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So about a two months ago, in a moment of weakness, I bought a MSM. I will now chronicle my experience to date, which involves spending a bunch of money and not actually driving around much.
Driving it home. Wheel/tire setup was horrid, and got changed first
It was still embarrassing to drive at this ride height, So I found a set of vmaxx xtreme used coilovers on craigslist. Also changed all the fluids around this time, bled the brakes, swapped plugs (the ones that came out were gapped to .070!), all the normal new/used car stuff.
much better! Ride is great! Well, it was, until the front left shock blew on redwood road. The vmaxx sold me 2-for-1, so while my used cheap coilovers are less cheap, they are now in good shape and will get me by for now. Great customer service from them with the hookup, and quick shipping from the NL
I want a little more out of the car, so I made an intake, installed a full exhaust, wb02, and a megasquirt PNPpro. Fun! Now the car makes the right noises, but is burning a ton of oil. A catch can, check valve, and lots of carb cleaner later, I was all good. Drove around for a week or two and started tuning the car’s drivability, idle, and boost on WG spring. So much fun! Car feels pretty strong, creeping to 10psi or so. But, it was smoking on overrun, especially bad after boosting, and getting worse. Engine has perfect compression & crank case breathers are routed to catch cans, so figure it’s oil blowing by the turbo on the turbine side, as I have little/no oil in the intake track.
so out comes the turbo.
Pretty nasty, very tiny little guy. I’m going to throw a rebuild kit at it to see if it fixes the smoke issue. Would like to try to make this work for now, while I dither away on better setups. I'd love to do the kraken low mount, but no EGR + California would have me doing a lot of wrenching come emissions time. Will be looking for a spare motor to build up over the next year or so, for a higher power (~300-350) whp setup.
more nasty. Also, cracks!
Turbo rebuilt. WG ported. Shaft has pretty much the same amount of play, and I prob pooched the compressor side oil seal ring stuffing it in there. We'll see how that goes..
the PO was a bodyshop guy and did a lot of interesting and weird show-car style things, painted the car a BMW I8 color, smoked the headlight/tail lights, smoked the gauge lens (you cant see them at all! so dumb), sanded and painted a lot of the interior trim piano-black (actually like this, besides the fingerprints), and put in a pretty decent system. I’ll undo some of his work (and most all of his mechanical work) and leave some of the unique bits
Ty did not like the old wheels either
Car was leaking oil from multiple sources, so I did the timing belt and associated do-dingles
before:
shoutout to the PO for trying to seal the VCG with "the right stuff"
After:
I also decided to pull the trans, as I had wrongly assumed that the rear main was leaking. It was either the VCG puking oil down the head and eventually down to the oilpan/bellhousing area, or maybe the oil galley/hg at the rear of the head is leaking some.
I did find a pretty pooched clutch and FW in there, and some loose bolts-n-stuff. So add that to the bill I guess
anyways that's where I'm at. Waiting on a few bits to get the turbo back on, need to extract a broken stud out of the little down-elbow thing that bolts to the turbine housing, and decide if I want to reuse this flywheel or just buy a whole new setup. Maybe a FMII or perhaps the supermiata? I'm going to pour a little more gas on the wallet fire, I need to get this thing back together before I cycle in rotation at work, where I wrench on much bigger, much louder, things that (sometimes, hopefully) go to space!
One nice thing regarding the SM clutch disc is that it covers the entire friction surface on the flywheel.
The FMII disc is 8.25" in diameter and the SM disc is 8.8".
The SM disc looks to have 15% more swept area and the additional coverage is on the outside where it should have the greatest effect.
The ID of the friction surfaces appeared identical between the two.
My SM set came in Center Force boxes, and I checked prices on the Internet.
A quick search showed SM was actually one of the least expensive sources.
SM's pricing is very competitive on everything they sell.
My MSM came with a nearly new FMII happy meal.
I am replacing it with the SM kit.
I bought a new organic set from a forum member but had I bought from SM I'd have gotten the ceramic option.
One nice thing regarding the SM clutch disc is that it covers the entire friction surface on the flywheel.
The FMII disc is 8.25" in diameter and the SM disc is 8.8".
The SM disc looks to have 15% more swept area and the additional coverage is on the outside where it should have the greatest effect.
The ID of the friction surfaces appeared identical between the two.
My SM set came in Center Force boxes, and I checked prices on the Internet.
A quick search showed SM was actually one of the least expensive sources.
SM's pricing is very competitive on everything they sell.
My MSM came with a nearly new FMII happy meal.
I am replacing it with the SM kit.
I bought a new organic set from a forum member but had I bought from SM I'd have gotten the ceramic option.
Thanks! Ordered the organic kit from SM. Trans is back in the car, hopefully I can button everything up tonight!
the U Joints on the OEM driveshaft are pretty much done, and on closer inspection it looks like I need motor mounts, too. Yay cars!
pressuring the crankcase aka think the rings are in bad shape.
was still getting smoke after (moderate- breaking in that new clutch) boost, decel in gear to low rpm. Did the harbor-freight walk of shame, acquired leak down tester. Sigh.
I sure hate RTV. Temp motor (97 block, stock bottom end, 2000 head, arp stud kit, metal HG, msm oil pan/baffle) is pretty much ready to go back in. The pan job came out pretty clean, though I think my RTV bead was a little thick- maybe a little too much squeezed out on the inside. It’ll get a few days cure time as I wait for a few little things to slap this thing back into the car.
Going to run stock cooling setup for now, figured I’d wait to sink the money into a reroute until I know this motor runs ok. Found the engine through a friend at work, so I have a pretty high confidence that it’s not ****. Cyl walls looked fine, head is super clean, fingers crossed this’ll get me by as I build the original engine’s bottom end. Eventual plan is just 275-300 whp, reliable, and easy to work on. this engine/stock turbo will be a backup/ maybe even a toss in for emissions time- if it’s complete, an engine swap is pretty easy in these things.
car is back on the road. Motor swap took about 1 week end to end, most of which was spent cleaning 100k of oil leaks from everything. The new motor feels great, and doesn’t smoke!
been working on my tune, and it’s getting close. Still some weird behavior in corner cases, likely just me being stingy with fuel.
Running on the WG spring, I am leveling at 10lbs of boost. AFR’s are happy in the high 11’s, and the car feels strong. It’s been 15 years since I’ve done any tuning (and all my experience is on rotary) so it’s a bit of a learning curve. I used the turbo kitty timing map and pulled some timing in boost. Last thing I want to do is blow this thing up.
prob will install a cat, to help with boost creep and reduce girlfriend complaints.
I’m going to work on the tune for a little while longer and post up the msq/logs for y’all to tear apart
I also grabbed a new set or springs from flyin miata. Raised the car up to a more reasonable ride height, the roads in the Bay Area are pretty trashed..
also also, I installed a pass side AWR MM. Which is fun, but is shaking all the janky audio work the PO did. Derp.
For sure! I’ll share the tune when I remember to bring my laptop inside 🤣
had a bit of an adventure this weekend! I was about an hour from home the car suddenly started missing really hard, complete with tacho going nuts and relays clicking. Thought my main relay had dumped, but pulled a quick log and was getting data through the drops.
limped it home, and was working under the theory that my CPS or CAS was failing with heat. logs showed a loss of sync, the composite logger showed I was getting extra pulses from the CPS that corresponded to the miss/drop.
went to pull the sensor and found this:
the little plastic clip that retains the lead let go, wire got loose and shorted on the WP pulley. Easy fix and a new sensor is on the way. Felt pretty silly, but glad I can point the finger at myself and I’m not chasing some weird electrical gremlin.
I also tore down the original motor tonight.
cyl 2 and 4 had some pretty heavy gouging as pictured. Looks like something got in there and took a ride.
I was expecting to find ring damage, but they all actually looked good, at least on a first pass. All bearings were in place and looked normal. Nothing jumped out at me. I will clean everything really well and inspect when I have some time. I’ll also have a look at the oil pump.
curious what y’all’s thoughts are. The head also looked pretty much normal.
there was some bits of crap and metal in the pickup tube:
pistons had some odd scratches on them.
time to take the block to the machine shop and make a plan for pistons/rods! I also have a VVT block, which I am considering building instead. I’d need to get a vvt head, so I’m not sure it’s worth it.
the gouges seem to only go up to the peak of the oil control ring travel. I'll inspect them closer but I didn't see anything too funky on teardown.
If I had some fod in the oil, which judging from the oil pickup mesh it looks like I did, I'd expect to see bearing damage, but all the bearings looked pretty good. I can line them up and take some pictures.
The head bolts were REALLY tight. Like, both sections of my jackhandle on a breaker bar, motor braced against the wall because I was going to flip the stand, tight.
the crankshaft felt amazing, was spinning with very little resistance w/ the mains torqued. Makes me wonder if the clearance was too much.
The piston to wall clearance seemed really large. I was rocking the pistons back and forth easily, and could slip a .015" feeler in. Seeing some conflicting info on the piston clearance, but it felt like a lot. I'll mic the pistons, and see if I can scare up a bore gauge.
pretty strange. I am thinking someone rebuilt the motor, and f'ed up the oil control rings somehow.
Use the VVT block for your build. Heads will interchange at will.
MBSP, better thrust bearing design, bigger oil pump, more bolts for motor mounts (if VVT pan is used) are all upgrades from the bp4w.
You cannot use 1.6l stuff but all the 1.8 crap will transfer.
Only thing better than a VVT core to start from is an MSM core.
Only difference VVT to MSM is the MSM has both an oil port and cooling port on the left side of the engine for the turbo.
P to W clearance is taken 1/2" below the pin on the piston so the feeler gauge is not real accurate up at the top.
Still sounds like a shitload of clearance...
Use the VVT block for your build. Heads will interchange at will.
MBSP, better thrust bearing design, bigger oil pump, more bolts for motor mounts (if VVT pan is used) are all upgrades from the bp4w.
You cannot use 1.6l stuff but all the 1.8 crap will transfer.
Only thing better than a VVT core to start from is an MSM core.
Only difference VVT to MSM is the MSM has both an oil port and cooling port on the left side of the engine for the turbo.
P to W clearance is taken 1/2" below the pin on the piston so the feeler gauge is not real accurate up at the top.
Still sounds like a shitload of clearance...
This is a MSM core, so I'd like to use it for the reasons mentioned. Especially if I'm not going to bother with VVT. I have a VVT pan that has a ton of stress cracking, and the MSM pan. The MSM is in the car now, and is in much better shape so I'll likely swap that when the time comes.
I'll measure at the right spot this evening, I didn't quite make it that far last night.
Thanks for the advice! I will be asking more noob questions as I make parts selections.
07-31-2022, 12:45 PM
New ditherer joins group! Lots of pics!
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