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Practical Engine Building: Step 9: Long Block Assembly

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Step 9: Long Block Assembly

51.14

00:00 - The next step of our process is our long block assembly which is where we're going to be fitting the cylinder head, which we've just completed with our completed short block from the previous step.
00:10 Now as well as this, we're also then going to be fitting our water pump, our timing gear components and timing up our cam gears.
00:18 We'll then finish off of course with our sump installation and we'll essentially have a completed engine ready for installation in the vehicle and the initial startup.
00:27 Before we go ahead and fit our head gasket, I did want to just mention that we have actually made a small change to the specification of the head gasket we're using since we began this project.
00:38 Initially I was going to be using a stock Mitsubishi Evo 9 MLS style head gasket and that's still an absolutely valid choice.
00:47 However since we began this project, another option did come up which I wanted to try.
00:52 And this is called an Athena cut ring gasket and essentially this uses an older style composite gasket for sealing the oil and water galleries but it uses a stainless cut ring which locates on the top of the bores and then has a couple of little ridges that actually, as its name implies, cut into the cylinder head.
01:14 This is not a new technology but using this in conjunction with the composite gasket that actually locates the rings as well as sealing the oil and water galleries, is a relatively unique take on the cut ring style.
01:29 Now normally this would require machining o ring grooves into the top of the block or the top of the bores in order to locate those rings.
01:36 In this case, the composite gasket does that job for us.
01:41 We've seen good results from these gaskets with a number of my colleagues out there in the Mitsubishi tuning world so I'm personally quite interested to give this gasket a go and see how well it works out in our application.
01:51 However if you're using a stock Mitsubishi MLS style gasket or any other gasket for that matter, the procedure that we're going to go through will still be exactly the same.
02:00 I'm going to begin here just by giving the deck surface of the block one final clean down using brake clean and a rag.
02:08 Now this is essentially our final opportunity to give that deck surface a last clean, making sure that there's no oils or debris left on the deck surface that could impact on the head gasket's ability to do its job.
02:22 Now during the machining operation or machining process, the two dowels that locate the cylinder head and head gasket positively to the block have been removed and this is pretty common.
02:33 More often than not, you'll probably find that your machinist will not refit those and they will be returned to you separate to the block.
02:40 It is absolutely essential that these are replaced or refitted before we go ahead and fit our head gasket and the head.
02:47 What we're going to do is locate these into the chamfered hole and these should tap gently into place just using a small hammer so we'll get that done now.
03:00 At this point we're ready to fit our head gasket and we've got a couple of options here.
03:05 We can fit our ARP head studs and we can use these as a guide for both our head gasket as well as our cylinder head.
03:13 However there is a little trick with this in that some of the locations for the head studs in the cylinder head will make it tricky if we install the head with those studs in location in order to get the washers for the ARP hardware down between the studs and the springs, the valve springs.
03:32 Now there's a couple of ways around this, one is that we can install the head and then install our studs which is exactly what we're going to do here.
03:40 Or alternatively what we can do if the studs are already installed is we can insert the washers into location in the cylinder head before we lower it down into place.
03:49 Just a little trap there because if you don't realise that, it can be tricky to install those washers after the studs have gone in.
03:57 In our case we'll get the head gasket into place now and then we can deal with the cylinder head.
04:08 Installing the Athena cylinder head gasket is relatively straightforward, the only trap to watch out for which should be pretty self explanatory is that the cut rings actually have 2 different surface finishes.
04:20 On the underside these are smooth, this is the side that goes down against the block, the top side that locks into the cylinder head has the two little ridges or spikes on it so just important to make sure that these are around the right way, however the head gasket only goes one way up so the only way you can get yourself into any trouble here is if those cut rings have actually fallen out of the composite part of the gasket and you need to replace them.
04:45 What we'll do now is we'll clean the deck surface of the cylinder head and we can then drop that carefully into place over our two dowels.
04:57 Before I do drop the cylinder head into location, I just want to mention here that in preparation I have just backed number 1 and number 4 piston slightly away from top dead centre.
05:06 When we installed the camshafts in the cylinder head, we made sure that those were installed in the right location so that number one cylinder was set up for TDC, this leaves number 4 cylinder on the overlap, so both the intake and exhaust valves are slightly open.
05:22 So just to avoid any potential, if my timing wasn't quite right, for valve to piston contact, that's why I've backed that off.
05:30 Let's take our cylinder head now and we can drop that into place.
05:43 Alright we've got our head in place and it's really important when we've just got the head sitting here like this to make sure that we have fitted the positive stop into our engine stand so that there's no chance of the engine stand accidentally rotating and the cylinder head falling out of place.
05:59 We'll now get our ARP hardware prepped and ready to install.
06:03 We're going to begin by taking the ARP washers and we're going to be installing these down on top of the head stud holes in the cylinder head.
06:11 Before we do this though, just following ARP's recommendation, we're going to give these a clean on both sides with our brake clean just to make sure that none of the coating that they ship with is still in place, we do not want to lubricate the washers themselves.
06:26 Now I do also find that during the installation, can be beneficial to use either a screwdriver or in this case I'm going to use a scribe and just that allows us to locate that down into the stud hole, making sure that the washer goes into the correct location.
06:41 So let's get these washed and installed now.
06:55 Next we can go ahead and install our studs.
06:58 We do need to be mindful here depending on the material that the studs are made of.
07:02 Ours are custom age 625+ and this material is susceptible to hydrogen embrittlement if we are dealing with these or touching these with our bare hands.
07:11 So always a good idea to wear gloves when dealing with this type of material.
07:16 I'm going to take the studs and apply a very small amount of clean engine oil to the threads that will engage in the block, we'll then wind them into place using an allen key remembering here that we're not trying to torque them into place, they just essentially need to be done up, just to finger tight so let's get that done now.
07:57 Alright now that we've got all of the studs in place, we can go ahead and install the nuts.
08:02 Now what we want to do with the ARP nuts is make sure that we've got a generous amount of the ARP moly based lubricant on the underside of the nuts and then a little bit protruding up into the threads as well so it's important to make sure that we get a consistent amount of torque or stretch in those head studs once we torque them into place.
08:24 Now one of the little tricks that I use here when I'm installing these, because they can be a little bit fiddly to get started.
08:30 Got a half inch drive extension here with my socket here which is a half inch socket.
08:36 So what I do, once I've go the bolt, the nut ready to install, I'll just get this generally into location and then just sharply move that down onto the head of the stud and that will allow me to get it located before the nut moves or drops out of the end of the socket.
08:53 Takes a little bit to get used to but it is relatively quick and easy to do once you understand that.
08:58 Another little trick that you can use as well is making sure that you've got a little magnet on a stick so that when you inevitably do have one of those nuts dropped down into the wrong spot, you can easily retrieve it.
09:11 So let's go ahead now and we'll get all of the ARP nuts installed.
09:41 Alright we've now got everything installed essentially finger tight, we're ready to start torquing the nuts down.
09:47 Now before we do that though, I just want to point out the locations that I was mentioning, where it's difficult to get the washers into position over the studs, that includes number one cylinder here on the exhaust side, the proximity of the stud to the spring is quite tight.
10:02 Likewise in the centre here, both sides on our intake and exhaust and then number 4 cylinder on the intake side we see the same situation there so as I've said, there's the option there to install the cylinder head over the studs, if the studs are already in place but it is a good idea just to locate at least those 4 washers into the cylinder head properly before you do so to make your life a little bit easier.
10:26 We're now going to use the ARP recommendation for our torque and the recommended torque here is in 3 stages starting at 35 foot pound, then moving to 70 and then finally 100.
10:39 We'll be torquing these in the Mitsubishi factory order, essentially starting in the middle and working our way out diagonally so that we're pulling the head down evently without distortion.
10:48 Let's get our first stage done now.
10:59 Alright we've got our first stage complete, we're now just going to do the next two stages, obviously just a rinse and repeat of what you've just watched so let's get those done now.
11:24 Aright we've got all 3 stages of our torque complete there.
11:27 As a sanity check just as we did with the main girdle on the block, we're going to go through and check each one individually, understanding here that we will need to exceed our 100 foot pound to actually make the nut move again so we're just essentially making sure that on each location, the torque wrench clicks off before anything moves.
11:51 Alright we've got our head now torqued into place correctly.
11:54 We can have a little bit of a clean up of the components left on our work bench and carry on.
11:59 Now that we've got all of our components laid out for our next stage of assembly, I'm going to begin here by torquing down our cam bearing caps.
12:06 And you'll recall during the cylinder head assembly, these were just tightened by hand.
12:11 We're now going to use our torque wrench and the specification from Misubishi here is 15 foot pound or 20 newton metres so let's go ahead and get all of those torqued to spec now.
12:29 Now we want to fit our cam pulleys but before we do this, it is important to make sure that the two backing plates that go behind those cam pulleys are installed.
12:38 Now I do like to apply a small amount of loctite to the threads of the M6 bolts that hold these in place.
12:46 If these did work loose, they could end up running down inside the cam belt and that obviously could have disastrous consequences so a little bit of loctite on those threads is a nice safety measure there.
12:56 Let's get those installed now.
13:18 Now that we've got our backing plates installed, we can go ahead and install our cam sprockets.
13:22 Now there's some information that is worth reading and understanding on this procedure in the factory workshop manual.
13:28 Particularly with our intake side, we do need to lubricate the mating surfaces of the camshaft as well as the outside diameter of the cam sprocket as this is what will actually run against our camshaft oil seal so let's get a little bit of clean engine oil on those components now.
13:51 Alright we can now install the cam sprocket.
13:53 It is important just to pay attention to the location of the dowel hole in the back of the sprocket and obviously the dowel in the front of the camshaft.
14:07 Once we've got that installed we can just positively check that the cam sprocket isn't rotating, another sign obviously that we do have it correctly located on that dowel.
14:17 Now what we're going to do is take the cam pulley bolt and this again, we want to follow the factory workshop manual here.
14:25 A lot of people will apply a thread locker to these bolts, or a sealant, that's actually not what the factory workshop manual calls for.
14:32 Instead just a minimal amount of clean engine oil on the threads as well as a small amount on the underside of the head there.
14:39 And that will just make sure that we are achieving the correct amount of stretch in that fastener when it is torqued to spec.
14:46 Let's get that started now.
14:50 With the bolt now located, we can use our torque wrench and tighten this to the factory specification of 48 foot pound.
14:57 Let's get that done now.
14:59 It is important while we are doing this to make sure that we properly and positively support the camshaft using the hex here between cylinders 1 and 2, make sure that the camshaft doesn't rotate, otherwise we do risk the possibility of bent valves or damage to the valves and pistons.
15:24 Now that we've got our inner cam sprocket bolt tightened correctly, we're going to install the little cap and we'll torque this to specification as well.
15:33 It is important here to understand that there is a seal that sits between the underside of this little cap and the sprocket itself.
15:41 There is a rubber aspect to that seal which prevents oil leakage out through the front of the cam sprocket so important to replace that if your existing seal isn't in good condition.
15:52 Let's get that in now and we'll torque that to specification which is 24 foot pound.
16:01 Alright we've now completed the installation of the intake cam sprocket.
16:04 We're going to repeat the process on the exhaust cam sprocket, although obviously this is a little bit more straightforward.
16:11 Again there is no loctite called for in the factory workshop manual, we're going to simply tighten the centre bolt there to a torque of 65 foot pound.
16:27 Now that we've got our two cam sprockets properly torqued down, we're going to take the opportunity while we're still working on the top of the cylinder head here to install our two camshaft position sensor plates and housings on the rear of the cylinder head.
16:41 Now these are different for the inlet and the exhaust cam so it's important to make sure that you are installing the correct one in the correct location.
16:49 The housings are only going to go in one location so you can't mix those up.
16:54 Again the workshop manual here gives you all of the information you need to know so what we'll do is we'll start with our inlet cam housing and what we do need to do is apply a bead of 3 bond or a suitable silicon sealant to the back of that to seal it to the cylinder head and we can bolt it in place so we'll get that done now.
17:25 Now that we've got the housing installed, we can install our sensor plate.
17:29 And what we want to do is make sure that we align the two little teeth here with the slot in the back of the camshaft.
17:37 And as another little tip here, you can see that there is a small dot of white paint.
17:43 Now when we've got this installed with our inlet cam here at top dead centre with our timing mark pointing essentially straight up, the white paint mark should be at the top so this is how we know our orientation is correct so let's get that installed now.
18:03 Alright we've got that installed basically finger tight, we're going to now torque this to the workshop specification of 16 foot pound.
18:11 Again we can use our crescent in order to support the camshaft and stop that rotating.
18:22 With the sensor plate now installed, we can now fit the blanking cap or plate onto the end of that housing along with a fresh gasket.
18:37 Alright we're going to repeat exactly the same process now with the camshaft position sensor housing for our exhaust cam.
18:53 The sensor for the exhaust cam can be orientated in two directions and we can see that there is a small tooth and a large tooth.
19:00 If we have our exhaust cam set up on TDC number one which it should be, then we want to orientate this so that the large tooth goes nearer to the bottom, it'll actually be angled slightly towards the intake side of the engine.
19:15 So let's get that into location now and we'll torque it in place.
19:24 Now we've got our sensor plate torqued into location, we can of course fit our blanking plate so let's get that done now.
19:35 While we're at it, one other little sanity check I always like to do when I'm working with a slide adjustable vernier cam gear like the HKS one we've got on the exhaust is just to make sure that before we go any further with timing belt installation, that the cap screws that lock that in place are in fact tight, otherwise we can potentially risk damage while we're beginning to time the engine so let's just check those now.
20:03 I did actually manage to get a little bit of movement out of all 3 of those bolts so something that was worth checking.
20:08 Alright let's move on here and we'll get our rocker cover now installed on the engine.
20:13 One of the more common and frustrating issues I do see with 4G63 engines is leaking rocker cover gaskets.
20:22 They do get affected particularly by the heat coming out from the turbo and exhaust manifold and they don't seem to have a particularly long service life so this is something I would highly recommend replacing when you are rebuilding the engine.
20:35 I've also had reasonably poor results with cheaper aftermarket rocker cover gasket sets so I always recommend going with genuine Mitsubishi components for those.
20:45 This is actually two part because we do have 4 little seals that run around the spark plug tubes and then we have the actual gasket itself which of course goes into the rocker cover.
20:56 Now it's also important to thoroughly clean down the rocker cover.
20:59 Particularly the breather system can trap dirt and debris so a thorough cleaning is really really critical before we go ahead and install that.
21:09 We'll go and put our gaskets in place for a start and then we can get ready to drop the rocker cover into place.
21:21 Alright we've got all of our gaskets installed, so the rocker cover's ready to fit.
21:24 It's important to mention here, for our particular build, this is only going to be a temporary installation and we will be of course adjusting and setting the exhaust cam timing as well.
21:36 We won't cover that as part of this worked example but you will find that in our camshaft degreeing course if you're interested in learning more.
21:42 So because we are going to be removing the rocker cover again, I'm not going to final fit this.
21:48 It's important to note that if you are fitting it for the final time, as per the workshop manual, it is important to apply a small dab of our 3 bond sealant in the four corners of the cam caps and this will just help avoid any potential for leakage so i'm going to overlook that, I'm also only going to use two bolts temporarily to hold that rocker cover in place so let's get it into location now.
22:21 Alright we've got our rocker cover now installed temporarily and one of the reasons why this is important is that we do actually have our match marks on our rocker cover here which we use for the mating marks on our cam sprockets which are useful or essential when we are timing the engine up so that's why having the rocker cover installed at this point in the build is actually quite important.
22:44 Alright let's move on now and we can start installing some of the componentry on the front end of the engine.
22:50 Alright we're going to begin by installing our blanking cap that replaces our balance shaft that we've removed, already discussed this briefly when we were doing the short block assembly.
23:02 Couple of ways of doing this, you'll remember we can use a frost plug or in our case we've had a small alloy plug machined up that's going to fit in there nicely.
23:11 So in order to seal this, it's not going exposed to oil pressure as such but obviously there is oil splash inside the crank case so we want to make sure that it is thoroughly sealed so it's not going to present a leak and to do this I'm going to be using a Wurth product called Motor Seal so we're just going to apply a coat of this around the outside perimeter and then we can press it into place.
23:34 It would just require a gentle tap into place there using a hammer so let's get that done now.
23:44 With our blanking plate now pressed into location we can just clean up any excess sealant using brake clean and a rag.
23:55 We also need to fit a bolt to replace the tensioner pulley for the balance shaft belt which we're now not running and in this case all I'm doing is using a cap screw the right length to fit into that hole so we can get that installed and tighten that up too.
24:13 Next we can assembly our drive sprocket onto our crank snout.
24:17 Now we've got a range of parts that do fit onto the snout of the crank, this starts with the drive sprocket for our balance shaft belt, again we're not running that but that will act as a spacer, we then have our crank sensor plate, so this is important for the crank position sensor, then we've got our cam drive sprocket, finally we have our washer and our actual bolt that holds all of this together.
24:44 Couple of important points here to note, the washer that goes through there does have a chamfer on one face and that chamfer, that needs to face outwards.
24:55 Pretty self explanatory there, not too difficult to make sure you've got that right and we also want to make sure that when we're assembling a lot of these parts, the threads on the crank bolt and the underside of the head does require a very small amount of engine oil for lubrication so let's slide all of those components into place and we'll leave the crank bolt 'til last.
25:50 We'll apply our lubricant there, our engine oil to the threads on the crank bolt, as well as the underside of the head but at this point I'm not going to actually torque this into place, we'll leave that until we've got our engine timed up.
26:04 So for the time being, this can be just tightened up lightly with our rattle gun.
26:12 When we are using the rattle gun here to tighten the crank pulley, we're not trying to tighten it to an operating torque.
26:19 All we want to do is tighten it enough so that during the cam belt installation stage, we can rotate the crankshaft both clockwise and anti clockwise using a strong arm or our ratchet without the crank bolt coming loose.
26:34 It is also important to make sure that while you are using the rattle gun here, we don't want the crankshaft to rotate.
26:40 We're not again needing a huge amount of torque here with our rattle gun so usually sufficient here just to manually hold the cam drive sprocket while you're using the rattle gun so, let's get that done.
26:54 Next up we're going to install our water pump, again I'm using a brand new genuine Mitsubishi component here.
27:01 And this is an area where I see a lot of people using silicon sealants in place of the factory gasket so the factory gasket suffices here, there's no need to use silicon with that gasket but we do want to make sure that both surfaces, both the block as well as the back side of our water pump are clean and free of any oil or debris so let's go ahead and do that now.
27:41 Next we're going to install our engine mount which is relatively straightforward.
27:45 There is one small trick to keep in mind here, one of the bolt holes for our engine mount actually intersects with one of the head stud holes so it is recommended by the factory workshop manual to apply a small amount of sealant to the threads of that particular bolt only.
28:01 I will also mention that typically there is a backing plate that fits between the engine block and the back of the engine mount.
28:07 We are not running that plate in this application however normally you would install this.
28:12 So let's go ahead and get our engine mount installed.
28:25 Alright we've got the other 3 bolts installed now and again I'm just going to use our 3 bond and just a small amount of 3 bond on the threads of that other bolt before we install it is sufficient.
28:43 The engine mount also acts as the locating point or pivot point for this arm here which acts on our hydraulic cam belt tensioner.
28:53 So there are actually 2 little plastic inserts that are pressed into this arm and that's what runs on this particular stud here on our engine mount.
29:03 So it is important to make sure that these are thoroughly cleaned and there's no dirt or grit embedded in that area and I also recommend using a high temp anti seize and liberally coating the plastic bush with that anti seize before installing it so let's go ahead and do that now.
29:30 We can now go ahead and install our idle pulley, our tensioner pulley and our hydraulic tensioner.
29:48 At this stage we can torque the idler pulley down to factory specification however our eccentric tensioner pulley, we're going to need to still be able to move this as we tension the cambelt so that just needs to be finger tight at this stage.
30:01 We also now need to install our oil pump drive sprocket so we can go ahead and do that now.
30:08 With that oil pump drive sprocket we do need to be mindful that the inside diameter of this will run against the oil pump seal so a little bit of lubrication on that surface is always advisable just to make sure that that seal will last.
30:28 Now the installation of this pulley does actually require a little bit of understanding.
30:32 Now most people who are following this worked example are going to be removing the balance shafts, I haven't built a performance 4G63 engine while retaining the balance shafts.
30:43 However on the odd chance that you are retaining the balance shafts, the timing of the shafts is quite critical.
30:49 And we can see here there is a white mark on the pulley and there's also a reference pointer on the oil pump housing.
30:56 So we want to make sure that those are aligned however, we can still end up with that balance shaft in 2 locations.
31:04 To help us with this, there is actually a bolt on the intake side, sorry the exhaust side of the block which we can take out and by inserting a screwdriver through that, if the balance shaft is in the correct place to be timed up then the screwdriver should fit in around about 100 mm or thereabouts.
31:24 On the other hand, if you try and insert that screwdriver and it straight away hits a block, that is hitting the balance shaft and what we want to do then is rotate the oil pump pulley an other 360° and try again.
31:38 Once you've got that timed up you can replace that bolt and you're going to have the confidence that the balance shaft is in the right spot.
31:44 I also need to torque the bolt down, the nut down onto that oil pump drive but given that we don't have the balance shaft, this makes it a little bit tricky so I'm going to actually do this once the cam belt is installed.
31:58 So for now, what we're going to do is just install that nut and I'm going to make it really clear that it is not torqued in place, we can see I've only just screwed that on a couple of turns so it is really important to make sure that you don't overlook this.
32:12 At this point we're not ready to fit the cam belt.
32:16 Installing and timing the cam belt on a 4G63 isn't overly tricky however I know it is an area that a lot of enthusiasts do struggle a little bit with so we're going to go over this in a bit of detail.
32:28 Now one of the problems here is if you are following the workshop manual, it has a relatively unusual process for doing this and it does require some special service tools that simply I know most enthusiasts won't have.
32:41 And this is particularly around getting the correct amount of tension on the idler, or sorry tensioner pulley before we lock that up.
32:49 The process we're going to use does not require that, it's the process I've used for literally 100s of cam belt installations of 4G63s, it is absolutely rock solid.
32:59 You will however require one special tool.
33:03 And the one I'm using here, they are available from a range of manufacturers, this one is from TNE Tools and it's used to tension the tensioner pulley.
33:12 You can see it's got two little prongs here, and these locate into the holes in the tensioner pulley, allowing us to rotate that, we can, as you can see here, install a quarter inch drive strong arm on that, giving you enough leverage to easily tension that pulley.
33:30 You should be able to purchase one of these for somewhere in the region of maybe 20 to 30 USD so it's definitely not going to break the bank and it is just one of those tools that is essential when it comes to 4G63 cam belts.
33:43 Now before we get into this, we'll just go over in a bit of detail the marks that we're going to be looking at here and what they mean.
33:50 So first of all, if we look at our crank pulley, we can see that there is a notch on the crank position sensor plate.
33:58 Now that notch is our TDC mark and that will align with the little pointer that we can see on the front cover there.
34:06 So that's our crank pulley, that's when we've got that at top dead centre.
34:10 We are starting here with our crankshaft just a little bit rotated away from TDC as we've already explained.
34:17 We've already discussed the marks for our balance shaft pulley, our oil pump pulley and again just to reiterate, chances are you're not going to be running them so the actual orientation of this simply isn't important.
34:29 When it comes to our camshaft sprockets this is a little bit tricky here because for some unknown reason, the last owner of this engine took it upon themselves to make their own marks on the rocker cover.
34:41 So to avoid confusion, I've actually gone ahead and remarked the correct location in yellow.
34:47 Looking at our exhaust cam here, our HKS cam pulley, I've got a yellow mark here which is at the top, just to be clear though, these are universal so we can see we've actually got a couple of notches sort of aligned around about horizontal on that pulley.
35:02 Those marks are for timing the early generation 4G63, we don't use these on the Evo 9 or actually anything Evo 4 and above.
35:11 So we're only looking at the top mark here and we've got a match mark on the back of the rocker cover here which is also in yellow.
35:19 The intake cam, this is a little bit more straightforward, again I've just marked the pulley in yellow and we've got the match mark on our rocker cover in yellow so those are the marks that we're going to be wanting to use there.
35:33 Alright, what we're going to do is start by taking our HKS cam belt and we're going to get this located onto our exhaust cam, doesn't really matter where exactly we put that but just getting it into location so we've got something to work with.
35:50 Now I'm going to use a cable tie here and I'm just going to locate the cable tie through the pulley and we'll just tighten that up and that's just going to make sure that during this process, we don't have any chance of the cam belt actually slipping.
36:10 Alright so we've got that tight.
36:12 Now the exhaust cam in this situation will sit quite nicely in the natural position here exactly one tooth counter clockwise or anti clockwise from the correct timing position.
36:23 The reason it sits here is because of the tension of the valve springs.
36:27 We're going to use that to our advantage though, in the next step we're going to essentially time up the intake cam as well.
36:34 To do this what I'm going to do is rotate the intake cam so that the timing marks are again one full tooth anti clockwise or counter clockwise from the timing mark on the rocker cover.
36:46 Once we've got that in that location, what that means is the orientation between those two cam gears is correct.
36:53 So we're going to apply a paperclip, a bull dog clip there to the cam belt and hold that onto the cam sprocket and that will help us as we move through the rest of the process.
37:04 So let's go ahead and do that, to do that we're going to use our hex socket here to allow us to easily rotate that cam gear.
37:21 Alright so we've got the cam belt in the right location, the cam pulley in the right location here.
37:26 And I'll just get our bull dog clip into location, sometimes this is a task that really requires an extra pair of hands but we can manage there, we'll just get our cam belt wrapped around a little bit.
37:40 Now as we loosen the tension on that intake cam, we can see that it pops back into its natural location and that's absolutely fine.
37:50 We have got the cam belt located positively with our bull dog clip on one side and with our cable tie on the other side.
37:57 The process from here, what we're going to do is now get the cam belt fed over the idler pulley then over the oil pump pulley then over the crank pulley and then finally over our tensioner pulley.
38:10 Now as we go through this, once we get down to our crank pulley, we will need to rotate that crank pulley and get it onto top dead centre, remembering we're still a little bit off.
38:18 And it's really critical that we make sure that when we do this, we have our right hand side of our cam belt here nice and tight.
38:28 As I do this, I'm also going to rotate the exhaust cam so that it is on its timing mark.
38:36 So that will mean the relationship then between our exhaust cam and our crank pulley is correct.
38:41 Finally as we apply the cam belt over the tensioner pulley we're going to need to again rotate that intake cam to give us enough slack in the cam belt to get that fitted.
38:53 So let's got ahead and do that now.
38:56 So first step here, we'll just rotate our crankshaft back and make sure that we are nicely aligned on that timing mark.
39:03 Using a 17 mm ring spanner here, I'll just get that located onto our exhaust cam and that will allow me to rotate that once we get ready to fit the cam belt onto the crank pulley so now I'm just going to rotate that gently around, making sure that I've always got tension on that cam belt.
39:22 Got that on the timing mark right now, so that should slip nicely onto our crank pulley, again just making sure that we do have that positive tension down the right hand side, got that there at the moment so I can now release the tension on our exhaust cam, the crankshaft will rotate a little bit as we do this and that's absolutely fine.
39:41 Next step, while I'm still holding that cam belt, we'll just now rotate our intake cam and that will give us the ability to get the cam belt over our tensioner pulley.
40:00 Alright so we're over the tensioner pulley, we can let go of the tension on the intake cam now and before we go any further, what I'm going to do is just make sure that the cam belt is sitting back in the right location, so positively engaged on the full tooth contact there which it is.
40:18 We can now go ahead and use our tool to tension our tensioner pulley.
40:24 Now when we are tensioning this, we do need to be mindful that we want to rotate the tensioner pulley anti clockwise.
40:30 So it's always important to make sure we are rotating it the correct way and as I do this we can see that the cam belt will become tight between our two cam gears.
40:40 Now what I'm looking for here is around about 3-5 mm of movement between those two cam gears.
40:49 So if I press down on the cam belt, we can see that the cam belt is moving around about 3-5 mm and that's about what I'm looking for.
40:57 What we'll do now is we'll lock that off and we can check our timing marks.
41:18 So our first check is of our crank pulley and I can see that we're perfectly located there on our TDC mark so our crank pulley is OK..
41:26 We can see that our oil pump pulley is not but we've already explained that is not important for our application.
41:32 Looking at our exhaust cam, we're perfectly matched with our mark on our rocker cover.
41:37 And we are also perfectly matched on our intake cam.
41:41 So at this stage, we know that the timing's correct, what we're going to do now is we'll remove our bulldog clip, we can then remove our cable tie and I'm going to rotate the engine through two full revolutions and just check our timing again so let's get that done.
42:03 Alright after two full rotations there we can see that all of our match marks still line up, our two cam sprockets and also our crank pulley so our timing is in fact correct.
42:14 Now the next step here is we do need to pull this pin on our tensioner, our auto tensioner and if we have got the tension on our tensioner pulley correct, then the little pin that goes through this should be relatively loose and easy to remove and what we want to do here, our final sanity check as to whether or not we've got our tension correct, the extension of our auto tensioner between the top of the auto tensioner and the underside of the rocker arm it acts against, that should be between 3.8 and 4.5 mm.
42:48 So if it's extended beyond this, this means that we haven't tensioned the cam belt properly and we need to go through that process again.
42:57 Removing the auto tensioner and recompressing it, replacing the pin and then retensioning the cam belt.
43:04 Of course if we've over tensioned the cam belt, the protrusion will be less than that 3.8 mm and that's again a sign that we haven't got this right.
43:12 Before we do take note of that, I would also recommend that you do another full two revolutions of the engine and it's recommended by Mitsubishi to allow it to sit for a 15 minute period before you take that measurement to allow everything to settle.
43:26 But that is your final sanity check, that's how you know that you have got your cam belt timing correct and your tension correct.
43:34 From here we've got a couple of jobs left to do.
43:38 Again I haven't tightened our oil pump pulley yet, that's why I've left that bolt loose as we discussed so now's the time to do that, the torque setting for that is 40 foot pound.
43:47 And I do like to apply a small amount of loctite or thread locker to those threads before tightening it up so let's get it done.
44:07 So at this point we've got everything done behind our timing cover.
44:10 In our instance we are currently missing the oil filter housing so we don't have everything quite buttoned up there but this is the point where we can go ahead and install our timing covers.
44:21 So let's get that done.
44:36 Alright with everything now completed on the front end of the engine, with the exception of torquing our crank pulley bolt which we'll do shortly, we can now rotate the engine over on our engine stand, giving us access to the inside of the crank case and we'll be fitting our windage tray, our oil pickup and finally our sump.
44:54 Before we can install the sump, I'm going to take the opportunity here to correctly torque our crank pulley bolt.
45:01 Absolutely critical we don't overlook this particular step.
45:03 There are a couple of ways we can do this, it is completely possible to torque this once we've got our flywheel installed, we can lock the ring gear up on the fly wheel and that'll stop the crankshaft rotating.
45:15 The technique that I prefer to use while I've got access to the inside of the engine block like this is to simply use something to stop the crankshaft rotating between one of the throws of the crankshaft and the cradle itself.
45:29 And an easy way of doing this is with the plastic handle of a pry bar like this one.
45:36 Or essentially anything else that's going to fit neatly into that location.
45:39 The torque setting for that crank bolt is 124 foot pound and again just to remind you, it is recommended in the workshop manual that we apply a small amount of engine oil to the threads of that bolt as well as the underside of the head.
45:53 Alright so let's get our crank bolt torqued now.
46:00 With our crank bolt correctly torqued, we're now going to fit our windage tray.
46:13 Next we're able to refit our oil pickup and the oil pickup that we are using has been modified to work with our baffled sump.
46:21 It's important when we are fitting this to make sure that we fit it with a new genuine gasket between the oil pickup and the oil pump assembly, this is not an area where we want to be using any sealant so let's get this fitted now.
46:45 Just a little tip when it comes to bolting the oil pickup down, I always like to make sure that I've got all 3 bolts started in the threads before I final tighten anything down and I will also make sure that I tighten down the two bolts connecting the pickup to the oil pump assembly before I tighten the 3rd and final bolt there into the cradle.
47:06 Now we come to the last step of our process here which is to install our sump assembly.
47:14 Now as I've already mentioned, our sump assembly is modified, Race Fab here in New Zealand has extended the capacity of that sump and built in a little stainless steel baffle box with some trap doors in that.
47:25 The idea with this is that the oil can flow into that baffle box around the pickup but then if it tries to flow away, those trap doors will close basically blocking the flow.
47:36 So particularly for a car that's going to be used in competition under high lateral or longitudinal G force, this is a good way to help prevent oil starvation.
47:46 It's obviously not as good as a dry sump system but it is also a fraction of the cost.
47:50 Now installing the sump is again not a particularly stressful or difficult process however it is one area where we can easily introduce oil leaks if we aren't careful.
48:01 And one of the problems with this is that the process of removing the sump will almost certainly result in some level of distortion to the sump rails.
48:11 So one of the things we want to do before we go and install the sump is just view down the edge of the sump on both sides and just makes sure that everything is actually flat and if it isn't, we can easily manipulate those edges just using a little bit of pressure from a hammer in the right spot.
48:30 We want to make sure that those are flat, that's going to give us the best chance of the sump sealing properly.
48:35 The other aspect here is of course the application of the sealant and again I see a lot of people go absolutely overboard with the sealant, it's absolutely not necessary.
48:44 We're looking for a bead somewhere in the region of about 3-5 mm that we're going to apply evenly all around the outside perimeter of the sump.
48:53 We want to make sure that that bead also extends to the inside of all of the bolt holes so we don't have a leak around those bolt holes.
49:00 So we're ready to apply our 3 bond but one last task before I do that, just going to use brake clean and a rag to clean down both our sump rails on the engine block as well as the sump itself.
49:15 Alright we'll now get our bead of 3 bond applied to the sump.
49:34 Alright now we've got our 3 bond applied to the sump, we can lower than gently into place and go ahead and install all of the bolts around the sump and tighten those up so let's get that done now.
49:54 Alright I've just about got all of the sump bolts into place and there's a couple of things I want to point out.
50:00 The first is that before we install these, it is important to make sure that any old silicon built up on the ends of these bolts is removed.
50:06 Failing to do that can end up with damaged threads or even cracked housing so definitely not something we want to end up having occur right at this last stage of assembly.
50:16 The other aspect is that there are two different sizes to these bolts so we can see we've got two shorter bolts and the location for those two bolts is right on the front here, front corner of our sump so it's really important to make sure that you get those two bolts in the correct place so let's carry on now and we'll get the rest installed and tightened down.
50:53 Alright so this brings us to the end of our long block assembly, our engine is now complete, it's ready for installation into the vehicle and its first start up.
51:02 As usual, if you've got any questions on any aspect of this worked example, please feel free to ask those questions in the forum and I'll be happy to answer them there.

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