Goldenwarrior1

Haven't missed a single word

Hardback

Getting close my friend... Received all my LN parts except the cylinders. I was told they will ship this week. Im like you, been driving my pickup for over 3 months now. Its time to get back on track... so, when's Your start up ceremony???

chsu74

I love what you are doing Logan. The waiting period during break in miles are going to be tougher than the build..

logray

Finished her up just before the kick off. Literally.

Before I get to far ahead of myself, a few careful notes.

All fluids added. Uview 5500000 vacuum coolant fill with fresh G12 coolant. Fresh gas (tank was emptied during storage). Nearly 10.8 US quarts of Brad Penn break in oil. Fresh hydraulic oil. I installed a new slave cylinder and bled that too.



Everything gets a final once over before firing (as indicated by another undercarriage shot).



The plugs and coil packs are NOT installed at this point. This is to allow priming of the engine with oil pressure without loading the bearings. The coil pack connectors hang loose, and the fuel injectors are unplugged. The engine is rotated using the starer motor only. A little bit. Then a little more. Then until the oil pressure builds, in this case up to about 4 bar, and held there for about 10 seconds.

Then the oil is given time to drain down and brought the level up some.

Plugs go in, packs go on. Injectors connected. Mufflers.

The computer is ready to monitor oil temperature, cam deviation, rough running, and fault codes. Safety gear, a torch, and some instructions to the person in the cockpit on how to proceed.

The helper in the cockpit is instructed to immediately bring the RPM to 2500 after firing and then vary it between there and 4000 for about 15 minutes.

A high speed fan is activated for exhaust and to blow some fresh air on the radiators.

Then...... THE MOMENT OF TRUTH. The entire 15 minute long first firing video for your enjoyment.

You Tube

pterfloth

Bravo! Fantastic! Congratulations!

Dharn55

Congratulations Logan. It must be a great feeling! Especially to not have any leaks, etc. now for the first drive!

dotframe

i got so excited when I saw this I sat down to show it to my wife. Then when I started to explain why I was so excited I realized you "just had to be there"

Congrats man I would never be able to do this but it has been fun to read.

street rod

Really sounded smooth. Nice job congrats.

dcdrechsel

Bravo-there are two sucess stories here .The obvious one that the engine is done .The other is the fantastic documentation along the way .The pictures and narrative are excellent and useful for all of us.
Thank you .What's your next project ?
Dave

speed rII

Now go drive the S***t out of it

philooo

Thank you for taking so much time documenting all the process !

I think this is the best engine rebuild thread so far. You almost have enough to make it a real book.

I wish Jack would have his DVD out, so that I could watch the whole thing on my HDTV during the cold winter nights

Detoxx

Congrats, and great thread. Very informative and a great read

Cloudspin

Fantastic!! What a thrill and reward that must have been for you after all that work. I'm excited just watching it and thanks again for all the extra time spent documenting it for all of us to follow!

logray

Thanks everyone. Yes, you certainly had to "be there".

It was an anxious but gratifying 15 minutes after startup, scrambling around looking for leaks, listening for strange noises, monitoring the computer and vitals... even after a good nights sleep, I'm still amazed that there were absolutely 0 issues. No leaks, no unusual noises, no hard starting, no hesitations, etc. It started almost immediately as you can see from the video, and aside from the puffs of smoke/oil burn off from the tail pipes you would have never known it missed a beat in the 4 months of downtime. Pulling the plugs and injectors, priming the oil and fuel prior to starting probably helped dramatically with the easy startup.

Without having been in the drivers seat yet, my first impressions were that the engine seemed to run incredibly smooth. With my hand on various parts of the engine, there were no hesitations or wobbles. The person monitoring the gauges and changing the rpm's commented that he could barley feel the engine.

The sound was incredible. The 3.6L stock cans along with the fabspeed headers give it a nice throaty sound. The video and audio recording from my cheap camera simply do not do the sound justice. It was pretty incredible to hear it roar, especially up to the 4000 rpm area (can't wait to go higher!). I will post some more video later once I have time to edit it down and publish HD quality stuff.

While monitoring the vitals, I almost had a heart attack, I saw 14 degrees cam deviation on bank 2, but then remembered I was using the wrong file provided by Durametric (with the current version 6 you cannot monitor bank 2 cam deviation on ME5.2.2, but I helped them debug this so it will be included in the next release of v6, if not already available). Once I got the right file loaded up both banks were at 0 degrees and steady, but I think it might have ticked over to 2 degrees by the time the 15 minute run was over with (I've noticed ME5.2.2 DME after battery reset is slow to register cam deviation, it might take certain conditions before it completely registers). I'm fine with a 2 degree cam timing advance on both banks.

Monitoring other vitals, after the 15 minute run everything looked normal, by the end of the run, IATS was 63c, ECTS 102.8c, and oil temp 111.8c. Not surprised it heated up a little in the garage with just the one external fan blowing on the front and the two high speed radiator fans turned on manually. Didn't have a time to look at rough running or other values yet, but a brief glance at O2 sensors looked normal, and there were no fault codes. I'll gather some more data during the next run.

I can't wait to get in the drivers seat and drive the sh**t out of it. First things first though, change the oil filter, top the oil off, and bolt on the cross members, heat shields, cowling, and bumpers.

I have a good 2 mile straight stretch of 10% grade nearby where I should be able to really open it up (prob. keep under 5k rpm, but loading the engine heavily in 2nd or 3rd) and also get some good engine braking on the way back down for hill repeats. Here are the break in recommendations from LNE, and I'm not using a dyno:

http://www.mototuneusa.com/break_in_secrets.htm
http://www.aircooled.net/gnrlsite/re...s/engnbrkn.htm

I'll post some videos from the drivers seat during the first road test/break in.

Once that's done, a couple hundred miles later the oil and filter will be changed. I'll probably be using Valvoline MC 4T VV740 10w40 (perhaps a couple changes) before switching to synthetic.

And after that... I'm also dying to know the results of the 3.6L bore. is there anyone in the Reno/Sacramento/Bay Area that would like to donate some dyno time or make some recommendations? I'll provide the beer, or chips, or cookies or whatever!

insite

i'm not! you take '**** retentive attention to detail' to a whole new level! :-) fantastic job taking your time to ensure even the tiniest operation was carefully considered. thank you for documenting this so well for us! have fun.