Yesterday was a day of progress, steps back and delays. Isn't that just typical of racing??
On the progress side, my Thursday trip to the San Juans to fix a car got canceled so I was able to have Mario come out a day earlier. We hit it first thing in the morning and by noon, the engine wiring harness was made and installed on the engine side. By 4pm, the entire EFI system was live and all sensors, coils, injectors and triggers were tested and checked good. In that regard a lot was accomplished. We stopped just short of starting the motor. That's where the step back came into play. . .
The step back came around noon when it was time to install the cam sync on the distributor hole. I had not yet installed the distributor drive gear since having it in there without a dizzy to keep it in place will cause it to rise-up in the hole and bind if you hand crank the engine. Even though it doesn't really matter on this cam sensor how the drive gear is orientated, I still wanted to install the drive gear in the correct orientation. So I began to hand crank the motor with the only thing I can hand turn it with; the alternator pulley. As I got about 3/4 turn, the motor "clunked" and bound-up!!
I turned it back the other way and the same thing. . .
So we began the deconstruction to eliminate possibilities each time checking if it would turn. We checked the valve springs for binding (again) - good, removed the rockers - good, checked the valves with a straight edge - good borescoped the cylinders through the plug holes - good, borescoped the intakes through the ITBs - good.
Everything was fine. The last time the motor had been rotated was during the valve adjustment and it was perfect. . . confident that it was not caused by anything internal, out came the motor.
Pulling this motor is not as straight forward as most cars since literally everything is custom on it. To fit in, it must be pivoted at a unit at about a 30 degree down angle on the fwd trans mounts, then you can separate it. 'Course that means you must disconnect all the shift linkage or you will destroy it and possible the trans nose cone and shift shaft. So as soon as we get it ready to separate, I loosen the final nuts on the bottom and shift the motor back about 1/4" and try turning the engine; IT SPINS FREE!! So now we know the issue is in the bell housing.
We separate the engine completely and the witness marks reveal that during the balancing process, a small amount of weight was needed to bring the pressure plate into balance with the rest of the assembly, so a small piece of steel was welded to the PP. Unfortunately, it was interfering with the trans case where the throw-out shaft is. . . So I used a burr to take down the boss on the trans case a bit and the problem was solved. Man, I'll tell you what, I'm gonna give my balancer some good natured crap over that one!!
As for the delay, we decided to hold-off with the starting and tuning until Monday. By the time Josh and I got the motor back in, Mario was finishing up with the wiring inside the car and we would have had enough time to do the initial break-in at least, but there were a couple details that I had overlooked and taking the weekend to get those sewn-up I think would be the wiser move. I also wanted to take advantage of one of the nice features on this new MS3X ECU. I need to install, and wire-in, a momentary button and an LED light to my gauge panel. This will enable me to datalog at the push of a button straight off the ECU to a SD card so no device like a computer or bluetooth phone will need to be in the car for this purpose. This is important since I can't legally have a laptop in the car during a race session.
So all-in-all a good day. Not as great as I would have hoped, but progress was made and by Monday we should be starting, tuning and driving this pig!!