106,650 miles of abuse have begun to show their pressence with my 2000 ES 1.8L, it burns quiet a bit of oil now (about a quart every 1,500 miles) even with royal purple in it's belly (which use to reduce oil burn off by 1/2 a quart) and it's time to find and cure the source of this nasty little problem, and mabye add some kick/protection along the way. Here's a list of items purchased to correct this small problem, and Since I'll have the whole engine disassembled I thought it would be a good idea to replace some other things as they'll be easilly accessable while I'm doing the work anyway.
parts purchased:
Toga performance Stage II valve stem seals $78 for 16
Ebiach EVS performance valve stem springs $210 For 16
carfield plastic engine bueaty cover (previously purchased)
Red Top Optima Battery $128 (discounted from work)
OEM Intake camshaft (not really purchased, but decided to put it back in vs the FSH9 intake camshaft for better performance)
Goodyear Gaterbelt Timming belt+ tensioner $159
*OEM head bolts $98 for complete set
*OEM head gasket $38
*OEM water outlet gasket $.25
*OEM water pump $32.40
*OEM alternator $92.30
*OEM 1KW Automatic Starter $102.30
Samco Sport Silicone Radiator Hoses $102
Generic Silicon spool heater hoses $30
Felpro Intake manifold gasket $12.50
OBX racing header $200
OBX supplied Exhaust gasket $0
*OEM exhaust flange gasket $6.50
*OEM camshaft bearing cap bolts $52.95
5 Quarts Mobile 1 10W30 $19.99
Mobile 1 Extended performance oil filter $10.99
Craftsman Vavle spring compressor $12.99
10mm allen socket $2.99
total: $1272.16
*- I get a pretty good discount from my local dealership since I frequent there often.
I had been putting this off for the longest time since I've never done any major engine work before, and I had to wait for at least 2 days in a row off in my schedule to give myself some breathing room incase something goes wrong.
I guess I could bore you with all the mundane stuff on replacing parts and gaskets that's otherwise just general maintiance, but I wont and I'll just skip to the good stuff.
okay, so the head is ripped off and at this point I'm just marveling at the fact that my engine is finnaly in two pieces 1hour wasted there and it's approaching 6:00 p.m. (I started at about 12:00, but all that's left to put in are the valvetrain stuff)
upon visual inspection it appears that the cylinder wall is in great shape, it still has the manufacturing marks from the inital bore cutting even after 106,000 miles, 56,000 of which have seen spirited driving, but thanks to a diet of mobile 1 for the last 56,000, it's no where near time for a complete re-build. The piston has quiet a bit of carbon build up and there's a disctiant ring of oil burning at the top, but this can be expected with a 106,000 mile engine of which the last 25,000 has been spent burning a good amount of oil.
New headgasket is on, the old one was in near perfect shape.. It almost pained me to toss it in the trash.
it's too bad my valvetrain didn't recieve the same clean bill of health, after realizing that I had bought the wrong valve spring compressor ( we had bought one for a L shaped head, like those on V8 with rocker cams) I had to improvise, which included hand compressing two springs before trying to use a socket type attachment to make the compressor work for me.. the first couple seals looked like toast... and not the great crispy brown toast.. the "eww I'm not eating that" black and nasty toast. I tried to get some better pictures but my camera just didn't want to take still pictures at macro focus.
The old seals are on the right, the new toga stage II seals on the left.
I had to be carefull with the old seals, as the first two crumbled in my hands.
pretty much all my valves look like this; no excessive carbon build up.. but fairly dirty and show typical signs of oil burn off.. they really should have been cleaned, but I decided that instead it was more important to get the thing running first. Later I'll take it to a shop to get it ported/polished and acid dip the Intake manifold if I havent replaced it with a 626 one by then, as it was extremely dirty from the oil-burn off.
the old valve springs(right) compared to the Ebiach EVS springs (left)
the difference in compression was instantly noticable, even by just trying to hand compress the spring, the evs springs are much thicker and even a couple mm taller than the stock springs, which is probaly a good thing considering the condition of the valves, the beefer springs should give me a bit more compression which should marginally increase HP.
all 16 valves took exactly 6hours to repair, doing one at a time as to not get the lifters mixed up and using a ghetto rigged valve spring compressor. After that it was just a process of re-timming the cams, and re-assembling everything. It was a tense first couple cranks when I first restarted the engine but thankfully everything seemed to have worked, 200 miles later I decided to change the oil and check the cam timming since the head had been sitting on a rather dirty bench in a dirty garage in the middle of fall in a house surrounded by trees in rather windy conditions.. To my relief the oil still had the new clear color under the valve cover, instead of the black color it normaly has after 200miles on the old valve seals, other than that power had noticably increased in the higher rev band thanks to the valve springs, all my torque from 2.5k-4K is back thanks to the OEM cam (the FSH9 cam SUCKS for 1.8L engines BEWARE! all it did was reduce power from 1K-4K and gave no noticable gains beyond that.. very poor choice on my part I'm afraid) and I can finnaly spin my tires again(couldn't with the FSH9).
today(1 month after the build); 9-27-2007 I'm happy to say that I'm 1,500 miles into my first real oil change after the build and I'm burning no oil what-so-ever. Infact, after seeing how good of shape the cylinder wall is I'm considering going FI with it instead of building another 2.0L and swapping it out.
total time to do all of this work was approx. 2 days, and that was with no experience beyond moderate mechanics experience with maintiance and bolt-ons. All work with the exception of the spring compressor and a impact drill for the crank bolt was done with hand tools, but I should warn anyone that thinks about trying something like this; it's best to schedule at the minnimum 3 days to make the attempt, have about $150-200 in spare cash, a helper and access to another car (in this case it was my neighbors)
It should also be noted that in the process of installing the camshafts I ran into a pretty big problem; When ever you do camshaft work you've got to be extra attentive to listening for cracks in the camshaft bearing cap bolts.. there are two sounds to listen for when loosening the bolts, the first is pretty common, it's the pressure "whisp" that happens when the seal that's been made with the bolt and oil is broken. The second is one that is the most important and that's an acutal cracking sound.. if while you loosen the bolt and you hear a cracking sound do *not* re-use the bolt, you might as well toss it in the trash. What has happened is that the bolt has acutaly broken on the inside and the only thing that's holding it together is the paint it's coated with.. as soon as you try to screw it back in it *will* break off into the cylinder head(it's happened twice to me), at which point the best way to extract it is to tap a slit into the broken piece with a screw driver and hammer and try to screw it out.. the bolts are pretty expensive at about $5-6 a piece from the dealership, and in most cases you will break anywhere from 1-3 bolts (in my experience with the last 4 times installing FP/FS camshafts). If you find yourself without a spare autzone, napa, and advance have suitalbe replacement bolts that can be used as temporary spares, but you'll have to grind the ends down a bit in order to make them fit.
I decided not to take any chances and just replaced them all.. but it's a pretty steep price to pay when you're spending more on bolts than a j-spec cam.
the carfield cover looks great, but for the 1.8L I had to cut it to allow the coilpacks/ wires access to the valve cover, that and I had to cut some supports underneath the cover as well, again to allow the wires to get around the cover. That and the Flying M is painted rather cheaply and has already started to peal off after 1 month's use, but here's what it looks like on a 1.8L. Good for $80? Mabye, if you really want that stock feel to it.. It was worth it to me.. but it is a bit steep for what's not all that great in terms of build quality. Even the rubber gaskets that prevent it from making rattling noise are started to corrode. If used with the 1.8L it'll be necessary to remove the cover every time you change the oil.
parts purchased:
Toga performance Stage II valve stem seals $78 for 16
Ebiach EVS performance valve stem springs $210 For 16
carfield plastic engine bueaty cover (previously purchased)
Red Top Optima Battery $128 (discounted from work)
OEM Intake camshaft (not really purchased, but decided to put it back in vs the FSH9 intake camshaft for better performance)
Goodyear Gaterbelt Timming belt+ tensioner $159
*OEM head bolts $98 for complete set
*OEM head gasket $38
*OEM water outlet gasket $.25
*OEM water pump $32.40
*OEM alternator $92.30
*OEM 1KW Automatic Starter $102.30
Samco Sport Silicone Radiator Hoses $102
Generic Silicon spool heater hoses $30
Felpro Intake manifold gasket $12.50
OBX racing header $200
OBX supplied Exhaust gasket $0
*OEM exhaust flange gasket $6.50
*OEM camshaft bearing cap bolts $52.95
5 Quarts Mobile 1 10W30 $19.99
Mobile 1 Extended performance oil filter $10.99
Craftsman Vavle spring compressor $12.99
10mm allen socket $2.99
total: $1272.16
*- I get a pretty good discount from my local dealership since I frequent there often.
I had been putting this off for the longest time since I've never done any major engine work before, and I had to wait for at least 2 days in a row off in my schedule to give myself some breathing room incase something goes wrong.
I guess I could bore you with all the mundane stuff on replacing parts and gaskets that's otherwise just general maintiance, but I wont and I'll just skip to the good stuff.
okay, so the head is ripped off and at this point I'm just marveling at the fact that my engine is finnaly in two pieces 1hour wasted there and it's approaching 6:00 p.m. (I started at about 12:00, but all that's left to put in are the valvetrain stuff)
upon visual inspection it appears that the cylinder wall is in great shape, it still has the manufacturing marks from the inital bore cutting even after 106,000 miles, 56,000 of which have seen spirited driving, but thanks to a diet of mobile 1 for the last 56,000, it's no where near time for a complete re-build. The piston has quiet a bit of carbon build up and there's a disctiant ring of oil burning at the top, but this can be expected with a 106,000 mile engine of which the last 25,000 has been spent burning a good amount of oil.
New headgasket is on, the old one was in near perfect shape.. It almost pained me to toss it in the trash.
it's too bad my valvetrain didn't recieve the same clean bill of health, after realizing that I had bought the wrong valve spring compressor ( we had bought one for a L shaped head, like those on V8 with rocker cams) I had to improvise, which included hand compressing two springs before trying to use a socket type attachment to make the compressor work for me.. the first couple seals looked like toast... and not the great crispy brown toast.. the "eww I'm not eating that" black and nasty toast. I tried to get some better pictures but my camera just didn't want to take still pictures at macro focus.
The old seals are on the right, the new toga stage II seals on the left.
I had to be carefull with the old seals, as the first two crumbled in my hands.
pretty much all my valves look like this; no excessive carbon build up.. but fairly dirty and show typical signs of oil burn off.. they really should have been cleaned, but I decided that instead it was more important to get the thing running first. Later I'll take it to a shop to get it ported/polished and acid dip the Intake manifold if I havent replaced it with a 626 one by then, as it was extremely dirty from the oil-burn off.
the old valve springs(right) compared to the Ebiach EVS springs (left)
the difference in compression was instantly noticable, even by just trying to hand compress the spring, the evs springs are much thicker and even a couple mm taller than the stock springs, which is probaly a good thing considering the condition of the valves, the beefer springs should give me a bit more compression which should marginally increase HP.
all 16 valves took exactly 6hours to repair, doing one at a time as to not get the lifters mixed up and using a ghetto rigged valve spring compressor. After that it was just a process of re-timming the cams, and re-assembling everything. It was a tense first couple cranks when I first restarted the engine but thankfully everything seemed to have worked, 200 miles later I decided to change the oil and check the cam timming since the head had been sitting on a rather dirty bench in a dirty garage in the middle of fall in a house surrounded by trees in rather windy conditions.. To my relief the oil still had the new clear color under the valve cover, instead of the black color it normaly has after 200miles on the old valve seals, other than that power had noticably increased in the higher rev band thanks to the valve springs, all my torque from 2.5k-4K is back thanks to the OEM cam (the FSH9 cam SUCKS for 1.8L engines BEWARE! all it did was reduce power from 1K-4K and gave no noticable gains beyond that.. very poor choice on my part I'm afraid) and I can finnaly spin my tires again(couldn't with the FSH9).
today(1 month after the build); 9-27-2007 I'm happy to say that I'm 1,500 miles into my first real oil change after the build and I'm burning no oil what-so-ever. Infact, after seeing how good of shape the cylinder wall is I'm considering going FI with it instead of building another 2.0L and swapping it out.
total time to do all of this work was approx. 2 days, and that was with no experience beyond moderate mechanics experience with maintiance and bolt-ons. All work with the exception of the spring compressor and a impact drill for the crank bolt was done with hand tools, but I should warn anyone that thinks about trying something like this; it's best to schedule at the minnimum 3 days to make the attempt, have about $150-200 in spare cash, a helper and access to another car (in this case it was my neighbors)
It should also be noted that in the process of installing the camshafts I ran into a pretty big problem; When ever you do camshaft work you've got to be extra attentive to listening for cracks in the camshaft bearing cap bolts.. there are two sounds to listen for when loosening the bolts, the first is pretty common, it's the pressure "whisp" that happens when the seal that's been made with the bolt and oil is broken. The second is one that is the most important and that's an acutal cracking sound.. if while you loosen the bolt and you hear a cracking sound do *not* re-use the bolt, you might as well toss it in the trash. What has happened is that the bolt has acutaly broken on the inside and the only thing that's holding it together is the paint it's coated with.. as soon as you try to screw it back in it *will* break off into the cylinder head(it's happened twice to me), at which point the best way to extract it is to tap a slit into the broken piece with a screw driver and hammer and try to screw it out.. the bolts are pretty expensive at about $5-6 a piece from the dealership, and in most cases you will break anywhere from 1-3 bolts (in my experience with the last 4 times installing FP/FS camshafts). If you find yourself without a spare autzone, napa, and advance have suitalbe replacement bolts that can be used as temporary spares, but you'll have to grind the ends down a bit in order to make them fit.
I decided not to take any chances and just replaced them all.. but it's a pretty steep price to pay when you're spending more on bolts than a j-spec cam.
the carfield cover looks great, but for the 1.8L I had to cut it to allow the coilpacks/ wires access to the valve cover, that and I had to cut some supports underneath the cover as well, again to allow the wires to get around the cover. That and the Flying M is painted rather cheaply and has already started to peal off after 1 month's use, but here's what it looks like on a 1.8L. Good for $80? Mabye, if you really want that stock feel to it.. It was worth it to me.. but it is a bit steep for what's not all that great in terms of build quality. Even the rubber gaskets that prevent it from making rattling noise are started to corrode. If used with the 1.8L it'll be necessary to remove the cover every time you change the oil.
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