Ian.G's Track/Drift Levin.

[Matt Skinner]

Looks like a 7 rib from the pics to me!

If you are going for silly rpm (needed for 200hp from a 1.6) you will probably want forged pistons and possibly some fancy rods (im not too familiar with the 4a-g). Bore wise only way to know if they are ok is to measure em up!

As to heat treating the crank it will probably have to be nitrocarburised rather than nitrided as nitriding is only possible on specific steels EN40B is the one I'm most familiar with but is rarely used on a production crank as its just not needed.

If I didn't have a backlog at the moment I'd volunteer to do the head at parts cost for you though ts a trek from derby to croydon! It would be a learning experience for me (so far i've only done Mini heads, and am part way through a 205gti one but its all the same really).

[Matt Skinner]

Here we go... 7 rib!

[banpei]

AFAIK you have 7 rib block. I count seven ribs on your block, thus you should have a 7 rib block, but I'm not 100% sure about that.

I can't compare with my own (7 rib) block right now: it's dark outside.

Edit: I see that Matt Skinner was a bit earlier with his reply during my 10 minute crusade to 7 rib block pictures.

[Ian.G]

Yup

I counted the ribs - but I thought that 7 rib blocks also had oil squirters to cool the pistons...but I dont see these.

[banpei]

Ian.G Wrote:Yup

I counted the ribs - but I thought that 7 rib blocks also had oil squirters to cool the pistons...but I dont see these.

Only the second type of 7 rib blocks have those:
http://home.clear.net.nz/pages/phil.brad...ifications
So you probably have a second generation 4AG (first generation 7 rib block).

[Ian.G]

Matt, your offer is greatly appreciated - the car love you if you did

Car wont run again now til the spring as I hope to sort the rest of it out too. As I no longer run my westfields this is now my primary track car. Next year I hope to do some sprinting - a LOT of drifting events (same as this year) and lots of track driving.

I was hoping to buy an engine that made a dyno proven 170bhp to replace it with but it got sold

I was thinking I'd like to have a car with between 160-180bhp. I reckon my car was previously about 130-40bhp and whilst driftable a bit more poke wouldn't go a miss.

Whilst the engine is open I'll will take the opportunity to make sure its built back up strongly.

Its the start of an interesting journey. I miss driving it already.

[Ian.G]

Thanks for the research banpei...I wasn't aware there were 2 versions.

[Ivan141]

Might be a nice time to consider buying a smallport engine... Rebuilding is going to be costly..I wonder if it will be worth it. I think the smaller ports might be a better match for the ITB's but that would probably lead to problems with your adapter plate. I dunno if these bigport 7 rib engines had high compression pistons, but if they dont I would just chuck it and try to start with a highcomp smallport (given that a lot of money needs to be spent anyway).

[Matt Skinner]

if 160-180 is the target, ported smallport would be the best bet as Ivan says.

Apparantly big ports are more than capable of flowing enough air for over 200hp without much work. But you will lose out on bottom end torque with larger ports.

[Lauren]

Hi Ian,

Sorry, haven't looked at the 86 list for a little while. Sorry to hear about your troubles. I notice you are looking at getting Dave Hawkes engine out of his MR2? Apparently he's sold it now, so not sure if you were the buyer?

I know the guy who owns this car, in fact i drove that very car round elvington back in May 2003. It did seem to go very well from what i remember, though always hard to tell as that car was seriously lightened. It definately had some revs on it, though Dave wanted me to keep under 6K

If you are not going for Dave's tuned 4A, i'd say go and find an AE92 or even better AE101 if poss smallport engine cheap and build that up. Think you'll get better results, though it depends how mad you want to go and of course budget etc.

I've just read some of the latter posts and realise that i'm simply telling you the same as everyone else!! Doh!

Just to add, the red top enigne you have is quite likely to be MR2 derived, the 87-90 4AGEs had slightly higher comp pistons than the early 3 rib 4as, but it wasn't a mega amount more, think its 10:1 rather than the 10.5:1 of the AE92 on engines.

Anyways good luck with it!