4AGE Rebuild

[Alex170984]

Hi All,

My name is Alex and come from the UK.

I have been removing/stripping my red top 16v 4AGE since November last year and in the last few months, I have been putting it back together. I have never done anything like this before but have had help from my best mate and qualified car mechanic who successfully rebuilt his 4AGZE and converted his mk1a to SC, so in safe hands...

It's got to the stage where I have done the following:-

Reassemblied the entire bottom end with all new parts, excluding cranshaft and oil pump. I have replaced the old pistons with 81.5 oversize pistons, not toda or wiseco etc but unfortunately after I had bought my new pistons I found out my old ones were the low comp 9.4:1! But thankfully had bought the same compression but oversize.

I have replaced the main and big end bearings, main and big end bolts are now ARP, a new sump with oil return pipe (as the existing engine is from a corolla and didn't have this outlet).








The engine was bored out, honed to suit the new pistons. Degreased and had the crank polished. The head was degreased and had to be slightly skimmed due to an overheating incident earlier on last year. I am putting the head back together this week.



Above showing how it will look, but please not the rear backing plate is not attached - but it is now

Last night I unwrapped my camshafts from Cat Cams - 252/260 with 8.5/9.0mm lift - They will be put on this weekend along with my new Cometic Metal HG which is 1mm thick.





All I have left to buy is a pair of vernier pulleys and a lower cambelt cover as mine broke during the removal of the engine / engine parts.

Has anyone else used these cams before and what has been the outcome?

Thanks for reading. I could have written a lot more but its making my hand hurt!!

[ga_goosh]

you better be VERY careful of valve to piston clearances with a head skim and a 1mm head gasket. especially with the high lift cams you are going to be running. you might be ok since you are using the 9.4:1 pistons tho but still turn it by hand first

[Alex170984]

hi Ga Goosh - I was going to turn it by hand to begin with anyway - would be very silly indeed not to do so.

[Alex170984]

We got the engine in today - looks so much better than an empty space!



We put the new camshafts in and checked valve clearances and they were all out. Plus for the exhaust side and minus for the inlet side in terms of shims. There may have been a massive misunderstanding between my mate and myself telling him which way around I numbered the shims, so they may have been put in the wrong way round. I'm buying a decent non-rusty set of feeler gauges and then will put them all back in again and re measure the clearances.





The cam covers are a bit of an abortion in all honesty, but I gave it a go. May leave them like it as they seem a bit lairy.

Next thing is to put in starter, alternator and bracket, front mounting plate, although I think the engine mount needs to come off again for that! Doh!

Oh and I found that my speedo cable as snapped so I need to replace that too!

My mate recut the rear lights and then mopped them and they do look even better than before now.

[cool breeze]

What do you mean by "cut and mopped the tail lights"?
Cool build!

[Alex170984]

We used an abrasive compound on the rear lights, so cut into the plastic, then mopped it and polished it after. Took majority of the scratches out.

It's up and running now.

Have suspension issues that occurred before I took the car off the road, so have to sort them out now

[Alex170984]

Car is finished now, apart from having to replace the bloody rear wheel bearings!

Compression test came out at:

1. 160
2. 160
3. 155
4. 160

I've got low battery power which may be the cause of lower, but in tolerance compression.

Once bearings changed, oil and filter will be replaced, as i've now run it in for 400 miles, will drive it a bit more briskley

Dyno sometime during the winter months.