We totally scored! The 3rd complete 1500 motor we have, that came from one of the rat infested parts cars, is basically a complete fresh rebuild! I am not even sure if it is broken in yet. So stoked!! but anyways...
So it started out a normal Saturday morning, but with expected AM showers, I was not in much of a hurry to get up to my Dad's to work on the car. I had a little bit of me time and just played some Dirt 3 for a few hours.
I got my lazy ass up and got to my pops and he was just pulling the third motor out of the shed. The plan was to tear this motor down and replace bearings, gaskets, and put on the rebuilt head we ran at the last race. We got the motor onto the stand and turned it upside down...
Black water came pouring out of the water pump... If looked nasty and at first we thought it was dirty oil mixed in the water, but after close inspection we realized it was dirty and not oily, so no biggie. At this point I realized, in contrast to the rest of the motor that the fuel pump looked quite new.
My pops then removed the oil sump and started unbolting the connecting rods so he could inspect the bearings. While taking these pictures, I was noticing how new everything looked inside the motor as well.. When he got the first bearing off he said that they were new and are not stock. It appears the motor is bored out .020, which is what the bearing marking indicates. He inspected the rest of them and said, this is all new and he will just put a new gasket on and close it back up. I snapped a few more shots of the inside of the motor. Even the Pistons look new, and you can see only a minor discoloration on the inside of it.
We then flipped the motor over to take the valve cover off and inspect the top of the head, and what we saw were a lot of new parts..
This motor appears to be completely rebuilt from the bottom up. We knew it had a cam, but we had no idea how fresh it was. So we scored this gem for free with just some time, labor, and parting things out of those rat infested cars. This will save us some money and time spent rebuilding. We also do not have to include the cost of bearings in our car value for the next race. This motor will be great for the upcoming full 24 hour race, and if we are good to it, we should have no motor issues the entire race.
My pops then closed it back up, we put it back on the wooden cart, put the clutch & pressure plate back on, and bolted up the transmission.
I then looked through everything I had bought to prep for the race and piled it on the Spitfire. We have plenty of lights, wiring, fuses, relays, new fuel cans, reflectors, etc..
The plan forward is to just spend a little bit of time this next week prepping the car to have the motor and transmission pulled and then the weekend after make the swap. We will have the new alternator by then and the wheels should arrive around that time as well. By mid May we will be testing everything out and have a hole month to relax before the 24 hour race on June 30th. We can use the extra time to do some work on the RX7.
This could not be going better! Who could of thought this ugly thing is a gem...
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