Rebello engines

[Socalman]

Was trying to find info on their builds. What can be made out of a 1600 and such. But been trying their website for a week and can get into it. Says access denied or something. Did they go out of business? 

[RLJ]

They’re still in business. Their website seems to be down or something. I was trying to do a USPS shipment online this morning and got a similar thing. 
Give them a call Monday morning. 

[datzenmike]

Unless you just have to have al L16 I would go with the larger displacement L20B and Rebello can mix 'n match some Z22 and KA parts to make even stranger hybrids.

 

For example the L16 makes about 70 hp while the L20B is just over 90. To make an L16 make 20 more hp is not only costly ir's making it work harder, it also has to rev to do it. The L20B does this all day without a care. Depends what you want it for. Does it get driven year round, good starting in the cold and wet? good idle and stop and go in town?

[mrbigtanker]

5 hours ago, Socalman said:

Was trying to find info on their builds. What can be made out of a 1600 and such. But been trying their website for a week and can get into it. Says access denied or something. Did they go out of business? 

How much you want to spend first of all. 

 

What size displacement ?

How much horsepower you looking for ?

 

His builds are over 10K. with out induction or a header

Edited March 10 by mrbigtanker

[Socalman]

3 hours ago, datzenmike said:

Unless you just have to have al L16 I would go with the larger displacement L20B and Rebello can mix 'n match some Z22 and KA parts to make even stranger hybrids.

 

For example the L16 makes about 70 hp while the L20B is just over 90. To make an L16 make 20 more hp is not only costly ir's making it work harder, it also has to rev to do it. The L20B does this all day without a care. Depends what you want it for. Does it get driven year round, good starting in the cold and wet? good idle and stop and go in town?

Just want a fun, all around happy revving engine. The vin tag says my 1600 made 92hp from factory. 

1 hour ago, mrbigtanker said:

How much you want to spend first of all. 

 

What size displacement ?

How much horsepower you looking for ?

 

His builds are over 10K. with out induction or a header

I am looking for info to find out what might seem attractive to my needs..

[Crashtd420]

7 hours ago, Socalman said:

Just want a fun, all around happy revving engine. The vin tag says my 1600 made 92hp from factory. 

I am looking for info to find out what might seem attractive to my needs..

The 92 hp is at the crank not the wheels... 

I'm one of the few here who modified an L16, most go for the extra displacement. In the end I love my engine but I barely gain the 20hp lost in the drivetrain.... I still think I have room to gain a little more since I currently run just a single side draft... but at best I'll be at 100hp at the tires... 

 

[datzenmike]

100 at the tires is about 120 at the flywheel. About.

 

My '76 710 says 110hp but obviously gross right off the flywheel. I apply a 17% drive train loss for net (this is approximate) there's no sense trimming this and it may be slightly on the high side but this makes the RWHP in the very low 90s for an L20B. 

 

By this 17% an L16 makes low 70s and an L18 low 80s hp. 

[Stoffregen Motorsports]

19 hours ago, Socalman said:

Was trying to find info on their builds. What can be made out of a 1600 and such. But been trying their website for a week and can get into it. Says access denied or something. Did they go out of business? 

First thing, they don't d e-commerce. Pick up the phone and call them.

 

Second, I used to work for Dave and have built many L16s. I have to ask, why do you want to use the L16. In stock form, they aren't great. The small ports and valves don't lend themselves to making horsepower. But, if all you want is a little bit more, there are some easy ways to make power. Back when I was racing an ITC Datsun 510 and working for Rebello, we had to run a stock blueprinted engine in our cars. Blueprinted means building the engine the way the engineers designed them, not how they came out of the casting molds. We bumped up the compression a bit, used the biggest stock cam, made sure the valve grind was good and that's about it. The bottom end was of course balanced and bearing clearances set. On the outside of the motor, a re-curved distributor was installed (without vacuum advance), a modified Weber DGV, a long tube header and a 2.5" exhaust rounded out the package. Those motors ran great and revved to about 6500, but we learned to shift a couple hundred RPMs lower than that. All in, the best ones made 120 hp at the flywheel.

 

That's a stock motor. If you want to go with a peanut head, bigger valves, cam, dual carbs, etc, then you start making some HP.

 

A full blown GT4 race spec L16 topped the charts with a whopping 230 hp. This had dual 50mm Mikunis and massive amounts of work done to everything inside the motor. You could not drive this on the street as the power didn't come on until about 4k RPMs. They revved to 9k though.

 

So three questions -

 

What's your budget?

What are your goals?

What's your timeframe?

 

These all factor in, especially the last one. Rebello is not known for their quick turnaround times with street customers. Their specialty is racing and that's where they focus their attention.

[Socalman]

There is no budget. I want a performance engine without having to repurchase a lot of what I already have, dual Dcoes, aluminum flywheel, performance clutch, headers, etc. I have no timeline as I am enjoying what I have put together just seeing what more I can get and what it will get me. My truck weights under 1600 pounds. 

[Stoffregen Motorsports]

If you're dead set on keeping the L16, the quickest way to get more HP is to install a good peanut head. Doing this by itself can pose on problem, it generally lowers the compression ratio. The stock 210 head has tiny combustion chambers vs the A87, 219 V912 head chambers. How to get around this? Flat top, or even pop-up pistons. Now we're going down the rabbit hole. If you're going to put new pistons in, you may as well bore .040" over to maximize the displacement. If you;re boring, then that's an entire engine build.

 

Depending on the brand of piston, and how far you go with the cylinder head, the above motor will still cost actual money. Things have changed since I worked for Dave, but I would bet you;'d spend $4k at the minimum. Now before everyone jumps all over me, that's a fair price for a professionally built performance engine. Is it worth it? Well, that's not for me to decide.

 

There was a "1700" that we used to build for guys who wanted to keep the L16 block. I forget the combo, but I believe it is described in that Honsowetz book.

[Socalman]

I already have an A87 worked head, I think I need to stroke the bottom end. I read somewhere that installing an L18 crank is how you achieve that, so, boring it with some pop up piston is probably what I need/missing. I think I might have enough info to be able to actually have a conversation with a builder. Thank you. Who knows, maybe an L18 bottom end can be stroked and bored and retain the L16 bolt on components I mentioned.

5 hours ago, Crashtd420 said:

The 92 hp is at the crank not the wheels... 

I'm one of the few here who modified an L16, most go for the extra displacement. In the end I love my engine but I barely gain the 20hp lost in the drivetrain.... I still think I have room to gain a little more since I currently run just a single side draft... but at best I'll be at 100hp at the tires... 

 

 What did you do to yours? 

[Stoffregen Motorsports]

If you decide to go with the L18 crank, don't use the L18 rods. Keep the long L16 rods and get some custom pistons instead. The L18 rods were the shortest rod ever installed in any L motor and the rod/stroke ratio with them is horrible.

 

If you find an L18 that's in good shape, I'll buy it from you. The L18 is the only allowable engine change we can use in the vintage race cars, and since they were a very limited run spanning only two years, they are getting really hard to find.

[Crashtd420]

1 hour ago, Socalman said:

I already have an A87 worked head, I think I need to stroke the bottom end. I read somewhere that installing an L18 crank is how you achieve that, so, boring it with some pop up piston is probably what I need/missing. I think I might have enough info to be able to actually have a conversation with a builder. Thank you. Who knows, maybe an L18 bottom end can be stroked and bored and retain the L16 bolt on components I mentioned.

 What did you do to yours? 

One of the problems putting a different head on the L16 is it actually lowers the compression.... I believe the 210 head is 38.5 cc... and open chamber head is 45cc, and the closed chamber peanut head is 41cc....

You can make up enough cc going with flat top pistons... dome pistons start have clearance issues....

Stroffregan touched on using the L18 crank.... I think it's the way to do it... 

 

 

My build was accidental.... I bought a w53 peanut head , then some connecting rods and the wrong pistons.. and already had my carburetor chosen..

 

In the end I ended up boring my block to 84mm with wiseco 9cc dome pistons on new h beam rods.... the head was the w53 with a mild cam and i had to make room for the pistons.. I think the head ended up being 43cc when I was done..... carburetor is a single 40 dcoe on lynx intake... I think I'm around

10.5-1 compression....

I also run the 123 distributor ...

 

I always felt my setup had more potential..

I want to port the head still and I have stainless valves to go in it with bigger intake valve... also more carburation or possibly go to efi..... 

 

Edited March 10 by Crashtd420

[datzenmike]

L16 stock compression........... 8.74

With open chamber head....... 7.69

Closed chamber head............ 8.38

 

 

[Socalman]

41 minutes ago, datzenmike said:

L16 stock compression........... 8.74

With open chamber head....... 7.69

Closed chamber head............ 8.38

 

 

So by installing an A87 head on a stock bottom end I lowered the compression on my current setup? If so, is it by a noticeable difference? 

[wayno]

I would build an engine on the side, gather parts as you can find them, my choice would be a Z22 block out of a car(not the truck) and bore it out to 89mm as I recall, use stock Z24 pistons, find an early square exhaust port head(closed chamber) and have larger valves installed(42mm intakes as I recall) and have the intake passages ported to 1.5", have the head intakes passages ported to match the head, Carburation plays a large part in how much HP you will have, I used Dual SUs on mine.

 

I basically did everything above and had a W53 CC head made into a 219 head, it was cheap when I did it, it is not so cheap anymore, any head you use needs to have hardened seats installed, I use the L20b stock cam as my work truck needs torque, it weighs 3900lbs and it really moves with the engine above.

 

I used a truck Z22 engine on my second LZ23 build, it is not the same engine, it has lower compression, to this day I do not know why, this is why I say use the  Z22 engine out of a car, they had EFI on them, better engine as far as I am concerned.

[datzenmike]

2 hours ago, Socalman said:

So by installing an A87 head on a stock bottom end I lowered the compression on my current setup? If so, is it by a noticeable difference? 

 

A87s came in open or closed so you pick. An open chamber it's a lot. 

[Socalman]

28 minutes ago, datzenmike said:

 

A87s came in open or closed so you pick. An open chamber it's a lot. 

How would I know without removing if I have open or closed chamber? 

[mrbigtanker]

20 hours ago, Socalman said:

Just want a fun, all around happy revving engine. The vin tag says my 1600 made 92hp from factory. 

I am looking for info to find out what might seem attractive to my needs..

I got a 2150 Robello ill sell you. It dynode 219 HP Ill give you the long block and header for 8K. hell of a deal.

[datzenmike]

2 hours ago, Socalman said:

How would I know without removing if I have open or closed chamber? 

 

Can't. Possibly a borescope camera, if you know what to look for.

[Socalman]

1 hour ago, mrbigtanker said:

I got a 2150 Robello ill sell you. It dynode 219 HP Ill give you the long block and header for 8K. hell of a deal.

I’ll call you tomorrow 

[wayno]

A compression check?

[Socalman]

I’m still looking for a new motor. Has anyone heard or dealt with these guys? I can get a new rebuilt L20b without a core for $1873….would not let me do link so here is a snap shot

 

 

[Stoffregen Motorsports]

What's the name of that shop in the east? Datsun Spirit?  Here it is - https://www.datsunspirit.com/about

 

I hear they build a decent engine. It's almost like they got ahold of a 30 year old Rebello engine build sheet and decided to build those.

[Socalman]

OK, so I am just going to start with a stock rebuilt L20B, just starting simple, I just want to make sure I have everything I need for the swap, please add or correct me if I am wrong. all I would need for the swap are....

 

The oil pan and oil pickup tube off the original L16

The original water pump unless the L20B already has a non-clutch pump. 

225mm Clutch and 6 bolt flywheel 

The throwout bearing collar (is this part it?)https://www.carid.com/sf-pl-mpn/pid-0-mmyid-113392-ofmpnid-4806746843.html?gad_source=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIwoXPg7-IhQMVDxetBh2mWw6vEAQYAiABEgLUhvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

The original L16 motor mounts.