Since I was waiting for the new turbo anyway, I removed the motor from the car.  I already knew who I wanted to look over my engine and I was waiting for his ok to drop it by the shop.   Lars of Scorpion Race Engines is whom I gave the job to.  Lars is a excellent machinist and is well known for  building award winning performance engine’s as he has done for pro stock racers of Riverhead New York.  Henry Cataldo of Team Phantom (a modified driver) referred Lars to being a master engine builder.  Rick  Giannio of Wild One Racing has over 30 feature wins at 11 race tracks thanks to Lars award winning engine building.  Knowing this and seeing Lars work, I was convinced that Lars would rebuild my 3ete well beyond its stock form.

About 4 weeks later Lars had my motor apart for complete examination.  Parts were in fair condition, but we talked about what was needed to help achieve and exceed my new goals.  The first step was to modify the block by increasing the strength of the bottom end.  According to Lars the crank was in good shape so he cut and shot pin it.  Lars also thought the stock 3ete rods were made of good forged material and craftsmanship so he modified them to make the rods even better then they were.

The block was honed 20 over and fitted with custom pistons made by Ross Pistons.  During the time of the order Ross did not offer the size that I needed, meaning it was smaller then any of their production.  Lars thinks very highly of Ross pistons so after a few request 5 months later Ross added the size to their piston line of production.  Lars knew about my massive turbo upgrade and he was concern about seal proofing the head gasket.  He suggested a custom O-ring and copper head gasket to handle boost pressure.  Lars never worked on a block with cylinder sizes so small so he had to create a tool for the machine to do the custom o-ring.

Afterwards, the block was assembled with new OEM oil pump, water pump, freeze plugs and a gasket set ordered by Spy from Jamaica.

Now it was time to deal with the cylinder head.  I sent my camshaft to Crower  Cams for an aggressive regrind.  A grind that would open the door for higher rev, and mid to top horsepower.  Lars and I inquired with a few companies about my valves and like my pistons, the size and length of the stems were odd and none of them had them.  Many offered to make the valves, but they wanted to know how many sets we were interested in buying.  We finally was able to convince Ferrea Valves to customize a set  for a decent price.  And oh yeah, this was another 5 months.  Sent Ferrea  sample valves and they lost them and didn’t tell us into after 2 months.

Once all the parts were in, Lars was ready to do his port & polish job.  Removing metal from the right places of the cylinder head to improve air flow.
Lars then made custom valve guides, then ordered custom valve springs with enough spring pressure to perfectly work with the custom Cam grind.  Lars did his homework and everything was measured, pressure tested and weighted precisely.