The bare block as I received it from the shop. It has been bored out to 92mm and decked .010 inches. I will clean up the outside and paint it after the test fit is done.	The bore for the front oil seal was enlarged in the lower timing cover to accept the S14 oil seal required with the S14 crank and harmonic balancer.	The S14 front oil seal (Left) next to an M10 oil seal (Right).

Test Fit

The S14 head gasket fits nicely with the 92mm bores.

Stock 2.3L S14 head gasket placed on block to check alignment. S14 gasket bore diamter is just under 94mm.

Crankshaft installed for test fit. Pistons installed.

Next the crankshaft, rods, and pistons were installed using old bearing shells and assembly lubricant.  The cylinder walls and piston skirts were oiled but the rings were not installed.  The rotating assembly only needs to be turned over a few times by hand and then it will all be disassembled again.

The deck height of the pistons at TDC was checked, the pistons end up between .020 and .025 inches above the deck at TDC.  My calipers are not accurate enough to get an exact measurement.  The compressed thickness of the S14 head gasket is about .070 inches.  This will give be a clearance between the piston and the squish pad on the head of between .045 and .050 inches.

The piston to head clearance was checked using an old used S14 head gasket and some modeling clay.  The valves don't even come close to the head, and the piston to head clearance is about .050 inches as expected.

Pieces of clay were placed on top of the valve pockets, the front of the dome, and the squish pad area of the #1 piston.	The piston was moved about half way down the bore and the old head gasket was installed.	The head was installed and torqued down to factory specs. The cam was placed at TDC and then the crank was returned to TDC. The timing chain, lower cover, and tensioner were installed.
The engine was rotated by hand 720 degrees and then the head was removed. You can clearly see the clay at the squish pad. There are just very light valve marks in the clay at the valve pockets and no contact on top of the dome.	The clay at the squish pad was carefully cut with a razor and the cross-section measured. The thin part is .050 inches thick.	The valves never came close to the piston. At least .150 to .200 inches clearance.

Assembly

After checking the piston clearance, the block was torn back down and I spend a few hours with brake cleaner, a wire brush, and Q-tips cleaning the block inside and out.  Don't assume just because a block has been hot tanked that it is clean!  When this amount of machine work is done to a block, the residue ends up everywhere.  A good amount was still stuck to the inside of the main oil galley.

 

Block wire-brushed and rubbed down with brake cleaner. All necessart surfaces were then masked. Painted block. Two coats were applied using a brush.

After the block was clean, I masked off the necessary surfaces and painted the block with a gloss black engine paint from Eastwood.

I am painting all the aluminum engine parts with another Eastwood product they call Aluma Blast.  I saw this used on someone else's car and thought they had powder-coated the parts.  This paint is a nice low-gloss aluminum color that will make keeping the engine clean a lot easier.

The oil filter housing was attached as well as the oil supply tube on the front of the engine.  After checking all main bearing clearances with plasti-gauge, the crankshaft was installed for the last time.  New OEM hardware is being used throughout unless otherwise noted.  It makes no sense to use 30 year old bolts on a new motor.

The crankshaft, oil filter housing and oil supply tube are installed on the block.

Just before installing the crank, I gapped the piston rings.  The rings were gapped to Wiseco's specifications, .016 for the top ring and .020 for the 2nd ring.  The rings were installed on the pistons and the pistons and rods assembled.  Before installing the pistons, you need to clean the cylinder bores.  I prefer to use paper towels and WD-40.  I wet down a paper towel with WD-40 and wipe out the bores.  I keep doing this until the paper towels stay clean.  It took about 6 to 8 wipe-downs to get the bores clean.  This is an important step in helping the rings seat correctly.  You need to get all the dirt out of the grooves created when the cylinder is honed.  Rod bearing clearances were checked with plasti-gauge.

Wiseco pistons and S14 rods ready for installation.	What engine build project would be complete without at least one plasti-gauge shot.	All the rods installed. The rod caps are correct. I labeled some of them upside-down.	Picture of pistons installed.

I'm waiting for the ARP rod bolts to arrive, so I cannot install the oil pump yet.  The rods are currently installed with the original OEM rod bolts.  I decided to install the chains and the front timing cover.  I can build up the entire motor and install the oil pump last.

The S14 oil pump chain. It has the same width and pitch as the E21 single row timing chain.	Early E21 dual row timing chain installed with chain guide and tensioner rail.	Painted lower timing cover with S14 oil seal installed. The alternator mount is from an E30 318i. I use the E30 alternator for a bit more output.

The next pieces installed were the 2002 water pump and pulley along with the harmonic balancer.  The VR sensor pickup for the crankshaft toothed wheel was installed as well as the coolant bypass pipe.

2002 water pump and pulley installed. Harmonic balancer also installed.	Coolant bypass pipe was modified to remove the throttle body coolant connection.	You can see the toothed wheel and the VR sensor bracket in this shot.	Bottom of engine with front cover and rear oil seal installed. I need to install the new rod bolts before installing the oil pump.

Another picture showing the side of the block with the modified coolant pipe.  Just below the #2 cylinder freeze plug you can see where I cut off a coolant connection from the pipe and brazed a bolt head onto it to seal it back up.  The coolant connection into the block just below the #4 intake at the top right corner has also been capped off with a bolt and crush washer.

I received my ARP S14 rod bolts and installed them per the ARP installation instructions.  I do not own the tools necessary to accurately measure bolt stretch so I followed the alternate instructions provided that only require a regular torque wrench.

 

Once the final rod bolts were installed I was able to install the oil pump.  Details of this are also provided in the oil system page.  It took several tries with different combinations of oil pump shims to get the chain tension correct.  According to the factory manual, you want slight chain movement under light thumb pressure.  I also inserted one flat washer under the pressure relief valve spring to boost oil pressure a few psi.

I decided to add a crank scraper to help with the oil windage on the bottom end.  This can be seen in more detail on the oil system page.