THE BRE BAJA Z - RACING ENGINE


As Of: 23 Sept. 2006
By: Carl Beck, IZCC #260


Pictured Above: Some of the guys stopped by to see the BRE BAJA Z after it arrived here from California. Still in its "Street Clothes" {painted Silver and looking "stock" for the street} and given its overall condition then; I don't think they were all that impressed with my "FIND". All agreed it was time to pull the engine.. but no-one volunteered that day in Oct. of 1999.


Pictured Above: Disassembly was delayed by several other projects until March of 2004. So it was finally time to pull that engine!.


Pictured Above: It was a pretty sad state of affairs for such a magnificent engine to be in such neglected condition. Bad as it looks, it sounded worse when running! Neat custom job on that oil pan, wonder what it looks like under all that crud.


Pictured Above: With the engine out of the way - I could tell that the engine bay would need a little elbow grease.


Pictured Above: I took lots of detail pictures as I was taking things apart. Wanted to assure that I could remember what went where; like this ground strap.


Pictured Above: That is actually an aluminum flywheel. The cam and valve train were shot. A couple of the custom BRE Pistons had cracked ring lands. The crank, somewhat cruddy was fine, as were the head and valves; just needed a little clean-up and refreshing. The degreed damper pulley was fine, just a bit of Baja dirt...

The engine was sent to Sun Belt Performance in Atlanta for complete rebuild to original BRE spec.'s.

Pictures From Atlanta

John Williams took on the task of refreshing, restoring, rebuilding all the external engine parts. This was to free Sun Belt Performance up to work on the engine rebuild and thus reduced the scheduled turn-around time. It didn't seem to work that way, but John did a super job on all these old parts. Sent the engine to Sunbelt in Oct. 05 and got it back Sept. 06


Pictured Above: New Clutch, S.U.'s Cleaned and rebuilt, original headers repaired and ceramic coated. The Front Cover, Valve Cover and Oil Pan looking like new again. Can't wait to get the engine back!!

Click Here For Next Page