Liam's Nova X16XE Project

[M Sutton]

Looking forward to seeing the mag, well done liam ;-)

[Liam]

Thanks again for the positive comments.

I've had a fair few people ask me about the colour of the inside. It was made up of some left over paint that was then mixed with other paints to get the colour we achieved, so isn't an 'off the shelf' colour.

[istf]

Can't wait the professional pictures

[Southie]

Was the feedback good from the magazine feature then Liam?

Anything else been done to this recently ?

[conza123]

Was the feedback good from the magazine feature then Liam?

Anything else been done to this recently ?

he did a track day at brands and did the head gasket again so he just literally yesterday had head skimmed reground and seated all values, done some port and polishing himself etc, he should put some pics up soon but should be all back together tomorrow hopefully

[Liam]

Ermm, OK. I would have liked to update this myself but oh well..

Anyway, I spoke to Jamie the other day from Total Vauxhall and spoke about the car and history etc and he confirmed that it will be in the next issue of TV (so 27th August I think!).

As people on my Facebook will know, I wasn't able to attend Billing unfortunately as I finished off the engine during a Brands Hatch 'taster' session. Once I got home and got the Nova out after a couple of days it was stuttering very very badly and very gutless. I had a look at it and replaced the crank sensor, coil pack, leads, checked the timing etc and the problem was still there. I then got my dad to have a look and he diagnosed it as the head gasket or something related to that as the water hoses were getting very hard etc etc.

Now, I have always planned to rebuilt the engine/head at some point so now would be the perfect time! I had originally planned to get the head professionally rebuilt by a friend of mine with cams etc so the Nova would be off the road until next year. But, a friend of mine offered me another x16xe for next to nothing so the plan changed slightly. I would stick another head gasket on mine for the time being and get the 'new' engine rebuilt and swap them over when the time came.

But this soon changed when I took the head to work for skimming and we noticed that the valves hadn't been closing properly. So, a head rebuild was in order. The head was stripped, exhaust valves reseated/lapped but the inlet ones needed recutting/grinding as they were quite badly pitted. Once it was all apart I decided to give the head a mild port/polish as I have nothing to loose as I have another good head if something went/goes wrong. I think it turned out OK for a first attempt and I should hopefully see something out of it. The head was then cleaned out, skimmed and new valve stem oil seals were fitted and then head was put back together.

This brings us to today where the head is all back together and ready to be refitted and back running tomorrow.

Whilst the head was all apart I have been looking for a set of mild road/rally cams to stick in it but couldn't find any second hand. I then contacted Phillip Nichols who is going to sort me out with a set of Newman PH1 264 cams at a VERY reasonable price! I should hopefully get these sometime next week so I can then get them fitted next weekend. It would have been nice to fit them when it was all apart but I want to get it back for the Summer Wednesdays meet at Brands on Wednesday! Plus, it will be nice to see what power differences there are since the head rebuild and then again with the addition of cams.

Anyway,enough talking and onto the pictures...

A couple of pics from the session at Brands:

[Liam]

Head removed:




Semi stripped head:





You can see where the valves haven't been closing properly:





Removed valves:




Cleaning/cleaned valves:

[Liam]

Head cleaned:







<sarcasm>Lapping valves is sooo much fun!!!</sarcasm>




All done:




Inlet ports semi ported/polished:





And exhaust ports:




Being skimmed:




All back together and ready to be fitted tomorrow:

[Southie]

Looks good Liam on the track day, shame about it going tits up but maybe for the better.

These engines aren't the best somehow unless they've had a decent rebuild in the first place, fingers crossed you've got a good one now.

I'm not on Facebook do didn't see anything if you've posted on there, I was just interested how your build was going.

Conza, stick to your own wip

[Liam]

Haha cheers! Looking at it, it's a very good engine and there's not much signs of any wear seeing as its done over 100k and I don't know the history of it.

As you say, now I've sorted it, it should hopefully be sorted for a long while!