Stef's 7A-FE Rebuild, up and running since 12/16/07 Options

[hurley97]

So obviously my oil problem is only getting worse, I decided it's finally time to do something about it.

so I went and picked up Defgeph's old 7A...
177,000 miles and was begining to use some oil before he swapped and it sat in the garage for 2 years.
but since I was getting it for free from a friend I decided to pick it up and hope for the best...



so I picked it up Fri (8/24) and the next day it came with me to work (I work at a Toyota dealer) where they unloaded it into the brake lathe room and it stayed hidden for a while. this past Saturday (9/8) me and one of the techs began tearing it apart. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it is actually in incredibly good condition for its age...

I will be spending close to $500 in parts replacing every bearing, seal, gasket, etc that we can think of. What I need from you guys are your suggestions as to what I can do to make this motor a little stronger and better flowing. I'm keeping the stock pistons and considering bigger cams and having the head machined.

We work for about an hour each morning before customers start coming in. Between Sat, Mon, and Tues (today) we have everything pretty much apart (except for the valves since I haven't decided to send them to the machinist with the head or not yet). This is a huge learning process for me and happy to have the oppotunity to do it. I'll add more pics and info so maybe some of you can learn some things too.

This post has been edited by hurley97: Mar 6, 2008 - 9:09 PM

[Bitter]

going to cut the valves and seats and then lap them?

[hurley97]

going to cut the valves and seats and then lap them?

no. I decided anything I could do to it at this point would cost a lot for very little to almost no gain.
we 'ported and polished' the intake and exhaust ports as best we could and I'm pretty happy with the results.

all the overkill things (boreing out the cylinders, bigger pistons, valve jobs, etc) will be done to the engine that is still in my car since it will probably be bad enough to need the extensive work, plus I'll have a lot more time before the rebuilt one needs replacing so I won't have to spend all the money at one time.



This rebuilt engine probably will not be actually going into the car for a few months. I want my current engine to make it to 200k before I replace it... 8000 miles to go, so probably 5-6 months.

so with that kind of time on my hand now the debate is do I want to get all the turbo stuff and put it on the engine while its out of the car then just drop in the rebuilt motor and turbo setup at once, or do I want to run the stock rebuilt 7A for a while then turbo it ? I think I'm leaning towards doing the turbo setup outside the car... thoughts ?

we did put the valves back in already, I do have more pictures but I'll let you guys look those last ones over first