Green '79 900 EMS

[Luke]

Nice score on the drivetrain, can't pass up a deal like that... If anything I'd say use the 89 trans bolted to the 78 turbo motor you were talking about... That car deserves better than a 16v swap!

[Jordan]

No love for the H-motah

[DrewP]

Nice score on the drivetrain, can't pass up a deal like that... If anything I'd say use the 89 trans bolted to the 78 turbo motor you were talking about... That car deserves better than a 16v swap!

I'm with you on that. That will be a fairly backburner project at this point, because I don't know when that's gonna happen.

My brother was talking about bringing over my Dad's '66 Morris Mini Cooper S to my shop to get cracking on that and get it done over the summer too, so there's plenty of things to keep busy with.

[DrewP]

John hooked me up with B20 parts months ago to get this thing going, and I hacked at it over the weekend, taught myself how to set up the timing and shim the valves and all that.

First, these refrigerator drip pans from Homeless Depot work GREAT to keep leaky engines from making a huge mess of your shop, and would be good to tear down a gearbox in if you don't have a sexy drain table. They're back by the appliances, I bought several.




Mmmmm... still Corona weather here in SoCal. My 9-5 claimed it was 94*F at lunch today.





Oops.








Awwww yeahhhh.... Shimage.








Unfortunately.... I still need one more of these... Pretty positive this was the original point of failure. I had one exploded lifter and four more cracked like this right down the middle, three had the crack continue down at least one side. This one I can actually see the crack on the INSIDE of the lifter as well. Check yours out gentleman. Can be clearly see when they are cleaned, and you can feel the cracks easily with your fingernail.

[SwedeSport]

I have gone thru a bunch of those. I would replace 3-4 of them after every autocross.

Dual valve springs, and hardened lifters solved that.

[Jordan]

Mine are still looking fairly fresh, but they were nice when I put them in and they don't have a ton of miles. Just lots of abuse. I check them and valve clearances periodically .

[DrewP]

Did MSS sell stronger lifters or something?

[Jordan]

I don't think so, but they used to be cheaper and there were only 8 so spending 50 or 60 bucks for all fresh ones wasn't a big deal.

[DrewP]

I briefly looked around yesterday, but is there anywhere that even carries new ones anymore?

[SwedeSport]

Yes. MSS did make hardened lifters. I have a set on my 86 2.1 8v. The real answer is the dual valve springs to control the float. The combination of both has proven nearly bulletproof compared to stock 8v valvetrain.

I also have extra oil passages drilled into the cam carrier. They pick up oil from the passage under the carrier. The lifter acts as a valve. When the lifter rises in the bore, it exposes a hole that squirts oil on the spring to lubricate and cool the springs. They generate a fair amount of heat from all compression and extension cycles, as well as heat from the combustion itself.

[SwedeSport]

Are the buckets the same on H and B engines?

I may be able to part with a set from an H.

[Crazyswede]

900 and 99 buckets are the same. I believe there is a place in Sweden or Finland that sells them. http://www.kyrkmotorsport.se/gallery_22.html

[DrewP]

I actually remembered I have another spare B20 head boxed up that has the lifters in it, hopefully there are some good usable ones in there.

There is cool stuff on that site! Weber manifolds for all the different Saab heads, there's a B202 one done up for ~1700SEK (~$266), good stuff. It'd be hard to make one for less than that unless you put zero value on your time. I value my own fairly low for fun car stuff, but it's definitely more than zero!