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(Not*) Mediocre 242

I picked up a borescope from Harbor Freight and checked out my cylinders. Good news! I am reasonably confident nothing fell into any of the intake ports. I can't be 100% sure because my scope doesn't allow for a full view of the top of the pistons. I did move the camera around as much as I could to try and get a full view. I think I got it all, but there is a slim chance I missed a section. In any case, I feel good enough to not pull the head and run the engine as is.

Cylinders 1-3 seem great, nothing noteworthy. However, I saw some stuff on the top of cylinder 4.

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I think it is assembly lube, but I'm not quite sure. Any guesses as to what it is?
 
Maybe it's the black paint that's supposed to be on your hood?


LOL, looks more gooey than pitted or dented to me. I'd guess assembly lube too.
 
Finally made some progress, and got it to start.

It took forever for me to get the CAS setting right. I cut off the outer mounting surface that fouled on the rear timing cover so I could have some adjustment, and set my trigger angle to 60?, but could not for the life of me figure out why the timing was so wrong.

Eventually, I put the large slot on the other side of the CAS and set my trigger angle to 70 degrees. This finally hit my fixed 10? BTDC. The aux gear also still lines up with its timing mark, which is nice. This is what my CAS looks like with cylinder 1 at TDC. I am using the CAS with the connector on the body, which puts the sensor in a different position than those with wires on the body.

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I have to give it throttle to keep it going, but that's probably just a combination of too much fuel or low compression due to new rings. Here's a video:

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Once I get it idling a bit better, it's time to break the engine in.
 
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I've been busy breaking in the engine lately. I had to add a ton of fuel over the whole map to deal with the bigger valves. I also decided on the motoman hard break in method. After I got the engine running decent, I drove around for about 15 miles doing some hard accelerations/decelerations with no boost. I then realized I was spewing oil all over the place, so I limped it home. When I got home I still had decent oil pressure, so I think nothing got hurt. Turns out I botched the oil cooler sandwich o ring. After I replaced that and resealed the oil pressure sender threads, no more oil leaks.

I changed the oil with some dino 10w-30 and drove it to and from work for about a hundred miles. Oil pressure was a little lower than I wanted despite the high pressure oil pump spring. So I changed the oil again but used 10w-40. That bumped up pressure a little bit and made me feel a little better. I've been driving it around trying to get some miles on.

I've also done a few smaller jobs. I modified the steering wheel hub a la Homer:

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I also rerouted the vacuum line to the diverter valve:

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Things are feeling pretty good at 5 psi, so much more torque than my old B21ft. I want to put some more miles on before upping the boost.
 
What was the lowish pressure you were getting before the oil switch? I get good pressure driving but I'd like to bump the idle pressure up a bit. I have Joe Gibbs 5w 30 in it, was thinking I'd go to 10w 40 as well. Not surprising considering squirters, big oil cooler lines, and -6 feeding the turbo.
 
It was a little less than 1 bar to 1 bar at hot idle and full throttle was right around 3 bar with 10w-30.

It is now 1 bar to ~1.5 bar at hot idle and 3-4 bar at full throttle with 10w-40.

Not surprising considering squirters, big oil cooler lines, and -6 feeding the turbo.

Exactly. I think the squirters reduce pressure pretty significantly. The B230 also required a bit longer feed line for me, which might have a slight effect although I am using -4 instead of your -6. But all the additional volume for oil to go probably caused the reduced pressure from my B21.

I will probably switch to 5w-40 in the future just to have a little extra cold temperature range, although this car will be a death trap in the snow.
 
everyone here is worried about a slightly lower oil pressure but no one thinks about having consistent fedd of oil through out the engine. I wouldn't worry about if you're only getting 3 bars and not the 3.5 bars you want when cruising.
 
No idea. Some local BMW hoarder had them sitting in his shed since the 80s. They're Flow Fit seats, and google tells me that they have something to do with Mustangs.
 
Thanks. They were nice when I got them, but have since torn. The fabric was very thin and delicate from sitting in a hot shed for years.

I'd actually recommend real Recaros, as these seats have tons of lower back support, but not much upper back or shoulder support. I will change them out eventually when I can find a decent set of Recaros.
 
Thanks. They were nice when I got them, but have since torn. The fabric was very thin and delicate from sitting in a hot shed for years.

I'd actually recommend real Recaros, as these seats have tons of lower back support, but not much upper back or shoulder support. I will change them out eventually when I can find a decent set of Recaros.

I'll take them now and give you my bad recaros and stock seats.
 
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