Someone put up a n.o.s. Nismo clutch kit for an A series engine recently, I noticed the pressure plate was Unisia branded. Googled them and turns out they were part of the JECS brand, and reading the history of them, I believe Valeo took over the clutch side of things in the early 2000's.

Hendrik, these engines move a lot of oil at high RPM's, unfortunately in a design flaw, they didn't cater for enough oil return galleries, and as a result, the head tends to fill up with oil, and you get oil starvation around the crank area. The later gen 3 4AGE 16V's took this into consideration, and have an extra oil drain on the intake side right behind the #4 intake runner. They don't have this issue.

Spoke to my dad last night, and he agrees that the cure is to fit a restrictor in the block, to lower oil flow to the head. He did one just this week for someone who races one in Cape Town, it also burned a bearing... They used to even do it on the Ford kent engines he used when doing oval track racing...

Tyrie, I'll run it in at 3PSI, and then have it set on 15PSI, if it lasts a few runs at that boost, I'll have it upped...

But there is a saying, and I think I saw it on this site, which goes, "When in doubt run more boost"...*hehehe*

EDIT: Hendrik, I saw that advertisement, and I'll give em a call. Fortunately my dad has many moons of experience in this kind of thing, and he wouldn't allow me to fit bearings that won't last...

So last night at eight I got the thing going, and drove it to the garage to put some petrol. Drive around a bit, and go to fast so I miss the turn off to my house. make a u-turn and nail it a bit making lots of smoke and flying stones, and when I hook 2nd it goes *clackclackclack*... I drive it a bit, and it only makes the noise at about 4000 rpm, fear the worst as there is almost no oil pressure at idle, and at home I stand under the bonnet and listen. The noise is coming from inside the engine, so I think it burnt a bearing.

FCUK FCUK FCUK!!!

I was warned though a few months ago, that the seem to have a habit of burning bearings when installed in a RWD. Apparently the cure is to instal a restrictor in the head's oil gallery in the block, so that the oil doesn't dam up in the head. I just don't understand why after more than 8 months of driving all of a sudden last night it had to clonk out...

Anyway, now it'll come out, get stripped down, and rebuilt. Will have my dad do some head work at the same time, to remove the sharp edges in the ports, and match them to their respective manifolds. Also want to install some ARP head studs, and when it's run in, get it tuned on racing fuel at 15PSI,

Screw that, it's gotta go sub 11 when it runs again.

Will probably need some better tyres and some diff work before it goes again...

Watch this space...

nice, this is what I'm putting in mine: