This build started about a year and a half ago, and is still going to certain degrees . It was fully documented on another website/forum, but this will be just my posts consolidated.
2.3L GT3076 Build
Well after having a little oil leak from my head for the past 2 years (ARP head stud install without removing the head – FTL!), I’m pulling the head to fix that and decided why not just redo everything. The car has about 100K miles on it right now as it’s been my daily driver with a nearly 100 mile commute. I do strictly road racing type of stuff with my car, no drag racing, so I’m looking for lots of torque, good spool-up and I’m not planning on revving past around 7800 RPM. I’ve always wanted to do a 2.3L and considered a stock-based turbo like a green, but they are super expensive, hard to get and I’m afraid run out of top end on a stroker. So a GT3076 seemed like a perfect fit. We’ll see I guess. I got a great deal on one from somebody here.
So I’ve been ordering parts for a few months and procrastinating doing any actual work. Well last weekend I finally got started.
Ready to DO WORK, hood off and lots of stuff to unscrew.

White Trash temporary parts storage area. I should water my lawn more!

Pretty much everything disconnected from the engine. Just need to unbolt the AC compressor and power steering pump. Unhook the T-Case and pull that thing out. Should have the motor out this weekend and start stripping it down to go to the machine shop.

I’ll be interested to see the inside of the motor after 100K and see the stock clutch as well.
Here’s my pile of parts. Whenever I think I’m just about there I realize I still need something. Like the ARP main bolts I remembered I still need to order today:lol: I’m piecing together the turbo kit myself and still need a waste gate, oil lines, and parts to fab an O2 housing. I’m also looking at doing a side-by-side radiator and vertical flow intercooler, all of which I’ll fab myself with uber short IC piping.
I think I have enough stickers to cover a butt-rocker nova station wagon with a 454 in it{thumbup}

Well I worked on things a little more over the week and into the weekend. I’m waiting on a friend to get back from Mexico to pull the engine out, so I haven’t been working too hard. I’m all ready to yank it now – everything is disconnected.
I test fit the new turbo so I could think about a vertical flow intercooler setup. I’m kinda over it now. Unless I remove the AC and do some serious hacking to the front end I can’t fit a properly sized IC in a vertical configuration. So maybe I’ll do it some other time. I’ll look for a good deal on a standard style intercooler to replace my stocker for the short term, and just build a new lower IC pipe.

I’ve swapped motors in others cars before, but this is my first time on an EVO. It’s always a learning experience the first time. I might write-up a quick list of the general steps as I didn’t see one anywhere.
I didn’t have a slide hammer, and after trying to simply pull on the output shaft I could see it wasn’t just coming out. So I considered going and buying a slide hammer – a quick interweb search showed they were more money thanI felt like spending. And I felt like doing some welding. So I grabbed a few scraps of metal laying around my garage and fired up the TIG welder and built my own ghetto slide hammer. It dominated the output shaft with a couple quick wacks.



Me fishing the impact gun into location to unbolt the transfer case from the transmission.

I should have the engine out sometime this week when my buddy gets back from Cabo and brings the hoist over.
Whamo!
Turns out the engine just barely slips out from the top with the transmission still installed. I had to work to get it totally released from the TC and really angle it out to get it to clear. I had to remove the brackets for the AC pump from the block and some shift linkages from the transmission that were hitting things and holding up the show. I think I also successfully caught nearly every possible snag as I lifted the engine. First the shift lines, lower the engine , untangle… back up with the engine, snag the power steering lines, back down, adjust, back up. Crap like that. What sucked was that I had moved all that stuff into areas where they wouldn’t snag, but all the jockeying to get the thing out grab things with ninja stealth.
Finally got it out.



Then came pulling the tranny. I had the engine hanging on the hoist while I crawled directly under it to fish a screw driver into the transmission and release the bearing clip. That was super scary. I kept seeing the engine falling off the hoist and literally smashing me into a bloody pulp. But I got it unhooked and yanked the tranny. But I’d release the clip with the motor in the car next time.
No motor.

Got the motor mounted to the stand and ready to start taking it apart.

Pulled some stuff off the motor today for a few hours. The whole thing is so dirty and caked with oil. Stupid leaky head gasket. It didn’t help that I sprung a fuel leak from my injector swap and sprayed the engine compartment with fuel as well. So there is dirt stuck to everything. You can really see how nasty the block is covered in grime.
I like to keep the separate parts in zip lock bags with their respective hardware, makes things easier going back together.



I’m now at two tools I’ve had to build. Yesterday I welded up a little something-something to get my new #1 SOB bolt loose. Previously the cam gears bolts were first on the list for PIA. Anyone who has done cams knows how tight those cam gear bolts are. I had to go buy a serious impact gun with a special socket to break them loose on my first cam install. Here’s the one I have 600 ft-lbs
Well the impact gun had nothing on the crank bolt.
I’m not sure if NASCAR power would have broken it loose.
http://s7.sears.com/is/image/Sears/0…arpen=1&qlt=75
I had to build a 4 ft bar that I could bolt to the crank, since the engine was already on the stand with no flywheel. Then on the crank bolt I used a breaker bar with a 3 ft pipe extension. That finally broke it loose. I have pictures of that I’ll load later.
A high torque impact gun with a stubby 17mm impact socket with built in universal will break the cam gear bolts loose. But it took me trying a bunch of stuff to figure that out. I’ve used that setup on a bunch of different cam installs, always have got them loose.
The crank bolt though – that thing is solid. I banged at it with the impact gun, even after I built the 4 foot bar screwed into the crank. It didn’t budge. I had my Dad at the end of the 4 foot bar, and me basically jumping to load the 3 foot pipe I had on the crank bolt.
I wonder what others have done for this SOB of a bolt.
A few more pictures.
My stock clutch after roughly 100K. Looks ready for more, but an ACT will be taking it’s place.

What my garage looks like when it’s time to ” build another tool”. All that to remove a pesky bolt

4 ft bar to bolt to the crank in the flywheel position, this provides counter-force for removing the crank bolt with a breaker bar and 3 ft pipe extension.

I got a few more of my outstanding required parts:
- Scored a brand new Tial wastegaste on Ebay for $150
- Oil lines, misc gaskets, and couplers from ExtremePSI. These guys have a really nice site for piecing together turbo kit parts. I got all the parts a-la-carte and ended up saving money over “complete kits”. The hardest thing is making sure all the fasteners have the correct thread sizes for your specific turbo etc. Their site allows you to pick from a list for each end of the oil line and everything fit perfect :thumbup:

Some things I still need:
- flange and tubing to build wastegate dump tube.
- flanges and tubing to build O2 housing.
- ARP main bolts.
- hardware for turbo-to-manifold, wastegate-to-manifold, turbo-to-O2 housing
- figure out turbo cooling lines
- radiator hose (stupid sharp angle routing).
- fab lower IC pipe.
I’m also rounding up the tools required for the actual engine assembly. Things like bore gauges, dial indicators, feeler gauges etc. Being an engineer I have most of that at work to use. I’m going to go weight my pistons and rods today just for kicks and giggles, we have a high precision scale and the other engineer sitting next to me wants to see how good the parts are…
I just weighted my pistons and rods on a high precision digital scale here at work.
The Wiseco pistons were within .05 grams of the marked value on the bottom of the pistons (done in Sharpie by Wiseco) which is inline with scale-to-scale variance. And the pistons overall were within 0.60 grams of each other.
The Eagle rods with hardware were within 0.80 grams of each other.
Pretty good.
just ordered 1mm oversize valves, so it looks like my head will be semi-built.
I also grabbed some ARP mains, a flange for the wastegate dump tube, and the flanges to build the O2 housing.
I also talked with the machine shop yesterday and planned out the work. Bore, chamfer lower edge of the bores, deck, clearance for the 100mm crank. The head will be faced, lapped and given a value job for the 1mm OS valves and install some BC valve springs. The rotating assembly will be balanced including the flywheel and clutch. I should be able to drop off the stuff on Monday and have it back in about a week or so.
Pulled the head off tonight. Things look as expected, black; with signs of oil seeping out the head gasket. The slow leak from the good ol’ one-at-a-time ARP headstud install was really a BUNCH of small leaks.

Got recommended clearance for pistons from Wiseco.
If broken in at low boost then .0025 clearance is fine. If going straight to the track or getting 20 lbs of boost right away then .0035 piston to wall clearance is recommended.
.019 ring end gap for upper ring and .023 ring end gap for the lower ring.
Regards,
Wiseco Piston
Ordered my valves on Thursday and they arrived Friday – Sweet. 1mm oversize, stainless steel – full set of intake and exhaust $115 shipped :thumbup:

Often times major car projects come with domestic projects that get “slipped” in as a compensation for long periods of time spent in the garage. I was planning on working on the car over the weekend – in order to do that I was up until midnight Friday night painting
I’ll run out of rooms to paint before I ever finish screwing with my car

Down to the block now and ready to hand it over to the machine shop on Monday. Here the mess off final parts tossed about the garage.

Looking at the stock bearings I found something a little scary. This is the main closest to the flywheel. Not sweet.

