Frankenstein's Creation, brought to you by Hawkeye ; )

Eagleye

Tinkerer
Hawkeye's 06 STI Rebuild

So as most of you know I bought George's "Holy's" car. I figure I will be on here a lot learning so I better become a sponser...check...and I also should start a journal...check....

My current plan is to build two motors, one that is relatively stock (going in first) this will be my baseline and will allow me to get use to the car and do changes outside of the motor department. This will also buy me time to begin rebuilding the motor that is currently in the car. I want a street friendly motor set-up (lets keep it under 500hp), I am looking for ideas on rims (pictures are encouraged), but most importantly I am looking for suspension ideas that will keep the car fun on the street but even more fun at the local drag strip.

Now, let the discussion begin regarding the new build and direction of the car...

What say you?:tard:

PS. I will post pictures as we go as soon as the car is dropped off and work begins.

-Hawkeye
 
Last edited:

IGOTASTi

System Operator
Staff member
Subscribed. :tup:
 

Eagleye

Tinkerer
JJ you cant just subscribe and run off, I expect better than that. J/K, but I suppose I could pose a few more questions to get things rolling later.

-Suspension wise: Are coilovers the best option for a DD that sees weekend track time (easy to adjust for both worlds), or would I be just as well off with a spring upgrade?

-Motor: recommendations for a turbo to go with the 1st motor, aka the one that will be relatively stock? I see they have factory replacements on ebay for around $300 and then there are of course tons of other options.
 

IGOTASTi

System Operator
Staff member
I'm always around, lol.

Coilovers are a awesome way to go. There are so many types. The ones I'm getting are the AST 4100's.

Hey you now need a cool avatar. :)
 
Last edited:

HolyCrapItsFast

Drinks beer!
Stay away from those Ebay turbos. Consider something like a big 16g or and 18g from a known supplier. Those will give you good gains over stock but maintain a really good level of daily drivability. Buy from Blouch or FP or some other known brand that will offer some support. The Ebay turbos will last 5000 miles tops and more if you are lucky. It's a crap shoot if you get a good one or not.

The other option is to just keep the current turbo. It's not as laggy as you would think and you could get the same power out of it with less boost. Plus the higher compression pistons make up for the lack of low end and if you build the first motor with the stock cams your low end trottle response will be amazing.

JJ you cant just subscribe and run off, I expect better than that. J/K, but I suppose I could pose a few more questions to get things rolling later.

-Suspension wise: Are coilovers the best option for a DD that sees weekend track time (easy to adjust for both worlds), or would I be just as well off with a spring upgrade?

-Motor: recommendations for a turbo to go with the 1st motor, aka the one that will be relatively stock? I see they have factory replacements on ebay for around $300 and then there are of course tons of other options.
 

Eagleye

Tinkerer
Stay away from those Ebay turbos. Consider something like a big 16g or and 18g from a known supplier. Those will give you good gains over stock but maintain a really good level of daily drivability. Buy from Blouch or FP or some other known brand that will offer some support. The Ebay turbos will last 5000 miles tops and more if you are lucky. It's a crap shoot if you get a good one or not.

The other option is to just keep the current turbo. It's not as laggy as you would think and you could get the same power out of it with less boost. Plus the higher compression pistons make up for the lack of low end and if you build the first motor with the stock cams your low end trottle response will be amazing.

If you think the current turbo will be good for both motors then I will just use that unless something else falls into my lap, thanks for the info. I wasn't sure how the lag would be.

Fuji, what were you looking to get for it?
 

HolyCrapItsFast

Drinks beer!
And what ever you do, build your motor using bearings with extra oil clearance and ditch the covert oil pickup tube and find yourself a stock pick up tube... Send it to me and I will have my friend reinforce the trouble area of the pickup tube.

When you build the motor check your clearances... check your clearances and check your clearances.

The other word of advice is to use the appropriate weight oil for the clearances you choose. Stock clearances requires 5w30 oil but keep in mind stock clearances are not meant for extreme power and RPM... I think this was my problem. I should have gone with the extra clearance bearings. Extra clearances require 10w40 or 15w40. Never use a thicker oil than that. I also recommend a synthetic after 3000 miles and go with either AmsOil or RedLine. The only two oils worth a damn.

I have a whole shit load of pictures of when I was assembling my motor... I could send them to you and that will give you an idea of what you are in for and it will also put some sense to the manual. I was going to use these pictures to make a "Engine Building 101" How-To. I don't have all the pics I need to do that though. I'm missing a couple important ones.
 

Z1107

New member
Wow, thanks holy, now I have a lot of faith in my Godspeed Td-05 16g, good thing it's only a temporary fix and my Td-04 is already rebuilt. Lol.
 

Eagleye

Tinkerer
hmmm... 4 would work.

I will keep that in mind, I believe we are going to do a 'get it back on the road' build first then build up a good motor, so let me know if the guy backs out as I may be looking for something like that.
 

Eagleye

Tinkerer
You've got my e-mail Holy, when you get the chance I'd love to see the pics for reference as i go.
 

HolyCrapItsFast

Drinks beer!
Wow, thanks holy, now I have a lot of faith in my Godspeed Td-05 16g, good thing it's only a temporary fix and my Td-04 is already rebuilt. Lol.

I went through the Ebay turbo phase on more than one occassion and each time it was an epic fail :lol:


If GodSpeed will stand behind it then it shouldn't matter much as a daily driving turbo but if you will eventually build a set up to produce results then you should just save up for one of the brands that have years of research behind them. For instance a bloch 20G is a totally different animal from an ebay 20G... or any other for that matter IMO.
 

Z1107

New member
Just messin with ya George. I'm not doing a serious build till I get an EJ207. Plus the Godspeed has a warranty. Sorry for whoring this up hawkeye.
 

Paul.c

New member
For drag racing I would think an ALK would make a huge difference. Of course coil-overs would do some good too but they can get expensive. Also all the little driveline bits and stiffer bushings for better power transfer.
 
Engine building stuff:


I would make sure to measure clearances before just buying "extra clearance bearings' You may find you don't need them or you would end up with too much. I run standard bearing clearances because i"m just shy of 0.021 which is the "advertised" extra based on a new crank.

Also consider Brad Penn oils, PA oil is very pure, its a part synthetic and has all the good stuff they take out of non racing oils.

I would also recommend having any turbo car piston coated by Swaintech. I have their standard coating because they had not perfected the race coating yet when I had it done in 2004. We have taken the motor to 13.8:1 before on several occasions without knock, extra insurance.

Polished cyl head domes and exhaust ports, clean up intake ports but leave a roughness to them for atomization.

have the rotating assembly balanced separate from the flywheel/balancers and balance them individually, doesnt cost much to have this done $15 maybe?

Don't do oversized valves unless the shop doing them will also increase the size of the port opening in the valve seat as well, it will become a hinderence at that point.

Pick a turbo and build an engine around that turbo, don't try the other way around you will frustrate yourself when your "goal of 500 reliable hp" turns into the first pull on the dyno making 600 and now youre stuck with cetuning for reliability.

Set your piston to wall clearance slightly more than manufactuerer specs the more power you want to make, a little oil smoke on startup beats a siezed piston.

Same for ring gaps, more power you want to make the larger the gap you will need (swaintech coatings eliminate some of this but still plan for it) dont follow clearances to a "t" when you want to make big power, ask around.

Always, always, always degree your cams, thats why they come with cards dont expect it to be drop in. Gasket thickness, head decking, etc all change caming degrees. If youbplan to run a larger than stock cam make sure you check clearance at the valve stem seal as well as at the piston.
 
Also on my setup i went ahead and had a crosshatching cut in the wrist pin holes on the pistons, it cost me $10 and will better hold oil that way.
 

HolyCrapItsFast

Drinks beer!
Most... if not all of this was taken into consideration on the current engine. :tup: The bearing clearances I left stock and this was the result. Regardless, no matter what the size crank pin and bearing you end up with, the oil clearance should not change. So based on my recent experience and based on his goal to track the the second motor I recommendd extra oil clearance no matter what size pin and bearing he end up with as long as the pin and bearing are to spec. If they are not to spec then I recommend having the crank cut. Any way he might have to do that because I think the failure was a spun rod bearing, but we won't know for sure until he takes it apart.

I'm not Convinced coating the piston is necessary either. There is nothing extreme going on inside the combustion chamber that would require it as long as your AFR's are good and your exhaust temperatures are fine then the coating is not really necessary in a 500 WHP car. It wouldn't hurt though.
 
I'd never cut a crank, I've seen big end rod distortions cause spun bearings even with extra clearance. Also if it is a spun bearing I would source a new crank anyway.
 

HolyCrapItsFast

Drinks beer!
I'd never cut a crank, I've seen big end rod distortions cause spun bearings even with extra clearance. Also if it is a spun bearing I would source a new crank anyway.

Is this preference or do you have evidence that says it is detrimental to the the health of a bearing to use a cut crank. I'm really not trying to be a dick but I see cutting the crank as a perfectly viable option and millions of other people can't be wrong either. I have been using cut cranks for years and never had a problem. In fact I have ever only had problems when using stock size journals and pins. Go figure.

Hey if I'm wrong, I'm wrong.
 
Last edited:

Eagleye

Tinkerer
Talks with the engine builder have begun :tard:

Thanks for all the input so far guys, and no worries as far as thread hijacking goes. If someone else can get questions answered while they are participating in my thread, then I am all for it.

In regards to what you guys have said so far, the real discussions will begin when both motors are torn down and we can see if this will be a single motor build or two seperate builds.
 
Top