Engine case halves, heads and connecting rods ready for reassembly
All the machine work required to bring these components "within spec." has been completed and
they are ready for reassembly once the remaining components are on hand.    Yes, that's one of our old "roll-over" bodies
in the background (we don't throw much away); Trevor is going to turn it into an artistic shop couch......

Our new CP Carrillo Pistons
New, to fit our increased bore size and with a different profile to increase the compression ratio.  The wrist pins are a slightly different size than the originals so we'll need to re-bush the connecting rods to suit.

Crankshaft with rods installed, ready to close
Finally, all the pieces are coming together again!  The wrist pin bushings in the rods have been sized, new main and rod bearings installed, sealant applied, assembly lube liberally spread around the rotating assembly and ready to "close"! 

Case halves reassembled with 3 of the 6 pistons installed
We cheated a bit: we installed the pistons and rods into this side of the case then secured them to the crankshaft before installing the other case half.  The pistons on the other side will have to be installed from the "top" of the cylinders and the wrist pins installed through small access holes provided in the case...  We'll need to fabricate a couple of special tools to accomplish that part.

Custom tool for installation of the center cylinder wrist pin
Here, you can see the wrist pin installed on the special tool we fabricated for the remaining "center cylinder".  The piston is installed after the case halves are assembled, requiring that the connecting rod and piston be assembled "blind" - through a small access hole.  It's  bit of a "fiddly" job but with this simple tool it only took a few minutes.  Installation of the wrist pin retaining clips was accomplished with a modified pair of long nose pliers.  The two "outside cylinders" require the same process but they're much easier as they don't require the "long reach" tools.

"Short Block" on the engine stand after installation of the remaining pistons
Ready to continue assembly to a "long Block" configuration.  Before installing the heads, we carefully measured to confirm piston/head clearance at Top Dead Center - even though the piston production documents indicated that they should be fine....  The next hurdle is making sure that once the valve train is installed and timed we don't have valve interference issues.  Again, the piston production documents indicate that it should be fine but we're not making any assumptions....

ARP head studs installed
These high strength studs replace the stock Subaru head bolts - shouldn't have any problems with the heads coming loose...

Installing one of the Cometic MLS head gaskets
These multi-layer head gaskets are the preferred choice for high performance applications

Installing the "1, 3, 5" cylinder head
With the studs and gasket installed, we can slide the head into place.  We were careful to insure that the studs were installed into the case correctly so that they didn't protrude into the space the cams will occupy later.

Both heads installed, awaiting final torque
We didn't have enough hardened washers for all the studs so we stopped at this point.  The stud washers are not a size generally available locally so I had to modify what I could get locally...  Once we install the washers and torque the studs to specifications, we can start assembling the valve train, oil pump, water pump, belt drives, etc..