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I've been lurking long enough and figure it's time to start a build thread, so here goes. This is my 1996 that I've had for a few years, and finally got all of the parts together to boost it. The whole goal of this car was to build it on a budget but build it decently. I wanted the car to be comfortable enough to DD in the summertime, and fun at autocross and the (very) rare track day. The goal wasn't crazy power, so if I wind up with a quick spooling 200 HP I'd be happy.
I had never really modified a car before this so I worked my way up to this by doing the basics, upgraded sway bars, suspension, tb/wp and generally trying to keep up on maintenance/appearance items. I scrounged up the below items from various places since pretty much the day I got the car, learning from build threads I've seen here.
DIYPNP
Flow Force 600cc injectors
FM manifold and DP
FM 2.5" exhaust (got it cheap)
Journal bearing t25 from a nissan, rebuilt by myself
Ebay? intercooler and piping
55?mm Mishimoto radiator
Forge BOV
LC1 Wideband
Various analog Innovate gauges
Butterfly brace / frame rails
FM coilovers/NB tophats
Roll bar
MSM seats
Too many brackets I bent up on my own
That brings us to today. Following the MT.net approved strategy I installed the megasquirt and injectors, then added the turbo hardware and got the car street tuned. I had some really strange turbo smoking issues for awhile but I think I narrowed it down to a kink in my turbo drain, but replaced the exhaust side piston seal with a step-gap type just for good measure too. The car now has about 250 miles on it so far and I'm only on wastegate pressure which is about 6 psi. Compared to stock it's a ton of fun and makes awesome noise. I do notice boost falling off up top but I expected it with this turbo.
The PO of this car was obsessed with red and painted/replaced everything they could and it's been a slow process to get rid of it. During the offseason I'll make better heat management, get a stronger clutch, and learn as much as I can about EBC so I can get the most out of the car come spring.
Last edited by festersays; 01-14-2019 at 12:44 PM.
Awesome advice right here. I remembered reading a few different threads on where to plumb the wastegate to but I didn’t realize this might have been my problem. I’m working on a air box bow and am going to switch the signal line to post IC. Thanks!!
I'm from the Cleveland area also, about 30 minutes west. I try and get to a few of the ASCC autocross events at Dragway 42 every season but I was a little disappointed about the number they hosted last year. It seems like they'll have a lot more planned in the upcoming season which is exciting. It's good to find people local on here!
I grew up a couple miles south of Dragway 42 but haven't been to an autocross event there yet. I am hoping to sometime this year. Maybe I could tag along sometime with you to get my feet wet.
Sounds good, I'll let you know. My wedding is this summer so I will have my hands pretty full. I hope to squeeze in a few though.
This might be the quickest thread on MT.net to need engine work after a mild turbo setup. I compression tested the engine earlier this year and #3 was down a little bit, but not enough to make me action it at the time. Now I am still seeing the issue of oil leaking passed out of the turbine seal and am thinking it's due to excessive blowby/crankcase pressure. I know it's not a scientific test by any means but I removed the oil cap at idle and felt quite a bit of air puffing out. Aside from adding a 323 gtx PCV valve I've made no other modifications to help the engine relieve pressure better. I think it's time for a leakdown test to see what it is exactly so I can get it repaired. I've been dealing with a slight miss at idle also and although the stock ECU idled perfect, I wouldn't doubt it's related. Regardless of the fix I'm planning to add a catch can at some point. Plugs are brand new. Potato video attached.
To keep myself busy I've added a DIY air box (thanks Shibby for the help) and added a flex section into my downpipe. At some point in time a PO had hacked off the part of it that was supposed to slip in, and it's been held together with ghetto fixes temporarily just so I could drive.
Unfortunately the engine was cold but I did turn the engine over 15 times for each cylinder to try to stay consistent. I'm not sure how well I did the test a few years back, but I swore it was cylinder 3 that had been low. I bought the HF leak down tester and am a little disappointed that I can only use it to about 15 psi but I shouldn't have expected it to be great. I will measure actual numbers but so far with just putting 15-20 psi through each cylinder, I without a doubt heard air escaping through the most through the tailpipe (exhaust valves), oil filler cap (rings) and ever so slightly on the intake (intake valves) on one cylinder. I'm still interested in the results from the leak down test but the compression test results don't look phenomenal.
I keep tossing around the best idea on how to fix it. I want an el cheapo-depot solution because I need to be spending dollars on the wedding, not the car at the moment. If I can find one in good health, I'm probably going to swap another 1.8 from a Miata or ideally if I can find one from a Protege, Escort GT, etc, then that might be the move (read, cheap). The local pull-a-part shows they have multiple Proteges on hand so I will likely pay them a visit to see what's up.
Was the engine warmed up before comp. test? Those #'s don't look too bad to me, total % spread a little big,(high to low), but I'v seen lower #'s in very nice running , non-oil burning 1.8's. Your issues may be elsewhere.
Was the engine warmed up before comp. test? Those #'s don't look too bad to me, total % spread a little big,(high to low), but I'v seen lower #'s in very nice running , non-oil burning 1.8's. Your issues may be elsewhere.
The compression test was done on a cold engine. I know that's now ideal for ring sealing but the first compression tester I rented was busted (it read flat 0, yikes) when I had the car warmed up for the purpose. I exchanged it and when I tested to see if this one worked I just went ahead and finished. I was a little surprised too seeing the numbers but the difference between them is what's got me a little on edge. I'll nurse this bottom end along as long as I can.
Originally Posted by HmoobDude
Did you also do it with all spark plugs removed and with the throttle open?
Yep, I sure did.
Originally Posted by borka
Do you have a restrictor in the turbo oil feed line?
I do. I didn't at first, it was a straight through connector - but then when I saw smoke I changed out to a 1.5mm restrictor hoping it'd help. I also swapped my drain hose to clear tubing a-la home depot racing and watched the car at idle to see if it was backing up the drain, and it seemed ok. Previously in the thread I mentioned having a weeping turbine seal. I just went out and felt the bottom of the turbo and it's bone dry now so I know that enough oil isn't getting out to leak there anyway.
This where the drain is plumbed to. And yes I did clean the pan before putting it back together, this was just a test fit.
Oil drain clearance to oil pickup. Oil drain location, capped off for NA operation at the time.
While I'm at it here are some other photos of the car throughout the years. Plus cat pics. Botched oil pan seal from PO. Fixed. Supervising when I trimmed for the roll bar. Rando that stopped by when pulling the engine one night.
Considering the bottom end is making halfway decent compression, I think that the problem I'm facing is either in the head or the turbo itself. I'm still noticing oil smoke from the center section (turbine side only) and oil smoke on the exhaust. I even switched to a 1mm restrictor from a 1.5mm restrictor and still see a constant smoke from the tailpipe. I see it most shortly after startup, and after idling for quite some time. I know that sounds like valve stem seals and they're probably overdue also but this turbo shouldn't really require a restrictor in the first place and so I'm thinking crank case pressure is forcing it passed the seals. Or maybe I screwed some part of the turbo rebuild process up. I did do a leak down test with the cheapo Harbor Freight tool and got..
1. 40%
2. 65%
3. 100% (leaking badly on intake side, see below)
4. 15%
I think this data is a little skewed because I was setting the piston to TDC, pressurizing it, and not turning the crank back and forth slightly to get the best seal. I'm going to redo the test this weekend hopefully.
That hasn't stopped me from driving. I did some tuning now that I have the wastegate plumbed to the intake side, and did a virtual dyno to see where it's at. The richness you see up top has been tuned out now.
I also added a catch can. I scrounged Amazon and found this for $17 bucks. It's identical to the Mishimoto Compact and so far has only caught a little oil. Not a bad deal considering the Mishimoto branded one is over $100.
A little longer than anticipated but I've got way better leakdown test results. Doing this at 100psi on a 6 gallon pancake compressor sucks, by the way. I am only as smart as the tool, so maybe you guys can help me interpret what these leakdown numbers actually mean. I am most interested in the hissing coming from other cylinders. I was checking the coolant for bubbles, intake, exhaust, and oil cap.
1. 4% leakage, heard from the oil cap (rings)
2. 4% leakage, heard from the #4 cylinder spark plug hole, also from the exhaust pipe
3. 6% leakage, heard from #4 cylinder spark plug hole, also from the exhaust pipe
4. 5% leakage, heard from #3 cylinder spark plug hole, also from exhaust pipe
I get that air hissing from the oil cap and tailpipe indicate worn rings and exhaust valves but these numbers don't seem bad. Is there something more concerning to look for with the fact that I'm hearing the air hissing from other cylinders? Just to reiterate I'm having oil burn from the tailpipe and CHRA, and it may be related that I've got a light miss at idle. My tune had idle running at about 10 degrees timing but bumping it to around 15 degrees has made the idle misfire happen a lot less frequently. Maybe batch fire is contributing to this too.
I'm starting to think that maybe the turbo is part of the problem itself. I found a thread on a turbo mopar forum that describes almost exactly the problem I'm having, and admittedly I didn't even think to take a pick and clean out the oil galley that allows oil to drain from the journal bearing to the oil drain line itself when I rebuilt it. I don't want to disassemble it but I think that's next on my checklist. MT won't let me link to the forum, but this example shows the amount of gunk that was removed from a turbo drain oil galley.
In the meantime, I found an Escort GT with 140k on it, and the owner only wants $300 bucks for the whole car due to a slipping automatic trans. It's had a recent TB service too. If the engine checks out I am going to pick it up as a potential backup/spare and part the rest of the valuables (if there are any) from it. With parting it and scrap value on top, I'll at least have a free to me engine with the only cost being time.
As a side note, if anyone needs a leakdown tester on a budget, the harbor freight tester is pretty useless out of the box. The operating pressure of the second gauge is only about 10-15 psi and that's sort of good enough to hear leaks, but not quantify the data. I found a 160 psi 1/8 npt gauge at harbor freight and threaded it in instead for the second gauge. This allowed me to bring the working pressure up to 100 psi like you're supposed to, and allowed me to get meaningful results. Just a heads up for anyone else who may have it, and wants it to work better.
So I went ahead and pulled the turbo off and checked to see if there was anything internally blocking the drain, and it looks great. I'm at a loss. My bachelor party is next month and included a 'fun' drive that I was planning on taking the car to. Suggestions to check for other items are welcome. The escort I found fell through and I found a 95' engine locally that I may just get to use if I can't figure this out soon. By the way, the compressor side of the turbo is bone dry. Nothing is getting passed that seal.
The old piston ring I got with the gpop rebuild kit, looks like it seals good enough. I replaced this with a step gap style to try and help. Plenty of room for oil to exit. Another shot with light being shined into the drain itself. So much room. Evidence of the weeping.
Last edited by festersays; 04-04-2019 at 09:47 AM.
I've been doing nothing to the car other than improving the tune, and putting as many miles on it as I can. It's a ton of fun even at about 150 hp. I did a few street pulls against my buddies stock Fiesta ST and it for sure held it's own. Took the car for about a 4 hour road trip down to southeastern Ohio and it didn't skip a beat other than burning some oil during overrun in the twisties. I have since removed the pop rivet from my -3an feed line and haven't noticed any more smoking at idle, but still plan on opening up the valve cover more so blowby can be more easily vented.
The only real issues I've had with the car so far have been tune related, and the nuts that hold the turbo on have been backing themselves off after more spirited drives. I mainly will street drive this car with a handful of autocross events a year so I may try and get away with the Nissan studs (14064-40P01) and a stage 8 fastener kit. The other day I noticed this:
Which upon fixing, resulted in this:
So that sucks. I'll likely be ordering that new hardware and doing my best to extract the broken stud on the car.
In other news, I scored a deal on a FM1 happy meal which will be going in over the next few months. The sooner the better, because my stock clutch has been doing great but I know it's only a matter of time. I will for sure resurface this before it goes in.
So I ordered the MT.net approved Nissan part number for m8 turbo studs and installed a few. When I put on the new stage8 hardware, I get just a few turns of thread engagement on the stud. Blah. Not nearly enough for me to feel good about it. Maybe my manifolds stud holes are chamfered to the point that the collars on the studs allow them to sit too much now. I don’t know. Regardless, these Nissan studs are just short of 1.25” and I need closer to 1.4”. Fab9 has a kit with 1.31” of thread that MAY work isn’t Inconel. And my intention was to go Inconel so I’d never touch this again. Does anyone have a measurement on how long a m8 TSE Inconel stud is? I’ve checked and the FM Inconel stud is 33mm or 1.29”. I just want to drive.
01-10-2019, 05:21 PM
Your Basic NA T25 Build
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