Yes, in my opinion they worth every penny.

Increases in road noise is acceptable and the front feels quite a bit more planted.

Last saturday I removed the head to look at the bores and was pleasantly surprised by some nice looking bores. Honing marks still clearly visible and only a small lip at the top.
Stripped the head to find that it looks ok too, only one small scuff at number 1 bearing cap.

I am going to get the head skimmed a bit. Orginial compression is only 8:1. A bit too low for my taste, so need to work out how much I can skim of the head.
0,8mm will give me 8,49:1 and 1mm will result in 8,62:1.

0.4mm is the second repair skim shown in the manuals, though no maximum stated as per 16v heads which is 0.2mm.

The figure stated by the repair manual is based on the availabilty of headgaskets isn't it?
The head has plenty material to remove by the looks of it. I have measured the distance from the inlet valve to the underside of the head at 6.2mm. That + 1.2mm of the headgasket gives me 7.4mm of valve clearance when te valves are shut. I do not now the lift at BDP of the standard or DKZ camshaft, but I doubt it will be more than 2.5mm.
7.4-2.5 is a guestimate valve clearance of 4.9mm at BDP, which leaves plenty of room to skim the head to reach my desired compression ratio. I will be fitting a adjustable cam pulley to make timing corrections.

I think I will skim by 1mm to raise compression to 8.62:1, or am I missing something?

Got my head back after getting it skimmed by 1 mm and am currently polishing the combustion chambers. I sourced an 2.0 8V non turbo inlet manifold which designwise looks a lot better than the turbo one, but it will need some modifications so that the throttle housing is in a more ideal location and isn't of the ovalish type.

Since I originally wanted an alloy build, I decided to paint the iron lump silver

I lapped the valves in and adjusted the valve clearances, which I'm not used to as the RFY has hydraulic compensation. Initially I wanted to use the original RGX cam and upgrade later to a DKZ cam so that I could clearly know the difference between the two, but decided just to go for it.

Only thing I am uncertain off is if I try the original inlet manifold first and swap to the 2.0 8V later.

The new exhaust setup has been made. Needs some finishing touches but there wasn't time anymore. At the moment it's a cat less Simons 2,5" system. It is the same muffler as I used in my first turbo build with an extra mid muffler added. On the turbo it is wasn't really that loud, but now with the original engine it's making my ears bleed! Needs a turbo engine quick or I'll get deaf The sound when changing gears at 5500rpm+ is nice(spitting), but that's the only advantage.


Some parts, the sportcat will be added at a later point. Hope it will bring the noise down.

The rear muffler...The exhaust tip will be hidden at the right end of the bumper, the original "hole" needs too get filled up.

The cat did not make any difference in noise, which was a bit unexpected.

I ordered some parts for the turbo engine. For just €54,- I have bought a set of Glyco main and big end bearings.

Quite cheap compared to pulleys from Baker B&M/Catcams/Piper etc, hopefully it is a proper product.

At the moment it looks like I have a decent change to get the turbo in this summer

I had my mind set to get a set of Team Dynamics Pro Race 1.2S, but came across this set:

They aren't as light and don't look as good, but they were cheap and most important they are 16" 7J ET9. Quite rare to find that kind of ET and the best way to widen the track of the car imo.


I always have to move stuff around to get near my engine, the room is too small

Slowly my ordered parts are getting delivered. Todat I received a EGT sensor, which fits nicely in the old hole of the EGT sensor. I removed the heatwrap and although it had taken its effect on the metal, it should be fine. But this is my second manifold after heatwrap and I will not heatwrap it again, it just causes to much damage to the metal.

Is that the stock 8v exhaust manifold? The flange looks the same as the impreza turbo? If so could be a good base for the 16v conversions.

Steve.

Yes, it is the flange of a Subaru Impreza(etc), but this is a custom build manifold.

Removed the pistons to clean them up. Did not work as well as I hoped, lots of carbon :( I am going to get them ultrasonic cleaned.



Also decided to take the turbo apart to asses if it would be worth it to upgrade from 13T to 19T compressor, but in the end the turbineshaft is pretty much fucked and I have sourced another TD04L 13T. I'd rather have a TD05 16G, but there a bit out of my price range at the moment.

I remembered we used ovencleaner to help remove carbon deposits when the 1.6HDI injectors were leaking(which they did an awfull lot!)
Don't have an oven so looked on the web for a grandma solution...
Apply dishwash soap on the pistons put them in a closed box with a little bowl ammonia and leave it for half a day or so. Using an old toothbrush about 95% off all the deposits(even in the ring grooves) came off quite easily:)

With the pistons ready, it's time to build up the engine.


In goes the crank with plastigage...

Clearance is very close between the bearings and with 0.050mm it's right between the tolerance range

cam pulley looks like direct copy of BBM item.