My Indecisive 4.0 V8 1UZ-FE Project
My Indecisive 4.0 V8 1UZ-FE Project
I've had this week off work to do car stuff and so far I haven't touched the RX7 or the V8 :lol:
Did some stuff to the Nissan today but I'm going back to Mazda and to Toyota tomorrow to pick up some more little odds and sods. I've realised that while I've had the timing belt off I have turned the cams so they are out of time now. So I will have to take the cams out, rotate the crank back to TDC and then reinstall the cams at 0 degrees to get it all lined up again (I think). So that's tomorrow afternoon's job!
Productive day today!
Went to Mazda and Toyota first thing, Mazda had my missing radiator mounts in and Toyota had some a crazy bolt for the water housing which I'd killed (it goes in the coolant so I think it's made of brass or something so it doesn't corrode) and a new gasket for one of the timing belt covers.
After a hospital appointment I went to the unit and cracked on. Like I said, I don't know the state of timing of the engine, so I've had to take the cams out. It's a bit more complicated than some engines given the way one cam is driven off the other and there's a VVTi control on the end as well! You have to put a bolt through a spring mechanism on the gearing on the end of the exhaust cam to lock it in place before you can remove it, for example, and there are some bits of the intake cam you can't touch as the backlash is set in the VVTi system at the factory and can't be messed about with. I'm also worried about how much **** has got into the heads while they've been open.
Good thing about having a V engine is that you can stick the laptop on the top with the service manual on
Took the intake cam out, with the VVTi shiz on the end of it. Underneath the bubblewrap you can see the bolts and cam caps all laid out in order, as they have to go back where they came from.
Head minus a cam
And yes, a lot of **** has got in!
As only the intake cam sticks out of the head, there's only one cam oil seal per side. But, because of the VVTi there's a lot more oil up there than normal. You also have to strip the cam to bits to change the seal:
And reassembled with 2 new seals, there's one in the VVTi mechanism too. Yes, the service manual really does say to use a vice!
Will do the other side tomorrow.
Other updates are radiator mounts... Scott's engine was a straight 6 so was much longer than the V8. As a result he didn't have the space at the front of the engine bay for the normal radiator mounting position (which is on a crazy slant). So the car doesn't have any radiator mounts.
Well actually, I did have one. It's on the left.
I should be able to fit a radiator in the stock location. I know you can use the stock radiator with an LS swap, so I see no reason why I shouldn't be able to.
First problem was the lower mounts. The radiator mounts to the front ARB brackets. It took me a while to figure that out. I bought some replacement ARB brackets in the end. Spot the difference (old ones top, new ones bottom):
Also have a bit of a conundrum about the front end of the engine. I fitted the timing belt tensioner, as I got some loctite. So the front of the engine now looks like this (minus the cam gears):
However, the timing belt covers are a bit unusual. There are a few plastic cover parts, but there's also the hydro fan mount and the aux belt tensioner. They are a bit grubby but this is how they all go together:
I'm not really sure how much of that I can remove, or if I should get some custom covers made. The fan bracket for starters weighs loads, and the aux tensioner's not light either. The worst bit is, as I'm losing the aircon I need a custom tensioner anyway, so it will fit together like this:
And the stock aux tensioner and the hydro fan mount are then completely redundant... What do you people think?
I think we should invent individual throttle bodies that have kazoo parts in them, so each cylinder can play a slightly different note.