I got the engine put together for the most part over the weekend, but I had a few points I wanted to bring up. Since Roger pre-gapped my rings and numbered my pistons and cylinders, getting the new pistons in was a piece of cake. As a side note, the JE piston's compression rings are very similar in appearance, one being marked "N" and the other "2N". The "N" ring is slightly thinner and square, this is the top compression ring. The bottom compression ring is slightly thicker and is marked "2N", and has a chamfer on the inner edge. Both rings will fit in either slot on the piston, so it's easy to get these confused. In reality, mixing them up will cause the thicker ring to "stick" when compressed on the piston.
I decided that since I'm using copper gaskets, I'd use the permatex copper coat spay. I'm wondering if this will be sufficient enough to prevent leaks at the head gasket. I chose to use the copper coat so that if I need to disassemble the motor later for any reason, I won't risk damaging the gaskets that may occur if I used ultra grey or gasgacinch. I sprayed ab 3 coats on both the head and base gasket. I'm a little worried this may be leaky just because the copper coat is tacky and more liquid like than an ultra grey sealant, as I can see it squish out at the base gasket when I start torquing things down. What are you all using on copper gaskets?
I installed a new DID cam chain and front and rear guides; I peened the cam chain master link using my motion pro chain breaker and a hardened bolt. It worked well. I had to use an impact driver to remove the 4 philips head bolts at the rear chain guide.
The shell cam went in just like factory, with the notch on the camshaft at 12 clock. Unfortunately, the new bearings did not go on the cam as smoothly as I'd have liked; I have a feeling that they'll be difficult to remove next time the cam needs to come out, as they needed a little coercion to slide fully on the camshaft.
I purchased all new grade 8 hardware for the 6 rocker box to head bolts; I used stainless washers underneath these and I ran into an issue when torquing the head. My torque wrench is a piece of shit harbor freight, and even w it set at 14lbs., it would not click at the setting, and instead would just keep on adding torque. I realized that things were getting too tight when one of the head to rocker box bolts broke. I thought I stripped a thread on the head, but the bolt had stretched and broken. I went ahead and pulled all the bolts back off, pulled the rocker box and cleaned off the yamabond; the sheared bolt threads were accessible when I pulled the rocker box, so I was able to remove it with my fingers and breath a sigh of relief that I didn't strip the head.
Today I'll be purchasing new bolts and hardened washers for the head to rocker box and a real craftsman torque wrench, then I'll get the rest of the motor torqued. I noticed the stainless washers I was using had deformed under the bolt heads, probably contributing more to the inaccurate torque settings I had initially applied. I'll be using hardened washers the 2nd time around.
Sorry for the lack of photos, will post up when I get the motor finished.
