So my car took a **** on me one day while I was cruising down the freeway in 6th goin 65-70 in morning traffic. It started boggin and acting funny, so I pulled off. limped it over to the shop with about a mile worth of blue nasty smoke trailing me. I thought, ...this isnt good.

Got to the shop and shut it down. Waited for the shop to open, tried to re-start it and heard a harsh clank/scrape metal on metal sound...

From there we pulled the plugs/replaced them. A few were completely fouled up. Changed the oil and started it again....more nasty blue smoke. The time had come...

It's an 03 with 110k rough miles on it.

Engine:
CP 96mm 11:1 high compression pistons
Bored .020
Eagle rods
ARP Head bolts
HR oil pump
HR head gasket
JWT pop charger
5/16's motor-dyne spacer

Drivetrain:
ACT street clutch
ACT Pro-lite flywheel

Exhaust:
350MS Longtube headers
Fast intentions cat-back

Here's some shots I took throughout the process:




Old pistons:




Freshly bored and honed:







New Pistons, 11:1 compression:






Everything in and spinning smooth:


Old vs New headers...






People have bitched about the welds on these headers, so I thought I would take a pic for reference:


The shop owner, Rich has had these same headers for a few years now with no issues, so I thought I'd give them a shot.

Here's some photo's my buddy took. Credit to Blaine at: http://www.krazywake.com Paint scheme was inspired by Adam at Z1....it was a DIY project for me while it was apart.





I've got about 650 miles on it now and have yet to open it up. It's gonna scream when the time comes though...






(thats coolant that splashed around, but here's what it looks like in the car)


Thanks again 350ZMotorsports

 

Why did it fail in the first place ?

Are you absolutely sure your block was/is not cracked ?

 

I'm a bit jealous. Kinda wish I did a high compression build instead of TT now.

 

This is Kwame on Adam's comp.

Anyway we both say congrats and we look forward to seeing your future progress as well as any others who are looking to go down this road.

Edit: Nice engine shots

 

hmm if you had the engine open why not upgrade more while it open? Second when you mean scream im thinking either turbos or supercharger...so you should of gone with a lower compression ratio on the pistons.....i mean you can do the 11:1 compression but if i remember correctly doesnt i have a high chance or knocking and stuff... someone correct me if im wrong...... Either way congrats on the having the Z running again hope it going for 200k miles next.

 

Stock DE cams?

 

I think by saying "scream" he means by the high revs he'll see. Something you normally don't see with a lower compression motor with boost. LOL

 

Good luck on the final results. What kind of tuning are you going to have done?

 

Nothing catastrophic blew up or failed...just appeared to be burnin oil like a *****...there's pretty evident burn marks throughout the skirts and underside of the pistons indicating pretty bad blow by. Rings. I could have kept driving it, but decided to go this route.

Whats left to upgrade? cams, valves/springs. valve job. meh..not necc. for me.


yup. Cams would have been nice, but being that this wasnt exactly a planned event, another extra 1000 bucks on top of everything else didnt sound that appealing.

Scream = this thing is abnormally LOUD...at least for me. I cant wait to redline it cause I've been letting off right when it starts to get in that juicy howl section of the rpm band. Its been an exercise of self control.

 

ya, i'm curious what its puttin down. It feels like its got a little more pep in its step, but we'll see. I plan on going with the Uprev dyno tuned flash in the near future.

 

Ya, i understand how it wasnt planned. I guess sense your not going FI?? your just want to beaf it up a little which i understand. Well get it dynoed and tell us what you made! Interested in seeing numbers.

 

Great lookin motor

 

Nice project. Thanks for posting it up. Good luck getting it broken in and tuned up. Looking forward to more results.

 

I like it but why didnt you upgrade the valvetrain

In for what she puts down. Nice headers.

 

The cams are going to keep you from making any more power than you would have with a stock shortblock. Good luck though.

 

Im ok with that. Still plenty of fun for me.

 

Yeah, he didn't open up his cylinder heads so no point in upgrading the valvetrain or cams. I predict a second phase upgrade to this

Edit: Those pics your friend took are amazing. Just noticed though that the big one is photoshopped, still good though.

 

Nice build op!

 

Maybe in the future, but for now, I'm happy its back on the road w no leaks or issues.

It's been complete for a while now, just thought I'd post it for the community benefit as while the build was going on I scoured any and every thread related to the topic. So I figured I would contribute what I could in return.

One thing that I do love about forums though is that once someone posts up descent thread, everyone says why didn't you do this or that, or if you would have done this then you'd have a bad a s s setup.....yada yada.

As if I haven't done the research or that I didnt realize that cams/head work would be beneficial. How many kilojules does the Z put out anyways?

When all of you have done your own build I'll be sure to chime in with what does what or what you should have done.

For those of you that have built your engine, congrats. I'm sure you put as much time,effort, and research into it as I did. I would be willing to bet you were happy when it was all done regardless of what others would have done with their gazillion dollars.




As for the complements...thanks guys! I'll have to get it dyno'd and report back. This wasn't a 'I'm gonna make the fastest Z on the planet" build, so for me, it's going to be more for information than bragging rights or penor size comparisons.

 

^ Correct, what counts the most is that you accomplished what you aimed to do, getting the car back on the road. Everyone has their own opinions and would do things differently. Sometimes adding one or two parts on is not as easy as just bolting it on. But yeah, let us all know how it turns out. I'm sure with a custom tune your car will shine even more.