Racing Red Shocks by Nitron

In the interests of honesty I will relate our experience, from which you can draw your own conclusions.
During the build process and before the car was even running, we noticed a small leak of oil on the shaft of one of our Racing Red shock absorbers. Eventually, the end cap was forced off by the pressure and a whole lot more oil appeared. We were informed that this was a "known issue" by the distributer and that a solution was being arranged with the company. Apparantly a seal gland was incorrectly manufactured and this lead to the leak.
I'd rather like to believe that "known issues" with suspension components would lead to some sort of warning to customers to check their shocks, but, hey ho, what can you do? While the car was having its suspension aligned the guys noticed another of the shocks was leaking so now we had two fail out of four, which wasn't reassuring.
However, what has really prompted this posting is the subsequent fiasco. We pointed out this leak midway through 2011. It is now approaching the end of August 2012 and we still do not have our shocks back.
It took until June 2012 before it was decided that the shocks needed to be returned the the uk for repair and during this time we received no communication whatsoever from the company. They have now had them for two months and we have only received scanty updates via the distributer which they only obtained by repeatedly emailing them. Incidently, I called the company myself and was met by radio silence.
I really don't care why it took so long to organise - these things occasionally happen. And fortunately the weather has been pretty epic lately in Melbourne and not suitable for quick fangs in a sports cars. But eventually the summer will arrive and if they're not back by then we will be very unhappy campers.
Still, at least it allowed us time to fix the big end...........!

Knock knock knocking......yes, it's the big end!

During the last few shake down runs we noticed a clatter from the engine. Hard to locate and at first it sounded like the top end. We disconnected the injectors sequentially to see if it was from a particular cyclinder bottom end but that didn't help. Sadly, on the run back from the registration appointment the noise became much more obviously bottom end. Eek! Or words to that effect (possibly more Anglo-Saxon.)
The sump was duly dropped and the cause confirmed. I'm no expert but a sump should not look like it's been used for silver panning. I think it was caused during brake testing when I had had a momentary drop in oil pressure. A split second, but thats all it needed to melt a bearing. A top up of 250mls of oil cured the drop but it looks like the damage had been done
Ford claims the short block is non servicable - it's not even mentioned in the Haynes manual - but that's never stopped us. We removed the big end caps and bearings, which was easy, followed by the main bearings, which was not. The bearing ladder is fun as you don't want to rock it and damage surfaces . We had to weld a socket to the end of an angled spanner in order to remove the bolts that go through the bearing seal - they're tucked behind the fly wheel under a lip and no spanner I had would reach them.

Number 1 cylinder bearings were melted, and the rest were starting to go, but fortunately the journals were ok. The main beaings looked pretty good but we decided to replace them at the same time. These can be removed by spinning them out one by one. We used a  "spatula" made out of some thick plastic and wooden pushers made from dowl that had been filed flat at the edge to ensure nothing marked the surfaces. Once they started to move you could rotate the crankshaft and spin them out the rest of the way. Its best to replace each one as you go along or the crankshaft moves slighly on its axis, making replacement much more difficult. Don't ask how I know this......

We got replacement bearings from Raceline. They were very helpful in advising us - had it been a 2.3L engine we would've been in a lot of trouble as they are apparently much more sensitive to bearing size. They usually require the full monty of testing with plastigauge and multiple trial fits. Next we replaced the con rods with ARP items and then torqued everything back into place. The sump was refitted, the engine topped up with a full 5 litres of finest and the key turned. After a few tense turn overs the oil pressure shot up and we connected the ignition for a firing. It all went smoothly and now we have a knock free engine.
So, to conclude - 1) The marks on the raceline dipstick are not filling lines - make sure the engine has 5L of oil at least and then mark the dipstick yourself. 2) It is possible to change all the bearings with the engine in the car. But avoid it. It's not fun. Really!