Finally, made progress with my 1zz and didn’t document anything. Well today, here’s an update. Pistons have new rings and oil drain holes are drilled out to max size. These pistons and their rods are already installed with one rod bearing replaced due to scratches. Each rod cap bolt was dipped into oil, torqued to spec, then turned 90 degrees more. Oil pan was even installed!
Head was put on. Pain to install, especially the dowel pin towards the timing chain. New Headgasket and silicone on timing cover, dowels lined up, headbolts dipped in oil, torqued in spec and sequence, then additional 90 degrees.
Cams added to head, and their caps installed. Keep these in the same order as they were before teardown or you will get crazy valve line ticking. Timing should be good. Everything was great!
Then I got angry at the timing chain tensioner. Then I just got stupid and broke the tensioner out of anger. Now regret this stupidity and failure to manage my emotions.
But we have a timing chain tensioner coming from Walmart.com! Here’s a nice slideshow of pics from the build.
What’s Next for this Rebuild?
Because I want to keep this rebuild to a base build and save funds, little to none performance parts will be installed.
Why?
- said I had no money dammit!
- it’s a great opportunity to get a baseline now
- while existing mods are present, like header, plastic intake manifold, supra radiator, and 9th gen short ram, no tuning was done at all
- no measurements were taken yet to access: 0-60 times, intake manifold negative pressure, accelerometer data, air/fuel ratio data, and other data points.
This is a great opportunity to get the car in a reliable, restored state with little to none oil-burning issues, while learning how to access it’s performance using data collection and analysis instead of just a butt-dyno. Also, want to know if new mods actually improve anything and want to determine what mods work.
- 9th gen Ebay short ram
- 9th gen/celica plastic intake manifold (might skip, due to missing old throttle wheel for 8th gen throttle body)
- possible 9th gen ecu swap or celica ecu swap
- 2zz water pump with OBX pulley kit
- eBay header vs oem (might skip due to oem leaking like crazy and I hate working on exhaust on this car)
- The BlackMilkTuning Cam mod by Samuel Pranger
- possible celica head swap to get bigger exhaust valves
Besides testing out these possible mods, I need to somehow install the eBay header without a welder and without leaking. This might be impossible. A flex pipe is needed and a connector is needed. Man, I just hate this exhaust setup on this generation of corolla. I understand the chassis was designed for the 4a engine, then the 1zz was used in its place, so Toyota had to make this exhaust work. Just wished it was a bolton affair, instead of a lot of leaking clamps. Without welding this will be challenging.
The intake manifold and the weird throttle cable holder I made will need to be installed. Valvecover needs to be sanded down and needs paint.
Passenger
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