Project "Quickie" ( 2.0L 8V parts fit 1.5/1.6 8V )

Post by **PrecisionBoost** » Sat Oct 13, 2007 2:31 am

well.... it's friday night and Tom and I were bored so we thought "what the hell... let's swap engines"

So... at 5pm today we started project Quickie which is a dual Lanos engine swap project.

I sold Tom a beautiful silver lanos a few months back and it has a fairly significant rod knock on one of the cylinders.

So... out comes the 1.5L SOHC from his car and in goes the 1.5L SOHC from my Red Lanos.

He likes the fuel mileage of his silver Lanos which is his winter car ( it's probably going to snow in a week or two up here

)

I on the other hand haven't decided what to do.... I have a whole pile of engines.

I could simply throw a new set of bearings into the engine from the Silver car and hope it holds together for the winter ( since I want to park my Mazdaspeed 3 for the winter )

I've also got a decent 1.6L SOHC from my "polar express" project as well as the 1.6L DOHC engine from project "super swift"

I also have a practically new 2.0L 16V ( U20SED ) and a freshly rebuilt 2.0L SOHC.

So I have five different engines that could go into the Lanos.... but I don't know which one to do.

Fixing up the 1.5L is the easiest option since it's simply a drop in an reconnect the electrical type of swap.

On the other hand I could take the bottom end of one of the 1.6L engines (both in good condition) and slap the 1.5L SOHC head onto it.

Hmmmm.... I dunno.... what do you guys think ?????????

5pm Friday.... project starting

8pm Friday..... engine/gearbox ready for hoist and removal on the red Lanos.... silver lanos needs axles removed (what a pain

)
I forgot my set of jack stands at home so we can only remove axles on one car at a time

daewoomofo · Post by **daewoomofo** » Sat Oct 13, 2007 2:40 am

this sounds oddly firmiliar so my swap. engine from my red sedan to my silver sedan. main difference is its 1.6's not 1.5's.

Post by **PrecisionBoost** » Sat Oct 13, 2007 4:22 am

well.... it's 10pm and we are both tired so I think we will call it a day.

At this point my red lanos has the suspension put back together and is ready to roll out to the parking lot.

Tom's Lanos needs the suspension/axles removed and then it's ready for it's engine to come out and mine to go in.

Hopefully we will get Tom's car up and running with the new engine by tommorow afternoon.... he's going to install a new clutch first just to make sure as well as a block heater since both are easy to do at this point with the drivetrain sitting on a cart.

Here is the red lanos up in the air just before removing the mount bolts

Here is the car with the engine/gearbox on the cart

exist3nce · Post by **exist3nce** » Sat Oct 13, 2007 7:52 am

Impressive for one day's work. Put the 2.0 16v in, and throw on a quickie turbo too lol

Post by **PrecisionBoost** » Sat Oct 13, 2007 6:37 pm

exist3nce wrote:Impressive for one day's work. Put the 2.0 16v in, and throw on a quickie turbo too lol

I actually forgot one other possible engine... I also have a fully functional C20GET (2000Km on rebuild)

Tom wants me to install my naturally aspirated 2.0L 8V and throw my old C20GET factory manifold and T25 onto the car (while running it off the 1.5L SOHC management)

I have all the parts I need to do it but I don't know if I want to screw around trying to get the 1.5L SOHC reluctor wheel mounted onto the 2.0L pulley system.

Last night we stopped to eat pizza and have a few drinks half way through the night.... so it took us about 4 hours worth of labor to get to this point.

I'm lazy... so I just got here (12:30pm Saturday) but Tom's been running around gettting fluids and parts since 10:30am so we will probably start up here in the next half hour.

Given I bought the silver Lanos from one of our members who lived in Hamilton (can't remember his name off hand) Tom's car is full of rust.... some of the bolts/nuts are practically gone... so it will definitly slow us down a bit.

Tom took the oportunity to install a block heater.... which oddly enough is not a standard feature on the Lanos's that were sold out here.

I think it's the only automotive make that was sold in Edmonton that doesn't have this option from the factory... as we get down into the range of -35 deg Celcius (-25 deg F ) at times in the winter..... they do start up even in these conditions but they really don't like it.

Well.... I guess I should grab some leftover pizza and get to work....hopefully the car will be up and running before supper time.

Post by **PrecisionBoost** » Sat Oct 13, 2007 8:24 pm

well... an hour and a half later and we are just finally getting ready to drop the engine/tranny.

What a pain.... the exhaust bolts/nuts were practically non-existant balls of rust...... they wouldn't come off even with lots of heat and my special "stripped nut removal tool" which has threads that grab into the outer diameter of the nut.

In the end I just removed the exhaust from the hangers and slid it to the side.

Next huge problem is that some dumb ass torqued the axle nuts to some ungodly amount of torque.

Torque wrench wouldn't take them off, even heat and a four foot long breaker bar didn't budge it.

At one point I managed to lift the car off the jack stand on my side.... I had to be putting well over 800lb ft of torque on it... and it still did not budge.

Tom had the bright idea to remove the strut/hub assembly with the axles....and it worked thankfully.

so.... here is the picture...

Well..... enough of sitting around on the computer... time to pull the other engine/tranny out.

Post by **PrecisionBoost** » Sun Oct 14, 2007 1:49 am

Well, after a few rusty roadblocks were overcome things started to come along smoothly.

The silver Lanos made it's first startup at 7:30pm and we're just doing an engine flush/oil change before bolting on the tires and giving here a good test run.

So that's another 6.5 hrs worth of labor including a bunch of breaks inbetween (since were both tired)

I also had to run out and find a replacement for a rusty broken sway bar link.... we used a chevrolet "full sized" link assembly.

The total length is just a tad smaller but it works just fine.... and cheap at $10 a side.

So the real actual labor was about 5 hours each and we were definitly going slow today.

So.... that makes a total of roughly 9 hours each so 18 hours in total labor.

At this point the old knocking 1.5L SOHC is sitting next to my red lanos which is ready to be pushed outside.

Not bad considering all the headaches we had with the rusty stuff on the silver car.

I'm really starting to think that a 2.0L turbo using the 1.5L management might be fun.... I have to do some comparisons between the 2.0L 8V and 1.5L 8V pulley system to see how easy it will be to convert over.

GsiTurbo · Post by **GsiTurbo** » Sun Oct 14, 2007 9:46 pm

Yes, it was certainly interesting 'swap'... and besides few rusted bulbs of metal (used to be called nuts and bolts at some point), and the *(^*($&(&%)# driveaxle nuts everything went smooth.

I just had to fix one small coolant leak earlier today, and from the looks of it, gear linkage needs adjusting as I have problems engaging 2nd gear (only while downshifting from the 3rd - going from 1st to 2nd is fine).

Besides that, big THANKS to Chris for all his help

Tom

Post by **PrecisionBoost** » Sat Nov 10, 2007 9:55 pm

Well... I finally got a chance to throw the 1.5L from the silver car on an engine stand and investigate the strange knocking sound.

We all agreed that it did not sound like a rod/crank bearing.... more like a top end noise in the cylinder head.

But after diagnosis by a friend (who is a very good mechanic) he narrowed the knock down to the area where the frost plug was.

So... we were expecting some sort of issue with the "small end" of the connecting rod.

Upon removal of the oil pan and inspection Tom and I noticed a "clean" scuff mark on the bottom edge of the crankshaft counterweight.

Immediatly I though.... "must be smacking the pan.... that would be great news" but when inspected I found nothing on the windage tray which would indicate contact.

We both scratched our head and then it became immediatly clear what had happened.

The connecting rod was severly bend (but not broken ) and the crank weight was actually hitting the bottom of the piston!!!!!!

We were both completely amazed at this.... and here is the wonderful picture....

Post by **PrecisionBoost** » Sat Nov 10, 2007 10:02 pm

Either he sucked in some water and it bent the rod or he was running some ungodly amount of nitrous ( 100 shot?? )

He did mention that he replaced the head gasket (among other things) and we found that the oil pan had been siliconed on so it was obviously off at some point.

So.... blown head gasket.... bent connecting rods..... well..... something sure went wrong to have this happen.

The good news it that the rods must be super strong not to break.... so perhaps they are forged as per the spec sheet from GM.

I've seen other engines that have sucked in water where the rods were sintered metal and they were completely destroyed.

Needless to say.... the engine will not be going back into the red lanos this weekend.... but I am going to be pulling a 1.6L out of my "polar express" so I'll probably just slap the 1.6 bottom end onto the 1.5L SOHC head.

gse_turbo · Post by **gse_turbo** » Sat Nov 10, 2007 10:05 pm

WOW! the motor was never turbo'd was it!? i've never seen that outside of a turbo motor (usually TDI Benz)

is it beyond repair? (the crank and cylinder wall)

garrett

Post by **PrecisionBoost** » Sun Nov 11, 2007 12:29 am

I am about to take the cylinder head apart.... there is some wear to the block, piston, connecting rod and a tiny bit to the crank (just at the point on the top edge of the counterweight where the parting line is from the casting)

Cylinder wall seemed fine, but I have to think that the crank hiting the piston and the rod hiting the block may have caused some uneven wear on the bearings and cylinder walls.

I'm hoping the cylinder head is decent.... since I have three 1.6L engines ( one 16V with low km, one 8V that needs rings, one 8V that has 200K but is in decent condition )

I really don't care if the 1.5L block is still good.... I'd just as soon not take the chance and reuse it since there may be some metal filings (both steel and alumium) in the crank and con rod bearings.

My best bet is to take the high mileage 8V 1.6L and slap the 1.5L head onto it.... then it's an easy swap.... after all.... it's just my winter beater.... I allready have enough summer cars.... I don't think I will be doing much to this red lanos right now.

Post by **PrecisionBoost** » Sun Nov 11, 2007 2:04 am

well.... after having a bit to eat with Tom and heading over to our friend's place to look at project Super Swift I decided to let Tom get to wiring up the megasquirt and I came back to my shop to strip down the engine.

At this point I have it down to the bare block and I just had to laugh when I put the engine at top dead center.

The piston with the bent connecting rod is nearly 1/8" lower than the other cylinder!!!!!!!!!

No wonder Tom was saying that the new 1.5L we dropped in got significantly better gas mileage (nearly 100 miles per tank better )

After all the one cylinder must be running about 2:1 compression

Here is the picture....

Post by **PrecisionBoost** » Sun Nov 11, 2007 2:51 am

This just gets more hilarious as I go along.... this is unbeliveable.... the rod is bent so badly that it's offset by 3/4" !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The rod bolts had a tiny bit of deformation in the way of slightly flatened threads where the two halfs go together but overall they seemed not too bad.

I can't belive this engine ran like this for several thousand kilometers!!!!!!

Here is the first picture... as you can see the connecting rod is right FU#K'D

Here is the second picture... you can see on the con rod where it was hitting the block (shiny spot) and you can also see where the crank was hitting the piston

I took a good look at the large conrod/crank bearing and there is significant scoring and although the crank could probably be saved with some micro polishing it's not worth it.

These engine blocks are a dime a dozen.... I'd be stupid to spend more than $50 on the engine when I can get decently worn blocks for next to nothing.

exist3nce · Post by **exist3nce** » Sun Nov 11, 2007 2:10 pm

WOW lmao ....... can't believe it ran "ok" like that.