repairs
After our first race, the compression was so low we decided to give her new rings and pistons. Simple enough right?
Well...We wound up burning more oil than gas during the Sears pointless race weekend. Just a little embarrassing. The car ran fast but, unfortunately the billowing blue smoke behind (and inside) the car made for a challenging weekend. Not to mention we had to change spark plugs after every 30 minutes of driving.
Why did this happen?
During our shade tree rebuild, we did not press the wrist pins in properly and they shifted out of the pistons. 3 of the 4 cylinders had large gouges on either side of the cylinder. It's amazing that even with all that damage the car ran fast, just burnt a lot of oil.
During our shade tree rebuild, we did not press the wrist pins in properly and they shifted out of the pistons. 3 of the 4 cylinders had large gouges on either side of the cylinder. It's amazing that even with all that damage the car ran fast, just burnt a lot of oil.
We burnt more oil than we could put in the car and this lead to us spinning a bearing just an hour shy of finishing the race.
Ok, so time for the engine to come back out. After taking the block to the machine shop, we realized it would be cheaper to buy a new engine than get this one sleeved. The poor engine was broken by Dustin after 198,000 miles (we saw that coming). Don’t worry, this engine is being rebuilt to be used as a backup. It will live to fight another day!
Ok, so time for the engine to come back out. After taking the block to the machine shop, we realized it would be cheaper to buy a new engine than get this one sleeved. The poor engine was broken by Dustin after 198,000 miles (we saw that coming). Don’t worry, this engine is being rebuilt to be used as a backup. It will live to fight another day!
A “new” engine was found in the bay area. It's surprising how difficult the silly first gen Honda CRX engines are to come by. A mere 230,000 miles on this gem. Yep, its rebuild time.
And the rebuild begins:
The engine is ready to go in. It has all new rings, bearings and seals. This one feels tight. It should be a fast (for us). Time to rally the troops, we have an engine to install!
The engine is ready to go in. It has all new rings, bearings and seals. This one feels tight. It should be a fast (for us). Time to rally the troops, we have an engine to install!