Tom's B6 Build Thread

[TominMO]

Anxiously waiting for a dyno pull, and a ride at Madness.

It should make about the same power as when it was torboed, I'm hoping it won't spin the clutch in 3rd and 4th. Then I can get a good dyno run.

[TominMO]

More pics tmw morning, not today. Very hot and humid and I don't feel like doing stuff outdoors.

Just added this thread to the Oct. 2015 Festy of the Month thread, so that smartypants AZ guy has some (very slight) competition.

[Flyin4stroke]

MOAR PICTARES!

[Advancedynamix]

MOAR PICTARES!

+1

[TominMO]

Here they are....

Pistons 1 and 2


Pistons 3 and 4. Note the scribing I have done around the intake valves with a permanent marker. That is the material (1/16") I have to remove, with one of the Dremel non-ferrous-metal burrs in the kit pictured. Gonna get to it tmw. I've never done this before, so I will practice a little on some aluminum parts I have laying around, to get the feel of working with the Dremel and burr. Might go after these two pistons again with oven cleaner on a paper towel. For some mysterious reason, only two pistons are up at any given time.


Header top. This is Matt D's original B3 header, and the best-flowing one he says. He welded on a couple of ears to add the outer top mounting holes for a gen2 B6 head.


Header bottom. When media-blasting, he found two small holes like this one, due to rust. Header is ~five years old. He made repairs like this. I have since hit the header with grey hi-temp (2000 degrees) exhaust primer, and will paint it flat black tmw. Then I will cure the paint after mounting it on the car; instructions on the can, heat-up and cool-down cycles. Worked well for my Aspire Matt D header.


Mufflers. Stock Festy on the left, a Bosal which Greg donated to the cause when I was down in FL shortly after purchasing Matthew. Stock Festy B-pipe shown also. Pipe on Matthew exhaust is 2.25". I'm sure the B6's power was inhibited by having stock Festy exhaust on it; this alone would have made an improvement, and will give the head/cam much more room to breathe. No cat.

[sketchman]

Looking good. You might consider silver rather than black. Flat black will radiate more heat than silver. And on an exhaust part it's probably a significant difference when you're talking 1000s of degrees of heat.

Rustoleum has a silver high heat spray can that would work. I would even wrap it after paint if it were mine.

[TominMO]

Looking good. You might consider silver rather than black. Flat black will radiate more heat than silver. And on an exhaust part it's probably a significant difference when you're talking 1000s of degrees of heat.

Rustoleum has a silver high heat spray can that would work. I would even wrap it after paint if it were mine.

I am using the Rustoleum primer and paint, but prefer black for this application. Just because. I have heard that black gets hotter. If I don't like it, I can always repaint it.

[sketchman]

Fair enough.

[Advancedynamix]

For some mysterious reason, only two pistons are up at any given time.

Its broken. Time for a bp swap.

[Advancedynamix]

I am using the Rustoleum primer and paint, but prefer black for this application. Just because. I have heard that black gets hotter. If I don't like it, I can always repaint it.

No Tom, once you go black...

[TominMO]

Its broken. Time for a bp swap. :wink:

That's what I suspected. Let's see how it runs on the other two pistons anyway.....

No Tom, once you go black...

Speaking from experience, are we?

Took a test run with my Dremel and two of the burrs, using the top half of an Aspire intake as my test subject. Rounded off a corner. It went really easily, especially with the second burr. The first one I used is on the far left in the pack; the second one is #5 from the left side. It has a straight tapered side with a blunt end. Very smooth and controllable action. I feel a lot better about doing surgery on my pistons now. Everything in the area, especially all the holes on top of the block, will be heavily masked or covered. Once I get done, then I can get some modeling clay, play-dough, silly putty or something and loosely mount the head with the old gasket, rotate the valves by hand and check for contact. Just for grins I'll do the exhaust side too, tho it shouldn't be necessary. Just checking on valve lift on the exhaust side, but I have no reason to think Matt didn't do a good job there.

[bravekozak]

Greg's daughters are heavy into Hello Kitty, so I'm gonna put an HK decal on the hatch--just to piss off the Porsche, Mercedes and Vette drivers when I pass 'em! Might get a Hello Kitty stuffed suction cup doll, like those Garfield ones that were popular awhile back, to stick on the left rear window. John tells me all the macho guys have 'em.

Tomin, be sure to give it the complete Hello Kitty hi-po engine package.
Then you can top it off with a nice custom paint job.
You will really make them notice.
Here kitty, kitty.

[TominMO]

Tomin, be sure to give it the complete Hello Kitty hi-po engine makeover.

I'm thinking they've outgrown the whole Hello Kitty thing by now. I was considering a pink header tho; but you probably can't find pink header paint anyway.

[TominMO]

Moar pix:

To carve on my pistons in the block, I made a cover. First I covered the entire top of the block with blue painter's tape, becuz not very sticky. Then I made this cover out of half of a $2 drop cloth, some cardboard and moar painter's tape. Only the area of the piston I was working on was not covered. That pretty well kept all the shavings contained.


Here are pistons 2 and 3, after carving. Two has the playdough on it (8 small tubs for $1 at the Dollar Store), #3 I left the intake area uncovered so you could see my work. Not pretty, but functional. It was a little difficult to do with the intake hanging there, somewhat in the way.


Here are 3 and 4, after adjusting the valves and very lightly torquing down the head on the old gasket. I just used slightly more than finger-tight. It's hard to see, but there was no noticeable indentation. As expected, none on the exhaust side either (red clay).


Here's the header paint I used


Better pic of the header

[TominMO]

So the main work is pretty much done; just have to button it up. For the header, I have to wait for the heated 3-wire O2 sensor (Denso 234-3000, Rock Auto), so I will slap on the stock manifold and downpipe and mate it to the Matthew B-pipe and muffler for now. Also, I want to make sure it runs right without throwing in the variable of having the 3-wire O2 sensor not behaving as it should. I have a brand new 234-1000 in the mani now.