Hey everyone, finally getting around to an update.

I posted a year ago about getting to 550whp and lifting the head. Since then it's made a strong step forward.

I had a shitty cometic on it and the engine hadn't been apart in 18 years.

I decided to strip it down and take it back to the guy that built it in 2007. Luckily, he still had the build sheet and we could measure and check everything. To our astonishment, everything was as per the build sheet and rings, bearings and bore were all in as built condition.

The hard part was going to be sealing the head.

I made a few calls and got put in contact with Kameari who makes parts for the FJ20. Mori at Kameari couldn't be more helpful! I explained that I needed something more than the standard MLS gasket they offer, so they agreed to make a stopper style gasket for me which was made from scratch and sent to me in around 6 weeks. Huge kudos to Kameari!

We rebuilt the engine, added a few improvements, main stud kit, arp 625+ head studs, rebuild the head and crack tested the block.

The exhaust valves were all leaking and the valve spring tension was down to 40psi.

Everything went back together, in the car and straight back to Matt at PITS for a dyno session.

First pull on low boost (17psi went 460hp) and slightly lean which meant it was breathing better.

Matt worked his magic and on the same boost (26psi) we were up big time. Nearly 40hp, finishing the day with 588hp atw.

The dyno sheet shows a few variations where we were testing some intake locations and also shows some room for improvement with air intake.

The PWR race series cooler was a good improvement, bringing air temps down around 30 deg C but the big jump we feel was due to better head sealing and a slight cam adjustment.

It's noticably faster and more aggressive, especially in 4th gear.

Let me know if you have any questions. Happy to answer!

Absolutley awesome to see this back together and putting out great numbers. Well done to Mori at Kameari for both putting in the time to understand then delivering on what you needed.

Very good for a FJ20 making that kind of power and 3K RPM power band, I bet the tyres just light up in 2nd/3rd haha

2 minutes ago, Dose Pipe Sutututu said:

Very good for a FJ20 making that kind of power and 3K RPM power band, I bet the tyres just light up in 2nd/3rd haha

And 4th... haha. Starts getting sketchy then..

Now your next challenge, getting it to hook!

8hp swap will be next and we will run a power management strategy with it. Should be a much faster car with a decent box and being able to hold it in the power. Driving it on the boost curve before the main power hit is still great and the 8 speed should help dramatically with that.

For sure, that's how these modern cars all do 10s passes with low mph, unheard of back in the day.

1 hour ago, Dose Pipe Sutututu said:

For sure, that's how these modern cars all do 10s passes with low mph, unheard of back in the day.

I been dusted so many times by golf's at roll racing with half the power.. they change 3 gears before I come on boost in 2nd.

It's worse when it is some steroid and meth abuser in a Ranger on the road. 10 speed gearboxes give the ferals too big an advantage.

2 hours ago, Gareth87 said:

I been dusted so many times by golf's at roll racing with half the power.. they change 3 gears before I come on boost in 2nd.

tap into S mode, and just WOT and let the car take care of the rest.

It's the vibe, no that's it, it's just the vibe