What is involved with fitting forged rods and pistons and is it a very big and expensive job......engine out ?
Paul

yes its not a cheap job at all, it can be done with then engine in but its easier with it out.

when i take the leap il be just handing my coupe over to my garage and just leave it with him until its done. (which wont take long with the amount of rebuilds he gets up to)

Basically:

1) Engine out.
2) Strip it down
3) Send block and pistons to machine shop
4) Rebulit Engine
5) Engine In

Without the cost of the forged internals and any other goodies it will cost around £1000 in STD parts and machining. ie. shells, gaskets, belts, bolts etc

so we are talking about £2500 minimum for a rebuild then ?
Plus you then have to get someone to put it all back together again I suppose ?
That's less than I thought.
What would be the cost for arguments sake of saying to someone....."there is my car,rebuild the engine with forged internals and give it back working....thanks"
Paul

Depends on who builds it, some will slap it together others will take their time checking things writing down clearances and taking photos. Usually you pay for what you get. I think £500-£800 labour is reasonable for a straight forward engine build. As for taking the engine out the car and putting it back well its a matter of space. People who offer that service for cheap will usually rush as they want the ramp back.

i have been ringing and mithering people for a solid week over this as i am likely doing the same ..having spoken to all manner of engine builders race tuners and the trusted forum mechanics i would say this..be very careful who you go to ,if they want to polish or regrind the crank go elsewhere or supply a different crank..you can take your car to certain forum friendly garages and they can do it in situ if you have no real problems with the bores..if this is so the build inc pistons (wossner) and rods all bearings gasket etc would be about 2k or so done by a very knowledgable with these cars mechanic (that includes reconning your head)..if you have bore issues it would be cheaper to have the engine removed as cheaply as possible then taking it to one of the engine builders available through the forums usual coop mechanics or there are a few mentioned on recent threads...is your car running ok and is comp ok as if so it's likely it will be a simple job done in situ..but it would pay to take it to have the head whipped off and make the discisions from there..ill pm you with my number if you give me a ring i can fill you in on more things i have found out that would be of help

Yes. Quite.

The problem on an engine with a few miles on the clock is there is no way to check bore ovality with out removing the head.

The only thing i would question is that you imply (maybe the way im reading) that leaving the engine in would be best yet you talk about a head overhaul.

I would take the head and short as seperate items and would be more inclined to bolt an untouched, but good / working head on to a fully overhauled block which at the end of the day by buying pistons and rods is what your aim for.

I don't believe you can overhaul a block in situ

Steve

At this point I have to disagree. If you intend to build an engine with forged internals it has to come out. I wouldn’t feel comfortable advising putting in a set of 82mm pistons regardless of block condition. IMO forged internals require an overbore to ensure the correct finishing clearance so I would be looking at 82.5mm or 83mm pistons.

]
As above,dont do it on the cheap,
you NEED a rebore to ensure everything is true.

Pistons and rods allow near £1000
Consumables,gaskets etc £200
Belts £100
Clutch if needed
Rebore,main bearings,little and big if needes and balance allow £300-£350.
Head work ontop if needed,
£300 for any gremlins you find

and then the dreaded labour as its not a 10 minute job to remove and refit the lump.

I spent 7 grand on my rebuild. Its the little things that soon add up!

my point was that if there are no bore issues from what i can gather it is possible to do in situ..are people telling me that you need a rebore and cant fit 82ml wossners without one ?regardless of whether the bores are in good order?..also i had advised, as i was, to have the head removed first to find out exactly the state of play, especially if you have potential issues..if you need a rebore then of course the lot has to come out which is what i said..my advise was thus as everyone i spoke to said something different no one agreed on much, and i expect that will continue..when you are trusting someone to do there best by you and are paying a lot of money for thier services..it would be foolish not to try and find out as much as possible from as many sources as possible which is what i did and all you can then do is use your judgement to work out who is right,who knows thier stuff and who is likely to give you an engine that wont last..someone will always disagree and someone will always feel agrieved if you go against there judgement and take it elsewhere..thats just the way it goes...please read my first post again ..i was not advising to do it in situ only stating that if bores were good it could be done so

Machining work alone can come to a chunk of change

block rebore 100-150
bock reface 40-60
balancing of the rotating assembly 180-300
chemical cleaning of various components 50
head refurb ??? Depends what's needed but at least 250


You also need all the forged parts and you will have to pay labour for the assembly and consumable like paint and assembly lube

you will more than likely have to replace all the wear parts like shells and gaskets and you would be crazy to fit a head that's not been checked and skimmed at least

you can add extras like heat wrap, exhaust manifold and inlet manifold porting plus head work

there are a few guys on here that I have built engines for now they can give you an idea of how the costs can creep up and to do the job properly it costs a fortune

if someone claims they can do it cheaply then I'm afraid they are cutting corners and this is an area that you just cannot scrimp on

sorry about the spelling and grammer I'm doing this on my phone

Ricky

Ktm, you cannot do a rebuild in situ. Not properly at least, I can garrentee that any engine that has done more than 60k miles will have some measurable bore ovality and wear, if you are reciting O/E parts then this wear may be in tollerance but if you are fitting forged parts then you need to start from a fresh and correct bore machined and finished to the piston manufacturers exact instructions, obviously this changes from fiat to wossner and it will be different again for accralite or any manufacturer

they all have different bore clearence's and honeing specs and they have to be correct for the pistons, if you don't follow the specs of the piston manufacturer then I'm afraid it will affect relabilty and performance and of course service life

add on top of this if you could bore in situ how would you remove the swarf properly?? You can't in my eyes

Just to dhow you what I am talking about, here is the info that accralite supply with there pistons about boring the block to suit

Due to the high specification of these engines and the high pressures used; a 'torque' plate fitted to the top of the cylinder block to the required torque settings is recommended.

With the block and measuring equipment (calibrated to BS EN ISO 10012:2003) at a temperature of 20.5 degrees Celsius (The temperature the Accralite workshop is kept at) the bore diameter needs to be 83.0mm -0.0 / +0.01mm with a Plateau Honed cylinder bore cross hatch angle of 35 - 40 degrees to a roughness of Ra 0.4 - 0.9 ƒÊm (15 - 135 ƒÊ in).

This will give the correct bore to piston clearance of 0.081 / 0.088mm when measured 90 degrees to the pin and 12 to 15mm up the skirt from the base of the piston."



bare in mind that all manufacturers have different instructions

my car has 54k on it and i had been told it was possible but the head would need removing first to check on that...
you see this is a typical example of what i was talking about for someone like myself.. what do i do? i speak to someone about going forged and my options..they tell me they will do this that and the other but you dont do this and cant do that...so you think ok ill go with that..then in conversation with another reasonably knowledgable guy you discuss what your doing and they say..no you cant do that and you shouldnt do this...so you start phoning the people you hope you can trust and who obviously know more than you..and they tell you some of what you just heard is right and some is wrong then they add there little bit...and before you know it you want to pack it all in and you dont know whos right who you can trust and who just wants the dollars...i gave my opinion and thats just what it was...if you read it again its not contradicting anything you or anyone else are saying i am not advising him to take a course of action (other than with regard the crank)only telling him what i discovered and what is possible.. i have a 54k engine is it possible to fit the wossners i mentioned if there is no bore damage? not accralites ..i have been told by a couple of good mechanics it is...like i said in my second post one says one thing the other another and you have to use your judgement to go with who you trust and think will do you the best job.. that first post really was just a set of options i had discovered existed but i didnt want to get involved with who said what especially when those things are diametrically opposed..

ok its like this you can all have a look at my big fat hairy sphericals if they fit down the bore its all good if not you need a rebore

Why don't we just say it's an involved process that differs for every engine. Budget £6-£7K and pray to the gods it comes under

Yes everyone will give you differing opinions, but fitting forged internals has to be done correctly

You cannot do that in situ, if someone suggests you can then I would argue that they don't know anything about perfeormance engine building and there advice is dangerous, unfortunatly there are many people that think they know what they are talking about and they clearly don't

I would say that if you have bores that are near perfect in condition then lightly honed to then you could get away with using wossners.

But if your bores are 82mm as fiat intended then after 54k of wear and a light hone you will have bores that are larger than 82mm, thus may be a very small amount but you will have large bore clearence's, obviously that's not to wossners specs so yes it will run but it will be noisy from piston slap and as you are running larger than there specified clearence it will affect service life and performance

don't get me wrong many people do this and all seems fine but in my eyes this is a compramise that is easily avoided if the job is done correctly in the first place


And I feel that I should mention that in most cases most would not notice the difference between the two ways we have discussed but I personally will only do it the way that the piston manufacturer intends as anything else is simply not doing the job correctly

man a piston is a piston..if its a wosner it isnt alien technology..if the clearences are god on a original engine and no ovality ..its good..these cars are not on a race track so ewery thing needs to be on set the best..think..do they at the machine shop look in the instructions of example.._wosners or acralite ..the roughnest of the cilinders and etc..they dont because it needs time and time is money ..do they have 20,5 degres exactly at the machine shop..sillyyyy

so you say he will have a blow by at 54 k ..if he would hawe a blowbuy with wosner fitted he would have them with the fiat ones to ..the pistons are the same size..only diferences are that they are forged they need more clearence when warmed than original ones

Nixa you do not know anything about performance engines, if you would like me to explain please feel free to ask me a question

I freely admit that I do not know everything but I know more than enough to build high performance engines, I have prooved this on more than a few occasions but if there is something I feel I cannot answer correctly I will find the answer

ricky

2 phrases i think are needed here :

Do it once, do it right.
Buy cheap, buy twice.

This is coming from the man who has spent over 15k!

spot on,
i use a chap to rebore the bottom ends and balance them.Hes the most unreliable bloke in the world and way too laid back.But hes great,and so far nothing in 10 years has ever failed.
Rather it take 3 times as long than it done quick and cheap.
If your not careful the spending can really get out of hand.
By the time mines finished it will owe me 10k.
And i dont pay myself labour.

that i totally agree with... the problem is who does it right? you can only speak with the people who suposedly know, when they are all giving conflicting advice what do you do then? who is going to stick thier neck out and say so and so does it right and properly

we must have written those posts at the same time john as my answer was to begbies post ..are you around today

First of all I'm certainly not going to stick my neck out & say I'm an expert on such matters as engines being discussed at the moment. We can all read up about it etc,etc, but the question should be as ktm has asked...... who do you trust to do the job? Apart from the cost, this is the one thing that will make or break the finished result. Obvious I know, but this is the first thing I would be asking myself, who?

I was Rob,sorry just got this but you can pick up the blower anytime dude.