Stripdown

Finally after some ten months work has started on my engine. Engine is in mint condition. During a phone conference Chief Engineer Toby was like "WTF! Your engine looks like it has less than 1000km". Pictures below courtesy of Bro Jacko who went walk walk around snap pictures for me as I am more than 350km away from the work being done. Thanks Bro!

Engine oil is clean and all the bearings are in great condition with no scuff marks or scratches. Picture below of the crankshaft. You can also see the stock main bolts and main bearing caps in the picture.

Per Bro Jacko engine must be from a Klingon warbird as there were some Klingon marks on the rods. Rod is very thin.. Toby mentioned "funny pistons are dished but stock compression is still high" (9.5:1)

Cylinder head being put through the degreaser for cleaning. The intake and exhaust ports are small! Like the ones on a Mitsu 4G13/15. This is a 1.8 engine mind you. Compare it to an engine 10 years its senior the famed Mitsu 4G93 and you can see the glaring differences in port size. Apart from the lower compression this is one of the reason why the QG18 makes 128ps (claimed) compared to 133ps (also claimed) for the 4G93. If you need to ask the larger valve heads are the intake ports. Some cylinder head development work is definitely required!

First need to build up the bottom end starting with some nice forged pistons. There is very little metal between the cylinder bores hence the QG18 is practically maxed out in terms of cylinder bore diameter. Have settled for only a 0.5mm overbore which should suit my 81mm bore Ajusa headgasket nicely. My K1 rods should also hopefully be here in October. ARP head studs are on the way (finally sent last week) and design work has commenced on the main studs. Also need to source for some decent bearings preferably performance coated or WPC treated. More to follow.