Day 4 VR6 Engine Tear Down – Update on Engine

Have an update from the shop on the engine. …


The intermediate cam chain gear came loose and yep, you have bent valves, at least 4 visually. The timing chains were done recently; just somebody didn’t get a bolt tight.


The cam train all seems to be in good shape, no damage there. At this point I still have it in short block form in case you wanted to save some money, the cyl walls look great, and I pulled one rod cap and that bearing looked great.


The head is on its way to the machine shop, for further evaluation.

Day 4 VR6 Engine Tear Down - Porting the Intake_2

It's been a couple days since I had a chance to work on anything related to the car.  Yesterday Vinny and I bought and installed some cheap shop lights.  Nothing special just a little something to help when working in the garage at night.  I'll take the time to tidy up the cords this weekend.





So today I was able to finish the stage one porting on the lower intake.  Stage two will just even out the high spots from the aggressive burr used during stage one.







I was also able to get the upper intake manifold outlined with the gasket and scribe so hopefully I can get this done tomorrow after work.
Here are some pics of the upper intake ready to be ported;





As a reference I grabbed a couple shots of the complete intake and how it looks with the lower and upper intakes together.

Day 3 VR6 Engine Tear Down - Porting the Intake

So while the long block is at the shop being evaluated I thought I would take the opportunity to make the engine more efficient.  I thought I would port both upper and lower intake manifolds and later the head when I get it back.  Not looking to do anything crazy just a simple gasket match and clean out, since the engine is like a big air pump.

Here are the tools I used.  I started with the red sanding stone yesterday.  After that quickly clogged up I did a little research and found I would need a carbide burr.  Took a trip to Northern Tool on the way home from work today and picked up two bits.


Here you can see the difference



Close up





The complete intake side of the lower manifold.  I still have to clean out the runners, but the matching part is done.



I ran out of time tonight but scribed out the edge of the gasket on the head side of the lower intake manifold.  I have a LOT of material to remove on this side tomorrow.