Plog

Seems that the ‘brake job’ I did  recently and then chronicled in my last post was not what needed to get done.  I’ve been driving my car to work for the past 3 days in an attempt to get the maf calibrated (more on that later) and finally get this fucking break in period over with. . .and every time I’ve checked the rear left wheel after driving for 2o minutes, it’s hot as shit.  It’s not quite as hot as it was the first time I noticed this anomaly, which goes to show that it was indeed a seized e-brake system that caused the initial problem, but it appears to go much deeper than that.  I guess I’ll just replace both rear calipers and pads in an attempt to get everything functioning like it should as far as the brakes are concerned.

Previously in this post, I promised more on MAF calibration.  It’s a bitch sometimes.  I’m getting a lot closer, and I’ve actually gotten my air/fuel ratio to run slightly leaner on WOT so I can actually feel what 10psi of boost would feel like if my car weren’t horribly untuned.  Needless to say, it’s going to be goddamn amazing once the break in is over, and the maf is calibrated, and I can actually tune for power.  But I digress. . .back to MAF tuning.  My fuel trims are all kinds of fucked up for the most part (more the low than the high, as the high is a lot more stable than I would have expected).  I think I’ve gotten it down really close to perfect, and tomorrow on the way to work I’m hoping to get my fuel trims where they need to be for good so I can start working on the open loop tuning (the fun stuff).

It seems that every time I attempt to diagnose one problem, I uncover 3 more that need diagnosis.  There’s a significant amount of rust on my rear driver side wheel well, and I want to get it fixed soon, but I don’t got that cash to pay a body shop to weld a new chunk of metal in there right now.  Right now it’s not posing a major threat, but I have mild OCD and it’s weighing on my mind all the time, much like the mild surface rust on the rear control arms, and the fact that I more or less need all new bushings throughout the suspension system, not to mention tie rod ends, wheel bearings (gonna do all 4 corners for safety sake), I need to refill my driveshaft carrier bearing, new axles are a good idea, and one of my $800 (for the set) shocks is rusting through the paint.

If I had something better to spend time and money on, this car would be in trouble.

So, the car has been in the street with what I assumed to be a completely seized caliper on the left rear rotor, netting me some nice streaks on my powerslot

so I finally got around to pulling the wheel off and seeing what the business really was (smart move considering how little I want to spend 80 bucks on a new caliper if I don’t need to).  Turns out that the caliper isn’t completely seized, but the e-brake spring (which returns the e-brake arm to the off position when you release the handbrake) was terribly rusted.  I pulled it out, soaked it in PB blaster and cleaned it as best I could and put it back in.  The result: the spring is so shitty, it can’t return the arm to the off position.  This is frustrating, but it’s compounded by the fact that as far as I can tell you can’t order just the spring from. . .anyone.  As it stands now, the left e-brake cable is disconnected from the rear caliper, giving me something of a parking brake (from the right side) as well as keeping the caliper from sticking to the rotor.  I took it out for a drive, and while the wheel was hot when I got back, it wasn’t much hotter than the right side, so I’m under the impression that my quick fix is at least helping a little bit.

Moving on, I was looking at the front end pictures from my previous post and I realized that my hood doesn’t sit exactly even.

seems that one of the rubber bushings under the hood is no longer connected like it should be.  I’m hoping to find a way to fix that tomorrow.

And finally, more plans for tomorrow.  My clutch engages incredibly low off the floor, and before I install a longer slave cylinder rod (which everyone says is just a bandaid fix) I’m going to replace my rubber clutch lines with braided stainless ones and bleed the entire clutch system.  The master cylinder is currently adjusted to the limit and that hasn’t helped much.  If the new lines and the fresh bleed don’t help, I’m going against the advice so prevalent on DSMTuners and installing the extended clutch rod. . . so there.

A whole bunch has been going on lately, but somehow almost none of it has been in regards to the project.  The calipers didn’t get ordered because anyone who stocks them cheap, can’t fucking order them for some reason.  Raxles have not yet been shipped, and the car hasn’t moved in at least a month.  The other day, however, I had some free time and a couple cans of spraypaint, so I set about tidying up the look of the car juuuuust a little bit.

My windshield wipes were fading and starting to rust on the surface, so off they came again and I sanded the rust off.  Then I hit them with a 99 cent can of spraypaint from wal-mart. . . .time will tell how that works out for me.  While I was at it, I hit the trim piece that goes on the bottom of the windshield with the same treatment.  Looks 100 times better now

.

Then there’s the center garnish for the front of the car.  Over the years, the sun and other assorted elements had really done a number on it’s vibrancy so I freshened it up a little bit.  Masking the black part on the inside was a real bitch, but the other 99 cent can of spraypaint matches the paint on my car almost perfectly, and it looks a ton better now.

You may notice the gap between the top of the front bumper and the rest of the car. . .it kinda hangs low since there’s no crash bar to mount it to, but it will be secured in due time. . .for now it just looks a little goofy.

Also, in an effort to somewhat control the underhood temperatures (it’s like opening the door to a blast furnace), I ordered a stainless steel heatshield from JM fabrications specifically designed to fit over the wastegate flange on my manifold.  I had to do a little minor cutting (picture 1) to get it to clear the hoist bracket and the power steering pump heatshield, but no big deal.  I’m still undecided as to whether I’ll leave it brushed stainless, or hit it with some of that VHT paint and black it out.

Well, that’s all that’s happened. . .hopefully I can get my other things in order and finally get this thing on the road someday soon. Until then, it will sit in the street, sad and lonely.

So it’s now mid August and the car is still pretty rough around the edges.  Yes, it runs, yes it drives, and yes, it boosts.  Currently it’s sitting in front of my house with a frozen caliper and a clicking CV joint (what the fuck, it’s a year old).  I’ve decided that I’m tired of it sitting out there lonely and sad, so I have a new set of calipers on order (replacing them as a pair) and will soon have a pair of Raxles sent out (Raxles uses new CV joints, none of this shitty clicking rebuilt CV joint crap).  At this point I can calibrate the MAF and the injectors (I’m pretty sure the deadtime is set too high, as the RPM rises, the fuel mixture goes rich as tits).

I want this car running right. . .soon.  For now, it will sit in the street, a somber reminder of what I have ahead of me.

Alrighty then. No updates for 3+ weeks, that’s pretty gnarly eh? What have I been up to project wise over the first part of the summer? Mostly hooking little things up, electrical, cooling, shift linkage and gauge wiring (gauge wiring was a whore BTW).

Every project has it’s unexpected problems, and I understood this to begin with. One of my hurdles was the fact that my FMIC piping kit, designed for my car, all purchased as a kit. . .simply didn’t fit. One of the silicone couplers made it impossible to connect all the piping together while keeping the GM-MAF in the equation. I tried for 30 minutes to find some slack in the system and get it to fit. . .it did not. Time for a trip to ExtremePSI. An hour later, I have the elbow I need, and all of the T-bolts that somehow weren’t included in the kit, and everybody (me) was happy. This is the horrible puzzle I was confronted with.

Last night was D-day. . .the day I try the first start. Everything’s hooked up, systems are double and triple checked and the fluids are fresh and full. here it is on jackstands for the final once-over.  I’m going to take this time to point out the super cool custom bracket that I used to mount the coolant overflow bottle in the stock side mount location in the passenger side wheel well.  Aluminum is fun to work with.

Rusty rotors tell you how long it’s been sitting in the driveway

and the oil cooler bolted up and plumbed to the rest of the car

More engine bay - boring?

And here it is off jackstands for the first time in a month

At this point, I made the commitment to get it started and had my helpers stand watch over the vital systems in the engine bay for major catastrophes while I got her ready to go. As per the slowboy instructions (and against instructions of others), I pulled the MPI fuse and cranked it for 10 seconds at a time 3 times to prime the oiling system. Many people say this is unnecessary due to the weight of the assembly lube used and the fact that the oil pump will prime the system almost immediately, but slowboy built the motor and I went with what they said. MPI fuse hooked back up and I gave her the first crank of her new life. The car started up (slightly rough to be honest) and almost immediately there was smoke.

OH SHIT!! SMOKE!! FUCK!!

turns out the slowboy exhaust manifold has pretapped holes for an external wastegate (which I’m not running) and one of the holes ends up in the number 1 runner. After I realized this was the cause of my smoke and found a suitable bolt to plug the hole, I started it up again. Oh, hey there incredibly high oil pressure at idle (we’re talking 100+ psi) and my growing worry about the future of this project.

I decide to sleep on it and research it further in the morning. Upon said research, I found that many new motors, with brand new (extremely tight) oil pumps, and heavy oil (good for break in apparently) will see retardedly high oil pressure numbers until the oil pump lightens up a little bit. This was good news and I giddily began retrimming the front bumper to fit over the FMIC better.

This is the result

looks much better now, and to suit my own vanity, here are a few more shots in the daylight, with a mounted bumper and a bolted down hood

it should also be noted that the headlights are flipped down. During one of our junkyard raids, we happened upon a few 1Ga DSMs that somehow still had their pop-up relays in the fusebox. Naturally they were had for cheap and now my headlights work like they’re supposed to. At this point, I had to go to work

Right here, I realized how shitty I am at making a project log. I wish I had the foresight to make myself take pictures along the way, because it just sorta turns into a lot of words and a couple of ‘after’ pictures. Regardless, that’s all I have to go on, so that’s what you get.

I decided that a -6an fuel system from the tank up would be sufficient for my fueling needs, so I got crackin. Between the 23rd and today I found time before/after work to get my new walbro pump installed in my tank (without stripping any of the cover plate bolts, mind you - quite a feat) and get the -6an fitting set up nice and tight out of the tank. I don’t have any pictures whatsoever of the removal of the stock fuel system, but let me tell you, it’s a total bitch. . .much harder than it should have been, but I got it done. The running of the new line was significantly easier. After I got the hose measured out and cut to length, I put some fittings on the end and secured the hose to the underside of the car. Here you can see the line coming out of the top of the tank.

From that point, I routed the hose up the firewall to the fuelab filter and put another fitting on the end. This whole process was more or less the most difficult part of running the fuel system due simply to the amount of crap falling in my face while securing the hose. From the filter is a length of hose going to the fuel rail, and from the fuel rail is another length going to the fuelab FPR (note the custom bracket mounting the fpr to the firewall).

Filter

and the rest of the fuel lines

You can’t see it in these pictures (because it’s not there in these pictures), but there’s now an -an fitting running from the FPR to the stock hard return line (I decided to keep the stock hard line for the most part because it would both be a bitch to replace all of, and it’s not a high pressure line so it doesn’t need an upgrade).

That concludes the examination of my fuel system, I suspect that you’re thoroughly impressed.

Wednesday was my first day off after my week of bliss, and I decided that now that the engine was in (albeit not completely wired up), I should get the front mount mounted and see where that leaves me. The first thing I should note about this FMIC, is that it’s a bitch to get to fit right. You have to cut a lot of sheet metal, and you have to spend a lot of time grinding the jagged metal edges that the sawzall leaves behind. That being said, once this thing is mounted, you get a good idea of how massive it really is.

Naturally, the bumper is not quite a ‘like-stock’ fit for this thing, so there’s a little trimming involved to get it to even fit over the FMIC and still bolt up. Here’s what it looks like once enough is taken off to get it to bolt up, but you can see that the bumper still hits the FMIC and is somewhat warped, to the point that the IC sticks out below the bumper. Of course this will be easy to fix later, but for right now, it’s good enough for me.

Right about here, I took a break from intercooler installation, and moved along to getting the oil cooler mounted. Remember, if you will, that my car came with a coolant/oil oil cooler. . .and the reason this is bad was discussed previously. Here’s what my external cooler setup is looking like right now. First I had to remove a good deal of sheet metal from the driver side side mount location (for lack of a better description) to allow enough airflow to actually go through the oil cooler. Next, I had to take a piece of aluminum flat bar and make my own bracket; bolted up to the car by only one side, the oil cooler was a little too floppy for my liking. With this new addition, it’s solid like a big burly bear.

here’s a few parting shots of the poorly fitting front bumper and the oil cooler behind . . .the poorly fitting bumper

As you could see in the previous day’s pictures (if you looked really hard, which I’m sure you didn’t), Friday night was rainy. . .as was Saturday. . .all day. Despite having a canopy over the car, the environment was not conducive to automobile wrenching. So, there goes my last day of swap time. I decided that it should be taken as a day of rest, seeing as how my week of vacation was spent doing harder work for more hours every day than I do when I’m actually. . .you know. . .at work. At this point, there’s a ton left to do, and now I have to juggle it with real work. This should be fun! *thumbs up and a wink*

At this point, I’m a little bit behind where I wanted to be when I hit Friday, but while it’s not exactly where I want to be, I’m not terribly disappointed given all the little things that you don’t think about until you’re actually doing the swap that seem to eat up much more time than they should.

Step one today, get the trans mounted and remember to install the starter. Oh, look. . .there we go.

So yesterday’s post mentioned that the turbo wasn’t on, due to the lack of a good water pipe.  We went back to the junkyard today and found a water pipe from a non-turbo 4G63(out of an elantra) and the day was off and running.  The pipe is not an exact fit for the DSM 4G63, the outlet is at a different angle and would be directly inside my intake pipe if left as is.  We clipped the end off the pipe and everything seems that it will work properly once in the car.  In these shots, you can see the turbo installed (and the water pipe) as well as the dirty ass alternator, thanks to the leaky o-ring in my power steering pump.  It’s mean looking (the turbo, no the alternator)

And here’s the obligatory ’standing in the engine bay in lieu of the engine’ shot

<- LOL fat kid holding up the shocker - what is this, 2003?

At this point I decided that it was time to get this beast hoisted up and tie on a few little odds and ends before shoehorning it back where it belongs. Once the motor was up off of the stand, I got the transfercase mounted to the transmission and attempted to fit the -10an stainless return line to the turbo and/or pan. At this point, there appeared to be problem; namely the front engine mount sitting where the return line should be. Fuck fuck fuck what do I do? Out comes the angle grinder and out comes a chunk of the motor mount. In the following action shots, note the multitude of sparks flying at both my turbo outlet, as well as the oil filter housing. Retrospectively I should really, really have crammed some rags in those openings before I shot thousands of metal shards into them. *sigh* thorough shop vac-ing and a whole bunch of paper towels later and everything is all tip top and ready to move along.

Sweet fit, like isotoners

And here’s the last shot I have with the motor up on a hoist. . . with it’s new home sitting menacingly on jackstands in the background

One, two, skip a few, ninety-nine, one hundred

And BOOM!!! Engine is in. This series of pictures makes it look like it happened effortlessly. . .this is of course not the case. One of the biggest pains in the ass was maneuvering the transfercase to miss the frame while simultaneously getting the driveshaft back into it and lining up motor mounts. What took you 15 seconds to read took an hour of manipulation. It is, however, a really great feeling when the motor mounts are all bolted down tight and you take the hoist off. . . .and the engine doesn’t fall out of the car. Here are tonight’s closing shots, engine in the car and looking like it’s getting ready to unleash fury.

Despite what the lack of pictures tells you, it was a big day. On goes the flywheel, pressure plate (and, naturally, the clutch), coil pack, pulleys (crank/water pump), knock sensor, exhaust manifold, power steering pump and alternator.

<-middle finger, totally baller

One interesting point to note is that the turbo isn’t on yet; this is due to the lack of a proper water pipe (the water pipe runs from the water pump on the cam side of the engine, behind the turbo along the block, and into the radiator on the transmission side of the engine). The water pipe currently in my possession is designed for a water cooled turbo and a water/oil oil cooler. My new setup has neither of these so the lines running from the water pipe need to be capped or connected. It was soon discovered that the water pipe from the non turbo model of my motor (4G63) will serve my purposes fantastically, and a trip to a couple of local junkyards was in order. The first junkyard (Acres) was full of nothing, which is probably for the better because they love to rip you off. We then made our way over the bridge to Pennsylvania and checked out their massive junkyard. After some searching, we found a block that appeared to be a 4G63 (it was a hasty investigation and the head was already pulled off the motor) and the water pipe was pulled.

Upon arrival home and a test fit on my motor, it was realized that the water pipe was actually from a 1.8 liter motor and wouldn’t work as it was too short. We then decided that we could probably get away with connecting the two extra outlet fittings. After spending the evening connecting the two, heatshielding the connection piping, bolting it to the block and realizing that the turbo still doesn’t clear the pipe, the decision was made to sleep on it and look for a non turbo water pipe (they don’t have either off these connections) in the junkyard in the morning.

At this point, both manifolds are mounted, the pulleys on the timing belt side of the motor, and most of the small stuff that mounts to the motor is . . .well. . .mounted. Time to call it a night .

<-The work area at the end of the night.