Wait, this is all metal? Dear god, it's going to be beautiful.

Now I have assembled the two halves of the crankshaft.This was very fiddly work.The individual sections of the crankshaft are keyed so the pistons are staggered.it was hard to put 2 sections of the shaft together thought because you couldnt see to line up the keyed portions of the crankshaft.You also have to be very careful about glue otherwise the pistons wont move. I think this was a bad design.It would have been better to have a one piece crankshaft and then have the end of the connecting rod in 2 pieces like in a real car.

Anyway I assembled the 2 halves and then joined them together-That was fun too.Two heavy pieces of metal with no way of clamping them together so I had to hold them until the epoxy set.


The next step is to fit the pistons into the cylinders and see if they will still move.

Starting to show the detail now ,nice work

So an update on the GTO kit. The pistons are installed in the cylinders and the top halves of the engine block are glued together.So the big question.Do the pistons move in the cylinders?
Yes they do!!! I will try to take some video.It was VERY fiddly getting the pistons installed because the crankshaft had some play in it due to all the small joint you had to glue together.If they redo this kit they definitely need to make a one piece crankshaft.it is really hard to glue the engine block together without getting glue near the pistons since everything is so small. A tip for those building this kit in the future-you must install one half of the pistons in the one side of the engine block first and then add the second half of the engine block.If you glue the engine block together and then try to install the pistins you wont be able to get them all seated in the cylinders.I am finding that test fitting these MFH kits is essential before you glue anything.

Pics to follow and hopefully a video of the pistons moving.

next step is to add the bottom of the engine-1 side is clear and the other is metal.

I had to drill another 12 holes to assemble the engine block so thats 48 holes so far

Here is a link to a youtube video of the moving pistons.it was hard to get a good video because you had to hold the engine close to the phone to see what was going on.I also had it turn over pretty slowly.It look better when you make the pistons move faster, but I was worried the resin side of the engine block would crack or start to melt.

https://youtu.be/Agn4zYXF0qo

The next step in the engine build is the cylinder head, valve and rocker arm assemblies

The first job was to drill 24 holes in the cylinder head block .These will be for attaching the rocker arm bearings.next you drill 12 holes though the cylinder head for the valves.

Drilling the holes was a trip.They are very tiny (0.5 mm) and you have to be precise.One of the cylinder head blocks in made of clear resin.It was very tough to drill holes in this part because it was really tough to see the pilot hole.

So that is a total of 60 more holes drilled.

108 holes drilled so far.

Here is a pic showing the valve assemblies. There are 2 valves, 2 "springs" ,2 rocker arms and 2 bearings to hold the rocker arms in place over the camshaft.

Now I applied the "springs".These are cast pieces that sit over the valve stem.

The final step on the cylinder head to to place 0.5mm nickel wire into the holes that will act as the anchoring point for the bearings holding the rocker arms in place.

This also means you have to drill mounting holes in the rocker arm bearings. 2 per bearing and 12 bearing per engine half.Thats 48 more holes in total to drill.

So holes drilled now 156

The next step is to mount the rocker arms onto the cylinder hear.This promises to be VERY fiddly

The rocker arm assembly.2 hours of frustration cursing and VERY delicate model making to attach these.They do move up and down a bit as the cam shaft rotates.I will do a video once I have attached it to the engine.

Now I have to do exactly the same thing again with the clear resin cylinder head.Oh joy.

OK after 2 more hours of really bad cursing and swearing the right side cylinder head and rocker arm assembly is complete.The next step is to mount the cylinder head on the engine block.The cylinder head gasket sandwiches between the 2 parts.There are guide hole to drill in the engine block to accept the alignment pins on the underside of the cylinder head.

After that it will be time to paint the cylinder head cover and some other parts and mount them to the engine.Of course each cylinder head cover needs 12 holes drilled in it to accept the nuts that secure it to the block.