Welp. S50B32 Rebuild Time...

[Nick M3]

Originally Posted by Josh (PA)

That's what I assumed re s54 cranks. That's awesome. hope it works out

Prickly old ex club racer, so... I guess we'll see. He insists that he has to have his machinist check it before he sells it.

[Nick M3]

Guy confirmed that the crank is at his machine shop for checking today. He’s supposed to get word Tuesday confirming its condition. Fingers crossed!

This weekend’s project is to clean and shine up the block and other exterior facing parts.

[Nick M3]

Crank checked out. Hope to have it next week.

[John V]

That's good news. How are the bores?

[Nick M3]

Originally Posted by John V

That's good news. How are the bores?

Slightly outside of new spec, but not enough that I'm interested in boring.

[John V]

Did you decide to hone and re-ring?

[Nick M3]

Originally Posted by John V

Did you decide to hone and re-ring?

That's the plan, assume that I can find enough piston rings. Seems to be a shortage of them.

[Nick M3]

well... it's back upstairs and sitting on the subframe. i'll probably get it back in the car tonight or tomorrow.

[JST]

Originally Posted by Nick M3

well... it's back upstairs and sitting on the subframe. i'll probably get it back in the car tonight or tomorrow.

This is with the 2nd hand crank and the pistons re-ringed and honed? Did you run into any complications?

[Nick M3]

Originally Posted by JST

This is with the 2nd hand crank and the pistons re-ringed and honed? Did you run into any complications?

I ran into a minor complication that required a second head gasket - turned out that you can't install the timing chain guides with the head on.

That was a little annoying, but not too bad. Otherwise, not so far. Won't really know until it runs, though. Hopefully that's this weekend. K is currently scheduled for 8/2, so in a perfect world, i'd like to get the car running this weekend, and do a serious garage clean before baby arrives.

One thing that made reassembly a LOT easier was buying a fixed size piston ring compressor. Most people run into trouble installing the pistons because they're using shitty universal compressors that just don't get the rings compressed correctly. Wiseco makes what is basically a piston funnel that makes life a lot easier. At $30 each, it'd be really expensive for a shop to carry a good range of them (in 0.5mm increments), but at $30 for my engine assembly, no brainer. I don't know why anyone tries to use the awful universal ones.

Edit: Also, K was kind enough to waddle into the basement and hold the engine for me while torquing the head gasket. It's difficult to get the right torque on with it moving on the casters.