As alot of you know i was trying out a budget build. i did leave out some of the details of the build because i didnt feel like getting flammed. but i feel that after putting some hard miles on the motor it proved that when building motors some components are more important than others. i will outline them here.


The motor has gone through approx. 5,000 miles after being rebuilt. The car is daily driven in traffic and is driven fairly hard on the streets.


Misc. Gaskets/O-Rings-
Most of the gaskets and o-rings are reusable when building a motor. On my build ALL the o-rings were reused and all gaskets were reused. just apply a good amount of silicon over it and you should be good to go. So gasket overhaul kit isnt really 100% necessary. No oil leaks.

Bearings-
This is the area that i felt would be most controversial. Sure most people would say its only 200 bucks but for some people 200 is a lot of money considering how much you are already dumping into it. 5,000 miles and 527rwhp later REUSED bearings are still holding up. The crank was out of the block and and the bearings had about 70k miles on them. just got some fine gritt sand paper put oil on it and sanded it to get out the scratches.

Head gasket-
Surprisingly this is the only part that cannot be reused and i found out the hard way. This was on a reused HKS headgasket purchased from a my350z member and copper was sprayed on it to help with the sealing but the head gasket went. Ill be taking it apart again and replacing it with an OEM head gasket as they have already been proven to hold power.

Cooling System-
The stock cooling system held up pretty well considering what it had to cool down. as long as i gave it time between pulls it was fine. luckily i live here in hawaii so i was also able to gut out my thermostat which is another cheap alternative for those who dont want to spend money on a nismo thermostat/housing. all you need to do is get a drill and start drilling away at the rivets and get the little bolt holding the t-stat to the housing.

Oil Pump-
Most people suggest using the revup pump. We just used the DE pump and it held up fine. at the power levels.


Again this was MY PERSONAL choice to try to cut corners on some things. all in the name of finding what is necessary and what isnt.


Take the information as you please. CHEERS

-RYAN

 

thanks for sharing...

and people swear by the HKS. I will get new OEM HG for my build

 

the thing is it was a "used" head gasket so i wouldnt count out the HKS as a good head gasket. im just trying to help people who are building on a budget. ill update you guys after i put some miles on a stock head gasket. a weekend of hard work here i come.

 

^nice...

 

interesting thread, thanks for the info

 

How did you possibly find a "used" HKS headgasket? Why would anyone use one and then take it off unless something had gone wrong with it?

If you do use the stock HG, I'd do the machining modification recommended by Jim Wolf and use the stock HR headgasket.

 

Stock HG vs Cometic? Any suggestions? I need a thicker HG than the stock one

 

I am goint with HR Headgaskets on my engine. I already performed the block prep necessary for them......some simple grinding to a coolant path in the block. I like how they force the water to pass around the exhaust ports, unlike the DE gasket.

 

you mean "evans", not "water", right?

 

to answer your guys questions the headgasket was off of dilshers car. i asked forged if there were any problems with it. shariff said no but he did say theres always a risk with reusing things. i assumed the risk. so no flamming on forged. i went this route because im a broke *** and wanted to see what could be done on a budget. once i get out of college though. there will be a nice little 4.0 stroker.

 

oops forgot to log off my friends account lol. thats my post above ^^

 

how much did you save on the gasket? even if ti was 100-200....all the time and labor to go back in wouldn't be worth it, would it?

 

+1 never ever reuse a head gasket. the second you torque the head bolts/studs down that is it. even if you never fire the motor up. the labor to get bak in and change it is WAY higher than using a new gasket from the start.
bearing can be reused, but you have to check for proper clearance, taper, and out of round of all surfaces. if they all check out good, you are ok to run them again. i can't imagine how or why you roughed them back up to reseat when they were already seated? you just added a way to open up your clearances and for them to try to reseat possibly uneven.
plasma moly rings can be reused to a point. 10k or less miles. just do a very light hone in the cylinder and they will reseat. but again, cylinders must be checked for out of round and taper first. also, if you hone to much, you will open up your ring end gaps and loose compression and invite some smoking issues.
head bolts/studs should also not be reused on high hp builds due to the fact that to torque them down is stretching them and the heat cycles in a stretched condition will make them less able to stretch the second time around.
all the little gaskets on the outside of the motor can be ditched and the use of rtv is fine and will last.
at 70k previously on the bearings, it mandatory to change the bearings and have crank surfaces checked.
you did save a few bucks, and sure the engine still runs, but i will have to say your advice on how others should build their motors is not good.
i would really like to hear the other stuff you did and didn't say for the fear of being flamed. mixing up all the lifter buckets because they forgot to get marked? lol not trying to flame ya, but not good advice to put on a public forum because some will believe ya this is the way to go!!

 

+10000


OP
if you wanna play with other parts thats fine but at least dont go cheap and get a good standalone then.
Anybody trustable thats had success with the stock HG or have decided to go with stock bolts over L17s or L19s have used a superior ems. I highly recomend you that.

 

well i decided to try it out because the labor cost wasnt really much of an issue. as i mentioned before it was pretty much an experimental build in which me and a friend built the motor. so the argument of cost of labor isnt a valid one. i understand that yeah some of the stuff i did was pretty dumb. but the car did make 527 rwhp and if it wasnt for the headgasket there would be 0 issues at all. headgasket is only a weekend job. so cheers.