Well guys.
killed another car.

My 04 got parked almost a year ago due to me grenading the trans. Lmao, well as you guys know the stratus was my back up car. Blew that up.
got the ion going again last week finally and on my test drive the engine started knocking. Can't catch a break.

Well. Being the hoarder I am, its time for a hybrid.
So tonight I got a spare engine on a stand.

Quick little throw together going down this week.

B207L head
L61 short block
Balance shaft delete
Along with other Ion bolt on stuff that the car already had.

Curious how the head is going to go. Can't find any info on it being done with an early Ion. But plenty of info on jbodies.

I'll be using l61 cams. B207 and lsj also have sodium filled valves. Flow is about the same, but they are sand casted vs foam casted. I'm expecting a smoother power band.

If I wasnt in such a rush id do a light p&p on the head. Or use my p&p lsj head, but that one needs valve seals and a guy just doesn't have time.

Just doing this quick since the only thing I needed to buy for it was gaskets.

Stratus is going to get another engine soon (one I bought turned out to be bad) and probably turbo'd. Srt4 stratus FTW

If I can find anymore hybrid or bolt on goodies in storage I'll update. I have a supercharger kit but I rather break the clutch in first (brand new exedy) and get the stratus moving before I do that.

Open to ideas. Engine should be ready to drop in tomorrow. And I'll be pulling the old one out wednesday.
maybe methanol? Nitrous? Who knows!
I kinda want to do cams, but again dont have time to wait for them to be made. And theyre also pricey. Cant buy fun parts selling clutch lines.

 

Idea:. Pull the existing engine out first. It should make it easier to put the replacement in.

 

Can't tow the car to my rats den until Wednesday.
only takes me like 3 or 4 hours to get the engine out so not a big deal. Plus it was just out last week. Bolts shouldn't be to hard to break

 

I'd take the time to port and polish the head if I was thinking about a supercharger later, Billy. But, you're in a rush and gotta do what you gotta do.

 

Got the block and half the head cleaned last night (ran out of useable scotch bright).
crank pulley stuck in the block, so bringing a puller home from work.
I'll knock that crank pulley out and start tear down once I get the car backed in and set up.
My better half is off work tomorrow and were going to try to get the old one out, and new one in tomorrow when I get off work.
hoping to turn the key Friday. Assuming nothing else goes wrong.

If anyone wants to send me tools or harbor freight gift cards, lemme know 😂😂

 

Aren't you the ultimate tool already?

 

Nothing is going smooth with this.
Got the car moved in tonight.
Finished cleaning the head.
Got the balancer off, only to find the crank key was broken. Great. After grinding that down for 30 min got the timing set off. Then, and ear broke on the balance shaft guide. Awesome.
I'll have the old engine out tomorrow so I can start robbing parts off of it.
I'm already tired of this car. But I will not let it win. If I get one solid pull out of it before it goes boom again I'll be satisfied enough.
The deeper I get into this, the less reliable in expecting it to be. And not because of my ability. But because I'm trying to make 2 fubar engines into one okayish one.

Just a recap of the engine im using. It was cobbled together in the midst of a few days while I was leaving my ex wife. Only to find out the head I used was bad. So yea. Fixing/finding my mistakes and what was wrong with it.
still aiming to be driving it this weekend. I miss clutch kicks.

 

Well, if anyone can do it, it's you, Billy. I'm rooting for you. Go kick some engine ***!

 

Drained the oil tonight in the bad engine. Boy is it glittery and looking like mud. Only had 70 miles on it, too.

Forum wont let me upload a video. Oh well

 

Got the head installed tonight and got the broken balance shaft stub out.
also pressed the delete bushings in a bit more to make sure the oil galley is covered. Imma try to find an oil pressure gauge this week to wire in while its all ripped apart.
Next hurdle will be the cooling system. I forgot the lsj/b207r uses a different bleeder fitting than the l61.
I'm either going to try and find a barb fitting to use to match the l61 bleed off or just delete it and swap to an hhr cooling system as they don't have the bleeder if I remember right.

Measured out the b207 exhaust cam tonight also so I know where to cut to fill the last oil galley that the l61 cam won't reach. Was going to start doing that, but I need to sleep. I was almost 2 hours late to work today due to being over there almost all night. Over slept. Then almost got sent home for telling the service advisor to F Off because I wast dealing with her smart *** attitude 🤣
Junkyard is doing a $75 all you can carry tomorrow. Going to grab a short block for the stratus and come up with some sort of cooling system for this thing while I'm there.
Let's hope I still have it in me to carry an engine 20 feet 😂😂😂