I figured I'd throw this up here while I'm not busy at work. If you want the full 5.4 Marv Cinematic Experience, read this while listening to some classic '70s rock (suggestions inculde Led Zep's Achilles Last Stand and Whole Lotta Love, Lynyrd Skynyrd's Free Bird & Simple Man, and once you get to the short motor, some Tiny Dancer for those tender moments involving sump guards). Read on, kids - I MAKE LEARNING FUN!
So we've got a 1995 STi Type RA EJ20G with a dead big-end bearing. This proceedure is much the same for pretty much any EJ20, though later motors with AVCS use 8mm Allen keys to hold their cam wheels on, which can be fun to get undone. I'm presuming a few things here - 1. you've got the motor on a stand, 2. the intake manifold is off, 3. the crank bolt is undone (do it in the car, in 4th gear)
This be thine motor
First step is to rip off the rocker covers. Note: they're ROCKER covers, not rocket covers FFS. This one also has it's timing covers removed, which are a bunch of 10mm bolts
Hello, camshafts! Once the rocker covers are off, slide a shifting spanner over the squared-off notch in the cams to hold the cam while undoing the cam wheel nut
See those pairs of bolts holding the caps over the cams? You need to remove them to pull the cams out.
Once the caps are gone, you can wiggle the cams straight out
Camshafts, begone! Nice buckets
On the top of the motor, undo your water crossover pipe and ALL coolant lines.
You now need a 14mm socket - not a hex socket, a 32-sided one - to get the head bolts out. I've placed a cam there to demonstrate its positioning. You need to get in with a torch and hunt the head bolts as they're hidden in water galleries, behind shit under shit over shit shit shit shit!
Once you've taken 4 out each side, you should see this:
And have a lump of metal resembling something like the below in your hands.
Closed deck block with factory forged pistons
This is an open deck EJ20 from an 01 Foz GT
From here, I don't have pics as I had a Photobucket meltdown a while back and lost the pics. I will get more as soon as I can...
Once you've got a short motor, to split the block you need to do a bit more work and this is where a good cordless impact drill with sockets is worth its weight in gold. You'll also need a deep 24mm socket, pliers, a breaker bar, a long screwdriver or 2, a punch and I'm sure I've forgotten other things...
Firstly, remove the engine mounts, oil pump, water pump, tensioner, etc off the bottom/front of the motor.
Next, the sump, oil pickup and sump guard off the bottom of the block. You'll need 10mm, 12mm sockets.
Oil pickup
Next, remove the oil cooler (under the oil filter) using the 24mm deep socket. You can now remove all the oil and coolant lines left on the motor.
Undo the caps/inspection bolts on the front and back of the block.
front (shit shot, i know) - see the hex cap inline with the cylinder? Halfway down the block. Yeah, that mothersucker...
Back
Once you've got them undone, you can see the piston wristpins. Spin the motor over so you can see each one. Undo the circlip on the piston and use a punch to knock the pin out from the opposite side. I'll take some pics of how to do this next time i get a short motor in the shed. When you actually do it, you can see how easy it is.
Final step is to undo all the case bolts. There's a whole bunch of 'em across the top, under the bottom and in the bellhousing (behind the flywhee) and down the front. Look carefully for them all as you'll undoubtably miss one or two. After that, you should be able to split the block into halves, with the crank and rods coming out the middle.
