Here is the big one! Engine nitty-gritty. This is a long post...
Tried to remember as much detail as I could without labouring on about every single step, lots of it is just standard/factory procedure. Ask away with any questions and I'll answer em!
I amassed everything for the complete engine in the same room finally. So being extremely excited got to work as quick as I could. I’ll post a full spec rundown of the engine at the end of this post. Note – I’m no professional, don’t take stuff like my bearing clearance numbers as gospel by any means – that’s just what I came up with after research and recommendation, we’ll wait n see how they go.
Here’s what I got up to last weekend, and a couple weeknights after work following:
Let’s start with the case halves.
They begun life in a 290,000km automatic outback. Now they’re closed deck with CNC’d inserts designed and cut by Newby Engineering in Sydney.
The original casing gets a step machined out of the water jacket peripheries about 20mm deep (or the thickness of the plate to be inserted). A blank slab of alloy is CNC machined to shape after some careful measurements and CAD/programming. The necessary holes are drilled/cut for water flow to and from the heads, some small air bleeds, and the main case bolts.
It's toleranced to a slight interference-fit with the block to help hold it tight. With the plate pressed into place, it has slight protrusion and will be machined flat with the rest of the deck later.
The case was also drilled and tapped to accept M12x1.75 ARP head studs in their strongest ‘custom age 625+’ material – with the standard size being 10.5mm.
It was bored and honed using a torque-plate, to reinstate roundness since the closed deck insert can slightly distort things. I went 0.010” oversize on the CP pistons to allow for a little bit of bore removal if required to get it perfectly round.
Everything was thoroughly washed with all the gallery plugs removed to clean out machining swarf and fine particles, as well as vapour blasted to look new again.
I’d also done a bit of work with a die grinder before this to smooth some of the harsh corners in the oil passageways to assist flow and reduce losses.
Now the heads, these were done at All Drive Subaroo in Sydney, by Greg their machinist, who I’ve had the pleasure of speaking to throughout the build and had plenty of help along the way thanks to his knowledge both as a highly skilled machinist and EZ enthusiast – he is also working on a long-term project featuring a twin-screw blower for his Gen 2. (Huge thanks Greg).
For starters, they were washed and all gallery plugs removed and vapor blasted. We had some issues with the 0.5mm oversized Supertech exhaust valves I’d initially bought – turns out they do not suit the EZ30’R’ and can not be made to work correctly. I was able to return these, and went with some different Supertech intake and exhaust valves that were the correct ones this time. Greg had some custom bronze valve guides he’d had made, and we used a set of these in there, they were cooled down to be fit tightly into the heads. The intake ports were just cleaned up a little of factory casting marks and imperfections, and the valves back-cut a little – the intake side of the motor already flows extremely well. The exhaust side isn’t terrible but isn’t quite up to the same standard – so I had a little porting done there, and the outlets of the ports were opened up by about 5mm.
The combustion chambers were de-shrouded a little (removing cast ridges surrounding the valves and spark plug for smoother shaping of the chamber).
New valve seats were cut with Greg’s in-house developed 5-angle profile.
The exhaust ports, combustion chambers, and piston crowns were ceramic coated to help keep heat out of parts and in exhaust gasses. The camshaft tunnels were polished then molybdenum coated to reduce friction and help hold oil, as well as the piston skirts.
The heads were decked flat to the same finish as the block, and all assembled with new viton valve stem seals and the Kelford valve springs. The camshaft to bucket clearances were set up by Greg with the knowledge that they’d tighten up slightly after assembly – I just had to check that they’d come down to meet his recommendation, and they were spot on.
Greg cc’d the chambers, and piston domes, checked piston deck height etc., and we ended up with a calculated static compression ratio of 8.7:1 with the 0.070” head gaskets I chose – pretty good for big boost.
SO - now I’ve got all the parts back at home for assembly. First thing was to check what sort of main bearing clearances I had. I installed the King Racing STD-X set and put the case halves together as per FSM torque/angle procedure. After a couple goes and swapping shell positions I was all happy (specs will be at the end).
I’d already sorted out the rod bearing clearances, but I gave them a quick final check before installing them onto the crankshaft.
Before bolting the cases together with the crank in it, I had to file the piston rings to correct gaps. This was pretty time consuming, but it’s better to check frequently to avoid overshooting the target. You can see the ring filer tool I’d bought, it was pretty easy to use. Gaps are measured with feeler gauges installed roughly 15-20mm deep into the bore – using a piston to push them down and keep them square. With those done, I used a small diamond file to remove any burrs on the rings, and set them aside marked according to their corresponding cylinder.
The crank with rods installed gets laid into the bottom half of the case, with the top half then plonked on top. The main bolts are tightened using a long 10mm allen socket through the holes in the closed deck insert, which were cut only just big enough for the heads of the bolts to fit through.
Next it was time to get the rings onto the pistons (following factory manual for positioning of each ring gap), get them into the engine. Before inserting them into each bore, I installed the wrist pin retaining clip on the back side, so I only had to get the front one in after inserting the pin.
I was a little nervous about dropping a wrist pin or retainer clip as the centre cylinders are a little tricky to reach through to – don’t have that problem with an EJ…
I made a really basic ‘special tool’ to insert the wrist pins which worked a treat. I’d bought some long double-jointed needle-nose pliers to reach in and install the clips, which also worked great.
Short block together and turning over smoothly!
Now I could move it from bench to engine stand to get the rest of the bits on. Next was the upper sump, which forms part of the structure of the engine. I had also done some smoothing of oil passageways with the die grinder previously, so I made sure to clean it out well before installing.
I got the oil pickup on, sump baffle plate from Possum Bourne Motorsport (NZ) in, and lower oil pan on. The baffle plate should help negate any starvation from heavy acceleration/braking/cornering on sticky tyres.
I spun the engine round and started to get the heads prepared for installation. Screwed the 12mm head studs into the block with a little oil on the threads (these do not get tightened, just nipped up to ensure they are bottomed out in the block).
The studs are 12mm on the block end, but still factory diameter above that, to save having to drill out the holes in the heads. They don’t need to be 12mm up there – the stud is so strong it will not stretch, so the 12mm section is to give them a stronger anchor into the bottom of the block than smaller 10.5mm threads.
Funnily, the 12mm ends do not fit through the block dowels, so the studs must be screwed in first, then the dowels slipped over the top and hammed into place with a piece of pipe placed over the stud.
With both surfaces and the gaskets themselves cleaned up for the last time, the gaskets were slipped over the studs, and heads plonked on top of that. It’s pretty tight getting the ARP washers in over the studs, so a (clean) magnetic pick-up tool helped for that after applying the ARP assembly lube. Once all the nuts were on, they were torqued up using the factory procedure but with ARP’s torque numbers.
These suckers go to 110lbft/150Nm for the centre four, and 100lbft/136Nm for the outer four. I bought a quality Norbar ½” torque wrench for the build, but the handle isn’t all that long, so this definitely took some effort from my spaghetti arms.
Next up, I got the camshafts in dry for a check of the bucket clearances like I mentioned earlier (I re-checked these after all the timing gear was on too, no change).
Cams then went in with lube and sealant on the necessary bits for the final time (I turned the crank off of TDC just to be safe).
Next up, after finding all the orings in the VRS kit, rear timing chain cover and oil pump. I bought some new pump rotors (be sure to select the correct spec based on markings on the rear chain cover). These went on with some oil, and I packed it with a little vaseline to help initial oil pressure buildup. Front oil pump cover went on with new bolts and a tiny bit of Loctite. If you’ve pulled one of these off, you know the countersunk bolts in it suck, they are a 4.4mm hex which is near impossible to get a socket for. But your local fastener store will have replacements with either a 4 or 5mm hex.
All the timing components were just to factory spec, nothing fancy. I cleaned out all the AVCS intake cam gears and all the other bits thoroughly.
I’d thought of trying to modify the chain tensioners and mechanically limit their downward travel – but I ditched that idea and just stick some nice new ones on, plus new chains, all the guides, water pump etc.
However, I did make sure to secure the small grub-screws that hold a tiny pressure relief valve. These are known to fall out, and infact that’s exactly what had happened to this motor before I pulled it apart to build – the screw was sitting in the pan. I got this motor cheap because it was making a horrible clacking noise from the timing setup, however everything turned out to be fine apart from a slack tensioner – since all it’s hydraulic assistance was being let out the large hole from the missing screw. I removed and reinstalled with Loctite, and also peened a few spots around it so it definitely couldn’t back out.
After timing it up, it was time to pull the little grenade pins on the tensioners and check everything turns over smooth – Yep!
I put a little bit of assembly lube along the chains and guides to give those a head start on lubricant too.
Front cover on, and it’s looking mostly like an engine!
The tiny timing mark on the crank pulley sucks on these – since it’ll be running the new ECU setup (Elite 2500) from first startup, it’s a good practice to check the base timing on the crank pulley with a timing light. So I translated the timing mark to the front of the pulley with some painters tape and a paint-pen.
Here are the Kein engine mounts – I’ve heard they are pretty solid, but I’m not fussed with extra NVH personally. I was going to get new OEM ones anyway, but for around the same cost I figured I’d get these instead.
With all the water pipes on, I installed the modified fuel rails, then sat the intake manifold ontop to make the AN fuel lines that split the supply from one to two, and merge the return from two to one.
Next I got the engine harness on (I unwrapped it fully then re-wrapped it to look a little nicer than the brittle broken conduit tube), and installed the fuel injectors, and bolted with intake manifold down with nice new seals.
That’s where we’re at currently! It’s ready to drop into the car, minus a set of spark plugs – I figure I may as well wait for these and put them in first to save a few hours doing it in-car later.
Today I ground out the entries to my headers, as they were now smaller than the exits of the ported heads (which were enlarged from about 35mm to 40mm ID).
Thanks for reading if you’ve made it this far, and thankyou to everyone who'd helped me thus far! Of course I'll be sure to update further once it's running and doing cool shit.
TLDR full engine-related build spec list below. Any fasteners or random components if not mentioned like cam gears, etc. are stock:
Bottom end:
- Closed deck cases, tapped for M12x1.75 head stud, decked to low RA finish, bored approx. 0.010” oversize
- Stock main bolts torqued 25Nm + 110deg as per factory spec
- Stock crank freshly linished – balanced with rest of rotating parts to 0.5g
- King Racing STD-X main bearings – clearance range 0.0012-0.0015” / 0.0305-0.0381mm
- Pure Performance Motorsport conrods – standard dimensions – balanced to 0.1g
- 3/8” ARP rod bolts torqued 75Nm
- ACL Race STD-X rod bearings – clearance range 0.0017-0.0019” / 0.0432-0.0483mm
- CP 2618 forged Pistons with pins (OEM retainer clips), via Outfront Motorsport – 0.010” OS, 9.7:1 rated C.R. – PTW clearance 0.0030” / 0.076mm – crowns ceramic coated, skirts molybdenum coated – balanced to 0.1g
- OEM piston ring set, top ring gapped 0.4mm, second ring 0.55mm.
- ARP 12mm 625+ head stud kit
- Cometic 0.070” head gasket set
- PBMS sump baffle plate, oil galleries smoothed out with die grinder wherever I could reach.
Top end:
- ADS heads – ported exhaust side, deshrouded chambers, polished cam tunnels, 5-angle valve seat job with exhaust side radius, chambers and exhaust ports ceramic coated, cam tunnels molybdenum coated, decked to low RA surface, intake and exhaust manifold mating surfaces machined flat
- OEM U30 intake cams, Z30 exhaust cams, linished – cam to bucket clearances 0.008”/0.203mm intake, 0.010”/0.254mm exhaust.
- Supertech nitrided stainless intake valves, Inconel exhaust valves – std sizing
- Custom bronze valve guides
- Viton valve stem seals
- Kelford KVS30 valve spring kit, stock retainers
- PCV breather valve hollowed out, extra breather port added to driver side valve cover
- NGK ILFR7H iridium spark plugs
- Stock coilpacks/ignition system
Bolt-ons:
- Custom/DIY exhaust manifolds 38mm runner ceramic coated, 44mm crossover, 2.25” up-pipe, 3.5” into 3” taper dump, 3” exhaust.
- Mostly Pulsar “GTX3582R Gen II” with 1.01AR v-banded exhaust housing (still has OEM Ford/Garret 3” inlet front cover)
- Custom/DIY alloy intercooler piping
- Aeroflow 600x300x100mm intercooler
- Turbosmart Raceport BOV
- Turbosmart GenIV 45mm external gate (and 40mm GenIV ‘screamer’ gate)
- Jim Berry custom-build 4200lb button clutch, stock flywheel
Fuel:
- Walbro/TI 525lph fuel pump
- Radium fuel pump hanger/bucket and venturi valve
- 340lph secondary pump on passenger side assisting venturi/siphon pump.
- 40micron stainless in-line fuel filter
- -8AN fuel feed line split to twin -6AN near fuel rails
- -6AN fuel return line via Turbosmart FPR1200 reg. and Haltech flex fuel sensor
- OEM fuel rails with -6AN male ends welded on, fuel injector feed holes enlarged
- Bosch 1650cc injectors with top & bottom adapters to suit
Electronics:
- Haltech Elite 2500 ECU standalone
- Homemade ‘plug and play’ adapter with RusEFI bare PCB board and header plug
- Haltech IO expander box with loom
- Haltech CAN hub
- Haltech WB1 controller & LSU4.9 sensor
- Haltech IC7 dash
- Haltech flex fuel sensor
- Assortment of quality pressure/temp sensors for fuel/oil/coolant/intake air