when i took my buddys engine apart i noticed that the rod caps were on backwards and with the piston in the cylnder the bearing tangs were on the intake side (so the pistons were on the rod incorrectly). To my knowlege the bearings tangs are supposed to be on the exhaust side.
Does this really matter? Do i really need to take the pistons off and assemble it on the rod so that the bearing tangs are on the exhaust side?

 

anyone?
These pistons use the stupid Sprio locks, which cannot be re-used. So if i really need to switch them around i have to order new locks from JE and that ruin the whole plan of getting this car done over our long weekend (woot May 24 weekend)

 

had your friends engine ever ran when you took it apart?
or did he buy it "built"?

if the engine was running before you took it apart then leave it as is
otherwise fix them and take the crank and rods to machine shop

 

he had some guy put the rods/pistons in.
It was run like this for probably 10,000kms.
It had serious oil burning problems. He ran it for a summer un-tuned on a FMU and 440s with a T3.
Then he got another shop to do some work, bigger/turbo/injectors/skunk2stg1 cams/tuned with crome and it only made 310whp on the dyno (JE 9:1 slugs with eagle rods, arp head studs, thicker head gasket, T4, crappy manifold, 3" downpipe and mandrel bent exhaust, JE IM and SRP t/b, old *** deltagate)
So he got a new block, rings, bearings, headgasket, and is using his crank/rods/pistons. He also got a new turbosmart wastegate, Apex-i electronic boost controller and is going to put back in the BOV the last shop didn't use when they built his charge pipes.
He just wants to run it for the summer then sleeve a b18c to 84mm and run serious boost. But i'm not one to knowingly do something incorrect for someone, even if it means delaying it for a bit until we can get the new sprio locks from JE.