Ok heres the deally. I have 93,000 on what at least from what I've seen is the highest mileage boosted ecotec on this forum. Theres been at least 4-5 ppl recently breaking ring lands or rods with far less miles on thier motors. Granted they were pushing the motor harder, but Ive also pounded the car for over 4 years and for almost a year drove around pegging the knock sensor running dangerously lean.
I've recently been thinking about the larger drive housing from the stage 2 kit and putting that on mine for more boost, since i cant really do much in the way of increasing power, this would be quite dangerous being that I'm already on borrowed time as it is. In order to fit the bigger drive housing I also need to shave down the unused EGR port on the right side of the head, which is machine shop work, of course while the head is off it seems like that would be the best time to replace the rods and pistons. It would be bad to put it all together and with that power and bust a piston or rod and then trash the head I just put all that money into.
So I'll admit I really dont know a whole lot about piston and rod installations, I have no idea how long its going to take, can it be done with the motor in the car, should I overbore, how do I know if I need to? If its something that takes weeks I think it might be easier to just buy a junkyard motor and take that to them i really cant afford much downtime since this is my only vehicle for now, will this EGR port need to be sealed up, I dont know much about it, I mean I dont want to buy a new cylinder head and mess it up
Heres my tentitive plan
Patriot head - this has all the valves and porting crap done so i dont need to worry about high revving
Level Zero Tri FLow cams- timing chain and all that crap is already off so its a good time
ARP head studs
MLS head gasket -- whatever size one is the one that drops the compression slightly like .2
Pistons - stock compression, possibly .020 overbore if i need to?
Zero Gap rings - I was told they are the best
Eagle Rods
If take all that crap to some speed shop can they do it all and make it work, my biggest thing is the required machine work done right
1989 Turbo Trans Am #82, 2007 Cobalt SS G85
cylinder head and cams great idea, i'd say def hone the cylinders and clean them up a little bit. i dunno know if u neccesarily need to over bore them but while its apart i'd sleeve them. everything else seems like a good idea. lookin to hear for some updates in time.
MY 2003 SUNFIRE 15.33@88.5mph
"A N/A ecotec is not gonna give Honda's and Mitsu's that much of a run for their
money unless their blown or bottle fed.GM is still smokin crack!"
~1QWKZ24
www.streetracing.org, 08/2001
As for boring it out, not really needed. The motor needs to come out to put in new piston and rods. Honing would be needed, no boring (as long as no damage to the cylinder walls). Of course while doing this new bearings, gaskets etc... As for time, well it all depends. Depends on the shop doing the work, depends if all the parts are there at one time. You would need to talk with some shops in your area and find out turn around if they have everything. Truly if it was me I would get me a spare head have that work done and swap the head. I would not be too worried about the miles. I think the recent issues on the org were just random things. I could be wrong. Same thing has happened in the past with the 2.4's, water pumps, rod bearings etc...
FU Tuning
As long as your cylinder walls are in decent shape you should be able to go with stock bore pistons. If you do then you can have the rods/pistons installed without pulling the engnine. Pop the head off, drop the pan, pull the old pistons, hone the chambers and drop in the new ones
easy as can be.
Total seal rings are the best for boost but not a requirment. It's up to you if you want the added exspense.
MLS gasket is a .30 I think.
For the EGR port just get an 05 head, they don't have the EGR triangle
As far as time goes here is a break down of how long it takes me to do this sort of thing without air tools:
Remove head - 2 hours
Remove oil pan - 30 mins
Remove pistons - 15 mins
Hone holes - 15 mins
Assemble pisons and rods - 2 hours (I hate those damn clips for the wrist pins)
Install pistons - 45 mins
Install head studs - 15 mins
Assemble head - 45 mins
Install head - 1 hour
Time cams - 30 mins (on a bad day)
Clean oil pan and block - 1 hour
Install oil pan - 30 mins
Install valve cover, idi, intake and so on - 1.5 hour
Test drive - 2 hours
With breaks and stuff it's a 2 day ordeal providing I have all the parts.
LIVID wrote:As long as your cylinder walls are in decent shape you should be able to go with stock bore pistons.
No friggn way are they in decent shape after 93k miles. The walls will be tapered due to such high mileage. Therefore, you will have no choice but to bore out to the next largest step according to what your walls mic up to.
Rods will call for crank work as well. Over time, the journals will compact/wear down. The same might be true about the mains as well. With that, the crank will have to either be polished or reground and the mains will have to be line honed.
All of this is dependant on the measurements that are taken from your stock parts and block.
With such high mileage, it's very safe to say that things will not be up to stock spec and will have to be remachined.
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no @!#$ 05 heads dont have that dumb thing , rock on!
While this is something I'd like to learn in time for now id just be content with someone else knowing what they are doing and paying them to do it
And the motor that is in the car now most likely wont be the one getting built up, id like to find a 03-05 motor with less than 30k miles or as low as possible that isnt damaged. Given whats happened to some of the others, Im moving up the time table and the fastest way would be for me to get another motor and just do the bottom end, rods, pistons, rings. I can get the patriot head and diff cams at a later time, this would at least buy me some time, ive yet to hear of anyone having valvetrain issues its all bottom end stuff which with the components i mentioned id be pretty bulletproof to at least 300whp which is more than ill ever throw at it in the near future.
So once I have this new motor back from the machine shop spend, it should only take a day or two to drop in the new motor, then the old motor will either be built up for when i reach 200,000 miles or sold, its never bad to have a spare ready to go at a moments notice
1989 Turbo Trans Am #82, 2007 Cobalt SS G85
Just to let you know our engines use cylinder bore liners. You have to check for wear- taper- runout and ridging. If your cylinders are worn the liners need to be removed and new ones installed. You can not bore out the liners.The part number for the cylinder liner removal and installation kit is EN45680-850 . I have all the specs if you want them.
Thats Him Officer The WICKED One.
Quote:
No friggn way are they in decent shape after 93k miles. The walls will be tapered due to such high mileage. Therefore, you will have no choice but to bore out to the next largest step according to what your walls mic up to.
I rebuilt a 96 2.4 at 129k. The cylinder walls were in great shape. Even after it was hot tanked, and measurements taking all we had to do was hone it, and used the stock pistons that were in the motor. Of course this was a different motor.
FU Tuning
