Hey Guys,
I wanted to start this build thread - I'm very happy to finally get this build underway, it's been a long time coming. I've been busy getting the parts ready for this weekend. The goal was to get the old engine pulled and the new engine painted. There is still a lot of work to do on the engine bay before anything goes back in, but it is great to have the sleaves rolled up and be working on this swap.
Greg came over Sunday and we got the engine yanked with no theatrics in the pull - unless you count that we forgot to disconect the ground strap
We decided to pull the head to make removal a little easier, and to be honest I was interested to see what the insides looked like. To my surprise, everything looked pretty darn good. No cross-hatch left on the cylinder walls, but I wasn't expecting any. The valves were not recessed, and while #4 looks rich, the rest were burning OK. #3's combustion chamber was oily - lots of carbon on everything.
One to the new engine...after spending hours polishing the block and head I wanted to make sure the paint was going to last. POR to the rescue again. I cleaned all the parts a dozen times and they were about as clean as it gets. This took a full day - not kidding. Then they were acid etched with the POR metal prep and given a coat of POR-15 sprayed right from the tin. It sprays very well - nice shiney black.
Then after it flashed off - I top coated it with POR engine enamel. This stuff is so thick it can't be sprayed...had to thin it with laquer thinner. Then it would come out of the gun! While the regular POR flashes in a couple of hours, the engine enamel takes 24 hours to recoat
It was still tacky after a full day of drying. On with the second coat - even better. The gloss is crazy - couldn't take a proper shot of the engine with the flash on my camera, but it will take a couple of days before I can roll it outside to take some decent shots.
The paint had better hold up - I'm not planning on doing this again! Since the block and head were polished, the resulting paint is very smooth and shiney.
So far so good. This week I'm going to be getting the engine bay prepared for paint - hope to spray it next weekend
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