This is the engine block back from the machine shop (Dave Rushton Engines) It was cleaned, but I had expected all the paint to come off. As you can see it looks a bit of a mess!

However, when you look at the machine work it is all sparkly clean on the inside. 

A somewhat artistic shot looking down the main bearing housings. After machining they are perfectly round and perfectly in line. Yum!

The view from underneath up one of the cylinder bores, again nice and clean. You dont really get a feeling for the scale from these photos. I can tell you that I can get my cloth clad fist down the bores to wipe over with duck oil! Massive!

An end view of the engine on its stand. This is where it will reside for the next few weeks while it is assembled. I think I have all the components, but I wont know until I start putting it together! I bought a technical manual from Mondello hoping it may give me some clues............

OK, the work begins, first up copious amounts of Nitromors, its pretty evil stuff so follow the safety guidelines. This baked on yellow paint was reduced to mush in a matter of minutes

Here you can see that light work is being made of the paint on the side too. A second coat was required to get rid of the more stubborn traces of paint, this combined with a drill mounted wire brush rapidly brought us back to bare metal.

About 45 mins sees the block stripped back completely. The wire brushing has polished out any surface rust and removed the last traces of paint. Now all we need to do is give it a good wash before masking it up for painting.

Once its all clean, stand back and admire your work! Now I would highly recommend having a good look over the block to look for any obvious damage. This is something I neglected to do as I was keen to steam ahead. See the Engine Recon page!

Once you are happy the block is 100% clean, dry, and free from grease you can start masking up. Every machined surface and hole should be covered.

Once you are satisfied everything is masked up, go round and check again! The last thing you want is paint all over the place!

Then you can get happy with the paint can! As you can see my choice is matt black (if the truth be known it was my wifes choice!). Matt black is a great colour for an engine, why? Well it radiated heat very well, so hopefully it will help get rid of some of the large amount that I will be generating!

There is nothing to stop you painting the engine with a brush, I just find that the aerosols are so much quicker and easier. Just make sure you let the paint dry between coats or you may end up with nasty looking runs all over the place.

Its starting to look quite good after 3 coats, so I think I will put one more on for luck! It actually has more to do with the fact I have a can left over!

When the masking tape come off the transformation is amazing! In just a couple of hours the block has gone from flaky yellow rusty heap of junk to shiny new looking engine ready for some abuse!

At the back of the engine you can see the oil filter mount and the front the fuel pump mount. I dont think I will be using either of these as intended! I am going to try and get a remote oil filter kit (or make one!) due to space limitations, and the mechanical fuel pump is to be replaced by a high flow electric pump.......perhaps a Holley Black??

With the core plugs inserted I feel like the assembly has started! However, I am still waiting for some bearings so that is about it for the block until they arrive. Better shift my attention to the heads!

After the near disaster of finding one of the heads was cracked, things are back on track. Both heads were cleaned by the machine shop, but when they came back there were still traces of crud. This was removed in much the same way as on the block.

The heads were then masked up trying to retain the shape of the machined surfaces as much as possible. This shot shows the exhaust port side and the rocker cover area masked off.

And this one shows the combustion chambers and skimmed surface completely protected. Obviously in addition to this the intake side was also covered up. Its quite strange how little is left to paint once this has been done!

Here after 4 coats are the heads in all their glory! The masking tape was removed a couple of minutes after the last coat was applied. This way it is still soft and is less likely to crack and come off in lumps which would require repeating the whole process.

In between coats of paint I decided to get the pistons out of their box and give them a damn good clean. They have been used before, but have been sat in the garage for 6 years at least. They were generally quite clean anyway, but they had accumulated dust and creepy crawlies! Bathing them in Jizer seemed to do the job. Once clean they were weighed and marked ready for balancing later. (less than 5g difference!)

Look, shiny! OK not that shiny as it is matt black, and the bare metal areas are starting to get surface rust already, but they look loads better than before!

I am very pleased with the way the head have turned out (even if I do say so myself!) Here you can see the machined exhaust flange face and how nicely it contrasts with the matt black paint (I cant believe I actually just said that!) Now its on to the head build up. Its worth noting that every component going on to the heads is brand spanking.

Starting with the oversize stainless steel valves (2.075" intake and 1.710" exhaust). You cant get any bigger or they will meet in the middle! This should help eek out a few BHP!

The same supplier also provided me with these high performance triple valve springs, retainers and collets. After a few modifications to my valve spring compressor (it was made for the like of metros!) Insertion of the valves was a snap.

And from a slightly lower angle you may, if you look hard, be able to see all three coils..............if not, believe me they are there! I really feel like I am getting somewhere now, I can finally imagine this engine actually running!

Due to another performance upgrade the use of hardened steel pushrod guide plates and competition rocker studs were required. The studs that were in previously prohibited the use of the roller rockers shown below.

The set of aluminium roller rockers are plonked on the heads and we are ready to go.......well obviously not, but it dosen't half look good!

I will probably need to strip most stuff back off the heads at some point in the future for whatever reason, but for know they are just great to look at! Besides it keeps all the bits together so I am less likely to lose them!

Whats going on here? The inlet manifold has made a reappearance? Well if you look real close you can see that some holes have appeared........about an inch from the end of each runner........thats it a 6mm hole has been drilled so that it can be tapped with a 1/16" NPT tap. What on earth for?

Well the nitrous nozzles obviously!!!! 8 fogger nozzles now take pride of place on the manifold, how exciting is that? The kit that I bought is the Pro Race Fogger kit, good for an additional 150-600BHP, yes that is six hundred! This is achieved by simply changing the jets in each of the nozzles.

To be on the safe side I will start with no NOS, but will then gradually work up from 150BHP to about 300. To go for 600 would just be silly! See you next year!!!! ;-)

A view up the intake manifold reveals the fogger nozzle, now allegedly "the Soft Plume 90° nozzle effectively disperses the fuel/nitrous mixture in an atomization pattern that is second to none" Sounds good to me!!!

The lack of any bearings has somewhat slowed down the assembly of the engine. Not to be downhearted I decided I would trial fit some bits on to the engine instead. Kind of good job I did really as it looks like I may have a small problem with the inlet manifold. Now that the heads have been skimmed the ports and bolt holes now sit slightly too low for the manifold. Looks like the machine shop beckons!

After spending many hours fiddling with the NOS kit and the inlet manifold on the dining room table (I have been suitably punished!), I decided the best thing was to just get on with it and start cutting and bending. I started with the fuel solenoid and did my best to bend the stainless tube symmetrically with my Machine Mart sourced brake pipe bender. Lovely!

From the side you can see that the fuel solenoid sits in the gap between the carbs and the 2 tubes I have done look almost the same! I was quite impressed how quickly it looked like it was going to come together.

With 2 pipes down on one side, I repeated (while the bend sequence was still fresh in my mind!) for the other side. You can just see this in this shot. You can also see that I have got really brave and quickly knocked up the outside 2 pipes. One bank of cylinders now has extra fuelling potential.

Looking a bit closer it almost seems like a pro installed the NOS plumbing!

And from above, well it just looks superb! I can almost hear the engine screaming round to 6000RPM. That really is quite sad! Still, look at how the fuel lines spider out from the centre. The plan will be to join the 2 solenoids together with a T'd fuel supply.

With the carbs installed it looks like I may be able to squeeze a fuel regulator between the carbs. I guess I ought to wait until I have done the NOS lines before I get too carried away! I think some sort of bracket will be made to mount the solenoids on as well. Although they may seem pretty solid on the fuel lines, they are quite meaty and will need some support.

In the interest of providing some entertainment my wife decided it would be a good idea to see the craftsman at work. With this in mind she nicked off with the camera and took a shot of me whilst inspecting my work!

Yesterday saw the installation of the fuel side of the plumbing for the NOS kit. Today my attention turned to the business end............the nitrous plumbing! In this pic things are starting to take shape, 2 of the lines are in on one side of the engine.

Same angle as above but this time all 4 nitrous lines are in for one bank of cylinders. I was really quite surprised how easy it has been and how little time it has taken. I would estimate so far only 2 hours have been spent actually installing the kit. I reckon I only have 30 mins to go.

With the carbs on you can see that the solenoid just stick up above the highest point. This would be a problem if I wasn't going to be using that huge bonnet scoop! As it is the solenoid is in exactly the right place (obviously or I wouldn't have put it there......doh!)

Just so the other bank of cylinders doesn't feel left out, here is a shot showing the completed nitrous plumbing installation. This engine is going to rock!

Nice artistic shot from above shows just how neat I have managed to be. A minor miracle, as anyone who knows me can testify! All that remains is to strip it all down, deburr all the pipe ends and the job is, as they say, a good 'un!

A final shot of an end on view (from the front) of the nitrous kit installed on the manifold. My estimate was right and it took just 2 and a half hours from start to finish to achieve such spectacular results. Do it! You know you want to! ;-)