Steve Kiddell's All steel 3.0l L6 engine has done a lot of had work over recent years. We have started on a refresh/rebuild to restore it to full power(and a little more). The changes are only slight but we expect it to come in just over 300hp at the fly this time as opposed to the 296 it made before.
As we are no longer involved with building engines for anyone else we can focus 100% on this one.
A joint effort soon had the engine out of the shell and on to a stand.
I have stripped it all down to its individual componets.
As expected the pistons are scuffed and have polished the bore on the thrust side. Nothing major and this is just what happens when you use lightweight short skirt racing type pistons.
Steve has already asked JE to make a new set and added the anti friction coating this time.
The new pistons will be 88.25mm as opposed to 88mm before. That means we can have a +10thou rebore and hone without significally thinning the bore walls. 5 thou is very small.
Our ultrasonic readings show a healthy 5mm thickness .
The new pistons will also have fly cuts to allow for a more agressive cam timing this time.
Meantime I have cleaned everything, repainted the block and bagged and tagged everything else.
We are fortunate to have a torque plate for boring and honing, so I have already re installed the main bearing caps and torqued them up.
All the crank bearings are being replaced but before ordering I will get the crank professionally measured and some remedial work done on it if deemed neccessary.
We are already about 20 hours spent and many many more still to go.
Thankfully all the really tedious block relieving and smoothing was done last time.
Here are a few pics to show where we are for now.
As we are no longer involved with building engines for anyone else we can focus 100% on this one.
A joint effort soon had the engine out of the shell and on to a stand.
I have stripped it all down to its individual componets.
As expected the pistons are scuffed and have polished the bore on the thrust side. Nothing major and this is just what happens when you use lightweight short skirt racing type pistons.
Steve has already asked JE to make a new set and added the anti friction coating this time.
The new pistons will be 88.25mm as opposed to 88mm before. That means we can have a +10thou rebore and hone without significally thinning the bore walls. 5 thou is very small.
Our ultrasonic readings show a healthy 5mm thickness .
The new pistons will also have fly cuts to allow for a more agressive cam timing this time.
Meantime I have cleaned everything, repainted the block and bagged and tagged everything else.
We are fortunate to have a torque plate for boring and honing, so I have already re installed the main bearing caps and torqued them up.
All the crank bearings are being replaced but before ordering I will get the crank professionally measured and some remedial work done on it if deemed neccessary.
We are already about 20 hours spent and many many more still to go.
Thankfully all the really tedious block relieving and smoothing was done last time.
Here are a few pics to show where we are for now.
