Build Thread Enola- Finishing touches

So sorry for your loss Steve. As always if you need anything just let me know.

I know its a hard thing to go through but if you need some to just ramble on the phone give me a ring anytime.

Sorry for your loss

a91what said:

I appreciate you guys. truly.

now lets keep this thing on track.. car stuff.

I had a nice talk with Tom today [machinist] he looked on his notes and we figured out he honed the cylinders tighter than a nun on sunday... 3.7 is all i have for clearance, that is tight even for an NA build.... i guess he missed the part where i said it would see boost in a few months after it is broken in..

Now i am at a crossroad, do i continue and slap the thing in the car with the 114lsa cam with 3* of overlap or pull it all the way back apart and delay my build further.. to be honest i am out of money, unless by some grace of luck the umpteen cars i have waiting to be final tuned all pay me at the same time.

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You pull it back out. How is it that you discovered your minimal skirt clearance after the whole engine is assembled and in the car?

It's on the machine shop to fix the cylinder wall clearances. If you run that engine as is, you will come to regret it later. If my existing engine only needed a head gasket to be back in running order, I'd probably have it back together right now running, but a couple of the cylinders looked like hell. All dating back to the original mistake made by the machine shop when they improperly bored the engine with too much taper at the bottom of the bores.

Hindsight being what it is, the taper probably collapsed the skirts slightly (I didn't check). The collapsed skirts probably allowed for too much piston movement in the bores,.....the movement created a lot of noise and poor ring seal....and the rocking piston created the lousy looking cylinder walls I have now.

Fix the clearance thing now.

It's out and on the stand... I would pull it apart and have the bores opened up to meet your needs. It's much easier now and it will prevent you from saying F it and not doing it at all. I also agree that if you told them about boosting it then they should at a minimum work with you on fixing it and expediting the process.

I'd run it like it is for now. There are so many other things you need to tackle on that car...like the 4 lug brakes. The car will be plenty fast and reliable.

Once the car is built to handle north of 500hp I'd go back in the engine....or build a boost specific engine and sell the one you have for good money to someone here. You could recoupe a bunch of money to go toward the boosted project.

You've got a badd a$$ engine built...now let's get it in there so you can drive and work on the other stuff. Would love to see you make some brembos work....

I'm sorry about your Father (in Law). As you said he was like a father, not an in law. I've been divorced from my first wife 13 years now, but I still send her mom a Christmas card. She is such a nice woman. I was truly sad I had a business trip and couldn't go to Michigan for my ex-father in law's funeral several years ago. Just remember the good times you all shared, that's your tribute.

Pull the engine, get the bore specs from the piston company, and get the cylinders honed or bored out. It's easier to do now and shouldn't cost you much money. Just time.

Just catching up. I'm very sorry about your FIL passing.

I'd get the engine fixed when you get the motivation.