With the cam back in, and while waiting for the crankshaft to be finished, I can assemble some of the top-end of the motor.

First to go back in are the lifters. They get pumped up with oil (stick them in a jar of oil and use a dowel rod to pump the pushrod seat a few times.) With oil inside the lifter, smear the outside of the rocker with assembly lube and insert into the lifter bores. This is #4 intake going in.



Once all the lifters are in, smear assembly lube in the pockets of the lifter guides, install them over the lifters, and torque the bolts to 22ft-lbs.

Next item to go in is the balancer shaft. Pre-lube the roller bearings and smear assembly lube on the journal at the other end of the balancer. Here I'm using a 34mm deep socket to drive the roller bearing race into the block.



Next item is the retainer plate. It'* bolts also get torqued to 22 ft-lbs



Next item to install is the balance shaft driven gear and the bolt. Bolt is 13/16ths and is torqued 16ft-lbs + 70 degrees of rotation.



There'* some tricks to installing the balancer shaft bolt. First, make sure the dimples in the gears line up with the gears fully seated. The gears are helical cut to run quiet. Now, there'* no place to grab hold of the balance shaft to torque the bolt? What I did was slip a piece of soft metal into the right side of the gears where they mesh (sheet lead, brass, or copper are all acceptable materials) When the torque is applied, the gear teeth will try to feed the soft metal through and jam the gears in place. The lead/brass/or copper is much softer than the steel gear teeth, so no damage to the gears will occur. After it is torqued, turn the balance in it'* normal direction and remove the crushed metal from the gear teeth.

After the bolt is torqued, apply a bead of assembly lube to the gear teeth and spin the cam gear a few times. We're ready to move on to the next parts.

A few little tid-bits: The balancer shaft is made by Briggs & Stratton. You can see their logo cast into the balancer shaft, near the center. In operation, the gear drive spins the balancer at the same RPM as the crankshaft, but in the opposite direction. (Crank and Cam spins clockwise when viewed from the timing cover end, balancer spins counter-clockwise.)

That engine is looking really good. It'* amazing how similar an S2 is to an S1 though they are two different animals. Is this build going to end up with head studs or the normal TTY head bolts?

More prep work... Here the cam timing magnet is being glued in place on the cam timing chain sprocket. While the metal tabs should hold the magnet in place, the occurance of it'* plastic housing breaking and letting the magnet fall out is high enough that a little extra insurance is in order.

Keep the epoxy below the back surface of the sprocket...this surface will be in contact with the balancer drive gear when it is installed!

This one is going to use normal Torque to Yield bolts. I considered using head studs, but the gasket kit from Victor included all the head bolts (but no rocker arm bolts..go figure.)

The way I see it, this motor is never getting taken down again in it'* life. With a 0.030" overbore already, it'* not really a canidate for another overbore. If she blows, she'* done...I'll strip it of usable parts and call it a day. Hence, I don't see much need for using re-usable studs.

at 30 over that block is relly pushing it

More stuff to clean and check out. This is the oil pump (as viewed from the timing cover side of the pump.)




Rather a neat design. The oil pump is attached to the inside of the timing cover by five counter-sunk screws with T-30 Torx heads. The pump in driven directly off the crankshaft via the timing chain sprocket. The inner "rotor" for lack of a better word turns an offset outer rotor that spins in a pocket machined into the timing cover.

As the inner rotor is spun by the crank, oil enters the large gap between the rotors and is trapped by the teeth. as the cavity between the teeth gets smaller, the oil'* pressure is raised and it exits towards the filter.

What we are looking for is any damage to the teeth of the rotors, as well as any metal impacted into the machined surfaces. Also, the clearance of the whole assembly needs to be checked. If it is too loose, then oil will escape around the rotors, lowering the oil pressure the pump can produce.

During reassembly, the cavity between the rotors is getting packed with grease to ensure is gets good suction and starts pumping oil out of the pan. Until that happens, the only lube protecting the parts will be the assembly lube.

The first oil filter and 4 quarts of oil get chucked after about 20 minutes of run time. All the assembly lube and grease is going to get melted once the engine comes up to temp and end up in the oil filter. There'* no break-in period after this overhaul. Roller cams don't need it and there'* no Molly coating on the lifters. The rings will wear in pretty quickly during normal driving, so, as soon as the motor lights off and warms up, it'* ready to run. (Nice, easy "Pass or Fail" test... )

Well, any overbore is rolling the dice. The bigger the bore, the more the odds start stacking up against you. Pistons are available up to 0.060" overbore. But I would venture a guess that few blocks will take that. 0.030" over is usually safe unless the cores shifted a lot during the casting process. Beyond that, the wall thickness of the bores needs to be checked to ensure that it'* thick enough...then there'* a risk of hitting an inclusion or hidded crack. That'* why we start with the block work, and then carry on with other tasks after it'* done. If the block was junk, there'* the very real chance of scrapping it and cutting my losses before too much was invested.

Also, the words "cheap" and "L67" don't go together. Everything for this motor has been far more expensive than I'm used to seeing. The price tag of this rebuild is going to hit about $1300 before I even get to kick the tires and light the fires. That'* still cheaper than a remanufactured long block, but it'* about twice what it costs to overhaul a typical 350 Chevy V8.

Rotating assembly is back from the machine shop, time to start reinstalling it.

Here'* the crankshaft with pipe cleaners inserted in some of the cross-drilled oil passages to show where they go.



The was the crank is drilled, the holes in the main journals feed oil to the adjacent rod journals. #1 Main feeds #1 rod bearing, #2 Main feeds both #2 & #3 rods, #3 Main feeds #4 & #5 rods, and #4 main feeds #6 rod.

The bearings are new, Clevite 77 (kit PN: MS-2022P) and you need to follow the instructions to get the bearing shells in the right spot. Inside the kit are two different upper bearing part numbers and four different lower part numbers. Little card in the package tells you which ones go where. After checking clearance with plastigage and giving them a dollop of assembly lube, the crank can go in on them.



Main caps go on and the main cap bolts torqued.

With the main caps on and torqued (30ft-lbs+110 degrees for the mains, 11ft-lbs+45degrees for the side bolts) the timing chain and tensioner can be installed.



The cam bolt is truely the bolt from hell on this motor. Torque spec is 74 ft-lbs + 90 degrees..so the final torque on the bolt has got to be well over 110 ft-lbs.

Tensioner is a little easier, it'* an 8mm head and just needs some finger pressure to get it on the chain with the tang of the spring in the block hole. Tighten it to 16 ft-lbs.

Next up, time to check the fit of the piston rings. They are all pre-gapped, so there shouldn't be any problems, but checking them will make sure they are correct. To do this, I put them one at a time into the bore they will be installed in, use a piston to drive them partway down the cylinder bore, then measure the gap in the ring with feeler guages.



With that done, I can assemble them onto a piston, and put a compressor on it. Here'* one going into the block.



Earlier on, during the dissassembly, I mentioned that the 3800 is not a "zero deck" motor. Here'* what I'm talking about. The gauge in the photo is set to measure the amount the piston protrudes above the block deck.



When assembled, the piston sticks out 0.018" above the deck. This is OK and normal, since it is less than the thickness of the head gasket. If material was removed from the deck, then we might have the problem of the piston crowns hitting the cylinder head.

With all the pistons in and the rod bolts torqued, it'* time for the cylinder heads. Here I'll have to pause, since the head bolts that were shipped are the wrong kit.