Fred's 2375 Rebuild Thread Options

[friethmiller]

[A softball question for the Ninja and/or others]

This is the cam card that came with my 2357 engine, which was originally built by Rimco/Fat (long block) a few years ago. Can someone explain why with an intake/exhaust of 448, the lift was only set to 327 degrees? I'm about to rebuild my motor and a lot of focus will be directed at piston "deck clearance" and the valve train geometry that wasn't set correctly. Thanks.

[friethmiller]

Ok, I've changed to name of this thread to handle my rebuild of this engine. This engine was the car's original 1.8L. I had the heads redone with 44x38 valves, the case work included: align-bored, oil galleys ported, and relieving in order to handle a new 82mm crankshaft. The JE pistons are 96mm with steal jugs and new 5.325 H-rods.

The build and rebuild of this engine 2 years ago is a bit of a long and sad story. Let's just say, Fat Performance's build didn't run more than 30 mins before blowing up. I was so upset at Fat, who refused to take any responsibility. Saying they only did a "long block" and it wasn't a "full build"... blah, blah, blah. I told them my opinion of their service, where to stick it, and decided to rebuild the engine myself. 914 world got me through the short-block process however, on the long block I never really checked the piston deck height. Fat had used two large shims so I just reassembled everything like they did (mistake #1). I never checked valve geometry either (mistake #2).

What got me to drop the engine were the metal flakes in my oil screen. I drive / watch this engine like a spy plane so I was pretty quick to catch the issue, IMO.



During disassembly, I found a mushroomed pushrod where the end just fell out in my hand. The corresponding lifter was damaged as well. This damage however didn't account for the metal in the oil screen, though. Later, after the block was split and the cam was removed, I found the source to be the thrust surfaces on the #1 Cam bearing. To me this screams bad valve geometry / push-rod length.

[Opinions on this are welcome, of course]



My goal is to rebuild this engine yet again but this time do it RIGHT! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/blink.gif)

Anyways... first order of business is getting the cylinder registers decked. Fat told me it didn't need to be done. The small leaks at the cylinder / head say otherwise. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/headbang.gif)

I learned a lot last time, I can't wait to see how much knowledge I gain this time around.