"Project Turquoise" KE20 build

Tommy · **Posted:** Fri Nov 23, 2012 5:32 pm

Well the 4AG is fully stripped, I should bring out the micrometer anytime soon

The guy who traded diff with me finally got it open. I was spot on on the ratio : 4.222:1 but he was able to confirm that it was a B type 5.7".

So he wanted me to give him the rear driveshaft flange since the bolt pattern is realy weird and the center ring is a lot smaller than usual. So after work today I pulled the driveshaft from under the car to have ot stripped.

Ones again, i'm very happy to swap the whole drivetrain from out of there... I don't think I can trust anything mechanical on that car. I pulled only 600ml of oil from the tranny and it was so thick, it looked like bunker fuel.

Oh and have a look at my OEM tranny support... looks legit!

So I stripped the whole driveshaft

Yeah, same length as the housing!

And I have an other problem, the 22 teeth yoke and rear flange are from an AE86 and the driveshaft is the KE's original.

U-Joint comparo between AE86 and KE20

The design is different, the KE's caps are held on using C-clip as the AE are "crimped on" and supposidly "non serviceable". But overall the caps dia is a little different on both cars with the AE86 ones being the biggest ones.

So I'll have to oversize the driveshaft ear's holes to accept AE86 u-joint cap and get myself 2 aftermarket u-joint for AE to hybrid my KE driveshaft with the AE86 yoke and flange.

Tommy · **Posted:** Mon Dec 10, 2012 9:13 am

Well, lots of boring stuff happened, so not a lot of pictures...

Brought out the micrometer and took every mesurement possible on all the heads and cams I had laying around. Nicest head was chosen but the cam caps on the intake side had very small score marls. I ended up openng very slightly the oil clearance to get rid of the marks, did it on both cams for good measure. After micropolishing of the caps and cam journals, oil clearance is a little heterogenous between caps depending on the previous damage so it varies between 0.0019" et 0.0028" which is the upper limit of the range in the FSM... and pretty far from the max of 0.0039" anyway.

The cams are mix and match so I'll have a complete valve clearance job to do once everything is back together but I took the time to measure the 48 shims I had and place them in a fishing box all labeled by thickness so it should help speed up the process.

After finishing the cams and cam caps polishing I flipped the head around and brought out the dremel

It's hard to see on the picture but the one on the left is almost done and the one on the right is stock. I completely blended the transition between machined area around the valve and the rough cast finish of the chamber. I also enlarged the area around the valves and oppened the chamber a little more around all valves so it is now flush with the cylinder bore. All the transition are completely smooth so no sharp edge are left for hot spot to form. I finished the surface with a wet sanding using 1000grain and completly polished the chamber is order to keep carbon deposit at bay. All 4 are now done and I'll now turn my focus on the ports. No cutting and/or reshaping will be done in the ports, just a sanding of the casting marks and blending of all transition between machined area and rough finished. I'll finish the intake with 80grit and completely polish the exhaust once again to keep carbon deposit away.

While doing that, I had a couple of question going through my mind about the LSD. First the Ad when I bought it said it was a 1.5way, some said it should be a 2way but overall the amount of info on those 6.38 TRD LSD is almost none existant... well their is the definite anwser :

Oh yeah!

The rebuild kit according to the TRD catalogue I have here is the same number as a 6.7 so the friction plate should be identical... But my 6.38 is only using 2 friction plates per side instead of 4 like on the 6.7. Good thing is that a rebuild kit will give me enough friction plate to last 2 rebuild, but it will probably means that they'll burn 2 times faster... so I think I'll grab a rebuild kit soon just in case I need to open the damn thing next fall. Oh and for the smart ones, it was already a bitch to reclose the damn thing so stuffing 4 more plate in there is really impossible.

Tommy · **Posted:** Sun Dec 30, 2012 7:45 am

Here is the POS I bought for 300$ last week. Engine was supposed to knock so the PO stopped using it last summer, turns out the engine goes perfectly, it just had an exhaust rattle lol

Anyway, the car is dead. A friend of mine took the exhaust manifold and wiper arms to go on his girlfriend's AE92, another took the wheels and tire to go on a tercel, someone took the hood trunk and rear light, I stole the fuel pump and assembly, all the zinc bolt from the inside... all in all it's now officially a bitch : everyone raped it for parts :p

But the real reason I bought that POS was for that other POS sitting under the hood... ugly 7A-FE

Stupid engine... so I started ripping through it on december 20th evening with some "circomstantial" beer... "Fin du Monde" translate to "End of the World"... lol

Stupid slave cam setup but the inside looks neat for a 230,000km granny car

Has a crank angle sensor, thing I didn't know existed on an A engine..

And 5A cams...

Anyway, nice piece of crap... so almost everything is gone in the scrap bin except that nice straight 8 cam that will make a very nice lamp :wink:

to go with the ones I already have...

And the gay crank along with the sissy rods that seams like made out of toothpicks tried running away before behind thrown in the scrap bin like the rest...

But I decided to save them and make a nice coffe table out of them

Anyway, apart from the "home decor" stuff, all I kept to use as "engine bits" were the buckets and shim (not that I have already enough, but shims are always nice to have around. I also kept the wiring so I can strip it and have a nice supply of multiclored wire when I need them. But the only thing that will end up in the peanut is the engine bloc and oil pan since the 16v doesn't bolt and the 7A is half alloy so it's less heavy. It even has a cast in bung on the alloy section right under the oil filter that is ready to be drilled and tapped for the oil return line from the cooler, although I've never heard of a stock 7A that came with an oil coolers, toyota casted the oil pan so they could add one if they wanted. The rest is officially in the scrap bin...

Here is the nice tall deck A block

With the alloy/steel oil pan

Bearing are practicly new, automatic granny car will do that to your engine

And the cylinders are really neat, a little polished on the exhaust side, but that's to be expected. It's not bad at all, nothing that will catch a nail so a nice light hone should take car of everything.

Oh and a friend also unloaded his garage in my car yesterday, I have a redtop flywheel, engine support brackets, stiffner plate, brand new 16v waterpump and thermostat, starter, alternator, and lots and lot of other parts

So some of you might wonder why the heck I went through such trouble to get a 7A if I'm going to make a coffee table out of the stroker crank that came in it... well, the plan is to destroke the 7A with a 4A crank, retaining stock 4A bore and stroke, but since the 7A bloc is 15mm taller, it will allow the use of longer rods instead of the 122mm that are stock on the 4A, thus turning the 1.58:1 rod/stroke ratio into something around the 1.8:1 mark which will make the 4A even more "rev happy". My "special" rods should arrive monday. I'm looking forward to see how they'll fits the bluetop crank and pistons... according to all the info I gathered, everything should bolt right on except for the piston pin : new rods are 19mm and bluetop piston are 18mm so I'll just need to oversize the piston pin hole by 1mm. If everything works fine, it will allow to destroke a 7A with 30$ OEM rods

That would be a really nice upgrade for anyone wanting to make their 4A more revvy... and more reliable at higher rev... for real cheap

I'll keep you updated on the "talltop" or the "4A big block" which ever you guys want to call it

Camshaft · **Posted:** Sun Dec 30, 2012 8:43 am

I love tiny, responsive, rev-happy engines. I admire your committment to your goal of having an oddball engine AND increasing performance. Looks like you've made a great choice...can't wait to see it all together!

whit · **Posted:** Sun Dec 30, 2012 6:15 pm

That $300 POS is what I drive everyday for the past 6 years,same color. :lol:

Tommy · **Posted:** Sun Dec 30, 2012 7:36 pm

whit wrote:

That $300 POS is what I drive everyday for the past 6 years,same color. :lol:

That one had an A245E crapmatic...

lol

Tommy · **Posted:** Thu Jan 03, 2013 7:12 am

You've got to love the cold climate... sometimes... Took me under 25min this morning (at -25°) to remove all the sound deadning inside the car

Tommy · **Posted:** Sat Jan 12, 2013 11:08 pm

Well, finally received my rods, so after double checking that everything was fitting good, here is the recipe for the 4A-GE "bigblock"

Here are the rods to compare

7AF - E16 - 4AG

The 7A run on a 42mm crank pin, same as all the FWD 4AG but the bluetop RWD crank and E16 both runs on 40mm crank. The inside dia of the big end is exactly the same, I even put 4AG bearings in the pulsar rods on the picture.

Only difference between both engine are the oil clearance so the E16 bearings are 0.005mm (0.0002") thicker. The 4A bearing have some smaller notch and the oil holes are on the opposite side. So I'll probably grab some 0.001 or 0.0005 undersize E16 bearing, depending on individual clearance.

So the E16 rods are between 137 and 137.5mm long (stupid caliper battery died on me) but it's between both measures. Nissan piston pins are 19mm pressed. To fit my bluetop 18mm pistons, I'll only need to oversize the piston hole by 1mm. When I'll have ACCURATE measurements of what's needed to get the piston flush at TDC, I'll be able to move the piston pin + or -5mm from it's original placement in the piston to make the job easier. Should be a really easier and cheap machining operation.

If one would want to use newer 4AG piston with the 20mm floating pins, one could always mod the rod to oversize the hole and press in a toyota brass bushing and use a 20mm toyota pin and be done with it

And the rod are exactly the same thickness

So they go with the bluetop crank like daddy in mommy

Since the deck height difference between both 4A and 7A bloc is 15mm and the difference between the E16 and 4A rods are between 15 and 15.5mm (stupid batteries again...) I should be able to make them fit even if I need to cheat a little on piston pin height since I already have to mod the piston a little.

So the recipe is :

-1 7A block
-1 bluetop (ou TRD) de 40mm crank
-4 4ag pistons to go with your head, 16v or 20v, (18 or 20mm pin)
-4 pin (depending on pistons, either 19mm Nissan or 20mm Toyota)
-4 rod of E15ET, E16s or E16i from an 80s pulsar NX or Sentra classic.
-E16 rod bearings (check clearance) or modded 4AG (oil hole)
-all that's necessary to make a 7A-GE (porsche timing belts, etc...)

The rest is bolt-on, only need to mod the piston or rods to take either 19mm Nissan pin (if using bluetop pistons) or 20mm Toyota floating pin if using later pistons

And there you have the poor man's 4AG "bigblock"

Tommy · **Posted:** Mon Jan 28, 2013 8:55 am

While trying to keep it as simple as possible, I decided to carb the Tom-AGE (local guys are starting to call it that way lol) and since the engine build and car resto is getting expensive, I snatched JDMwhiteboy's carb setup (thx buddy btw) for a fraction of the price of a sidedraught setup. Time to flow bench that sucker and experiment with different jetting...

JDMwhiteboy · **Posted:** Wed Feb 13, 2013 10:14 pm

Looks good man!!! Cant wait to see it running!

Toyohead · **Posted:** Thu Feb 14, 2013 7:26 am

Here is another LEGO build engine, like i did with 2E and 5EFE parts

Tommy · **Posted:** Thu Feb 21, 2013 6:11 am

Head porting is almost finished, just need to finish the surface but I kinda lost my sanding paper box... long story

Anyway, I worked on the bigblock a little. Poor block has had it's share of salt in the face... 16 years of winter driving will sometimes to that to you...

I started chipping rust away with a hammer and chisel before brushing it and finally got it looking like that

But it left an orange peel finished on it... and I can really look forward at having and argument with a cop : "No officer, that engine is not stolen... just look at the serial numbers..."

Anyway, if the whole "BMW turbo 1.5L F1 story about the old block left to rust and being pissed on by the mechanist before producing 1350hp firebreathing monster" is true, maybe that's a good thing after all...

And because oil stuck to the block walls is worthless oil not doing it job, it went from this

to this

I also spend a good amount of time doing this

I also thought a lot about my oil clearance and finally decided to aim for 0.0013" oil clearance on the main and 0.0018" on the rods. It's tighter than what I'd normaly run, but on the loose side according to the FSM. The main are tighter in order to push some oil toward the rods, where it matters and I'll also restrict the oil pass going through the head and try to run thinner oil that what I'd normally run.

I should have my redtop pistons at the beginning of the week so I can mock them up and decide exactly how I'll mod the rods, but I think I'll just bore the small end 1mm over and turn the highcomp piston from 20mm floater to 20mm pressin : less trouble and less costly for what it's worth.

So I'm just about ready to order bearing and the like. Update to come.

c_copperpot · **Posted:** Fri Feb 22, 2013 7:13 am

This engine build is very interesting. I'm excited to see the end result. Any plans to dyno the car after it is running?

Tommy · **Posted:** Fri Feb 22, 2013 7:29 pm

Thx for the comment.

Since I have some plans to start running it with the stock intake/T-VIS and engine management, it would be a good idea to dyno the car once it's broken in to compare it to a stock bluetop, see if changing the rod/stroke ratio helped in anyway.

Tommy · **Posted:** Mon Feb 25, 2013 4:00 pm

Here are my patented new piston pin... spruce and masking tape

Made them to test fit the bigblock idea... I'll let the pictures speak for themselves, but I really think I struck gold with that "pulsar rod in toyota block" idea

All that is left to do is oversize the rod small end 1mm over and pressfit standard smallport 20mm piston pin (converting floating to press-in) just because it's easier than to press a brass bushing and get some oil passage up there, plus since I'm not using oil skirters, I don't want to "oil starve" a floating pin... and I also like it tight

To be continued...

c_copperpot · **Posted:** Tue Feb 26, 2013 7:05 am

So the most machine work/modification that you expect to have to do is enlarging the small end of the rod?

Tommy · **Posted:** Tue Feb 26, 2013 7:59 am

c_copperpot wrote:

So the most machine work/modification that you expect to have to do is enlarging the small end of the rod?

Exactly!

Recipe :

- 7A-FE bloc
- 4A or 7A main bearing
- 4A-GE Bluetop 40mm crank (or 4A-FE but I'd stay away from that half balanced 6bolt crank)
- 4A Bluetop or 4A-FE 40mm rod bearing
- E16 or E15ET rods (E15E will not work)
- 7A or 4A-GE big (20mm) wristpin and piston to suit the head you using (16v or 20v)

Everything fits bolt-on except 2 things :

1 - You need to either drill a new oil hole in the 4A bearing because it's not inline with the oil passage in the pulsar rod or make a cosworth notch in the big end (which is what I'm doing to keep as much bearing surface as possible)

2 - Enlarge the rod small end 1mm over.

And you've got yourself a 4A bigblock, or as my friends like to call it a "Tom-AGE"

Toyohead · **Posted:** Sun Mar 03, 2013 1:40 pm

You can indeed use smaller oil clearances, but care has to be taken on the crank out of line tolerances then. I would care of that part too.

Nice build!

Tommy · **Posted:** Tue May 14, 2013 6:10 am

Long time no update, didn't do a bunch but it's moving forward...

Got the block straight as a mirror

Hone the mains and match bearing to get 0.0018" oil clearance across the board. Final honing of cylinder is done and I matched the pistons to the best cylinder.

Running looser oil clearance in the bottom end means it'll need more oil volume on the crank so I fitted in a 1/8" restrictor in the pass going to the head

After dumping multiple hours of machining in the head, port clean up, heavy combustion chamber rework, cam cap hone, valve lap. I surfaced the head on glass and this bummer turns it into a heavy paper weight...

So I have a stock one bathing in varsol that I'll clean, lap valves on, hone cap and slap it on the block with stock porting and combustion chambers... I may worked another one later down the road but I don't really want to go through all that porting work now that reassembly has begun.

Aside from that, I made a little batch of electroplating to restore my old rusty bolts

I also removed a bucket of sound deadning...

...with the help of my son!

And also manage to snatch those wheels... they are dirty, need a little respray but at 14x7 ET+8 it should fit the car pretty nicely.

chithead · **Posted:** Tue May 14, 2013 8:49 am

Very good progress since last updating! Sorry to hear about that crack though after putting all the work into it. At least you had a backup

"Project Turquoise" KE20 build

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