well I got a little more done on the engine today. I honed the bores, and assembled the pistons, rods and bearings. I am very VERY happy with the bore and piston clearences and the ring gap. last time the other dude did all the machine work on my motor i had some serious play in the piston to bores. this time they are nice and tight. hold firm anyway. and ring end gap is all about .35mm . manual says between .25 and .45mm and no more than 1mm. so its sweet.
 
  oh this time I am doing all the machine work on my engine after the last block I got to do it stuffed it up. So if it fails i only have myself to blame. I have been putting a fair bit of effort into checking everything alot more than I normally do when someone else does the work and I am very confident this engine will turn out alot better than the last one. I even decked the head and block by putting a long roll of sandpaper on a big block of steel and went evenly back and forth over them. according the the straight edge she is flat.
 

 

 
I am really happy with the hone from my drill tool. a very nice pattern in it.

 

well been a little while since update but the project has now changed direction. I was really starting to miss the car so I looked at a few thinking about buying a cheapy to have as a daily while I fix this one. after looking at 2 others this one poped back up. we wanted it when it was first fro sale but then it went down we assumed it sold, but she came up again at the right time. so a couple of trips to canberra netted this little beauty.
 
turns out the car is everything I wanted to do to mine anyway appart from the outer paint job. This new one has factory 8E3 Blue so the interior still remains this colour, it has factory Blue Interior, has no factory A/C.
 
so basically it saves me heaps of work stripping mine to full respray it and ripping the A/C out. So new plan is to restore this bad boy and try to sell off the other one.
 
So got it home and straight out began pulling her down to inspect the condition. its as I thought, there is no boot rust unlike mine, there is now windscreen rust unlike mine, it does have some frunk rust where the brake master has leaked onto it but nothing major. had a look at the floors, some extremely minor surface stuff.
 
so all in all a good buy and now the plan begin to make this the car I had visioned.
 

 

 

 

 

That looks very tidy. Nice colour.
You going to fit a stock front bumper?

yeah i am going to fit all the suspension and wheels off my other one. and i have a stock bumper for it. will be keeping that one for the track though. has a nice stable diffuser an lots of ducting

Hey man, great story and history, all the best with the rebuild and love the final colour scheme :)
 
Congrats on the elpresidente thing .

I feel kinda bad about abandoning my other one, but at the end of the day, this new one is just awesome.
 
originally I wasn't going to but this weekend I am going to pull the engine and gearbox out of the new one to swap back to the old one.
 
My new engine is pretty well ready to go, so that will go in this one now in the next few weeks.

well got a few things done this weekend. Starting to clean the new AW11 up. since I have the new motor I have been building sitting there I have decided I am going to use it. so out came the old motor this is going to go into the old red chassis so the car can be put back together and sold off.
 
My new engine is waiting in the corner of the shed there :D got the head bolted down with TRD 0.8 headgasket. Finally did the thing on my new motor that was holding me up, built a small plate inside the sump and put some hinges on it, got some trap doors going.
 
Got the front end off the new AW to inspect it. the water system is really gunked up, all the hoses crackle when you squeeze them. had rusty water in it. so I guess before new motor goes in I will have to pull the radiator and all the hoses to flush them.
 
the real look at that small LH front accident is now more apparent, the bulkhead the headlight attaches to is a little munted, will leave this for the moment, fix it properly before new dark blue respray. for the moment, its been sort of fixed and painted over atm. Reo is bent back on the LH side.
 
Won't be doing much else to this now for a couple of weeks, next week i will be down putting the old red one back together so i can move it out of dads shed and recoups some costs of this one. 
 
Keep an eye out gonna have a few parts go up for sale next few weeks, got spare parts now for black interiors that I have no need to use now. I love the blue interior :D
 

 

 

well as promised i went down to my parents to finish the old Red AW11 so she can be sold off.
 
It was a monster 3 days, did the painting over the spots that were fixed/replaced and re assembled the car. in this time I put the engine/gearbox back in. pulled the good suspension out and put the stock stuff back in including changing springs on struts, swaybars. put all the interior back together, only had carpets seat and dash in it. put all the boot trimmings back in (wiring loom, lights garnish, airbox piping, ariel) Put the front end back on (headlights, guards, bumper, lip, A/C piping) Under fuel tank piping. trim kits on windscreen and roof surrounds. exhaust system and heat sheilds. 
 
Here is a photo in the first day

 
then a photo at the end with all the old parts ready to come back for my new AW11.
 
But appart from the wheels she is very well stock should pass rego nice and easy. I will be putting up sale ads for here later on once she is registered. The interior is in very good condition apart from missing the center radio surround. Body wise all the damage has been replaced, she has a stock very healthy motor. gearbox is sound with no crunching on gears.
 

 

 
 
once we were done with the car a few other odd jobs for my blue one popped up. Used an old front strut brace re jigged the ends and made a rear strut brace for myself.
 

well, this weekend was back on my car.
 
took the engine from this saturday morning,

 
to this by sunday afternoon
 

 
a little while ago I sanded the intake manifold smooth and polished it up with steel wool. very happy with the result. alot of effort considering I am eventually going to scrap the manifold and put quad throttles there. but it looks nice for now. also polished the fuel rail and exhaust heat sheild.
 

 

 
basically the engine is stock, running stock pistons, stock cams, but has a 4AGE Blacktop flywheel, and adjustable cam gears to try and tweak the output and has a TRD 0.8mm headgasket.

Making some awesome progress. That look unreal. Would you likely chuck on a set of cams on the new motor?
 
I remember your MR2 AW11. I am pretty sure I saw it when I was around your place picking up the ST162.