admS15

Just checked the ring gaps. Thanks Mr Nissan for being spot on and not needing adjustment. OEM is life. Around mid spec for all. Starting to assemble the pistons now. Got 2 done so far, will continue at next opportunity.

Oops, my bad. Lol. I decided to leave the pins in original spots but went ahead and shaved around 0.15g from the 2 heaviest pistons. Going to take 0.10 off one more and call it done. BILLprinted baby. This is the area I shaved material off from As above decided to leave them in original locations.

The piston pins are within 0.24g across the 6. With some rearranging of the pin locations the total piston/pin weight comes down to 0.46g Once the rod weights are factored in the variance comes down to 0.2g. if I shave a tiny bit of 2 pistons I can get it down to 0.07g. I know this will make stuff all difference but I'm here and will take bugger all time to do. Question time. Should I even bother with rearranging the pin locations or leave them in their original homes? If I don't the variance will be 0.43 with rod weights accounted for. Or do I go all out, shave a few pistons and end up less than 0.05g variance and call it balanced and BILLprinted. Anyway here are my workings. Thoughts gents.

Sorry for delay guys, been busy. May be a quiet day at work tomorrow. I'll see if I can get those pistons under the big lit magnifying glass our sparky has on his work bench. Head was dropped off yesterday, shop says I should have it back by the end of next week. Nissan stuffed me around with replacement piston circlips. Ordered 12 (was showing heaps of stock) but somehow they only had 10. Should get last 2 by next week. I hope anyway. I mentioned to engine builder that I had 11 pistons and asked if I should aim to run the 6 that came out of the motor that's being rebuilt. Before I could finish my sentence he said he would pick out the best 6 from the pile. So that's what I've been doing. Out of the 11, 2 where ruled out because of the maybe or maybe not cracks. 1 other was ruled out due to a tight 2nd ring groove (I may or may not have dropped this, lol). Out of the 8 useables, they where weighed and then the 6 closest weights where picked. Nissan did a damn good job casting RB pistons. They're within 0.7 of a gram. Could have been 0.5 but I didn't like the look out of 1 of the other 8. There was 1 outlier that was over 1.2g heavier The 6 selected range from 404.08g to 404.78.

No way camera is going to pick it up. My eye is questioning what I'm seeing or not seeing. I'll give it a shot but I don't think it'll show.

Gave all the pistons a thorough inspection today under various lighting and I saw a couple things that I can't unsee and make me uneasy. It's probably nothing but 2 pistons have what looks to be the start of a micro crack. I don't think it is but just appears that way, both pistons have it in the same spot. It's right where a crack would start, around pin area inside the piston. Again, I think it's just an appearance thing but I'm not taking any chances. I've decided that the 5 good pistons from old engine will be going in with the best looking 1 from the other 6. Thankfully all the pistons are the same grade. I gave the old engines pistons a thorough look and they look great and much cleaner. I had considered using these before but my OCD of putting things back where they came from overtook logic. Now pondering why I spent 2 hours cleaning the other ones. Fcuk Also received a shipment from EFI solutions that @Dose Pipe Sutututuhelped facilitate. Thanks mate. All parts I need have now arrived, will be picking up piston circlips/locks from Nissan tomorrow and with a bit of luck and a heap of hard work this thing should be running by Christmas.

Yep, working here too. Thanks @PranK

Re ultrasonic cleaners, have you guys been looking at my browsing history? Lol Continued with the crankshaft cleaning today. It went through the npb tank a total of another 4 times. There was bits of crud coming out after the first 2, nothing after the 3rd but gave it a 4th cycle just to make sure. I'm happy with that and calling it clean. It's wrapped up now and awaiting assembly day. Rings, bearings and gaskets are at PO awaiting pickup. Head will be going to shop by latest Wednesday. Things should start happening soon.

The drilling of the crank is easy, it's more I'm trying to avoid having to rebalance the crank. 4 cans of degreaser where pumped through it today and a lot more shit came out. After about 2 1/2 there wasn't anything more coming out. I was going to call it good enough but you know what it's no big deal to hot wash and npb it a couple more times and then degrease again for ultimate peace of mind. Will get that done tomorrow.

@MBS206 Appreciate your concerns. I've got a dozen cans of degreaser on hand. Will spray a few until crap stops coming out. Will then hotwash and npb again followed by more degreaser, rinse and repeat until nothing more comes out. All left over degreaser will be used on block.

Piston oil squirter sacrificed, still have an additional 4 spares anyway. OD was a touch too thick, sandpaper and file sorted it in a couple of minutes. All rigged up and ready Good thing I decided to try this. It proved that the washing machine and chemical treatment didn't do enough to get rid of what was hiding behind the plugs. The first gallery on the back end was clean, the next not so clean. This is the stuff that was coming out The plugs closer to the middle had the most crap behind them. It was all soft sludgey stuff, better out than in though. I've used 1 whole can of degreaser so far, going to hit it with 2 more tomorrow and if no more crap is coming out, I'll skip out on drilling. I reckon the washing machine and npb helped to soften up the crap but obviously couldn't wash it out. Pretty happy with myself for coming up with this backyard bush mechanic diy cleaning method, LoL.

Cleaned the block, crank and sump. Block and sump copped 2 cycles in the degreaser and 1 rinse, each item done separately, followed by a dunk in a hot water tank for a few minutes. Block is ready for paint. Crank got a degrease and rinse and then went through the npb tank which is more like a gas vapour cleaner rather than a liquid degreaser. Following that, it was degreased and rinsed again followed by a hot water bath. Both crank and block where sprayed with wd40 afterwards to prevent any rust formation. The idea of putting the crank through was to get out of drilling and grub screwing. I'm hoping that the degreaser and npb done the job. Guys at work reckon it would've. I've come up with a way to check. It involves sacrificing 1 piston oil squirter. If I file the end down, the piston squirter actually fits into the oil galleries in the crank. I'm going to line it up with the galleries behind the plugs and blast them with degreaser. If any debris at all come out, then drilling out plugs will happen.

Seems like we treat our white goods like our skylines. Just keep fixing them. I've been through what you have Johnny with a Samsung dishwasher. It's on its 3rd feed in solenoid hose and can't remember, I replaced some other bit too. 12 years old now. Like Ravi I also have an lg washing machine FL. Still going strong after 12 years. Westinghouse dryer needed some starting capacitor after a few years, then a motherboard failed a couple years later. That was terminal. Was looking for a replacement when an identical dryer popped up on gumtree for $50. I grabbed that and used the best parts from both to build 1. Built not bought 😂.

Picked up the guides this arvo, I'm confident they'll work. Spoke to engine shop and will drop head off some stage next week. Coincidentally, they did an rb25 head this week so they should be in tune. Going to take block and crank to work tomorrow and use some of the workshop facilities. We've got 2 hotwash degreaser machines. One for degreasing, the other rinsing. Going to chuck everything in for a couple of cycles. We've also got another process thats a tank using a chemical called nbp. Pretty much evaporates any residue left over after degreasing. The crank may get a cycle in there too. Unfortunately the block is too heavy for it. Will do a final clean, blow out at home.

I've ended up ordering 4 of the 40mm length guides and an additional 2 of the 42.9mm just incase. Hopefully they are suitable, if not engine shop can sort it out. #nomoreheadachesf*kn

Re valve guides. I have a freaking headache. Been down the rabbit hole trying to work out what's what. Nissan wants 65 each for intake (in stock) 85 for exh (import from jap) I read an old SAU thread where CA18 guides where used for intake on an rb25 and had to be trimmed down 2mm as slightly too long. I found this in the fsm If I'm reading that correctly, the only difference between the in and exh valves for the purpose of the guides is 2mm in shaft length and a minute diameter difference of shaft which will be accounted for with reaming. So I'm thinking the CA guides should work. The exhaust should fit straight in and the inlet trimmed 2mm. I've come across nason guides part numbers PVG9019 10.03mm OD 5.994 ID 40.005 length listed as CA18 and RB25DE/DET Also PVG9018 same ID and OD but 42.926 length. Listed only for CA18. I believe PVG9019 should work or do I buy 2 of each? I know the best bet would be to get the old ones removed and measured but I'd rather give the shop all the bits and pieces so they don't have to stop half way and wait for parts. I've got an even bigger headache now. Going to get some Panadol.

Hey @PranK is something funny going on in the forum. New posts don't seem to be showing for me. I only see posts from like a week ago. Is it just me?

I haven't weighed the piston assemblies yet, watch this space. What are people's thoughts on how to select which weights go where? Pair 2 that are closest in weight and run them as matched pairs? I was thinking of doing that and putting the 2 heaviest in the middle. Don't know how I came up with that. Probably wouldn't matter 1 bit but I'm here and would only take a minute to arrange.

Just spent some time this morning weighing up the rods on some super accurate scales at work. Pretty damn good. They're advertised as being within a gram of each other. They where much better than that at around 0.3 of a gram. Not bedh. They're close to 80 grams lighter each than stock too. Preliminary measurements of the bores of the big and little ends are spot on using the internal mic. I'm getting really good with using those now, can get accurate measurements quicker. I'm hoping to use the bore dial on them a bit later to confirm my measurements and roundness a bit better.

Valve guides you mean. Well I don't have a definitive answer but now that I have the valves in my possession, going to visit the local supplier that has listings for rb25 guides and work out if any are suitable. If not, I'm stuck. May have to ring Nissan and see if they have stock and how far I have to bend over..

Dang, it's company 23 brand. Meant for subarus. Seems like the tools made for them are about as good as the cars, sti's excluded. I bought that one as I though being tapered I wouldn't have to knock the piston down. It's only adjustable from like 78 -86.8mm. if the ring ends aren't in the 10mm of open gap I can't see how it's going to be an issue. Anyway, I'll be careful and treat it like a virgin. Plenty of lube, proceed with caution. Rods have been delivered, I'm not home ATM to check them out. Will do later.

Anyway, valves have arrived from both partsouq and amayama. Also got a nifty adjustable tapered ring compressor cheap off eBay, looks like it's been used once Still waiting on the rods, meant to be here in the next hour according to auspost. Considering the torrential rain that just started, I reckon the posty will probably hold it for tomorrow or drop back at the post office.

What size all thread are we talking here. It be pretty thin wouldn't it?

Yeah I think I'm going to try the grub screwing with the help of the machinist at work to save some $. Do they do snap on style payment plans for those crank? Might make it doable 😂

Out of those 2 definitely is350f if you don't want vw problems. The vw will be faster, not sure about nicer. Not sure on the reliability of that particular VW. I know the golf mk7 R is pretty reliable other than water pump. VW for fasts, Lexus for stress free motoring. Hope I helped, lol.