Woo-Hoo, new motor, now I need input!

[pendejo]

Alright fellas, I just picked up a japanese exchange A20 with 34,000 miles. It's carbed and my current motor if FI. I'm planning on doing some work to the new motor before I install it. I'm swapping the FI on my motor onto the new one when I swap them out, and am going to have my cam reground with a "mild" grind(might go wild, haven't decided). I am not sure of this, but when you have High-Comp pistons with a cam that has alot of lift and duration, isn't that supposed to make really good top end power? Do you guys know of anyone who makes pistons for our cars, I'll search for that info. I just want your suggestions on some "cheap" things to do to the motor before it's installed, and I'm not talkiing just I/H/E stuff. Thanks.

[NXRacer]

just check with whoever grinds your cam that it'll work with a high comp n/a motor. It should make pretty good power.

where in 'south central' oregon are you??

[pendejo]

Redmond. It should read "south" Central Oregon though.

[A20A1]

Tell them your compression ratio also top end needs duration... well high rpm that is.

[Justin86]

oh redmond, where is snows a lot........
Delta is a pretty cheap cam grind and you can get them to do custom grinds, they usally do a 272 grind for us which is the overall popular mild grind, it's what I have. Colt has some more research in there stuff, but will cost 2x as Delta and there turn around time is longer. Do a search for the colt cam group buy, the thread is about 15 some pages long, but has a lot of info on the differnet companies and grinds.

[A20A1]

turn around isn't that bad for colt... if you get colt look into the tri-flo

[pendejo]

I hear great things about Colt, but Delta is half the price. Anyone have some websites for other companies?Also, I know wiseco does custom pistons, but does anyone "stock" a piston for our cars, like a 10.5:1 to 11:1 ratio.

[Vanilla Sky]

one cheap thing you can do, provided you can work on it yourself, is a port and polish of your intake, throttle body, and head... me and the magi figure it's worth about 25 horsepower alone...

also, look into pheonolic (sp) intake manifold spacers... that's a worthy upgrade, too...

and since you have the head apart, have a 3-angle valve job done... if you're machinist is a good one, you might be able to get them to regrind your camshaft... i do know that with mine i'm gonna have to have it welded up some to get the specs i want... keep that in mind if you plan on doing anything truly radical...

now might also be a good time to get higher compression pistons and better rods... this is getting into decent money, though...

when the motor goes back together, make sure that thing is perfectly clean... have EVERYTHING hot-tanked... you don't want crap floating around in your oil system or your cooling system...

with those modifications, the motor should be good for at least 150 hp at the crank... not bad considering you've not even tapped into bolt-ons...