86 Toyota MR2 RallyX Project, 89 Celica All Trac, and assorted Japanese cars.

Welllllll..... Pretty successful day 1.

Differential is back in and the car is on the ground.

Engine is off the stand to expose the rear main

I got a crankshaft!

New bearings are oiled up and in. Pistons and rings as well.

RealStreet sent me the wrong rear main seal so I ordered one from Autozone. It will be here later tonight.

While I was doing the engine block my Dad swapped all of the transmission accessories over to the new tranny so that's all finished.

Head studs come tomorrow as well as the water pump gasket supposedly.

Then the top end can hopefully go together and I can start bolting parts together.

Turbo will probably be done tonight also.

I've been lurking here...thanks for all the updates and pics. You are doing what I've never had the courage to do, which is tear down an engine and build it up right. Thank you for keeping this unicorn alive btw.

In reply to gunner:

Heh thanks man, trust me when I say I'm scared every time I do anything to this thing. I shouldn't be because I've done way more sketchy jobs and they've held...but I really want this thing to go right I just refer to my manual for anything I even start to question and I think it will pay off in the end.

Progress for today:

Turbo is rebuilt

Front of block is assembled (Water/oil pump etc)

Head assembled

Head is on the block

Cams in head.

I was fiddling around with the timing belt and decided that since I'd only eaten 10 crackers today I'd call it a night and make some good dinner. Start fresh in the morning and see how far I get. My Dad and I are probably going to try and get the engine/tranny mounted tomorrow. I'm going to say that's the big goal for Wednesday.

Got the rest of the engine put together and the turbo on today.

I seem to have lost my idler pulley though so that's going to be a bitch. Will have my Dad help me look around because I know I saw it two weeks ago.

The turbo was a huge pain in the ass today because the new exhaust housing I got wouldn't locate properly and the oil line would just be in the completely wrong spot.

We ended up taking out the locating pins so we could spin the housings any direction we wanted and eventually got the orientation right after a few hours.

Once I find the idler pulley all we have to do is put the second front belt on and put it on the cherry picker so I can throw the flywheel/clutch/pressure plate on the back then align it to the tranny and into the car it goes.

Engine went in yesterday after 4 hours of trying to get that heavy-ass transmission to align to the engine correctly. AWD+Cast steel=omfgsoberkeleyingheavy.

I got a good bit of the wiring done today. We'll see how the rest of the weekend pans out (I work weekends by the way).

Well I got the engine wired on Sunday and put all the fluids in..just to realize that the water pump is leaking like a sieve...so I have that going for me.

Turned it over anyway and it didn't seem like it was leaking oil at least.

Okay so it looks like the front cover is leaking. I don't have to fully remove the engine but some stuff has to come off still..

I should be able to do it with it in car, just gonna really suck.

Very cool build, I want one of these now!