BigMike's "Return of the Project" [Updated 7/11]

[BigMike]

Taking a step outside, here I am getting the engine ready




My 3RZ did not come with A/C, so I am just putting the stock A/C pulley on

[BigMike]

And here we have the SUPER SMALL diameter serpentine pulley installed on the monstrous RV2 compressor



Don't mind the bracket however, that is not being used. It was just the first of many design changes.




Of course the idea is to run as small a pulley as I can so as to not need to rev the engine so much while airing up every truck on the trail, something I cannot WAIT to finally be able to do! I want to air up my truck faster than I can here at the shop. This is my goal, we'll see if I can achieve it!


That's it for today. More to come soon!


Cheers
BigMike

[Tool Pimp]

Sweet    when do you want to volunteer your services for my truck 

[toyotanner]

must be nice 

[Wermz84]

Dayum!     Very cool.  I hope you meet your air goal!

[Doof]

looks good so far BM

[kneedownnate]

And before you ask: I've NEVER had over heating problems with the 3RZ. I run a 3-core V6 radiator with 2 bottles of Redline Water Wetter. It is just that when Rock Crawling as slow as I do, there is hardly any air flow. And I know that engine is working very hard and not getting very far, so I just like to keep things as cool as possible under the hood. I like to believe the engine appreciates it.

I agree with the fans and vents, but I have to think it's very incomplete until you wrap the header    I got a monster roll off ebay for like 1/3 what a roll half the size costs in town.

[AreYouSure]

Hey Mike

Great Job, can you cover how you mounted your lights on the front axel and how you modified your transfer case cross member

[kiyul4130]

oba looks like its coming along well. definitely need to get this done to mine sometime. i usually am always the last guy airing up my tires off someone elses air. it would be nice to be the first for once and then everyone else can use yours, especially during snow runs.

[BigMike]

I agree with the fans and vents, but I have to think it's very incomplete until you wrap the header 

I would agree with you until I mention the header is ceramic coated externally and internally Header wrap need not apply

Hey Mike

Great Job, can you cover how you mounted your lights on the front axel and how you modified your transfer case cross member

I don't think I ever documented the HySteer lights, so I'll just take some pictures and briefly chat about them.

As for the crossmember, you'll have to wait for this thread to catch up to the present

[Tallchevy]

Are you getting an accurate engine bay temp? If you have the probe on your air filter I would think that the guage would show a cooler temp than what it actually is. Since heat rises, you would want the temp probe as high as possible in the engine bay to get an accurate temp 

Other than that, great job 

[BigMike]

It's just for reference. Last summer while wheeling it would top 150 degrees on the air filter wherein the gauge just reads "888.8" (it has an upper temp range limit of 150). So who knows how hot the air filter is getting... 155? 165? 180?

At the Hammers last month it never even hit 100 degrees, but of course its still spring time. So I am eager for 110-degree valley weather so I can go wheeling and compare the difference!

[MeXi-CaN81]

Wow Mike, your truck is looking most excellent! When do I get to wheel it?

[79coyotefrg]

Wow Mike, your truck is looking most excellent! When do I get to wheel it?

[Bazzi]

mikey´s back....

[Cheesemaker]

It's about damn time you got your arse in gear on your truck there Mike! 

Hey, what's it say on your front fender in PINK?

[Phazertwo]

Hey, what's it say on your front fender in PINK?

I don't see pink???

Breast cancer maybe???

PZ

[Wermz84]

Progress please? 

[Phazertwo]

Progress please? 

X2!!

[ToYocRawleR]

Dang bro you must have tons of man hours into this thing.  I like all the custom little details on it, ie, heat shield for your intake, on board air, and those nology wires are bad ass!!  Your truck is built to the hilt man!

Awesome job! 

[MiniSimp]

Ok Mike, it's been nine days, that should be enough suspense.

Let's get to the new transfer case crossmember.

[TheCookieMonster]

Ok Mike, it's been nine days, that should be enough suspense.

Let's get to the new transfer case crossmember.

i agree

[TIMS89CRAWLER]

Ok Mike, it's been nine days, that should be enough suspense.

Let's get to the new transfer case crossmember.

for sure!!!! lets see it

[freds40]

Sooooooooooooooo, anything new to report there Mike.    Anything you'd like to share with the rest of the class. 


Sux dood........yup, that about covers it.

[Cheesemaker]

Mike's at it again, giving us all these teaser shots and then leave us hanging on for months.  But he is on the ball for customer service!    Thank you Mike!

[Duffil]

I am soo over this build waiting contest.

[BigMike]

Alright guys, sorry, had a busy week

Here are a couple more updates for your enjoyment

September 6, 2007: Installed Mud flaps, Shackle Bolt Lock-Outs, Trimmed Air Filter Adapter

I finally got a fix-it ticket for no mud flaps, so 30 days later I installed some debris flappers.
Here is the mount for the mud flaps showing how I tied it in with my bumper mount. These are big rig flaps that I cut in half and modified 2 mounts to fit my rig. They are a bit "gody" but at least they will keep the CHPs off my back





Also, around this time I installed the "CruzrDave's Shackle Bolt Lock-Out System", which can be seen in the above pictures. I am not sure what date exactly I did this as I never documented it, so I just took a picture of it on my truck outside tonight. It was right around the same time I did the flaps so here they are:

I welded two pieces of bar stock to each outside shackle plate on either side of the bolt head so as to prevent the bolt from rotating within the shackle. Remember how your stock Yota shackles have 1 pressed in bolt? Maybe there is a reason for this Basically I hate that my shackle bolt crimp nuts some times back out a bit, and this is just a little something to do which so far has TOTALLY prevented the crimp nuts from budging!

Check it out (the black area is black spray paint to prevent rust and the other weird dirty looking texturing is grease from the bushings):


Then I cut off all that nasty & ugly excess aluminum on my air filter adapter which really cleaned it up a lot. This particular adapter is for a Nissan Fairlady (300ZX) that I got from a friend for free so it doesn't exactly "fit" the 3RZ air flow meter housing as it should.

[BigMike]

And then, as you guys last saw in my Summer Project Thread (shown here, Reply #470), I removed the Supercharger.

Well, not too long after removing the SC, in fact the same week I believe, I was following Marlin home from work going quite slow on the freeway, like 55 in the granny lane, and when we got off the freeway and came to the first red light, I put her in neutral and came to a stop.... and suddenly everything was shaking. The shift handle was shaking side to side, the hood was shaking side to side, even the truck was rocking a bit. I checked the oil pressure: OK. I checked the RPM: OK, right on 800. And when I got home and shut 'er down.... I could hear a bubbling sound coming from my radiator overfill tank.

Circa. Sept 10th, 2007: Blown Head gasket

These pictures and this report are from Feb. 10, but in reality, I blew the head gasket the SAME WEEK as last year's Round Up. So, if you saw my truck in the Rubicon Springs campground last Sept, it in fact had a blown headgasket. It did alright on the trail, but out on the open road it would blow out about 2 liters of water every tank of gas. It was a real kill joy and is a "THE" cause of me not even wanting to touch my truck from Sept. until I regained motivation this Feb.

Fast forward to....
February 10, 2008: Resurfaced head, New Valve Job, Replaced Blown Head Gasket

Feb. 10, 2008, finally, the turning point, the Return of the Project.

Having sat in the garage for nearly 6 months untouched, I resumed work on my truck. Here is what it looked like while coming out of hibernation. Remnants of the 5th injector wiring harness can be seen (the red and yellow wires behind engine and around clutch master cylinder)



Running a compression check, here are the results:
Cylinder:
1: 178 psi
2: 180
3: 195
4: 204

That seemed a bit strange.. Where is the leak? between 1 and 2? or both? I was expecting a very dead cylinder but that didn't seem the case here.

Pulling it apart now...



Keeping the chain and gear in "time" (oh how I wish this was a "G" head!)



Out she comes



Now this was my first time ever opening up a 3RZ. It was a lot of fun!

Here is a shot of the block:



Another angle:



Ahhh there it is, Cylinder #1 to front water jacket port:

[BigMike]

Here is the head side:



Here you can clearly see the missing bits of head gasket yielding a nice internal water injection system



Here is the new OEM Toyota head gasket with a thin coat of copper coat on top and bottom:



And unfortunately I was in such a rush to get the new rebuilt head back on, I never took any pictures of the new valve job nor the resurfacing. I had a local machine shop do the work and they did a great job!

Here is the finished back-together shot!



I made a real easy job out of that head gasket. I yanked the head, waited a day for the machine shop, and then slammed it all back together. It was in-and-out as far as I'm concerned.

The compression results with the new gasket and valve job:

Cylinder
1: 210 psi
2: 205
3: 215
4: 215

OH YEAH BABY!

[BigMike]

I'll tell you what, with this new valve job, this engine has simply come alive all over again! In fact, I raced Bevin on the freeway in 3rd gear (against his 2003 quad coil 3RZ in a 1985 shortbed with 37" tires and 5.29, same tire size & gears as me) and WOW! We held it in 3rd at about 40 MPH, and then hit it! At first we were neck-and-neck, and then out of no where I just started running away from him! I had him by a good 1.5 truck lengths before grabbing 4th gear!

Before with the Supercharger boosting at 8psi, we raced just like this on the freeway, and he SMOKED ME! Seriously, my 3RZ @ 8 pounds of boost lost to his 3RZ at 0 pounds of boost! But now I've got more power than him! So -- the crazy thing is -- my truck is making more power now without the Supercharger than it did with the Supercharger!

Who would'a thought?! I LOVE THE 3RZ, BABY! It just keeps getting better and better!