rwyatt365

Got home Friday night and found a present in the mailbox...a set of 4 Wiseco XXX rings!

I wasn't expecting them, but I took it as a sign of Divine Intervention. So yesterday was spent (re-)honing the cylinders - the previous cross-hatching was still there, but a light hone couldn't hurt...right? Then came setting the end gaps on the rings and installing the pistons. After that, scraping the gasket surfaces and installing the head.

Today I'll get the rest of the engine put together (and hopefully get it into the chassis - we'll see, I've only got the late afternoon and evening to get that done).

Yeah, if you hit or bend them "just right" (as in "just wrong") they'll snap like a twig.

And a word of caution with the BE pump, check the bypass valve movement. Mine might have been a production flaw, but better safe than sorry.

I should be getting the comp2's installed Tue or Wed so the car "has to" be mobile by then.

Question for the masses; I've got a EGT module from PLX devices that doesn't work worth a damn and I'm thinking of scrapping it. Is monitoring and/or logging EGT worth the effort? I'm already $250 into a "solution" that doesn't work, could I find a better place to spend my money?

aidandj

iTrader: (5)

I don have EGT but I wish I did. It can tell you a lot about your tune, and can help keep your turbo safe.

rwyatt365

Minor roadblock yesterday. I thought cleaning the pan was going to be easy...NOT! What I thought was minor oil sludge turned out to be fine metal shavings, almost like fine grit lapping compound. So I had to break out my DIY hot tank and give it a thorough going-over (FYI - the block and head have already been stripped down bare and the oil passages cleaned before reassembly so I'm pretty confident those are ok...right?).

I'm still on the fence about the EGT. I think I'll postpone the expense for now and concentrate on getting the car running (again), then re-evaluate later.

rwyatt365

Last night's update;

Pan is bright and sparkly inside, and now securely fastened to the block. Brand spankin' new Gates (blue) timing belt is on. Intake & exhaust manifolds are on. Reroute adapter is on. Turbo oil & water lines are on. Engine is mostly together except for the accessories.

I've got a Mocal thermostat on back-order from RPW (should ship out today). I had bought a cheap-o Derale thermostat, but one look at the actuating mechanism and I thought better of installing that, so I ordered the Mocal. I'm anxious to get the car running so I'm just going to keep the existing I.L. Motorsports sandwich plate during break-in. It'll be inconvenient to put in the Mocal and route the lines for the oil cooler with the engine in the car, but I'll take that pain in exchange for a couple of days of "functioning car" bliss.

rwyatt365

last night;


Prepping the patient for surgery;


...and the two became one;


Between this and the next picture I discovered that I had forgotten to put in a new o-ring in the BE oil pump so I had to take the whole front end of the engine apart and open up enough space so that I could slip in the new o-ring. That little lapse cost me about an hour. I hope I didn't forget anything else!!

Insertion;


...and that's as far as I got before running out of time (and energy).

rwyatt365

OK, so, I got everything assembled and all the wires connected. Got in, turned the key, crank...but no fire.

So I re-check everything, test to make sure that I've got spark and fuel...there was no "whirrrr" from the fuel pump. Checked the relay and...it's there. Turn the key, crank...but no fire.

Now I'm panicking! Did I put the timing wheel on backwards? Took off the pulley and reversed the timing wheel, just in case. Turn the key, crank...but no fire.

Now I'm really panicked!! Did I drill the hole in the cam gear for the exhintake swap wrong? Did I mis-read the timing marks? Did I f**k up ANOTHER engine?!!

At this point I took a "woo-sah" moment and calmed down. Then I lifted the top and looked at the connector to the fuel pump...which was DIS-connected. In my infinite wisdom, when I first tore down the engine I must have (lazily) disconnected the connector to drain the fuel line instead of unplugging the relay like I typically do.

Plugged in the fuel pump. Turn the key, crank...and it fired right up. But...(isn't there ALWAYS a but) it won't idle. Thinking that I have to make some adjustments to the idle settings, and being without my computer, I packed up my SO (since it was already 8:30PM) to take her back home and pick up my computer.

22 miles home, drop her off and pick up the computer, 22 miles back and I'm ready to rock'n roll. I un-bundle the data cable for the MS, take off the bluetooth transmitter and go to plug in the serial-USB adapter ('cause no modern computer has a serial port, right?!). Wait a minute! Where's the adapter? It SHOULD be in the car, it's ALWAYS in the car!

I spend the next 30 minutes tearing up the car, my toolbox, and every other box laying within arm's reach, but nothing. The freakin' adapter is nowhere to be found - and I'm PISSED!!! If, at that moment, a Velociraptor came through the door, bared it's fangs and asked, "Hey buddy, how's it going?" I would have killed it with my bare hands and beat it's corpse mercilessly with a 3-foot, half-inch extension bar until it resembled a large lump of hamburger meat - I was that mad.

There was nothing I could do at that point but admit defeat and go back home.

Of course, I found the adapter in the first place that I looked when I got home and I could swear it was smiling at me...

rwyatt365

IT'S ALIVE!

I had a water leak, and a oil leak to deal with. And I'm trying to figure out a satisfactory place to mount an oil cooler (I don't want to give up the second fan that's wired up in parallel to the main cooling fan).

The water leak turned out to just be me not tightening the radiator drain plug - easy enough to fix. The oil leak was easy to find, but tough to resolve. It turned out that I hadn't tightened the turbo oil drain before dropping the engine in - that was a chore to get tightened, but it's secure now.

Now I'm back in my car and it feels good!

50 miles 'till the first oil change, 200 till it's "safe". Life is good!

Erat

iTrader: (5)

WHOOH!

Glad to hear it's alive.

rwyatt365

You guys have no idea how good it feels to be out of the PT Cruiser and back

DNMakinson

iTrader: (3)

<p>Good Deal, Roger</p>

Landrew

iTrader: (2)

That's awesome. Glad to hear your back in business and ready to roll. When they're out of commission these cars make driving anything else boring and unengaging.

rwyatt365

The "cold"-start this morning (75*F) was crappy, guess it's back to the drawing board with the cranking/idle setup. Other than that, it's a dream to drive.

Gonna change out the break-in oil tonight.

I've got the stuff on order for the oil cooler lines, and I've figured out a sub-optimal location for the cooler itself. It's going in the passenger fender well, in front of the tire, and will be fed from a built-in vent in my aftermarket front bumper. I say sub-optimal because the vent only covers about 1/3 of the area of the cooler itself and (even with ducting) there may be hot spots. But some cooling is better than none.

One thing that I noticed is oil pressure: as noted before, I have BE oil pump (the "street" pump w/ 1 shim installed). I also have a VDO oil sending unit (#360-009, rated to 80 psi) and a new VDO gauge in as well. Previously, the sending unit was wired into the stock OPG and was pegged high most of the time it only came down at idle.

Now, with the VDO gauge I read under 20 psi when hot, at idle and 40-45 psi when hot during normal driving. I was expecting somewhat higher pressures - somewhere in the vicinity of 50-55 psi during driving when hot. Am I expecting too much? Is 50+ psi "too high"? Should I add another shim?

I don't want to trash another engine because of this. Awaiting your sage advice.

EO2K

iTrader: (37)

What oil are you using for break-in?

I put the first 150 miles and 2 oil changes on my brand new motor this weekend. I'm using Amsoil Break-In SAE30 and I'm getting the same. I suspect its because once this oil gets hot it gets thin. Like, really ******* thin. Draining it while its 200° and it flows like water. I'm going to reserve judgement until I get something with some real viscosity in there, but I'd also like to hear from folks with more experience.

Looking good man, I'm hoping it all works out!

Erat

iTrader: (5)

I have BE street pump with no shims if I recall. Idle around 20psi, cruise around 35-40.

Seems normal to me.

rwyatt365

YES!

I'm using Amsoil 30W break-in oil ("with extra Zinc!"). Gonna change to Schaeffer 9000 synthetic for the long run - there are a lot of people that say it's great stuff.

We'll see...

EO2K

iTrader: (37)

Long term I'm thinking T6, Valvoline VR1 or Amsoil Dominator. Lots of scuttlebutt about the T6 not being "as good as it used to be" so we'll see. I'm very interested to see how you get on with the Schaeffer. How long do you think it'll take before you go to the syn?

To make my earlier comment more relevant, I'm also using a Boundary Street/Strip with a single shim.

rwyatt365

Why is my frickin' oil pressure so low?!!

I changed out the 30w break in oil for Schaeffer 9000 synthetic last night and was expecting to see "normal" pressures (the Amsoil at 200*F looked like water coming out BTW). Coming back home (I took the long way, about 30mi - 45 min), things looked great...until the oil temp went beyond 200*F. Beyond that - up to about 230-ish - the pressure above 3000 RPM barely brushed 40 psi (more like somewhere between 35 and 40 psi), and dropped below 10 psi at a 900 RPM idle. That was disturbing to say the least!

As stated before, I have a BE oil pump w/ 1 shim installed. I was expecting at least 40-45 psi hot, under normal driving. Should I put in another shim (or two)? Is my pump defective (it was bought new from FAB9 many months ago, but has only been run in the car for less than 1000 miles)? Is the sender bad (I really don't have a way to test it)? Is the gauge bad (it's basically just a calibrated ohmmeter, right)?

WTF is going on?!!

On the positive side, stuff for the oil cooler is on the way and should be here today. When I was fitting the Mocal thermostat I saw that it was going to be tight trying to get the -AN fittings to work in the limited space (the stock "oil cooler/warmer" is long-gone, so I can't use that as a spacer). I'll see if I can get it to work this weekend.

If not, I've got a backup plan. I've ordered a "Mocal Sandwich Plate Spacer" from Merlin Motorsports in the UK. I'm sure I could have found something that would get the job done locally but I decided to get something that was purpose-built.

I've also decided to ditch the idea of mounting the cooler in the wheel well and am going to make up a mount that'll position the cooler almost horizontal behind the IC and make some ducting to get air from under the "bumper".

EO2K

iTrader: (37)

That's a nice find on the oil thermostat spacer. What did it end up costing you OTD after shipping and currency conversion? Looks like just under $50?

Also, ACK! on the oil pressure! Not sure what to tell you and I have no idea what to expect anymore. Now I'm super nervous to see where mine ends up. I think I'm going to start a thread in the engine section.

Testing the pressure sender shouldn't be that bad if you have a regulated source of compressed air. Hell, I bet you could do it with a bike pump if need be.

rwyatt365

The spacer plus a long extension bolt with VAT and shipping was $66 and change. I'm not complaining.

I thought that I needed fluid pressure to test. I do have access to an air compressor though.

rwyatt365

And now for something completely different...

I was playing around with my CL Idle settings - I had a slight oscillation and wanted to get rid of it. So, I was doing a bit of research to find the right direction to go. In doing that research I saw something that piqued my interest...people stating what their idle MAP was (several of the related threads people were finding out that they had vacuum leaks).

"Not me", I said, "My lines are solid!" But when I compared what my idle MAP was, to what was considered normal, I was SHOCKED! By all indications, I had a massive leak...but where. Every time I tested all the "usual suspects" with starting fluid, I got no indication of a leak. The only thing left was my (El Cheapo) boost gauge - which I never tested...because lazy. When I disconnected and capped off the gauge my idle MAP dropped from 56 kPa(!!!) to 39 kPa.

I didn't have a vacuum leak, I had an open, gaping hole! I'm surprised the car was running as well as it was. Keep in mind, I've this gauge, and line in place since I put the FM VooDoo kit on...in 2012. I'm ashamed to say that I've been tuning around this leak for the past 2 years - when I first installed the MS.

How stupid is THAT!!

Anyway, to make myself feel better I fabbed up a mount for the oil cooler (I'm still waiting for the spacer to arrive).

Here's the underside of the car "pre-surgery";



Here's the mount. The straps go from the IC, to the subframe and serve not only to mount the plate for the cooler, but to stabilize the IC.



Blurry side shot of the cooler mounted onto the plate;



A shot showing the whole shebang mounted. The cooler "hides" behind the chicken wire. I'm going to do some ducting as well. Just haven't figured out whether to do a simple under-bumper duct, or try to get air from the vents in the sides of the bumper. We'll see...



PS - gonna be mounting some frame rails soon too!