Just throwing this first post in, then I can add pictures due to forum rules.

Thought you guys may like to see my project. Most of this is copied from another forum so its a bit messy.

She's a bit of a mess on outside with lots of surface rust but no major rust issues luckily. Had been in a barn for 10 years or so so it was kept dry.



Interior is super mint though!



The engine is pretty damn tired and only manages about 55mph, the spare is even worse I've been told.







Update 1

Was hoping for better progress this week, but got a decent start on it anyway.

Built the bottom end today with some new bearings etc and painted it up. Didn't like the orange though so went and got some red to suit the new colour scheme



What I found in the sump, with lots of other bits


Stock ports compared to a few hours on the die grinder. Still got shit loads to go.




4.8kg Fidanza flywheel.



In red with a few more bits



As far as I got done this weekend.



I should have the rest of the bits to make the intake next week, the flanges need a hour or so with the die grinder to match them too.

Engine is a 2 liter 8v DOHC from an Isuzu Piazza


Update 2

Took the engine, loom and a few bits out of the bay today then degreased and water blasted all ready for paneling.








Update 3

Took the guards off on Sunday and did a bit of work. Had to use the easy-outs on about 8 out of 12 door hinge screws


Not too bad, mostly surface rust but will have to grind back and see.



Other side wasn't so great, so I'm borrowing a mates mig.




Bit of a boring update but it all has to be done


Update 4

So I cracked into the ole' girl this weekend.

So I started off by stripping the surface rust in the engine bay, when I found this :doubt: (lame pics cause it was dark)



All set for some POR15 Metal Ready and then a prime, minus the rust hole. I also welded up all the un-used holes and will smooth them off later.


Don't have any Metal Ready though.. So I moved onto something a bit less boring.

First up I chopped up the original Bellett (G150) timing plate, as you can see at the bottom/sides it has nuts to take the G150 engine mounts where the Piazza one is different (Piazza mounts from the middle of the block, Bellett = front mount) The G150 plate fouls the sump aswell, so I went choppy choppy.



Then I decided to start on the manifold. After a while of die grinding I sat the plates onto the head.


Carbide bits ftw, although rough.. they are fast. Finished off with stone, will then hit it with 150g paper when its all done to smooth it right off.




Tapped some holes. Sweet new wharehouse angle grinder. $17.99


Tacked the throttle body plates together at the right spacing to make cutting/welding the manifold in the right spot easier


Mocked up in the engine bay in the right spot to get the angle for the runners.



Cut the angle on a runner, getting a template for more port matching. I will need to cut the rest so I can get it all spaced up right etc before grinding though. I had gotten sick of die grinding by this stage lol.



Finally the original mock up I did that gave me some inspiration and a shot I though was kinda cool





Update 5

Fixed rusty sill, still waiting on por15 so no changes to body yet.


Didn't know if they'd suit but I took the plunge anyway and got them. (equip 03 knock-offs) Will mount with 165/45/15s if I can get them. Offset is perfect on rear, has about 5mm clearance to the guard





Update 6

POR15 metal ready'd (gives a zinc coating) then etch primed, few bits to bog tomorrow and lots of sanding to get it smooth ready for paint. Unfortunately the paint didn't turn up but I've got the rust to fix up in the lower shock towers to keep me busy.





Update 7

Bugger all progress this week, have been doing a little panel work and have welded up chassis rails/shock towers. Forgot to get pics so I'll put one up of the cam cover instead.

Went and lent on it and smudged it so hopefully I can find another can of wrinkle paint. Repco probably won't get more in for years. The brushed letters came up alright I thought



Update 8

Fixed up chassis rail/shock tower rust, using my mates gasless mig



Seemed to do the trick after a bit of trial though. I also soaked it all in por15 for the whole week making sure I got it as best I could and thick coats of primer in behind it all to hopefully stop it for a few years to come.



Update 9

Due to working on the new daily driver (TE Gemini) and consumption of alcohol, there has been a rather large lack of motivation to work on the Bellett. But, I've made an effort this week now that the Gem's engine is away at the machinist.

I bolted on the original Bellett mounts to the twin cam. The drivers side fits on sweet, the passenger side mounting holes are about 10mm further back on the twin cam and as you will see from the photo is sitting on the wrong side of the timing plate and 10mm too far back for the crossmember bracket.

Drivers.


Passenger. I also needed to chop the G150 alternator bracket part off as it fouls the timing case on the twin cam.


Just a few misc pics of it all mocked up. Needed to set this all up so I can make sure the throttles won't foul on anything.
















Engine isn't actually built, just the bottom end. The head is just sat on there to get clearance problems sorted.



Update 10

Pretty good day today. Little better at welding but still not good enough, manifold is in its final position and half welded up.


Here's my little jig from yesterday, making life far easier.


Few pics of the almost finished setup on the engine. Ignore the trumpet spacing, they're not on properly.







Update 11

Got some old bike's exhaust off my mate and found some factory Toyota extractors laying around, so I decided to chop them up and make a template for my exhaust.


Quickly cut out a piece of thick sheet metal for a dummy flange, cut the bolt holes and marked the port spacing. I then proceeded to cut, tack, cut, tack, cut tack.. you get the idea. Just using an arc welder and random pipes as its only a template so its ugly as, but saves wasting decent pipe.



Thinking about just getting the pipes bent up as one solid piece so I only have to weld them at the flange and collector, perhaps in polished stainless, depending on price.

The shock towers on this make it hard to make them equal length without being ugly. I might have a look at just dropping then straight down from the head, but that's no fun!

Using http://www.headerdesign.com I got these measurements. With a guess of 150hp (probably a bit optimistic)

35mm primary pipe diameter
800-850mm long primary pipes
55mm collector size (I'll just use 57mm)
330mm long collector

Couple of my other Isuzu's - the TX coupe is a long term project, that I'm keen to throw a modern 16v twin cam into. The TE sedan is my daily driver, soon to have a worked g200z (sohc 2l) in it.

Awesome! Wish we had Bellets here in the US. Engine looks fantastic. Can't wait to see what you do with the rest of it!

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Awesome!! I i jus luv those ol cars. Good to see other kiwi's here. Keep up the progress pics.

is amaizing how much that engine look like the 2TG Toyota engine!

The 2 liter engine in that series went into production in 1978, but the 1.6 liter DOHC engine it derived from was in production cars and on the streets in 1968. Toysport (and Rumor-pedia) say the 2TG engine was introduced in 1970. It might be more accurate to say that it is amazing how much Toyota's 2TG engine looks like the Isuzu engine.

The Toyota 3m was built in 66 though

I love all the old wrinkle paint + silver lettering dohc heads from the early days. Both are cool engines either way

Ran into a few issues with water piping being in the way of the exhaust and the distributor hitting my new manifold, but working around all that at the moment

*os withdraw symptoms , lol

Hai
i see everyone has made it here haha.

Keen on seeing close up pics of wrinkle paint?

oh hai.

I'll grab some pics for ya, comes up pretty much like the factory wrinkle, looks sweet imo. I just smudged it accidently.

The key to to putting it on is not too thick, nor too thin and as even as possible or it will go patchy. I think heating it evenly helps alot too (oven would be best) as I had to move my big lamp around to get it to dry up properly.

Does the Toyota 3m look like the Isuzu G200W also?

In all seriousness, it would be naive to believe anything other than the fact that all of the car manufacturers were dissecting and reverse engineering every competitor's product to learn as much as they could and incorporate those lessons into their own product. But if you hand a G###W engine to an engine builder with more than a few decades experience with sportscar engines, the comments are going to be something like:
"Wow, what an interesting little engine, it's part Alfa, part Lotus/Cosworth, part Jaguar, with some other little bits thrown in here and there."

It's always been more eerie how all of the early Japanese DOHC engines looked similar to the old Lotus Elan engine.

But, one thing to remember, that the Isuzu engine design was adapted from an Isuzu diesel engine, and converted over to gasoline, for use in the passenger cars. That is one reason it is more original and more durable than others that followed.

Looks the same as the 2t-g, plus 2 cylinders.

Can't agree more on strength of these things though, both my sohc g series engines have taken a fair beating. Including the oil light coming on under hard braking at Taupo raceway.

The twincam should be pulling a few more revs, so I'll soon see.

whats your plans for ecu/map sensor setup? keen for mean (lol) updates on itb wiring/setup

v3 megasquirt 2, which has a map sensor. Wiring is actually one of my weak points, but seriously, wiring these things up is very easy from what I've seen.

You can collect vacuum from all 4 into a chamber, which can feed the brake booster too. The only problem with itbs (especially with aggressive cams) is lack of vacuum, making map tuning hard. So you can alternatively tune using the "tps vs rpm" method.


I'll do a detailed write up when I do all that stuff if you're keen man?

Love the bellet mate, spoke to you on the DOHC forum ages back [under Geminicoupe]. TE looks tuff as nails too.

Just a quick one because i noticed you had the sump off, what are you using for a sump gasket? We cant get them down here. Ditto waterpumps and headgaskets

I want to paint/clean my motor up properly before it goes into my TD and thats stopping me.

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[F3ARED] 76 Isuzu Gemini Coupe - forged G180z, EFI, 525hp Turbo, 6years and still building...

Daily 78 Isuzu Gemini Sedan, stock G161z, Rodeo EFI, 500hp roller, 157rwkw. Fun

Keen as!
i am leaning towards megasquirt also for my build as looks like good fun.
There is still enough vacuum created to use brake booster?
I was thinking if it became necessity to use a alternator off a diesel and utilize the in built compressor for vacuum.

Are you going to run tps vs rpm or map? read you can use a combination of both somewhere. i forsee alot more reading

Yep still enough vac to run the booster. Not sure if I'll use alpha-n or speed density (map) yet. You can use a vac chamber and collect from all 4 to even out the pulses and get a stronger vac.

Only running stock cams, so I'll go with map first probably. I'll just figure it out as I go and see what's best.

I used the standard rubber sump gasket, go to Toyota and grab their gasket stuff in a tube, most new Toyota's don't even run a sump gasket and never leak. Just cut your own water pump ones from gasket paper.

Scrapped my exhaust template and am going to start again on it soon. Lately I've been doing a bit of research on ignition and how I'm going to go about getting this thing running, so I haven't had a lot of time to actually get out and work on it.

Been out playing with the front pulleys to get them lined up. Ended up using a g161z (Gemini) crank pulley, taking the inch thick spacer off the g200w water pump and I'll need to get the water pump pulley spacer spun down to line them up, and make a spacer for the alternator pulley off the original g150 Bellett engine

This should all give me plenty of room for the radiator, and I can mock my exhaust up with the alternator in its final position. I also need to modify the water gallery/thermostat housing.

Slowly getting a bit better at this welding business.


I got this collector off kpr from the www.oldschool.co.nz forums, he made a couple of reducers aswell.

I don't mean to sound like an idiot, but what did that engine come out of?

Thanks! Progress is slow at the moment as I'm getting another car out of the way (TX Gemini)

Progress will be in full swing again some time after summer.


The engine is from a 1982 Isuzu Piazza. The rather rare GT-R Bellett coupes had a 1600 twin cam in them factory, hence the almost bolt in conversion with the later 2 liter Piazza engine.