In our last update we were working towards getting the engine in the car by installing pars in the engine bay that would facilitate it starting or are much easier to install before the engine is in the way. This time we continue that theme but more directly work on the engine itself.

Our throttle body wanted a gasket to mate it to the intake manifold leak free and we didn’t have one. Unfortunately nobody else did either so we decided to make one! How hard could it be.

Yes, some of those are screen shots of our Instagram posts. We were so excited we forgot to shoot some stills.

We now thought it about time to split the engine from the transmission and get it on the engine stand. This would make it so much easier to install such items as the intake and exhaust manifolds not to mention the flywheel and clutch.

We didn’t like how poorly our engine mount brackets cleaned up so we cheated and hit them with some aluminium paint.

Still forging ahead with engine prep stuff we installed the coolant and intake manifolds.

We installed the intake manifold over this phenolic spacer to help keep the intake cool, This, of course, required two gaskets instead of one.

We needed a few more parts before we could rotate the engine on the stand to access the hot side so busied ourselves with installing a few non-engine related parts, namely the driver’s heel plate a clutch foot rest

co-driver’s footrest

bulkhead blanking plugs 

and turn signals

In the next update we’ll hopefully be adding parts to the hot side of the engine, assuming we don’t get distracted again.