The crankshaft and pistons are in!
For part 2 of this update, the assembly of the rotating assembly!
Step 1: Getting the pistons and rings assembled with a good coat of ATF, and checking the previously determined balance of the rod and piston assemblies.
I got the assemblies within a worst case 0.5 grams, the Chinese Maxspeeding rods were within 1.0 gram of each other from the box. The pistons I filed down from the skirt before to get them including pins and rings within 0.5 grams in the worst case. I placed the heaviest rods and lightest pistons in center two bores, and the lightest rods and heaviest pistons in the outside bores.
Step 2: Getting the crank in and checking all of the journals.
The crank in place, with the new std size bearings, and a good coat of the green lucas oil assembly lube on the bearing half.
I then torqued on all the top caps with bearing inserted without lube, with oil on the bolt threads, with a piece of green plastigage in between, and confirmed a uniform 0.051mm clearance reading across all journals.
I then wiped of the plastigauge on both bearing and crank (easier than I expected with some brakeclean and the white coffee filters). Lubed up the bearings and re-torqued the bearing caps in place with once more oiled threads. After confirming a free spinning crankshaft, with only the resistance of the assembly lube, I checked crankshaft end play, to find about 0.10mm.
Step 3: Assembly of rods to pistons and putting them in
Starting of the insertion of the pistons, I cleaned the bores once more with ATF and white coffee filters. Next I cleaned the rods, pins and clips thoroughly with brake cleaner and added some assembly lube to the pins, and got the pistons rod sets assembled. I inserted the bearings, and repeated the checking process same as with the crankshaft, with the rod side pre-lubed as I put the pistons in the bores. The cap and bearing got placed on without lube as well with the green plastigage in between once more, and the caps got torqued down, a 12mm 12 tooth socket is a must for the provided bolts! (they looked like genuine ARP 3008's enough after checking some reference pictures, so we'll see) I used the ARP grease I got from Sjeng, Super thanks once more
Pistons in the bores, labeled after measurement
After checking each ended up better than expected from the Chinese rods, with a uniform clearance of 0.038mm, awesome! I then took them off again, removed the plastigage from the crank and bearings, and added liberal assembly lube, and put the bolts back in at the right torque spec as was provided with the rods.
I ended up with a bottom assembly easily turned by hand with the crankshaft pulley, so I added some more ATF to the bores, gave it a couple of turns, to make sure all was well, and checked for scratching of the bores by the newly filed rings. All was good so it got wrapped in plastic, until I receive my bearings and bushing, and get to porting the oil pump and its possible future mods.
I also started a little company in automotive related tinkerings and goodies as expansion of my hobby through which I was able to get my twin turbo manifold flanges laser cut as part of a larger group buy for the dutch turbobrickers, so a update on that will follow soon!
As a little teaser to end with for now, I'll be adding GSXR 750 ITB's to the mix, still with LH2.4, to get my turbo lag down, and better breathing of the motor, since I got inspired by Sander's awesome V12 project.