Patrick, Rob S and I spent last week tearing down my Supra 7MGTE engine. The head, block and crank are now with a machine shop requiring differing levels of work (the head is in a bad way, the block isn't too bad and the crank is fine). We found several loose head bolts and a perforated head gasket. There are also indications of oil starvation to the head, probably caused by a knackered oil pump.

Pics online here, for those who appreciate the oily end of a car:

http://community.webshots.com/user/projectsupra

I'll get the final machining quote tomorrow and if all goes well reassembly photos will follow in a few weeks.

Rob

cool shots!

Thanks for posting these pics.

Very neat. Who gets to hose down the digital camera?

Remember: Assembly is the reverse of removal.

Cool pictures Rob. It's also nice to see Mr. S back in action, sporting a rather super beard as well!

Was that Patricks garage you did it in?

We removed the lump in a garage belonging to a friend of Patrick, as he has a full size hydraulic car lift which proved invaluable. We then transported it to Patrick's workshop for cleaning and stripping.

Rob

That is reason number 23 of why I HATE with a Passion boardering on insanity Newer Cars...

Give me a 1970 Suburban anyday of the week, you want to change th e spark plus and its raining just sit on the fender well and close the hood, you don't need 132 speical wrenches and a trained dwarf to work on it and there is no damm spagetti of hoses and wires all over the place.

No computer to generate cryptic error codes you have a rotor a fuel pump and just 1 cam shaft.

and they knew how to make cars back then I put 550000 Miles on my 1979 K-5 Blazer (rebuilt the tranny twice and other then normal wear and tear that was it)

190000 Miles on my 1989 Surburban and I replaced the normall stuff tires, brakes etc and that was it stock engine and stock tranny

1995 Blazer (Biggest POS on the planet) put less then 70k on it and have replaced the alt, timing cover gasket, rack and pinion, ball joints, ac compressor, CPI system, compute, wiper motor, wiper control circute, wiper switch and it still has a electrical malfunction they want to replace the wiring hardness on it.

You haven't left patrick alone with your turbo have you.

You know what patrick does to turbos

You know what patrick does to turbos

You'll be popping flames out of your exhaust in no time!

You haven't left patrick alone with your turbo have you.

I'll admit it's a risk, but I have left him alone with a matched pair of them! Hopefully I will get a nicely reconditioned turbo out of it, and not a jet turbine engine - I think my turbos are a little small for what he has in mind!

Rob

Oh, Man!!

I am like, so jealous and bummed out that I didn't get to be a part of this historic event! Hopefully y'all won't have too many parts leftover come reassembly.

Cheers

Hopefully y'all won't have too many parts leftover come reassembly.

Are you really Canadian or is it a cover-up?

Southern Canadian maybe?

/Michael

For some reason those photos made me think of a Caesarian Section. I think it's seeing all the guts come out and hoping that 'they' know how to put them all back in.

how to put them all back in

And this reminds you of a Caesarian section how? Surely the baby's not supposed to be put back?

No the baby isn't, but the guts are...

Southern Canadian maybe?

They have northern Canadians?

They have northern Canadians

They are large, furry white things that go "Grrrrrrr" when you meet them.

So it turned out that the engine is pretty much scrap. The block is serviceable (3 thou warpage) and crank is good, but every piston is a different shape and size, and the head has previously been machined to death. 5 thou warpage on the face, 15 thou on the cam seats. Doh.

I'm now looking for a low mileage jap import lump.

All this so I don't have to reinstall my empeg in yet another car!

Rob

That's too bad and to find out after doing all the work of removing the engine. Hopefully you can find a suitable one that isn't in as bad of shape.

Very sorry to hear that, Rob.

On the bright side, you got to have a fun day (s?) with your friends digging into an engine.

Time for more boost maybe if rebuilding maybe thicker head gasket so you can really up the boost pressure

The main reason for the strip down was to fit an HKS metal gasket (requires a head and block skim to get a near perfect finish). With one of those the sky's the limit for boost. In practice, though, my motivation is to make a robust engine rather than a particularly fast one - that car's an auto after all!

I ordered a "low mileage" Jap import engine today. There aren't many around and I think I trust the supplier about as far as my car can go without an engine. Crossing fingers and other extremeties!

Rob

Well, we're obviously getting better. It only took two people two days to reduce a finely crafted japanese machine to it's component parts this time, rather than three people three days last time. Possibly it would take one person one day, and with no people it would simply fall to pieces spontaneously

I managed to find a secondhand low-mileage engine via an online parts-search service, and after some humming and hawing Rob bought it and had it delivered to my house. Actually, he phoned and said it was coming in two to three days and that I would get an hour's notice by phone. What really happened, of course, is that the next day at 10AM there was a knock on the door and a large bloke with an even larger truck said "Where do you want it, mate?" This led to some frantic reshuffling of the workshop to find room for a pallet some four feet square and weighing about 600 pounds.

The description was of an imported japanese-spec engine before the first cam-belt change, which set an upper limit of about 60000 miles assuming the supplier was truthful and correct. After a certain amount of struggle involving a borrowed engine hoist and a packet of ginger-nut biscuits, we were able to get the thing onto the engine stand and start investigating it in detail.

There were a few cosmetic blemishes due to the way it had been delicately and carefully removed from the donor car with a hacksaw, but these proved to be of no real import. The first thing we noted is that both engine mounts were almost new, which immediately cheered Rob up as the one that died when we removed the original engine would have cost about £120 to replace.

The date code stamped on the block is more or less exactly what the other engine had, mid-1989, but I'd guess that the engine has been in storage for at least 13 of those 15 years. The thing turned out to be very low mileage indeed, if the condition of the innards is anything to go by. As a rough estimate, I'd say it's got no more than 20000 miles on it.

All the bearing surfaces are only just past the well-run-in stage, the valves after a quick wipe look like they just came out of a box on the shelf, the bores are immaculate, and the oil-ways and water channels in the head appear brand new. There is no sign at all of any blowthrough on the head or inlet and exhaust gaskets, and in fact all the gaskets simple lifted off the various surfaces like they'd been put on the week before.

Actually, dismantling this engine was a little surreal. The Haynes manuals, for instance, always say something like "Next, remove the nine bolts securing the whatsit to the gubbins, and remove the thingy", making it sound so easy a small dim child could do it. They always omit the stage of "Note the thingy will be immovably bonded by sheer neglect to the gubbins and will require a severe beating with a five-pound lump hammer before it comes off, which it will do in at least two pieces".

Not this time. Remove the crank pulley bolt (which admittedly did require an improvised 4-foot extension handle on the socket, that little sod was on TIGHT), and a gentle pull made the thing just slide off in the way they never do. The same story throughout, everything simply came to pieces with no real effort at all. The annoying thing is that we could probably have stuck the engine straight in the car and had a completely reliable setup as is

All that work by some industrious japanese robot, wasted!

Oh well. Rob wanted a steel gasket no matter what, so it had to be done. The interesting thing is that the head bolts were torqued up to the revised setting, which means that the engine has seen some work after leaving the factory, probably into the care of one lady owner who only took it out on sundays and had it regularly serviced.

The upshot of all this is that tomorrow I'm taking the various bits to the engineering company for a check, and collecting the other bits for a quick ride to the scrapyard. With a little luck the only things that will need to be done to the block and head is a polish to remove the old gasket material, since under that they seem to have virtually a mirror finish already. When it's reassembled the end result should be as solid as one is likely to get on an engine of that age.

We also stripped one of the turbos, and it seems in pretty good condition overall, so it can be cleaned and go back in the car. A reasonable weekends work, all in all.

Attached is a picture of Rob amongst the debris of the engine, looking pleased at the destruction he's wrought

pca

Damn, hit the wrong button! Here's the picture.

pca

My favorite part of that pic is the camshaft (?) DELICATELY TAPED TO THE TABLE LEG.

-brendan

Actually, the crankshaft is temporarily tied pretty firmly to the leg in that picture. It weighs about 45 pounds, there was nowhere else to put it at that point, and we wanted to break for lunch Strapping it to the bench leg was a reasonably practical temporary solution I thought...

pca

Hahaha... i didn't notice that at first but damn that is hilarious for some reason.

and with no people it would simply fall to pieces spontaneously

That made me laugh out loud, Patrick, thanks.

Great post, as always. Glad Rob's getting a good engine out of this whole deal. Best of luck to all of you getting it back together.

Photos of the second engine strip down are online:

http://community.webshots.com/user/projectsupra

You probably have to be into engines (or turbo chargers) to get anything out of it though

Rob

You probably have to be into engines (or turbo chargers) to get anything out of it though

I dunno, I'm not much into either and it still fascinates me that such a piece of obviously precision machinery can be taken apart into so many pieces and ever work again...

Peter

The last time I took anything apart was a fax machine, it was while rebuilding it that I realised the therapeutic benefits of smashing electrical equipment into small pieces with a hammer

I think I would have been tempted to put the second motor straight in your car.

I guess you want the piece of mind knowing what's on the inside.

Great pics, guys! I really appreciate the opporunity to look inside other people's heavy machinery!

Cheers

I think I would have been tempted to put the second motor straight in your car.

I suspect you've never been driven in Robs Supra before..

What's the final guess on BHP? Any other performance "while we've got the engine apart" additions planned?

I really do like nothing more than having a good look around peoples online albums, makes work time bearable.

i can't wait to have a garage. I've wanted to tear down an engine my whole life! Andy, if you ever get incredibly bored, i've got more photos than i know what to do with online, and that's not even half of the ones i need to scan in from the lomo camera... http://www.skivvies.com/photos/

What's the final guess on BHP? Any other performance "while we've got the engine apart" additions planned?

Not sure on BHP yet.. the new intake and free flow exhaust should be good for about +40BHP and maybe another +30 from wastegate adjustment to increase boost. That would put it around 300 and after that I need to start spending serious money on intercoolers etc, which I probably won't bother with.

The "while it's apart" tick list is currently:

Skim & face head
Face valves
New seats
Replace shims
Skim & face block
Decoke
Deglaze
Polish crank

All new gaskets and seals
All new belts
Toyota main shells, big end end shells and thrust washers
ARP main studs, rod bolts and head bolts
Toyota rings
HKS stopper type metal head gasket (slight compression reduction for extra boost)
APEXI Power Intake
NGK Iridium Spark Plugs
FAL DUAL electric FAN (replaces viscous fan)
Mongoose stainless exhaust removing both cats
Preset wastegate adjuster
Powder coat intake manifold, throttle body, IC pipe, alternator, valve covers
Hose Techniques kit (SuperBlue)

I just ordered most of that stuff from the US due to the cool exchange rate right now!

Rob

had any thought about water injection isn't too expensive for the pump and i am sure you and patrick could come up with a controller should remove the need for stupidly larger intercoolers.

had any thought about water injection

Yes, that may be the way to go. Kits seem to start around £300. They claim -34 degrees @ 18psi which would be very effective.

Rob

"I just ordered most of that stuff from the US due to the cool exchange rate right now! "

Thanks for your order . I'm sure we will just pass it to to China. I don't think anyone in the US knows how to make anything anymoore

I don't think anyone in the US knows how to make anything anymoore

Although most of the stuff at suprasport.com comes from Japan, there are quite a few things they manufacture themselves. They do a really nice high flow turbo elbow for example. Ironically some of the products are made by their European guy in Holland but it is half the price to order from the US even after shipping it across the Atlantic twice.

Rob

Andy, if you ever get incredibly bored, i've got more photos than i know what to do with online

Thanks loren, I think I've trawled you site before, I definately check RobRicc's gallery regularly, he usually has all manner of assorted crap on there.

Yup that'll about do it. Just wanted to make sure that I wasn't the only one.

A 70+hp increase without major mods sounds great. I was poking around suprastore.com trying to figure out where Supras top out. The 93-98 upgrade kit and 33K$ later gets 1200HP. Feck.

A drive-able 300hp is just fine.

Rob - don't forget to do something about your brakes. With all that extra grunt on something as heavy as a Supra they are going to be chocolate teapot after a while.

I've seen Supras with no brakes at the end of a straight and it doesn't look fun

Good point. Gotta think about stopping it once you get it going.

i've got more photos than i know what to do with online

likewise http://www.norman.cx/photos/ , far too many photos...

Since we're stealing this thread for photos... you guys should check out the stuff Rob Vreeland (CruzThs) has been shooting lately with his Nikon D2h.

http://www.pbase.com/robv/root

He just yesterday got a Nikon 200-400mm f4 VR insane lens... i can't wait til we get that thing out to the desert for the buggy blast.

Rob - don't forget to do something about your brakes

Yes, I've never been entirely happy with them. The usual advice on Supras is to stick with toyota discs (which are pretty big) and avoid drilled/slotted discs like the plague. I have toyota discs with Pagid kevlar pads (which glaze up like crazy - never again!) and braided hoses for better pedal response.

The next practical upgrade is probably six pot after market calipers with cast discs, but that's *big* money and there are people on 500BHP with stock so probably isn't necessary just yet. It's not like I'm going to take this on a track.

Rob

I'd love to know what pads i have in the caterham cause they don't really work when cold and once up to temp sparks fly off the pads under heavy brakeing which is very pretty at night

http://www.shartwell.freeserve.co.uk/humor-site/real-haynes.htm

this should help

I finally got around to a) finishing the rebuild (thanks to Rob S and Patrick) and b) putting the photos online.

http://community.webshots.com/user/projectsupra

I'll add some photos of the finished project in a few days. The moment it was done I stopped taking photos and started driving!

Rob