I spent pretty much all weekend working on the car only taking breaks to eat and sleep but I got quite a bit done. I'm hoping to be able to start it up by this weekend, I don't have that much left to do at this point so probably just a few more evenings worth of effort.
Without he heads back on, I moved the engine back into the garage to finish assembly, with everything bolted up it becomes prohibitively heavy to move around easily. Pressurizing the coolant passages to 20psi as a sanity check, I bought some coolant pipe caps and some random coolant hose from a parts store to block all the coolant ports. The pressure tester lost less than a single PSI over the course of a few hours so I think I'm good, I've never had one of these parts store rental testers not leak a tiny bit even on perfectly sealed engines.
Couldn't resist just setting the header and valve cover on, I like the color combo and the coating shop did an absolutely fantastic job. Too bad it can't be seen in the car.
Rocker shafts and arms going back in. I rubber-banded the rocker arm assemblies together so reassembly was a breeze.
Cams and caps installed. The factory plastic cam caps kinda suck so I bought SoS billet caps, but after reading their installation instructions that involved oiling up the O-rings I didn't want to do that either since oil and uncured Hondabond don't get along well, so I sold them and forked over the cash for set of RF Yamamoto billet cam plugs from Marc.
Cam gears bolted on.
Setting up the engine timing.
Last item before the covers go on, valve adjustment. So much easier with the engine out, it absolutely sucks to do valve adjustments in the car.
The block is off the stand for the first time in months.
JUN lightweight flywheel bolted up. I used the old input shaft as a clutch alignment tool instead of my plastic one and it worked very well, no issues at all getting the transmission back on.
Drivetrain almost ready to go back in. The 2nd picture is dark but it has the engine harness installed. Took my friend and I a good half hour to figure out where everything went since I didn't label any connectors. The front/rear mounts are brand new NSX-R/Zanardi mounts, but I kept the side mounts since they were out of stock at the time I ordered and fairly easy to replace later, and also subject to less stress so not as worn.
It's a bit scary having the car this high up supported by a harbor freight cherry picker.
At this point I pretty much just need to install the intake manifold and rear suspension along with a few other odds and ends I'm probably forgetting, I want to get it on the road by this weekend.
Oddly enough, I've spent very little time looking for parts, I somehow managed to get everything labeled and organized in a way that I could easily find it all.
Also, in a tight garage like this, getting the engine back under is significantly easier with the rear suspension off, the whole thing is much more compact and easier to maneuver as well as much lighter with those parts removed. If you're doing this in a tight garage, save yourself the trouble and pull the suspension first. I just bought my first house though that actually has a two car garage so I'm never doing this crap again.
