NL: Robert

[r.ave]

(07-06-2020 09:25 PM)banpei Wrote:  That looks stunning!
What did you use to clean up the engine bay?

Thank you!
I believe it was 'engine cleaner' by Autoglym and and painting brush.

(07-06-2020 10:43 PM)Bean Wrote:  You sir are welcome to do mine as well

Well sir I can understand that...but this was done for me.
I only contributed with the paintbrush and taping everything off...

[oldskull]

Damn the car look stunning!

[bozu]

Very clean!

[r.ave]

thanks guys!

[r.ave]

So unfortunately this is the current status...



There is always a risk in buying a car second hand...
The history of the car wasn't there when I bought it. But looking at the state of the car and the guy selling it to me gave me plenty of confidence this was to be my car.
Still no regrets, it's just unfortunate that I ran in to some things due to aging (leaking front window) or mis-use.
I knew my car had ran on LPG in the past in France or Portugal (where it came from), didn't know that should've been a red flag for these engines. Saw a minor sweat spot between cilinder 2 and 3 on the exhaust side which didn't alarm me as it is an older car. Also didn't got any bigger in my posession. However, the car started to smell more and more to the point I needed a shower after a few hours of driving in it. So had it checked out and seemed a few things were wrong with it.
Some liquid on cilinder 2, timing was way of, no coolant in the reservoir (did not have cooling issues though), so all in all safe to say the headgasket was done.
So decided to overhaul the engine completely and while everything was apart I opted to change the cams to the most modest ones from Toda (So i could still use the stock internals and ecu).
Engine will be going back in shortly just before the winter comes.

[banpei]

You already wrote me via Whatsapp, but the photos look much sadder than reading the story.
So you have decided to overhaul the engine and not drop in a different one. Will you go for an OEM headgasket or switch to an TRD/aftermarket to bump the compression ratio?

[r.ave]

No, overhaul of my own engine and stock headgasket.
Had found another rebuilt engine which was swapped for a blacktop. However, that was a 7rib fwd engine with no original ecu. There probably are solutions to fix it but i thought it would be to much hassle.

[r.ave]

Ok, so I got my engine back! Drives very smooth very happy with it.
No real difference to be felt with the new cams, haven't revved it high enough.
Some pictures to go along with the story





They even repainted te valve cover

Before

After



Was advised not to go over 4000rpm for the first 5000km.
What do you all think of that? Seems quite long to me...


Also received my wtanabe hubcaps to go along with my wheels...
(Seems that i'm not able to upload the specific picture, will try again later)

[Ivan141]

That was quick.. Nice to hear you're back on the road.
Love the painted valve covers, where did you have the engine done?

[banpei]

Great to see the engine is back in the car!
5000 kilometers not going over 4000 rpm sounds a bit excessive. Highway speed (100km/h) is already 3300 rpm in 5th as well...
Perhaps Oldskewtoy can say more about it as he's about the most experienced 4AGE builder we have here.