3de63b4662.jpg

Looks like whoever put it back together over torqued this bolt.
Is this something i can weld back together or even JB weld? Or am i gonna need a new rear cover.

That's all I got for now. Looking to put in more work on Sunday.

Last night i broke the rest of the engine down. Everything looked pretty good. Here is what I did find.

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/my350z....ec9e6af4e4.jpg
Down to the block.
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/my350z....fadd637d3e.jpg
Some scraped on the wall of #6
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/my350z....314cda3219.jpg
This is the exhaust cam on passenger site. It was fitting extremely tight and rubbing in one spot. Found a small about of metal shavings. Can this be reconditioned or just buy a new one?

Good news that you don't have flakes!

If you cant get that over-torqued bolt off and need a new timing chain case let me know I got a few of them in the garage ... If not for free something stupid inexpensive.

are your cams OEM? Are the journals/caps in the heads damaged or just the cam shaft? Feel free to message me if you need replacments - I got a few sets sitting in the garage.

Thanks so much man. I will most likely take you up on the rear timing cover, camshaft and oil tap. I just need to get organized first but I will dm you soon.

I took the pistons out last night and i have some good news and bad news.

Let's start with the good...
The only cylinder wall that was really scratched was #6 and it looks like it can be honed out.


https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/my350z....df7795983f.jpg



Good news #2 The crankshaft doesn't appear to be damaged at all. So I may be able to reuse it and sell the one I bought?

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/my350z....6214fa41d5.jpg


Good News #3? The bearings are Cosworth bearings. Are these salvageable? Would save me $160.

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/my350z....53f4114bde.jpg
This is the worst one of the lot.
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/my350z....87bcddba42.jpg
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/my350z....8d93a937fb.jpg

Now the bad stuff. This piston head is fried. The rod looks fine but I imagine this cannot be saved. Can you even buy a single head?

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/my350z....2645724c66.jpg
https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/my350z....3feea66bb9.jpg

So I'm gonna start generating a parts list, start cleaning up rtv and find a local builder/machine shop. Thoughts?

For sure - message me and we'll talk logistics.

Based on the picture of your cylinder wall and the piston it may not be salvageable and honing may not take those gouges out.

I wouldn't re-use bearings - to me they are a wear item and should get replaced anytime theyre taken out. But - get a second opinion from the guys on the forum here and your local machinist too - he may think theyre just fine after inspection and can go back in. Make sure you label them as they'll probably need to go in the same exact positions.

And to crap on my own point - with all that being said - if you do get new bearings - get them with additional oil clearance if you are going FI - if these have the extra clearance than that's cool.

I also have a set of pistons that came out of a block that overheated and popped the head gasket. I'd be more than happy to throw you a deal on them if youre interested. I would venture to say it'd be optimal to replace all 6 at the same time as theyre obviously from a different production run and may not be the exact same.

Let me load-up some pictures of what I got and we can go from there.

Sounds like a fun (expensive) operation. Subscribing!

you are making a lot of progress!

James is a cool guy and it's nice he is willing to share not only his experience but also his accumulation of parts.

Good luck with the build

Thank you for the kind words … Im just paying it back

I think I have 4 VQs (all in pieces) in the garage as of right now...between the 10 to 15 active members who have builds going, we are a wealth of knowledge … why not harness it, huh?