The short - Over the course of the winter here I'm planning to rebuild my motor and clean up the engine bay.
The somewhat longer - My original plan was to pull the motor and trans in my slightly rusty 88 Quest, rebuild it, and transplant it into my 88 Starion SHP. Unfortunately, that car got hit by a very large tree limb in October and smashed the roof. So, that car now needs body work and some other TLC. You know what they say about "best laid plans". The slightly altered "new" plan is to still pull the motor and rebuild, but, for now I'm just going to put it back into the Quest until the Starion is ready. I have no solid timeline on the Starion, so my thoughts are I can at least be working out the kinks in the rebuilt motor while I get the Starion fixed up and then just swap it again later. I'm not planning on doing anything too crazy to the motor, just basically a stock rebuild for now. If you didn't see the threads on the Starion in the B/S section, here they are:
http://www.starquest...l=&fromsearch=1
http://www.starquest...l=&fromsearch=1
Where I'm at/what I have - Up until September the motor was running fine. In early September the headgasket blew and that was the end of that. Though irritated, I didn't really bother me too much b/c I was planning to do a rebuilt anyway. A follow-up compression test yielded some goofy results, so I'm thinking some new rings are going to be in order. In the last few months since then I started gathering some parts:
- Upper and Lower Gasket sets
- Balance Shaft Elimination Kit
- ARP head studs
- JVE kit

I need to still order a timing kit from DAD, and I will eventually be ordering rings, and bearings (if needed). I didn't order rings yet b/c I figured I'd wait to make sure the motor doesn't need to be bored over or anything like that.
I also picked up a spare head, in pretty rough shape, which is out at the machine shop as we speak being done over. I'll post some before/after pics of that later when I get it back. I'd also like to find a place locally to rod out the radiator. I figure now is a good time to have that done.
The engine bay I really wasn't planning on redoing since this car is more of a donor for the Starion, but after thinking about I thought it would make good practice. So, I'm going to go ahead and give it go. Most likely flat black, but I'm not 100% decided on color yet.
So, that's my first post on this rebuild, Thursday I'll be pulling my first Starquest motor and cracking her open to see what we going on inside ..... more to follow.
Edited by techboy, 15 August 2012 - 07:16 PM.