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Bang!!!

Wow! What a ride! It was one hell of an explosion! I was making a pass at night when it was about 40 degrees out. The temperature must've been too cold or the motor was just making too much power for the stock replacement felpro head gasket to hold. I came off the line, blasted off first gear, let out and got back in it. I hit second and began to really put the power down. I slamed third. She was accelerating at an insane rate. All of a sudden, there was this HUGE   B A N G !!!  Smoke started pouring out of the back of the car and the motor's power dropped like a rock. I put the clutch in and coasted all the way to my street. I hit the hazard lights and popped the hood to look inside. I saw water all over the inside of the engine compartment and it was leaking out the head. I knew what had happened.
So, I started to push my wounded beast back home when I figured, "what the hell". I went back inside and tried to start it up. To my amazement, she started up with having to give her only half throttle! LOL She continued to blow a white cloud of smoke for the remainder of my 1/2 mile trip home and sounded like I left a sparkplug out. hehe.

Well, the head gasket blew out on the #1 cylinder. And it blew out so violently that it shot one of the pieces of the gasket across the engine bay onto the inner fender.
After seeing the destruction, I decided that I had to fix her up again. What follows is the reconstruction of my Fourbanger to Better Than Ever!

After some serious wrenching, I pulled out my beast's heart and performed some minor open heart surgery. All the pistons look great, though the rings are reaching their end soon. The cylinder walls look great and have no scratches.

After pulling the motor out and doing a quick once over, I decided to FINALLY change the rear freeze plug in the block. This one has been giving me trouble for about 5 months now. Sometimes it would leak and other times it wouldn't. I figured that it had a pin-hole leak in it and debris was getting clogged in the hole and plugging it up every now and then. Problem was that it was spraying on my clutch! I would smell coolant and all of a sudden the clutch would slip. I knew exactly what was happening but didn't want to go ripping the motor out when it was running so great. But now was my big chance to fix it for good.
I popped the plug out of the back and put my finger inside to see if there was any sediment in the block. Well guess what, There was so much crap in the water jackets that it was about 1 and a half inches deep of rust flakes and other non-distinguishable material. I couldn't believe it! There was no way that this could've been good for my coolant system. LOL
So I got the old garden hose out and proceeded to blast all that junk out of my water jackets. I got it all out and it only took about 15 minutes to completely clean my block and completely drench myself in water. After I was finished, I got the wet/dry vac out and sucked all the water out of the cylinders and head bolt holes. Then I covered the entire motor in WD 40 to stop the instant rust that loves to start on clean, dry cylinder walls.

In the next picture, you can see the pin-hole leak that I had on the bottom of my rear freeze plug. (the upper hole is from my screwdriver)
After I got it out, I hammered a fresh one in and put the flywheel, dust-shield, and clutch back on.

Now pay attention: My next step is how to fix the stock junk motor mounts. I got tired of them being so loose so I took them out and fixed them in my own way. I went to the hardware store and bought a brand new bolt that I could crank down all the way (the shiney bolt). Unlike the stock bolt (the rusty bolt), with the built in "rib" on it. It seems like Ford designed these things to fail on people. (jerks)

The final product! A rock solid motor mount with rubber cushion!
 Yes this makes the car vibrate! Not too bad but it feels like a back massager in the seat. LOL

With the motor mount done, I could then put the motor back in. She went in perfectly! Nothing more to say there. hehe, damn I'm good! LOL

Well, the motor went in so quickly that I decided to take a look at the cylinder heads that I've never touched. (porting wise).  I popped the valves out (was sure to number them) and found a huge lip right under the valve! This was basically decreasing my stock valve size to something even smaller! Well, I can't have that happen! So I brought out my trusty grinder and went to work with a carbide bit to try and remove these lips completely and also to do some bowl work on the runners.

This is the last close picture I took of my porting job. I forgot that I didn't take any for a while and just kept going I guess. But here you can see that the lip is almost completely removed. I did manage to get it completely smooth and rounded perfectly. I also did some work on the combustion chambers. I wanted to take all the sharp edges off and unshroud the exhaust valve too. It worked out nicely if ya ask me. I didn't want to get too close to the valve's seat cause I wasn't about to pay for a valve job and seat install.

After about 2 days of grinding, I'm finished porting!
(well, as much as I plan to do for now anyways)

The next pic is the best product a shade tree mechanic can use. I used to think that I had to take my head to a machinist to have my valves ground every time I took them out. This is all you need to use if your seats are in good shape. I used a little water with the compound and worked the valve in a circle on the valve seat until the grit got this smooth sound. It was real easy. I actually had fun doing it.

The next picture is probably the most important part that I've added. This my friends, is called a Fel-Pro #1035 head gasket. I payed $47 bucks for this thing! It is the high performance gasket for the Ford 2.3 engine. It has a wire inside the combustion ring. My last head gasket was a felpro but it was a stock replacement and only was 12 bucks. I guess that's why it failed. hehe I'm sure that this one will be a lot stronger.

Bam! I threw that sucker back on so quick. I did spray the head gasket with some Copper Head Gasket spray to aid in sealing the gasket to the head. Here you can see my solid adjustable lifters that I put in a long time ago. They still work great. Now who says that you can't run a stock "slider cam" with solid lifters? haha The cam looks brand new! Like those intake ports? hehe

This is the ONLY gasket I found that fit for my intake/cylinder head gasket. The ones that the parts stores were trying to sell me were oval all the way around. But this one was contoured perfectly. It's the ONLY True replacement to get. Don't make the mistake of getting a regular felpro one. I'm telling ya, you gota go to the dealer for this one.

 
 

If it doesn't look like this, don't get it!!!
Notice the flat port bottoms!!!

 

Now this is just a nice addition to my motor. This is a rubber valve cover gasket. Bad ass. Works great, and should last a long time.

Well, That's it for now. I got her running again and she runs even better! The motor mounts work great. The motor stays where it's supposed to. The launches are Much more powerful. The motor runs so nice. It's sometimes too good to be true. How the hell is this car so fast with all of these parts that everyone said wouldn't work?
I was recently told that my intercooler is junk because it has 3 cores to it. I said, "haven't you ever heard of a 3 core radiator?" he said "yea". I said, "Same thing". So I had to sit and listen to this person for 10 minutes telling me all the reasons that it doesn't work.
My final statement to him was, "Then, how's it possible for me to run 25 psi of boost all day long on pump gas without pinging?"
He shut up after that. hehe
I love my car.....

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