I’ve already put my D16Z6 block together and spec’d the bearings but if you need more info on this, here is a link to D-Series forum post that explains it a little more. Click Here for the link.

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Part 2 of building the bottom end was more interesting as it was starting to look, more like an engine. The reason I inserted the pistons in first is because you can’t secure the crank shaft from falling out without the main caps bolted on if the engine is right side up. And while the main cap girdle is bolted on it’s really hard to bolt up the rods caps.

I made sure all the bearing surfaces were clean before I added on the bearings to the rods and block.

I used the red assembly lube to lubricate all the bearings including the thrust washers. It really helps to get some grease on the thrust washers as it will make them stick to the block easier so they don’t fall off while inserting the crankshaft.

I also put a bit of grease on the crankshaft where the thrust washers sit so this is lubricated till the first startup. Once everything was ready I inserted the crankshaft into the block and put on the rod caps.

I used ARP Molly lube for the threads and under the head of the bolts for the rods to get the proper torque feel. I torqued the bolts to 25ft-lbs first,  then to 43ft-lbs.

Once the rods were done I put the main cap girdle on and used regular oil for the threads and under the washer of the main cap bolts. I torqued them down in the sequence as before and first started with 25ft-lbs and then finally 43ft-lbs

Once the main cap was secure I turned the block around and took some shots of the pistons in the block.

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Last weekend I had some more time to work on the engine so I started by pulling off the masking tape from the block and cleaned up any tape residue from the paint job. After that I washed the block with some soap and hot water, and then  quickly dried it off with compressed air. I then used a paint stir stick rapped with Bounty paper towels to clean the inside of the cylinders while I sprayed some WD-40 on the cylinder walls. I did this till the paper towels did not show anymore dirt from the cylinder.

As you can see in the image above the engine block looks great after some fresh paint. I dried the inside of the cylinder walls with paper towels and sprayed WD-40 to lubricate the cylinder and to clean out any left over dirt, dust and minor surface rust

After the block was clean I disassembled the pistons from the rods and washed everything thoroughly with hot water and soap. After everything was clean I assembled the pistons back together with assembly lube and put on the piston rings. When putting in the piston C-Clip’s make sure your using the proper C-Clip pliers otherwise don’t bother cause they are not easy to put in without this proper tool.

When adding the rings to the piston, I put on the oil rings first, the 2nd or middle ring next and finally the top ring. I just used my fingers to expand the rings carefully and made sure I didn’t break them. Once I was ready to insert the pistons back into the block I used an old clean toothbrush and carefully applied 30weight oil on the skirt and rings of the piston.

Once the pistons were nicely oiled up I used the toothbrush to apply oil to the inside of cylinder walls and made sure everything was lubricated for proper for piston insertion. I used a regular piston ring compressor to compress the rings and then used the handle of a hammer to bump the top of the piston down into the cylinder. Be very carefull and if the piston doesn’t go down after a few bumps, check to make sure your rings are compressed.  I did run into one problem where the oil rings weren’t compressed enough and it was stopping me from inserting the piston into the cylinder. Now taking the ring location into consideration if the intake side being 12pm on the clock, I put the 1st ring around 11pm, 2nd ring around 5pm, the main oil ring about 3pm and the 2 other oil rings about 10pm and 7pm.

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Getting the rings to the proper spec was actually easier then I thought, all I did was oil up the cylinder walls, inserted 1 ring at a time and pushed it down 1″ with the piston head, then I used a feeler gauge to check the clearance. If the gap was too small I took the ring out and filed it down on the special ring filer tool I borrowed of a friend. I was very careful not to file down too much at a time so I had to do this a few times per ring. I separated the rings into the 4 cylinders and made sure not to mix them up. I used .018″ gap  for the top ring and .019″ gap for the 2nd ring, I left the oil rings are left as they were because they did not need any filing.

In the picture to the left you can see me using a piston to push down the piston ring currently being gapped. In the picture to the right you can see me checking the gap using a feeler gauge.

In the picture above you can see the piston ring being filed down using this special tool. In the picture to the right you can see my engine block all masked up ready for painting.

I used Dupli-Color Aluminum engine paint to paint the block on the outside to make it look nice and new. This will help from any aluminum corrosion that might happen down the road.

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After bolting on the connecting rods I bolted on the main cap girdle and noticed that I have very little room between my ARP rod bolt and the girdle so I had no choice but to notch the girdle.

As you can see on the image above the space between the ARP rod bolt and the Main Cap Girdle is not very much. I used my new Dremel Tungston Carbide Cutter bit to notch what I needed.

Up top on the right you can see the first step of my notching process and then the the final job on the right. I didn’t want to take too much off at first so I notched only a little bit of the girdle but then after bolting it back on the engine, I realized I needed way more and went back to notching it.

As you can see in the images above that I have way more room for the bolt to clear after notching which makes me feel a bit more at ease when pushing so much horsepower through this engine.

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Last weekend I had some time to check the connecting rod bearing clearance which was again interesting to do. All 4 of the rod bearings were in the .0013-.0015″ clearance range which is a bit on the tight side but still within limits for this turbo build engine.

Just like the main bearings I placed a piece of plastigage on the crank journals and tightened up the rods bolts slowly. I made sure I did them evenly to make sure the rod cap went on straight. I already had ARP molly lube on the threads and head of the bolts from the machine shop so I tightened the bolts up to 25ft-lbs first then to 43ft-lbs.

I loosened of the bolts with a 2 stage process and knocked of the caps with a piece of wood being very carefull. I then used the Green Clevite’s Plastigage to check the rod bearing clearances which were all around .0013 to .0015″.  On the right is another picture of my bottom end with my rod caps on.

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Last Sunday I got around to checking the main bearing clearances and got some good results. All 5 of my main bearings were in the .0013-.0015″ range which is within the limits of what it’s suppose to be. I had some time today so I posted how it all went.

I wiped off the area where the bearings sit in the block and placed the new bearings in place. I then used the Green Clevite’s Plastigage to check the clearances

I cut a small piece of the plastigage and placed it across all the journals

I then put the other half of the bearings on the main caps.  As you can see in the picture on the right the plastigage is barely visible.

Two of the main cap bolts in the D16Z6 are longer then the others so I made sure I inserted them in the 2 middle holes on the main caps. I remembered to lubricate the bolts and the washers in oil for better torque feel.

Working from the middle I started finger tightening all the bolts first, then to 18 Ft-lbs then to 38 Ft-lbs. Once they were all tight I loosened all the bolts in the same pattern and took off the main caps.

Then I checked the journals using the plastigage and mine were reading .0013″ to .0015″ which is way within limits for my D16Z6 block.

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I finally got my D16Z6 engine block back  from the machine shop yesterday and took a bunch of pictures to post up the blog. 

As you can see the Block Guard is nicely installed in my D16 Block.

The machine shop did a very nice job on boring and honing out the cylinders.

After the top of the block was decked you can see the sleeves are more visible.

The main bearing cap is nice and clean after hot tanking process.

The main bearing bores were checked by machine shop to make sure they are true.

The Crankshaft was micropolished and looks really nice now.

The FJ R SPEC Connecting rods and Vitara Pistons look really sharp in these pictures.

My next step will be to plastiguage the main bearings.

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