Haha Ive already been speaking to him. Space is the main constraint so need to make sure I can make it work without going mental.

Er... not much to update here. This project ground to a halt earlier in the year, but I'm hopeful of it moving at pace, in September.

Last bit I updated on here, was that we were building the engine back up, but I needed a new set of Piston rings for one cylinder. These had to come from Poland.
I also was missing one arp rod washer, this had to come from USA.

Once they landed, we put the engine back together, but found a problem on cylinder 1:



The rods that I had machined were ok, barring this one. The enlargement of the little end on this one was not straight. So the piston was leaning into the cylinder.
I took them all out and sent them off again.
To be honest, I'm looking at buying a new set, that are correct from the outset, to avoid any further delays and piece of mind.

I don't want to start on anything else until the engine is completely built! So there is very little to update at the moment :( But I'm not giving in and once I'm happy with the engine, then it can progress.

Sounds like your having a right mare with it atm just keep going mate the hard work will pay off in the end

Rod could also be be bent??

sounds like new set is right choice

Good to see an update and another boosted Wicked Red... hopefully you will sort this out quickly :)

Still looking good after all these years :)

Good to see this still going! Went out in it a few times when Crabzy owned it.

Sent from my ONEPLUS A3003 using Tapatalk

NO UPDATE.

Ended up with a new set of rods, as I'd lost confidence in the machined ones. In the end they turned out fine, but I fell on some ZRP ones, so thought I might as well.

I managed to engineer a couple of hours in the garage to discover I'd ordered the wrong big end shells! What a tool.
I'm still annoyed, typing this. More so, for my old man, who I requisitioned to come and assist me getting the bottom end correct. Will no doubt be next week now, until the correct ones arrive and we can have another go.

I really want the engine together and timed up ASAP as I know I have 1 million other things to complete.

#keepthefaith

An update is an update!

are you rebuilding a spare engine as you originally wanted or did you end up removing the current one and rebuilding that?

It's a seperate bottom end - one that was already honed for the oversized pistons. The old engine had a cracked block anyway.
The head and some turbo parts will be re-used from the old engine.

Offtopic - Sri_130, did you used to live over in Northern Ireland? The previous owner of my rallye had the handle SRI_130 on a local forum then he disappeared years ago.

No mate.
But I can put on a good accent!

haha, cheers anyway. Was just looking to know what he crashed into and what blind man repaired my 106 lol.

After foolishly ordering the wrong shells, the right ones turned up and a little more progress has been made.

Current stage:
Brand new ZRP rods + Arp bolts
New big end Shells
New main bearings
Wossner pistons & gudgeons which look new, but aren't.
New water pump

The pistons sit lovely in the cylinder now. Bottom end torqued up perfect and at last I can move on.

The sump is on too - many gasket seals :)

New headgasket & head bolts from GMC



Head on:



I've just cleaned up the ladders & covers, so will complete along with the timing next.

The bottom end has been a learning experience for me, never done it before but learnt a lot, really enjoyed it.

Getting there.

Looking good mate must be satisfying :y:

More progressions made. Shame the forum is drying up with projects.... but I've got no where else to keep tabs on this, so might as well keep going.

Started to put the brackets and ancillaries on etc. But remembering that this turbo is not water cooled, just oil cooled, the old pipes had been T-pieced in a couple of places, so I needed to source new ones... or did I...



RickyP originally built the turbo conversion, so I'm guessing this is his work and it had worked fine, if so. The feed was T-pieced from the top bleed at the back, going to the heater matrix.



I have a spare engine, so managed to dissect the top part of the bleed nipple section and the lower half that goes to the rear water housing on the engine.

Interestingly (or not - because you aren't as sad as me) my spare engine has a different rear water housing arrangement (despite it being a J4).

This one on the spare engine, has the lower radiator feed (the bigger one) coming straight out of the block...



Yet on mine, the lower radiator hose comes around almost 90 degrees...



This unfortunately means that I can't use the silicon radiator hose (and top bleed/matrix in) pipes which I'd taken from an old project, so they'll be for sale. Of course I could have re-used the other water feed, but they are brittle when they've been on there and I am tight.

If anyone wants these, then lets talk.



The water feed/return on the thermostat housing was also T-pieced, so replaced that.



It's all coming together. I've been lucky enough to have spares up to this point, so even some stuff that wasn't OEM, I could steal from the spare stock! Just bolts and brackets mainly.

Next tasks are to get some decent nuts and bolts to hold the turbo on, make sure I have the oil feed adapters for the turbo and to make a bracket to support the weight!

Nice progress mate, I agree that its a shame there arent as many projects on the go as there used to be.

Im sure theres still plenty of lurkers though (Like myself)

Ive recently bought another saxo, mk1 vts in blue just like my original, expect this one has a bit more rust than the last.

Unfortunately ive been so busy with work etc I havent got round to doing much yet. The most annoying part at the moment is ive forgotten the immobiliser code so cant start it to move the car :-(

Keep up the good work man

Dan

Keep it going mate, I love reading stuff like this. gives me the well needed inspiration to get out into the garage in these cold nights.

Looking good yea not many projects anymore but I still frequent everyday lol

Made a little step forward again today (and last night).

I clocked the turbo so the feed and drain were the right way round and to position the compressor intake facing south. Not much to that, but I've never done it before, so it's a box ticked.

After many googlings last night, the lead times on some oil feeds on ebay and other sites, were a bit of a let down. So today I went to Pirtek in my dinner hour. I worked with the chap there, to make up a braided pipe with M16 1.5 thread to the outlet on the block (think this is were the oil pressure switch was?) and then an M10 1.0 thread banjo for the oil feed to the turbo. Typically in all the spares, I didn't have anything M10! Was made in just a few minutes, really pleasing.



Whilst the run is a bit long, I can at least hide it around the back of the manifold and secure it with some clips. I had to guess the length and didn't want it to be too short.

I also picked up some differing length M8 bolts for the manifold to turbo. Ones from my stockpiles were too short. I will most likely settle on flanged bolts and nuts, but at least I know what length fits now.



Just back on the turbo oil feed again, I am learning new things everyday. The turbo I have is a journal bearing turbo. These are primarily used on diesel engines. I knew that this turbo is usually on Iveco trucks... so that isn't a surprise, but I was surprised to discover that there isn't as much of a requirement to run an oil restrictor on these types of turbos. It is more of a requirement on a bearing turbo. Just thought I'd share that.

Upon reflection... This turbo looks MASSIVE. Lol.



BOOST.

Tomorrow, I may try to engineer the actuator and bracket - as it didn't come with an actuator and I have a couple to try out.

Then onto some sort of bracket to hold the turbo to the block... somehow.