Saving a 3200 from the scrap heap!

Great project, great sympathy for you, keeping this one from the scrap yard!
Regarding the deep corrosion, I think machining it down to get rid of it, will cause a problem regarding compression ratio.
From the picture it seems you would have to take of even more then 1 MM.
You better try to find someone who can weld aluminum/ can do repairs on aluminum cilinder heads.
We did that in these occasions with good results.
They first cleaned the spot thoroughly by sand blasting the spot, pre heated the cilinder head and then welded the spot.
Then they machined the head, but took off as little material as was possible.
Has proven itself as a solid and durable repair.

boomerang said:

Great project, great sympathy for you, keeping this one from the scrap yard!
Regarding the deep corrosion, I think machining it down to get rid of it, will cause a problem regarding compression ratio.
From the picture it seems you would have to take of even more then 1 MM.
You better try to find someone who can weld aluminum/ can do repairs on aluminum cilinder heads.
We did that in these occasions with good results.
They first cleaned the spot thoroughly by sand blasting the spot, pre heated the cilinder head and then welded the spot.
Then they machined the head, but took off as little material as was possible.
Has proven itself as a solid and durable repair.

Click to expand...

That was the initial plan however

#1: The manual states only a max of 2mm can be machined off before replacing them
#2: The heads were machined previously and I don't know how much the PO removed

Luckily, the donor car had some good untouched heads so sent them to the machine shop to be cleaned, new valve stem seals etc

I bought myself an engine stand and will start slowly assembling the engine following the manual

I also dropped off the headers to get them ceramic coated along with the hot side of the turbo to keep under hood temps low and happy rubber parts living longer

Great!
B.t.w, deleting primary cats also results in lower overall temperatures.
And only a tad more exhaust rumble.

boomerang said:

Great!
B.t.w, deleting primary cats also results in lower overall temperatures.
And only a tad more exhaust rumble.

Click to expand...

Yep, that's the plan since turbos kill the majority of drone however, does it cause a check engine light or do I have to get a o2 spacer to trick the post cat sensors?

The early ones only have the o2 sensors BEFORE primary cat.
They will still do their job without problems.
The later ones (2001) indeed have control sensors after cat.
There it would be a lot more complicated I think.
yours is a very early one I believe?

The manual states loctite on the cylinder head studs themselves but nothing about the nuts when tightening them, seems like a missed opportunity for some extra saftey margin to put some loctite on the nuts?

The nuts will get so hot, that no matter wich locktite you use, this will have no extra effect at all.
You can release a well locked nut, by adding a lot of heat

boomerang said:

The early ones only have the o2 sensors BEFORE primary cat.
They will still do their job without problems.
The later ones (2001) indeed have control sensors after cat.
There it would be a lot more complicated I think.
yours is a very early one I believe?

Click to expand...

I never noticed that mines doesnt have a post cat sensor! That was the only thing worrying me about doing a cat delete



I ordered a Dayco 94487 for the cambelt and 2 SKF 3205 A 2RS1TN9/MT33 bearings for the rollers.


D side head has been installed following the manual to the word with 45mins break between each sequence. Im hoping to do the P side today and then block the water ports for the turbos and the valley pipe and fill it up with coolant and leave it overnight to verify to leaks/cracks in the heads or anywhere else

Good Luck.

Great work.

Update

Installed everything from the heads down including cermaic coating the headers and the hot side of the turbo



Got the water pump installed


Now here is my problem, how do you align the intake and exhaust camshafts in reference to each other? I never removed the rear sprockets so should I do what the manual says? (however they have removed the rear cam sprockets during teardown while I didnt do that and took the cams out all together. They go into details of exhaust and intake valve opening using their expensive and hard to find tools)

This is the official procedure for aligning the intake and exhaust camshafts in reference to each other and cylinders 1 and 8 at TDC, however, like I said, they removed the rear sprockets and reassemble them in page 100. I never removed the rear sprockets so should I just put the cams back with the "MG" and 5 links in between them?

Any help or pics would be appreciated

Great work so far and excellent write up. The rear chains are the elephant in the room of 3200 engine servicing. They are designed to be replaced at 68k miles. Many including mine are not changed. Advice from my local expert (Roberto Grimaldi) was to get it done by someone with proper experience. Apparently there could be some performance gain by dialling out some factory setting that detuned power. Only what I have read here but having got this far it is well worth taking some advice from anyone who has actually done the job.
Chapeau!
similar herculean task on sister thread

Kudos my man , coupled with deep pockets I hope , cant wait for the finished article few tea beaks involved in bringing that one back to life

Not sure if designed to be changed at 68k is the correct phrase. They had to put a recommendation on them.

Dave @alfatwo might be able to point you in the right direction as he rebuilt his 3200 GT.

Update:

Summer is nearly over here (finally!) The only thing I managed to do was get the timing finally right after several attempts.

Called the tow truck to get the car to the shop to finally mate everything back again. The most time consuming thing was getting the downpipes to bolt on! I changed the bolts to regular SS hex bolts to make life easier



The Roose motorsports coolant and turbo pipes really pop





I also "found" another supplier for our cars to make silicone pipes







PURISTS, LOOK AWAY, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED




Its a rough photoshop but I decided to do something different from the usual wrinkle red valve covers


The valve covers and the turbo pipes will be blue, the coil covers and intake will be wrinkle gray-white. The stripes and trident on the coil covers and TB cover will be blue to bring it all together, all visible bolts will be gold cadmium plated


The pipe next to powder coated sample



Wrinkle gray-white and blue samples



Dropped off everything along with the coolant tank and coil mounts in gloss black at the powder coater



What worried me the most was the compression ratio from potential water damage in the rear most cylinders. Put in some Castrol 10W60, cranked it by hand to get the oil spread everywhere and then hotwired the starter to a battery. Healthy readings everywhere except #4 which took a couple of more cranks than the rest to build pressure. Several mechanic friends said its normal considering what had happened and to use some fogger oil and over time it will be normal like the remaining 8.

Next up is to install the silicone turbo pipes from Redox and start taping up and cleaning the wiring harness with cloth tape. Iv also ordered DEI gold heat insulating tape to use on the coolant tank and ABS pump heat shields

Looking great and fair play for taking it on; got plenty of people wincing at no plugs in the inlets etc! Would hate to hear of anything dropping into one of them!

great work, can't wait to hear the engine running. Chapeau!

Excellent work, exciting times and keep the updates coming