got my 4.6L

[Randy T.]

aurorah.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=suggest&action=display&thread=17213&page=1

[XJSman89]

Dang Randy, you beat me to it.

Nice, man! It'll be good to see another 4.6 Aurora around here. You didn't even have to make us ask for pictures, either! ;D

[cbburtraw]

is it in the car or sitting in your garage?

[Deleted]

whats with the can and pack of ciggarettes?

[XJSman89]

Nice snag, man! My engine is sitting at 57K right now and I thought I was lucky! 10 miles... wow. Can't wait to see it in the car.

[aurorabrain]

I hope you plan on putting inserts in the block for the head bolts while you have it torn apart.

[Speed Neon]

^

if he doesnt the threads will prob pull when he torques-to-yield the new head bolts.

[cbburtraw]

how hard is that whole insert thing anyways? I have heard a lot of bad things about doing the head job...

[Deleted]

I see nothing

[aldrichd]

Nice pics. Thanks for the detailed update.

[cbburtraw]

These pix are amazing Golden. Thanks a bunch! I think this should be stickied just for common interest.

Are the pistions supposed to have the indentations in them? At first, i thought there were some interference issues with the timing chain/valves, but looking back i noticed them on all the pistions. Maybe that makes them a non-interference engine?

[Speed Neon]

the pistons have reliefs cut into them for valve clearance. the N* is supposedly interference but i have never torn one down that lost a chain. or attempted to rechain one and see if it would run after such a failure. but i know a few interference motors that will still run after losing a belt or chain. the term interference has no set guidelines.

so when i read interference engine i assume that you have a 50/50 chance of bending a valve if you lose a belt or chain. the slower the engine rpm when the timing failure occurs the better. my experi say the belt/chain breaks or jumps on startup or under hard acceleration. you usually skip teeth on a timing belt on decel.

but i saw a catera v6 jump 3 teeth on the timing belt and it bent every valve before the tech could reach the key and shut it down. and we know it jumped because it was running fine for 15 minutes, and than all hades broke loose. sounded like somebody poured change into a clothes dryer. a really sharp metallic clacking noise.

[Speed Neon]

another question is what is the purpose of this teardown?

i know you wanna rebuild it and all but the cost/benefit ratio has been exceeded. unless your planning on building a forged internal 4.6, you would of gotten away cheaper buying a running 4.6, timeserting it, sealing the bedplate, and installing it.

nice pics tho. i have never completely disassembled one. but chains, and a bedplate reseal i have done. i wanna try a timesert job. but unless i pull headbolts, i doubt i will every get around to it.

[Speed Neon]

Jul 12, 2009 23:10:42 GMT -6 @golden95 said:

"unless your planning on building a forged internal 4.6, you would of gotten away cheaper buying a running 4.6, timeserting it, sealing the bedplate, and installing it."

thats the plan. this motor ran fine other than the knock. didnt leak either (unlike my 4.0 which leaks and knocks). but since the heads have to come off, and the crank has to come out, well, thats every seal in the whole motor. and i wont send a block that isnt bare to a machine shop to be worked on. all i am doing to the motor is new gaskets, water pump, thermostat, timeserts, piston rings, and possibly a crank kit.

btw what do you guys think about painting a northstar?

my question is why???

you could of gotten a very low mileage 4.6, like i did, for less than half of what your planning to spend on rebuilding this motor. i mean i got a whole drivetrain out of an ETC for 1900 bux, 52k miles.

really do you think this is going to be cost effective? as a master i dont see the reason for this rebuild unless you are going forged internals and a turbo setup.

[Speed Neon]

oh i wouldnt paint a N* i would consider polishing it. and a nice well polished set of valve covers. man that would be sweet. or have the valve covers powdercoated the color of your car.

but painting the N* nah, i mean its a piece of mechanical art in motion, and that would be mechanical defacement.

OR SOME SEE THRU VALVE COVERS....... MAN I WOULD BUY A SET OF THOSE IN A HEARTBEAT. just to watch the bumpsticks rotate and see the oil run off of the cam bearings. i often open my oil filler just to watch the exhaust cam rotate.

[Aurora40]

Wow, awesome documenting of the teardown! It's really cool to see all those pictures. I find the ladder bottom end and the first picture of the assembled engine the most interesting. You can really see why OHC motors are so heavy. Those heads look huge perched on top of the block, almost like it should topple over.

Thanks for taking and posting so many pictures!

Is this going in your Aurora?

[cbburtraw]

its only not too heavy because its aluminum, and the bore is bigger so theres actually less motor compared to the 4.0.

pics of the heads will be interesting.

[Speed Neon]

^ its about time somebody else got onto the grafting bandwagon. its all about taking what GM gave us and making what we want. i would flush that PS cooler with brake clean before i used it for a tranny cooler. but i am sure it would work just fine.

you may wanna consider an STS oil cooler also. to use as a tranny cooler.

i used a dodge powerwagon cooler, but it was a tad large. it fit but my coolant temps went up about 10 degrees on the highway. it was slowing the airflow too much. so i went to a set of tranny coolers off the shelf at advance. and ran them in paralell. < misspelled

[Speed Neon]

parell <misspelled> allows the coolers to split the work load and slows the flow of tranny fluid through the coolers, to allow the fluid more time to transfer heat. the down side is its a tad bit more complex to route and you have more hoses to spring a leak. definitely something to consider.

[Speed Neon]

the trans cooler lines are high flow high temp relatively low pressure. all in all the temp isnt really that high, 200 F average, but is constant.

the amount of coolers and the type of coolers you run are dependent on what your willing to trade. the better the coolers work the more air they will slow, and heat. usually resulting in a rise in highway cruising temp, when the fans are not working but the cars heat exchangers, radiator, PS cooler, trans cooler, are working pretty hard. and are dependent on ram air.

we have to be careful when loading the classic with new heat exchangers, as the ram air tunnel is a tad small and easily packed with exchangers.

i suggest a focus on oil temp and tranny fluid temp.

even tho i would attempt to mount a PS cooler onto the subframe. or do like GM did on the early W-bodies. and use a length of metal tubing as a heat exchanger.

but a PS cooler isnt top priority.

[Speed Neon]

dont neck the lines down. use a stock STS oil cooler setup. they fit perfectly fine. you have to drill a few holes for mounting hardware but the lines route perfectly.

[boldsmobile]

Thanks for the pics golden.

[Speed Neon]

may i ask the price for a crank kit.

you will get no rebuttal from me, if your going with it than the ACNA is behind you. sometimes i forget in my time of wrenching that this is what its really all about. every tech has monster car planned in their mind, on a napkin, even on the wall of their bathroom ( true story).

and with the combined knowledge we have on this forum there is no reason you cant put yourself together a 4.6 classic.

have you considered upgrading the harness to OBD2 spec.... i mean while the car is down and out for a while. i dont know how far you wanna push it with this project..... how much ur willing to spend...

see i have my 99 subframe with arms and rack.................. i also have a set of spindles.......... you will have to provide your own struts and drill th proper hole in the strut tower...... i also have a set of v6 lucrene brakes......... modding a classic can get addictive.

[cbburtraw]

I believe you dude. Take plenty of pics of the swap though, I would love to see them anyways for curiousity reasons. And perhaps a 0-60 vid? Actually, I'd take a 0-60 vid before the swap, and one after, on the same strech of road, and cut them into one before-after vid. that would be soo cool!

[RCA1186]

I stumbled onto this today and now officially can't wait to see it rebuilt and in your Aurora

[RCSRGREAT]

Cant wait to see it all together!

[RCA1186]

Oct 27, 2009 20:15:08 GMT -6 @golden95 said:

Just so everyone knows, i ONLY use gm parts (coolers, fans, etc). the last time i put a non gm part (sho fans on my s-10) my 1/2 inch drive ratchet fell off of the fan shroud and hit me in the corner of my eye socket while i was under the front end mounting the non gm part. just thought i would share.

Ha! The same thing happened to me, except I got hit in the mouth and it chipped a tooth, I was working on a Taurus lol

[cbburtraw]

ouch!

so whats ETC (not eldorado... estimated time of complection)?

[lanceslambos]

for only 5/8 of a mile the tops of the pistons are sure dirty looking. NOS should have burned pretty clean. just saying 5/8 of a mile really? only (2) 1/4 runs + an 1/8 or (5) 1/8 runs? looks like a fun project!

[new96auroraowner]

Looks great so far! I am thinking of putting a 4.6L into my '96 aurora. The transmission went out on it unfortunatly and it has been sitting in the driveway for quite awhile. What is the basic procedure for the removal of engine and transmission? To my understanding the whole assembly comes out all at once