Saving a crusty 16v 4age

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Jayrdee
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Saving a crusty 16v 4age

Postby Jayrdee » Fri Apr 12, 2024 10:22 am

It's a slow day here at work, and I realized I haven't shared anything on the spare engine I've been slowly rebuilding over the past 2.5 years. This is my first time breaking an engine down to bare components and rebuilding it, so this is more of a learning experience than anything. This is going to be a street car with ITBs, nothing too fancy.

So lets begin ....

The engine itself is a 7-rib bigport 4age, not sure if it's out of a FWD corolla or an AW11, but it's definitely not a RWD model. I got it in a trade deal several years ago and it's been on the stand ever since. I wanted a spare engine to rebuild off to the side so I can take my time. This thing was CRUSTY!

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Not sure where these little ball bearings could have came from, failed oil pump or something? There were a bunch in the oil pan.
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My initial plan was to try and reuse the pistons, but then this happened ....
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Breakdown of the rotating assembly:
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I then took everything to a local engine building / machine shop and had them clean and inspect everything. The crank turned about to be perfect, the big end hole of the rods needed reconditioning (they weren't perfectly circle), and the cylinder walls had some pitting so I had it bored to match oversized (0.5mm) OEM replacement pistons. Then re-assembly happened:

(I wish I took more pictures of the re-assembly process, but me and a few buddies did it together and drank too many beers in the process)
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I'm curious on what happened here ... I didn't notice it until the machine shop called me and was like "hey I have your block ready. You have a small extra tooling charge on there since it looks like the block was repaired at some point. Caused some damage to my tooling"
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Oil clearances were in spec:
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In parallel to all the work on the bottom end, I sent my head off to the legend, Mr. oldeskewltoy (Dan Steinhart) to work his magic. Turns out the head I sent him had some bad pitting in the valve seats, so he offered to swap it with a 1st gen big port casting head. He also sourced me some Toda Valve Springs and Cat Cams:
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The "new" head:
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Between the old AE86 Tuning magazine and the repair manual, assembling the head was a breeze:
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Mated the Head and Block together (with a TRD 0.8mm Head Gasket), installed the cams, set the valve lash, and lastly installed the oil and water pumps. The engine sat in this state for some time while I slowly pieced together external bits and pieces
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This is the engine in its current state:
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We have
- Toda Cam Gears
- Silvertop 20v Throttle Bodies with a T3 Adapter
- Flo's Velocity Stacks
- Flo's Crank Pully / Trigger Wheel Kit
- Select Speed Shop Exhaust Manifold
- 1nz Ignition Coils (made the adapter plate myself)
- JSP Fab Fuel Rail with 7mge Green Injectors (23250-70080)
- JSP Fab Engine Mounts and Alternator Bracket
- SQ Engineering Rear Water Outlet and Distributor Block Off Plate

Next on the to-do list is loom up my engine harness to go with the Haltech 550 ECU.

I've also been looking into the Engine Test Stand kits you can buy from Summit Racing. The dream would be to break in the engine on a test stand and verify everything is good before I go to swap it in the car. I have a long laundry list of things I want to do to the AE86 when I pull the old engine, so that just prolongs me checking this engine is good to go.
[I have no idea what I'm doing]
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davew7
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Re: Saving a crusty 16v 4age

Postby davew7 » Sat Apr 13, 2024 3:51 am

Killer job on the engine and it looks great! Depending on how long the engine will be setting [YEARS?] You are probably better off letting it set with the assemble lube Vs running the engine and then setting. Look at high zinc or break in oil for the first start.

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oldeskewltoy
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Re: Saving a crusty 16v 4age

Postby oldeskewltoy » Wed Apr 17, 2024 1:07 pm

Not a fan of test beds for engine break-in. You can't put a load on them to properly break in the rings.
OST Cyl head porting, - viewtopic.php?f=22&t=300

Building a great engine takes knowing the end... before you begin :ugeek:

Enjoy Life... its the only one you get!

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Jayrdee
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Re: Saving a crusty 16v 4age

Postby Jayrdee » Thu Apr 18, 2024 9:08 am

davew7 wrote:Killer job on the engine and it looks great! Depending on how long the engine will be setting [YEARS?] You are probably better off letting it set with the assemble lube Vs running the engine and then setting. Look at high zinc or break in oil for the first start.


oldeskewltoy wrote:Not a fan of test beds for engine break-in. You can't put a load on them to properly break in the rings.


Thanks for the input fellas. We'll see what happens! I'm starting a new job next week that is 100% remote, so I'll be spending a lot time in the garage this summer.
[I have no idea what I'm doing]
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Grant
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Re: Saving a crusty 16v 4age

Postby Grant » Sat Jun 29, 2024 12:22 pm

Nice job with the rebuild! It cleaned up really well.
When you reassembled cam gears and timing belt, did you just set the adjustable gears to 0 until you get the engine running to do a finer tune? I have some Toda cam gears, and I'm wondering how to set them for the initial start up...

Also, what did you paint those cam covers with? The rough black paint looks really nice, and I'd like to do something similar. :)

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Jayrdee
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Location: Lexington KY

Re: Saving a crusty 16v 4age

Postby Jayrdee » Fri Aug 09, 2024 1:54 pm

Grant wrote:When you reassembled cam gears and timing belt, did you just set the adjustable gears to 0 until you get the engine running to do a finer tune? I have some Toda cam gears, and I'm wondering how to set them for the initial start up...

Also, what did you paint those cam covers with? The rough black paint looks really nice, and I'd like to do something similar. :)


Yeah I just set them at zero degrees for now. I guess after its in the car and we get a tune going then I can adjust them later. And as for the valve covers, I'm pretty sure it's just generic black wrinkle spray paint. I had a buddy do them for me.
[I have no idea what I'm doing]
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