D wrote:
I agree full bearing brace would be needed with arp bolts

If you go wet sleeve and want to remain 79mm there are renault 16/17/18
cars with the 807,843 and 841 engine that have the 78 and 79mm sleeves.
These sleeves are often boosted after 300+ thousand kms with a re-hone
or 1mm overbore. You should be able to get them for cheap.
I used to be able to get these engines easily for 80aud but havent seen
the mentioned rens for about a year now at wrecking yards.

Would love a vid of the beast with the rb5, Just love the thought of
something so responsive to frighten all those big capacity sheep :)

The pic below shows that the offset will have to go towards the
one side of the block also to avoid the camshaft area
essentially giving a tdc at perhaps 2-5 degrees much like on
modern engines where combustion occurs on the downstroke
past crankshaft centre.