pete25r's bugeye progress by pete25r

3 minute(s) of a 160 minute read

So I finally got enough free time in my life to pull the engine. It needed head gaskets, not blown just seeping too much oil. It also needed a bunch of little hoses and bolts and whatever else was smart to do with the motor out.

So far I've got one the passenger head's castings cleaned, driver's side is about half way done. I had to go saiyan on them cam bolts.
Lapped the passenger head's valves after cleaning them. You would not believe how much carbon was on the #3 left intake valve, that thing was caked in carbon. Some to the other valves were quite carbon dirty but looked like someone made carbon sandcastles on that one in #3 cylinder. Piston heads were pretty caked on the 1 & 3 cylinder side as well. Might have photos.

Still got a lot to do. Gotta replace a the friggin old hoses. Oh and the friggin EVAP solenoid that's on the intake mani decided to let loose one of it's vacuum line connectors, that stupid thing was $80 at the parts store. Didn't really look around so I probably paid too much.

Doing valve lash checking it fun. Real fun. I've gotta recheck some stuff and order some new shims. Some of my valves were way off. I'd suggest checking them if you've go over 105k. I'm almost to break-in at 143k and mine are needing attention.
One thing that sucks about checking them is that with the shim over bucket you can pull out the shims without removing the cams or anything, but its tricky. And when you do get them out the measurement of the shim is on the inside stamped right where the tip of the valve rubs it. Some of my shims only had one of the three digits visible. The first number should be 2 unless you have a funky engine, the second is usually right in the middle of the shim in a shallow recess and the third was either half or completely rubbed off on my shims. What's good though is that the numbers they etch on the shims are the mm of the shim. So a 252 would be a 2.52 mm shim, a good micrometer or if you trust your calipers you can figure our what size/number they are.

Done did a turbo swap.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/peteyokel/48761969893

Replaced my weirdo TD04-16T with a VF39 I rebuilt.
Got the VF39 on the cheap.."needs rebuild"
Yep... and a new exhaust turbine. It was FUBAR, looks like it was run too hot and too fast at the same time. Edges of turbine looked like they got soft and slung themselves off.

New bearings, gaskets, exhaust turbine, and a billet compressor wheel, mix in some gasket-matching, casting cleanup(DIY PNP) and I'm just over the cost of a "good" used VF39.

I love how it pulls. It does so a little later than the TD04s but delivers a lot more. I'm still tuning target boost and wastegate duty cycle though. Slow rolling it so it'll be fun longer.