Alright, got some more things finished today. I went through a pretty labor intensive process of getting the head all cleaned and degreased. I also have gotten more missing parts for the head from Honda, so the time has come to assemble.
I got everything cleaned up, springs installed with that damn C-clamp. The time for me and that C-clamp are coming to an end. It's seen enough heads that it's time for me to build a more user friendly and efficient tool. I have the steel for a Snap on style top mount installer...so that'll come soon.
All installed, lubed up, and good to go covered in cellophane to protect it for the moment
It was also time to do something about the nasty ass block. It's only gonna see about four months of duty, but the more I look at it, the more I think it looks ass. So, my boy cleaned the block up a bit, and I just hit it with some grill paint to clean it up. The camera flash doesn't do much for the look though...in person it's pretty descent. Once everything is together I'll pressure wash the engine bay to clean all that up. Headstuds also installed in the block.
So from there I turned my attention to getting the head on. Even though I am short some parts for certain things, if I can get the head on that will at least allow me to do some charge pipes if I'm waiting for parts to arrive.
The LS/vtec dowel pins I have though, started to present a problem. They were not really machined accurately, and they weren't fitting anywhere. So I had to spend a little time with the belt sander to take off a slight bit of material. Having used an LS Cometic head gasket, I had to then open up the front holes to match the dowe pins and allow the gasket to sit.
Once that was straight, I cleaned the gasket, degreased it, and Honda-bonded the galley holes. The Honda bond is something I have done for a long time. I've seen it done on some build photo's of Honda's that were road raced in Europe, and I did it ever since. I use it sparingly...don't want it squishing and going everywhere...or into the chamber.
So once that was ready, I grabbed the head and got it on. Right down on the dowel pins like butter, and I drilled the gasket dead balls so it's centered absolutely perfect. Once it was torqued down, I then grabbed the intake mani and the turbo and mani combo just to see my car come together.
Finally...something for me....man I'm so excited. Gotta keep it goin though.
Afterwards, I grabbed the plates for the tow hook locations to start tacking up the traction bar setup. This will be the first set of traction bars I build. I've used the del sol frame charts to calculate the exact point for the radius rod mounts so that they swing on an idenical arc as the lower control arm.
This is something that is missed on alot of traction bars, and alot of companies out there do make them wrong. All suspension is ideally built with all joints on one straight vertical axis, then the upper/lower control arm mountings and inner/outer tie rod joint operate on another straight vertical axis. This ensures that you don't get dynamic caster and/or alignment changes, and if you add essentially an additional portion to your lower control arm...you can't miss this.
So some chrome-moly tube is tacked up to some mild steel plate. The picture is somewhat deceiving, but the bar is about 1" lower than the rad support. I could go higher, but that would mean removing the rad mounts. It's not something I wouldn't necessarily do, but for this particular project I really need to move along and get done. So I just tucked it and will work to get the inclination angle mounting right in relation to the lower control arm.
Another view looking down at the bar location
That's all for now...gonna try to get more done Sunday or Monday. Tomorrow I have to tear down an H22 build that's coming in...so more to come then... :thumbup: