Picked up some dual port ej22 heads on Saturday and removed the timing belt and water pump today. Time to order ARP head studs and new gaskets for the head, cam shaft, valve cover and spark plugs. Once the new heads are painted and on I'll be moving onto the water pump and timing belt.
Weird part is the front of the motor has been spray painted silver and it appears when the PO did it he had the timing belt off. No idea why he would do this because it appears the old belt was put back on and he didn't replace the water pump while he was in there.
Cleaned the new dual port heads today and removed the intake manifold. This was just an initial clean to get most of the dirt and gasket off, they will be cleaned again before paint.
If I have time tomorrow I'm going to pull off the single port heads and begin cleaning the block getting it ready for paint.
Heads are painted and replaced the valve cover gasket, cam shaft seals and those gold washers on top.
Block is all painted. Tomorrow I'll be putting the heads back on with new head gaskets and head bolts. Replacing the oil plate separator from the original plastic to the new steel one, rear main seal, and new water pump and thermostat. Then it's on to the intake manifold which will be painted the same color black as the heads.
Also got the manual pedal box in which was a total PIA
Made some more progress yesterday. Cleaned the Pistons and installed the heads with new OEM head gaskets/bolts, new style OEM timing belt tensioner bracket/bolts, new OEM water pump/bolts/gaskets, new steel OEM oil plate separate/bolts, and figured out the pedal box is for a GD so I'll have to do some dremel work to get it to fit right. Also decided I'm going to do the 10mm oil pump/gaskets and the O-rings in the rear of the heads.
This is an interesting build-I boosted my 97 n/a 2.2e with a td04, check out my build page if you're curious to see some of the nuances I had to overcome.
Weird coincidence, I just picked up a 97 Brighton coupe with the 1.8. It has no tach, no rh mirror, crank windows, a TAPE player, and probably no abs (cool). I've always wanted a Brighton; it's like the base, of the base, of ace of base stripper model.
Replaced all the gaskets on the intake manifold, painted it and replaced the dry rotted vacuum lines. Ordered all new timing belt covers and it turns out since I'm running a wrx manifold I need the turbo water pump so I got that as well. If anyone needs a brand new OEM NA water pump I have one for sale lol. She's starting to look like a motor again!
Thanks guys! I like doing a lot of little detailed work when it comes to this. I even went as far as taking off the little brackets on the manifold and painting them! Next up is taking a tooth brush to the wiring harness connectors, they still have some oil/gunk on them.
Also forgot to mention I did install the 10mm oil pump and replaced the o-ring in there (you can see in the picture the orginal was sucking in) along with the o-rings on the heads (they both cracked in to 2 pieces when I took them off) and the plug in the back of the driver side head. Here's some of those photos!
Got the OEM turbo water pump on along with the new timing cover back pieces and the Gates timing kit. Also went to the dealer and ordered all new bolts for the timing covers.
Can anyone tell me if it's normal that the crankshaft gear I can easily move with my fingers from the back tab to the one with the timing mark back and forth. (In the picture the two red tabs in the back). There's a lot of play in it and idk if it's the keyway or what but once I put the belt on everything was very tight and now there's no play.
Tapping wont help. Your better off pulling belt and removing the gear and inspecting. It also looks to be a tooth off if the pic above is supposed to be lined up
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