Back from the grave....

Well I know its been a while. But I hope to have my GSX up and running again in May of this year. Its only been 3 years since she has ran :( . A LOT has changed in those 3 years though all for the better except for not having my car. I almost had it running a couple years ago but I made a mistake. I bought a 6-bolt and swapped into it and did some minor mods. Long story short I mixed up the timing belt tensioner brackets on the used motor I swapped in and toasted a head. Pistons 2 and 3 hit the valves leaving some small dings in them. Here is my question, can I sand them smooth and not worry about the small dings in the pistons and just replace the head or do I need to do a top-end on the block? I am worried that the dings make create "Hot Spots" on the pistons and melt them. I am not sure if that is a legitimate concern or not. But that is why I am asking. Also if I have a new decked head, am I safe to put it on the old block with a new head gasket and ARP studs or is there something that needs done to the block surface before the new head? I appreciate the help. :thumbsup:

Sorry if this should have gone somewhere else, this seemed like the most appropriate place to me.

It depends on how big the dents are I guess. If they're just little marks where they hit, I wouldn't worry about it, but if it made a decent size dent, I would replace the pistons that are bad. Pics would help. As for the head/blck mating surface, as long as the head is flat, a new headgasket is all you should need as long as the block surface is clean (no gasket material/dirt/grease/etc)

Right on, it checked the pistons pretty good. It isn't just a mark where they hit. It actually moved material on the piston surface. I suppose it would just be safest to order a new set of pistons, rings, and wrist pins. Unfortunately I don't have any pics nor can I get them for a couple weeks. I have the car stored in my parents garage about 220 miles away. I am going up there on the 12th and I can post pictures after that.

If it left a groove then I would just replace the pistons. 2 pistons shouldn't be that expensive so it'd be safer to just replace them.

I will probably just do all 4 cylinders. With my luck if I only replace 2 and 3, in 6 months I'll loose the rings in 1 or 4 and be down again. I would rather just do all 4 at once and be done with it.

Edit----> Plus cylinder pressures should stay more even this way.

Wow that sucks. I couldn't imagine going that long with out having my car run. I have only had my car for three years and 1 day. Good luck on getting it running again man.

It looks like it will run me about another $440 for another set of pistons. Here is something for some discussion....I am looking at the Wiseco 9.0:1 pistons to help liven up my little t-25. Is this going to be a disadvantage when I upgrade to a 20g? Or is the 9.0:1 still going to play to my advantage? Also take into account my normal driving elevation is between 5000-8000ft.

I wouldn't waste the extra money on them, plus forged pistons take forever to warm up or they slap like crazy. The stock 6-bolt internals are good to over 500hp. You also don't need a whole set of 4 pistons, just 2. And while you're doing them, you might as well re-ring pistons 1 & 4 too, hone the cylinders, and be good to go for a long time.

Wow... Welcome back dude. Long time, no see!...

It sucks that that happened to ya. I think I would replace them with some more stock pistons just for the peace of mind. Like Garrett said, they are good for over 500hp... Which is what I should have done instead. Oh well, live and learn!

Oh and now you guys can't rag on me for going 2 years without my car running since we have a 3 year streaker here. lol :p

Sitting here this morning I am coming back in to my old DSM'ing self of being a cheap ass. I have a seven bolt sitting in my garage with perfectly fine pistons in it. If I just order a new set of rings for those they should work out great. I will still get to bump the compression up a little and save some money. Now I know there is an issue with the wrist pins and connecting rods when using 6-bolt rods with 7-bolt pistons. So I will have to do some research on that, unless some one has those little facts memorized and would like to post them ;).

Hey man, welcome back! Good to see old faces around again.

The 2g pistons use a 22mm wrist pin whereas the 1g ones only use a 21mm... that means the 1g rods have to have the wrist pin hole taken out an extra millimeter to accept the 2g pistons. I talked to a couple machinists and they say the best way to do that is with a hone, but as you'd imagine that would take FOREVER. Back before I got my good motor and was thinking about rebuilding one, I thought at length about the 1g rod/2g piston combo and thats really what I wanted to do. Only problem is machining costs of taking that hole out an extra mm is enough to where you might as well just get forged pistons. Now here's what I started thinking.... what if you just bought the hone and did it yourself? I think its kind of risky, but you should be able to get a brake cylinder hone for like $20 at a parts store, just hook that bitch up to a drill and check it often. You'd have to look into tolerances and all that too, but I thought it might just be doable. Hope that helps.

If it is only 1mm it shouldn't be that bad to hone out, I am a patient person. But I also know a guy in the town where my car is that is a machinist and literally has a full machine shop in his personal garage. So he might be able to hook me up for a 12-pack or something. I will have to talk to him. ;)

On this note though, can I reuse the crank bearings or do I need the crank turned and use oversized bearings? :dunno:

Depends on what it looks like. If it's not scarred up or out of spec, then just throw some new bearings on it, maybe have it polished or something. If it's pitted/scarred, then you'll need to have it turned and oversided bearings put on.

Well here is my current parts list that I am looking at let me know if I overlooked something:

From SBR:
Reman 6-Bolt Head
OEM Stock MLS Head Gasket
OEM T-Belt
ARP Head Studs
OEM T-Belt Tensioner
ACL Rod and Main Bearings

From Mitsu Dealer:
Stock 7-Bolt Piston Rings (4)

From Parts Pile:
Stock 7-Bolt 8.5:1 Pistons (4)

Why are you getting a rebuilt head from SBR? You can find a perfectly good working on from somewhere else for a fraction of the cost I bet. I'm not sure how much the rebuilt SBR heads run, but if it's like the rest of their parts, it's not cheap.

Well I trust their parts and its only $600 without a core.

Alright my car is 220 miles away and I haven't been able to find a satisfactory answer on my CD manual.

Do the camshafts operate with bearing or without? I personally have never had them out of the head, but I have talked to people that have seen cars without them. The manual showed cam shaft bearing caps. But I have not been able to find any cam shaft bearings. Help with this ASAP is appreciated as I am ordering parts today to start rebuilding the motor the 28th.

The bearings are machined into the head.

Anyone have experience with NPR pistons? (Nippon Piston and Ring Co.) I asked the seller what the compression ratio of the pistons are. From the pictures they just look like a typical after market reproduction piston. Comments appreciated.

Why not go with some OEM ones or a trusted name like Topline? They're pretty reasonable I believe.

Prices are decent Topline($150) are only 8.0:1 which is up from stock 6-bolt, but I want to run "stock" 7-bolt pistons for an 8.5:1 compression ratio. I was thinking I might save my self the time of pulling the others out of the other block and have new to go in. But its $200 dollars for Mitsubishi stock pistons which is more than I really wanted to spend. The NRP piston set is only about a $100 dollars. But I haven't ever heard of anyone running these, though aestically they look just like the other Topline and Factory pistons.

I guess that I might just bite the bullet and spend the extra $200 dollars and go with Factory Mitsu pistons that I know I can rely on. I just hate the fact the I already went over the budget I had set for myself before the pistons.

Pistons are something that I would not go cheap on, but that's just my opinion. They're pretty much one of the most important parts of the motor and handle the most stress.

Here is my official parts order list with prices and vendor incase any of you are looking for something:

Slowboy Racing:

45* Silicone Elbow 2.5" ID $33.00
ARP DSM Main Studs $60.00
ARP DSM Rod Bolts 6-Bolt $45.00
ARP DSM Head Studs 6-Bolt $93.50
Remaned 6-Bolt Stock Head $599.00
Mistu 4g63 MLS Head Gasket $94.99
Mitsu OEM Timing Belt $75.00
Mitsu OEM T-Belt Tensioner $87.00
Mitsu OEM 7-Bolt Pistons $200.00
Exhaust Gasket 3" (x2) $17.00
Exhaust Gasket 2.5" $6.50

Ebay (Prices Include Shipping):

Topline Head Gasket Kit $84.95
Topline Block Gasket Kit $79.00
Topline Revised Lash Adjusters $99.00
ACL Race Series Main and Rod Bearings $98.40

Machine Shop:

Boring Connecting Rods 1-2 hours $60-$130

So I hope to have the block out of the car and torn down by the afternoon of Monday the 28th so I can drop the connecting rods off at the machine shop to get them bored to 22mm for the 7-bolt pistons/wrist pins. Then I can take my time and put this beast back together the rest of the week. Hopefully I can drive it home Sunday the 4th. ;)

Ouchy! ;)

Cool beans dude. If you havent already ordered it and are looking to save a little money, going with regular main studs on non-race motors is generally recommended. Also, I didnt have a ton of luck with my Mitsu MLS gasket. It made decent enough compression, but when I took it out and went with the stock gasket I went from like 130-135psi to something like 140-145psi. Granted I didnt get to check after she idled a few minutes as the timing skipped right away, but as long as you arent knocking to hell and back the stock gasket should be fine. If you'd rather go MLS and ARP mains though, that shouldnt be a problem... and its just one less thing to worry about.

So doing the rod boring at home didnt go down eh? $60-$130 isnt bad at all, I always thought it was a $200 minimum deal.

I still might do it myself, but more than likely for the money I will just take it to the local machinist there so I can concentrate on other parts of the project.;)

I went ahead and just went with all ARP fasteners because I hope this will be the block that I am still running when I get do all my turbo/fuel/intercooler/DSMlink upgrades. Hopefully that will happen next summer.

To the best of my knowledge, our rods cannot be bored out because of how they were "cut" from the factory. You can turn down the crank and put in oversized bearings, but I was told by my local machiniest (who usually can/does anything and everything I ever want and is very good at what he does), that he could not do those for me. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's what my impression has always been. Good luck though.

I know for a fact that the rod ends can be bored out. I am boring the "small" wrist pin end of the rod to accept the larger 7-bolt wrist pins. But that might not matter any way. SBR doesn't have any stock 6-bolt heads available for the next 3-4 weeks and they can't get any from Topline either. So now I am on the hunt for a 1g head again.

Alright well in all my desperation before I wait 3-4 weeks for a head. What does it take to rebuild one? I know there are some bent valves in chambers 2-3. How bad they are bent I am not really sure. None of them were bad enough to stick open/closed and moved freely without any popping or anything. They just wouldn't hold compression. Mostly chamber 3 if I remember correctly. So what would the head need to go through to be rebuilt besides being decked? I assume I would need to order new valves (maybe 1mm over?), new valve seals and guides, would I need new springs and retainers or would the old ones be reusable? Give me a little guidance :D. If not I will be down probably until July between waiting for a head and getting time off of work to go work on the car. Thanks for the help guys.

Well I have the head ordered from SBR and am now waiting 4-5 weeks for the head to get to my place. So hopefully I can have the car up at the end of June or the beginning of July.

Just and FYI for everyone not to make the same mistake as I did....

SBR sells NRP piston and ring sets as the OEM replacements for $200.
You can get these same pistons off of Ebay for less than $100. I made the mistake of overlooking the part number on their website and got hosed. If you are looking for stock replacement pistons, don't be afraid to purchase them off of Ebay. I wish I would have and now I paid to much.....

Well here we are a year later and due to changing jobs last spring and now just recently buying a house the DSM got put off again. But I am driving down to Greeley, CO to drop my connecting rods off and get the damn things bored out Monday. The machine shop says the can recondition the entire rod for $27 which includes any boring ect. They said they could do it cheaper if all they need to do is bore them. I am going to have them check the "big end" for any out of round while we are at it. Hopefully they all check out good. If not it will be another delay. Summer '09 it will be running, finally. :shakehead

Wow it is takin a while to get this thing running again. Good luck with the rods, hopefully they wont take to much work.

Man your luck sounds about like mine... Mine still isn't running either... I'm hoping soon it will be due to a turn of events... :)

Brian produce your own luck and just finish it already.

Brian produce your own luck and just finish it already.

wow. i lol'd at that

Brian produce your own luck and just finish it already.

Soon... Soon... :wink:

Soon... Soon... :wink:

Come on guy. I will have my grey car running this week.

Im sure you get tired of people always ragging you about it.

Come on guy. I will have my grey car running this week.

Im sure you get tired of people always ragging you about it.

Oh I do. But I just say soon... I think it pisses other people off more than it pisses me off anymore. lol

Just a quick update. I picked up my connecting rods from the machine shop last week. So my 8.5:1 new stock pistons have been fitted to my old stock 6-bolt rods. The shop checked the big ends for out of round and machined the rods and pressed the new pistons all for $112. I thought it was a good price. The shop was great to deal with. If your in South East Wyoming or in the Front Range area of Colorado, I would highly recommend Greeley Automotive Machine. I have been looking for a good machine shop for a couple years and this is the first one I have found that exceeded my expectations.

Anyway I plan on trying to get the engine back together around the beginning of July. Hopefully the car will be back on the road by the end of the same month. Thats all for now.

Nice, progress is always a good thing. Good luck on putting the motor back together.

Haha....Back again. So currently I still don't have a running DSM. Life keeps getting in the way. On the good side the car is sitting in my garage now. I need to look at the project again and see where I am at. If my memory serves me correctly...all I should need to do is install a oil pan gasket, rear main seal and time the motor and it should be ready to drop back in the car. The thought had crossed my mind of selling it once I have it back together. But the more I think about it, I don't think I can. I have had the car to long, and definitely stored it to long just to sell it if I didn't absolutely have to. I won't ever get the money I have dumped into this thing anyway, so I might as well enjoy it. Hopefully work slows down again and I can get some warm weekends to mess around in the garage.

Cheers, :cheers:

Andy

Wow welcome back! very sporadic posting to say the least haha.

Alot of us only dabble on the forums now and again.

Money put in will never be regained... I learned this and now will probably just keep mine forever unless somebody actually tries to buy it for a decent price. lol

Money put in will never be regained... I learned this and now will probably just keep mine forever unless somebody actually tries to buy it for a decent price. lol

Yeah I don't ever expect to get what I put in to the car, that is why I have decided to keep it. Its paid for and doesn't cost me much to keep. It makes more sense than just selling it for a 1/4 of what I have invested. I am sure I will fall in love with the car again once I have it on the road. I have literally had it in storage twice as long as I have driven it. It will have been in storage for 6 years come March, and I only ever drove it 3 years prior to that. Ah well, she should be running soon enough.

Due to the fact I still haven't gotten around to finishing this project I am putting it up for sale. I am buying another house and I don't feel like moving it again.

Here is a link to my ad here on the forums:

'95 GSX For Sale (http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=7051811#post7051811)

Good luck with the sale man. I don't think anybody here has their DSMs anymore...

I still have mine! It runs better than ever

Yeah it doesn't look like there is much going on around here any more. I am not getting much interest in my car the way it sits, and I won't go lower on the price. So once I get moved I may mess with putting it back together again for a toy.

Except that guy^^^ lol... Jason is still hardcore into his DSM. Several of us are meh about them anymore... I wouldn't mind having a beater 1g again someday though...