May 2022After the welding was carried out at the start of the year, the car went into dry storage. With it booked in for mapping with Leighton in June, the plan was to get it out in May and start carrying out the a engine work - the 2.4 head
This ported and polished 2.4 head was sold without exhaust and inlet valves and so as we're building a turbo car, we went for Nimonic exhaust valves and they took an age to arrive. As Joe couldn't kick the head rebuild off until these were in hand, this delay pushed us right up against the mapping date. I had bought the head itself off Leighton for a steal last year and when it arrived, Joe found he had to scavenge a few missing parts together from his own parts division to complete it. With everything ready, it was all sent off to a local workshop to rebuild the head.
Going back to the previous issues with the car when mapping was carried out previously, Leighton believed it was caused by a high compression, the old head having been skimmed too many times. For this reason, I asked Joe to test it himself before and after the rebuild. Compression came in at 150psi across all 5 cylinders and, althout this is perfectly acceptable for a good engine, it was just too high when pushing the boost up. Having fitted the new 2.4 head, compression came in at 135-140psi allowing us a lot mnore headroom with boost. Relief!
While the head was off, Joe also ported and matched the exhaust manifold and carried out a bit off future proofing for me - although the car was having a dual port aquamist system fitted for now, I have plans for a direct port system and so Joe drilled the fittings and blanked therm all off. This will save me time having it all pulled apart again when I inevitably opt for a bigger turbo at some later date and start pushing the envelope even further.
Additional work carried out during this phase also included tidying up where the welder had left off (undersealing the welded areas, fitting a new wheel arch that the welder had carved up and replacing the exhaust tunnelling plate to fix my leaning handbrake).
Oh, and Snoopy needed a new MOT, which Joe was able to arrange
With a holiday in Somerset booked that just happened to coincide with the week the car needed to go in for mapping
, everything was all set to finally get this engine singing
