We have been working a few too many hours to keep up on the blog lately. Sorry for the two of you who are reading it! We will, however make good on our return to posting daily with a lot of great project pictures.

This will be short since I cut my finger last week and can’t type well without it. Today we had a great day. I measure greatness by lack of frustration combined with productivity. Others will probably agree. Bill finished working on the red R35 GTR. I’ll leave that post to him. He did a few cool modifications to the car including an exhaust. We’ll have it on the dyno later this week.

I finished up fresh heads on a 2001 Forester after it suffered two blown head gaskets.  The whole cooling system was compromised by healthy doses of stop-leak and we had to replace the radiator after we were finished because it was heavily coated with a copper-rubbery solution and couldn’t keep the temperature from running away. This conclusion was reached by a lot of  late evening Sunday work and some head banging.

With the Forester done, Nick and I reinstalled the motor in the E30 M3. Piston failure in the original motor forced us to send the crate motor back to it’s builder marking the first and last time we buy from the out of state BMW supplier. Hopefully the second time is a charm for them.

The only photos I have to share today are from the Civic which has become a long, short term project. We all agree that this is the nicest overall Civic we’ve worked on. A real pleasure and we hope that our efforts translate into low lap times at Lime Rock for it’s owner. When the car is all done we’ll post photos. Some of the work we did includes:

• Tein SRC coilovers

• Corner weighting and alignment

• Tune using Hondata (D series turbo)

• Mocal 13 Row oil cooler and AN hose kit (DSG fabricated)

• Wilwood 12.19″ 4 piston brake kit

• Billet rear lower arms and poly bushings

Photos of all this stuff will be published soon. For now I leave the reader with this.

We had a good start to the week today.  Usually there are a lot of hangups on Monday. I decided to come in early yesterday to do a lot of office work. I knew that it would help get things underway quickly today if I didn’t have to write checks and do billing in the office all morning. I also made a small library with our new Subaru factory manuals.  It’s quite satisfying. (viewable in photo below)

Three Subaru Motors in progress EJ25, EJ25t and EJ20

I worked for most of the day on Jason’s motor. He’s rebuilding his STI after a seriously bad spun rod bearing. It looks like the motor starved a little for oil at some point. After tearing it down and cleaning everything there’s evidence on the oil pump and one of the cam journals that suggests cavitation or starvation. The new motor is looking good. I took the TGV’s out of the intake manifold and welded it shut, then added some Daddy’s headers that he bought. I  had to stall a little in the middle of the day for a new oil pickup and 11mm oil pump from Subaru. We always use OEM Subaru parts in our engine builds unless it’s forged pistons or some quality aftermarket upgrade, never any “OEM equivalent” parts.  This is, I think the 32nd EJ25 that I’ve built.  By the end of the day it was on the stand, complete and ready to install. His motor is in the background of the above photo. It’s hard to see.
Tomorrow I’ll be working on two more motors, one that has a Crower valvetrain in the heads, an EJ20 that needs assembly after Reid’s Automotive built and machined the heads. Another motor came to us with a blown driver’s side head gasket. It belongs to Haitham, a friend of an old cycling buddy who refered him to us. His Forester is a very well kept machine, completely stock. The heads are at Reid’s getting decked and crack tested. We should have them back on Wednesday. That will be three Subaru motors in one week! We’ll also be working on Pierre’s Legacy, reinstalling the transmission with a new clutch, fresh exhaust and then doing some diagnostic work on a power cutout issue.

EJ20 heads with oversized valves fresh from Reid's

Bill worked on Jonathan’s 240sx again, fixing the leaky front main seal. We tested it and it’s ready now for some dyno time. The car will go on the dyno tomorrow with Matt to finish tuning. Bill also diagnosed some issues in another Forester, squeaky shifter and front end looseness.  In 240rs Maxi news it appears that Bill sold his old electro-hydraulic power steering setup which means he’s comitted to using this newfangled GM electric-only assist from an HHR, popular with European rally builders with old timer cars who are looking for the advantage of power steering and with no parasitic loss and no nasty ATF. (Bill’s least favorite fluid)

Nick spent the day working on the 20v Corolla. He made some serious forward movement with Matt’s help throughout the afternoon. The two have achieved spark and injector pulse and despite a completely worn out ignition switch, the fuel pump runs. I used a die grinder to excecute their plan on the distributor teeth, removing a tooth every 15 degrees rotation, leaving 4 teeth in equally opposite sides of the gear (90 degrees)  at  on the distributor so we can use the factory “dizzy” on the car. It was a quantum leap from our failed escapades into Ford EDIS.

After work I reinstalled the rear differential onto my Evo. Bill rebuilt it for me and it is now feeling really smooth and fresh. It was the last thing keeping the car on stands and off the ground. Once on, I played with the ride height a little bit and put it on the ground to have a look. It looks good but I need some new wheels. I was thinking Enkei RC-T4 but Bill hates them. We can both agree on Desmond Regamaster Evos but they’re rare and expensive. Any thoughts? Forged wheels are likely out of the budget.

Here are some Evo pics to play us out. Until tomorrow.

PS- for those who won our shift knobs on Facebook I haven’t forgotten. If I don’t mail them I will definitely give them to you when I see you.

OMP seat now lower and further back from last year