[harvs]

I've just finished pulling my engine out as it has more oil leaks than Saudi, and the compressions are well below limits.

I think I'm just going to strip it, and rebuild it myself (obviously with the aid of a engine machine shop for any machining required.)

However just getting a change over engine is very tempting. Except for today I got a price out of REPCO (GM engines) for a change over, $4700!!! That's about what the zook is worth!

So has anyone seen a reasonably priced J20A or am I better just doing the work? (rebuilding an engine isn't a problem for me, just I struggle for motivation, and an easy path would be nice...)

Price for a "master rebuild kit" out of the states is about $900 landed via fedex. That includes everything one could want to replace and a bit more...

[Fatzook]

You may get a little better price from an independant engine rebuilder, but they will all be high compared to building it yourself.

I'd have a crack at it If I were you.

[harvs]

Well I spent the day tearing it down. What a disapointment...

I was expecting to see a heavily worn engine that was due for some work. What I've got looks like about the most lightly worn engine I've ever pulled down. All the bores still have the honing marks all the way around. The pistons only have a small amount of wear... Everything measures well within limits.

Great... Maybe I looked at the compressions for a different varient of the motor or something? I got between 155-165psi on every cylinder. Which according to the suzuki manual I downloaded 170psi is the lower limit, and 200psi is standard. Can anyone confirm or deny that?

I just get the feeling that I've waisted an enormas amount of time, effort and money because I still need to rebuild the thing. I guess on the positive I can fix all the oil leaks and the cluch was pretty stuffed...

[dungbeetle]

how many kms were on it? my wife has a j20 in her vitara and it has 220k kms on it and still going awesome. it amazes me how much power it has, tho the car is very light.
im hoping to get a long future out of this motor but being so much fun to flog it, ill probably blow it up soon!! sorry cant help with ya question tho.

[Fatzook]

Bores look like new

Is it possible you have a bent or worn valve?

[harvs]

Exactly Fatzook, and the pistons look just as good... Rings look like they're not long bedded in.

200k, so I was really expecting it to be worn. I'm thinking that they've re-done the bottom end at some point. But there's still some things that were f8%ked, like the oil pump, which I guess they just haven't replaced.

As for the head. Yep I have my suspicions that this might be the problem. But the J20 is such a PITA to get the valve retainers out. I could make a tool to do it, but I recon I can't be stuffed and I'm just going to give it to a recon shop and get them to machine the valve seats...

This isn't an issue with one cylinder though, all of them were at about 160. So it's not going to be one stuffed valve. Might be all of them not sealing too well though.

[Fatzook]

how was the head gasket?

[harvs]

Who knows, unfortunatly it's not as easy to tell as a normal block with the sleaves the way they are. The head gasket's metal. However no obvious signs of leaking anywhere.

Anyway, doesn't matter, what I need to do now is the same either way.

[Fatzook]

True. My J20 has 205K on it now, and I'm not going to do a compression test, cos I just don't want to know

Post up where you get your parts and what the damage is on parts and labour if you don't mind

[mr.green]

fit your gaskets and seals and screw it back together. call it a thorough oil leak repair... i love factory built engines. the reliability is hard to match.. one of my workmates decided to put some bigends in his integra a while ago just to be thorough....... 18000km later guess what happened.. so after a $2000 second hand motor he decided not to touch this one.

this is the same reason that i just bought a crashed 5l diesel lux to pull the motor for my own even though it was similar money to a recon engine.

the japs know there stuff and a lot of the time the recon parts are made anywhere besides japan.
my 2c, even though its close to worthless..

[skyman]

My 8 valve 1.6 looked the same way , spotless head to toe. Turns out the rigns were really worn down even though they looked damned near new.

I ran a bottle hone down it,replaced the big & little ends for luck, and called it good.

The bores in these engines are hard as, and can go along ways without needed a re-bore. I would have been good with jut rings but decided to do the bearings so i would not have to pull it down for another 60-100k

[harvs]

I was pretty happy with the price of parts from my local autopro. The quote for pistons, rings, big end and main bearings, full gasket set came to about $900.

Which was just a bit more than ordering it out of the states and paying postage.

Ok, so I said to them todays to get it for me. Now the problems start!

They can't get me a oil pump as no one has one listed (noting every recon kit out of the states have them in it.) So apparently I should go to suzuki and bend over.

Then 20min later I get another phone call, "we can't get the gasket set we quoted, but we can get you another one for $60 more, that's $430 for the gasket set", WTF? "Oh yeah, and we can't get it over night like we said, you'll get it sometime next week."

Generally these guys are really good, it seems like getting stuff for a japanese engine isn't as easy as I'm use to.

So now I'm looking for a gasket set, oil pump, water pump and timing kit from one of the US sites. I don't even want to know what an OEM oil pump is worth, and mine is shagged.

Also got a quote from GEM engines to overhaul my head. They said worst case senario (other than the head being cracked) I'm looking at $485. And that's me dropping it in with all valves in place (as they're a prick to get out and back in). So I'm just going to give to them to do. But then I can't do that until I have a gasket set with valve stem seals... Fuck it!!!

Yeah factory engines are much better than recon. The quality control and cleanliness is second to none. However, I've got a 13yr old car and they stopped selling J20A's in Oz a lot of years back. So every engine out there is going to be very tired. Part of the problem like you've described above though is just replacing parts often isn't enough. If a bearing is worn more often than not the journals will also be worn enough (often slightly out of round so not visable to the eye) that replacement of bearings will just lead to short term bearing failure. So what do you do? Take it to a machinist and cross all fingers and toes that they, and their equipment, will do a spot on job. Personally I've been involved in a number of horror stories where they got it wrong.

What I have seen through this tear down is the engines are effectively disposable in nature. They're built in such a way that I can't see the designers really ever envisaged that anyone would rebuild one, probaly because that's the Japanese market. That's probably why they wanted so much for a change over with warrentee. There's some crazy low tolerances in this engine to, like try 2thou for head warpage! I'd like to see you try and buy a straight edge to measure that acuratly.

[Fatzook]

Oil pump.

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Suzuki-Chevy-G18K-J18A-J20A-G23-J23A-Engine-Oil-Pump-/160533137518?pt=Motors_Car_Truck_Parts_Accessories&hash=item256085486e

[harvs]

Yep, so you got to wonder why no one in oz sells them. Doesn't matter, ebay to the rescue...

[Fatzook]

harvs wrote:

Yep, so you got to wonder why no one in oz sells them. Doesn't matter, ebay to the rescue...

They all come from Taiwan anyway. OEM may even come from there via Japan for some fancy labels.

[harvs]

An update on the engine tear down.

I'm a bit happier with it now. Previously having no idea why the compressions were below par.

While preping the head to go off to the machiniest I pulled out an exhaust valve to see what it's like.

The valve seat was worn significantly out of round. So I popped the valve back in to check the valve guide wear. No need for a dial gauge on this one, sloppy as a cock in a sock. Further to that the valve stem seals were fairly hard and old.

So at least I've found something of significance wrong with this engine.

[skyman]

Are you going to rebuild the entire thing, or just try a head re-work and see how it goes?

Judging by the compression, the look of the internals, and what you have found in the head, it's possible just refreshing the head may get you back into spec.

Glad you found something that is serviceable.

[harvs]

Everything is apart, and the biggest cost of the whole thing is the gasket set. So it's new pistons, rings, big ends (I'm not going to bother splitting the cast to get to the mains), oil pump, water pump, full timing set (cogs and chains) and the head recon.

Sounds like a lot of gear, but it's all pretty cheap stuff and I don't feel like pulling this engine out again too soon.

[skyman]

Think the big ends are in pretty good shape then? I hate to crank the bearings on a OEM engine. Seems aftermarket bearings never last as long as they do when they come from the factory.

I hope it all goes very smooth for you.

[harvs]

[losfer]

may want to reconsider not removing the main cap girdle , it houses a small o ring that is prone to leaking on the v6 and j20 blocks . would hate to see you do all that work to find that a $2 o ring will still be pissing oil out everywhere.

see attached picture..

[harvs]

OK thanks for that

[harvs]

So here's where it's at now... Unless something catastrophic happens, it should be on the road tomorrow

[skyman]

Wow, it sure looks nice and pretty. armsup

I hope everything goes good for you with no hiccups (knocks on wood).

[30ONA]

harvs wrote:

So here's where it's at now... Unless something catastrophic happens, it should be on the road tomorrow

How did this end up ten years on?
Any tips or things to change if giving advice?
Did you do a compression test after the build?