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1992 Talon Tsi AWD Re-habilitation

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Hey man just got the cross member thanks again your a real dsm'er thanks for the help with the issue I was having saved me a lot of time and trouble, as soon as I can e some feed back I'll send some ur way I really appreciate the help again thank you. To all you other guys, this guy is awesome very helpful genuine good dasmer and very helpful guy and he's doing an awesome rebuild and a great job too thanks so much!!!
 
No problem Brian, hope it helps you out!
10/4: First order of business wasn't so dirty today. After looking at the dash speaker some more, I could see light thru where the magnet meets the basket, except where the "rivets" were. So I figured I'll drill those rivets:
2aWxnbel.jpg


Worked like a charm! Easy mount all ready for an aftermarket tweeter. I'll just do the other one then clean them up and paint them.
sf9WuBvl.jpg


Next, took the entire shifter assembly apart for cleaning. Its way more parts than I thought it would be:
CpZlAJel.jpg


Oh yea, and I bought this rear engine mount off ebay awhile ago, but its not the same height as a 1g awd, maybe it's 1g fwd or 1.8 ? I dunno:
S7SkDNBl.jpg

azTu1HOl.jpg


And here's everything I sandblasted and primed today:
qTXq46rl.jpg


Driver's side motor mount bolt, hood latch assembly, brake fluid resevoir bracket, rear motor mount, motor mount bracket, vertical frame support between the radiator and fmic, all the parts of the shifter assembly, and the brake proportioning valve.[DOUBLEPOST=1412538127][/DOUBLEPOST]10/5:
Here's today's spray booth:
vgvBINcl.jpg


Dicking around with the N/T throttle body I grabbed off ebay:
SRMtcZ7l.jpg


Some painted stuff, hopefully I put it back together properly:
bAgx5S3l.jpg


And installed the B2 hood strut kit:
MrjDTPsl.jpg
 
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10/6:
Decided to see what I could do with a wheel well. Since I'm ready to start putting things back in the engine bay that I painted this past weekend, mainly the brake proportioning valve (because my JNZ order came in and I opted for the ABS-Delete kit, even tho I didn't have ABS, but those SS lines sure will look pretty). So I wanted to see how the wheel well looked cleaned up.

So after an hour with various solutions and brushes, and losing about 2 weeks off my life breathing all that crap:

Yw4FcR6l.jpg


I was surprised to get it just about as clean as it came from the factory. But the bumps and discolorations and whatnot told me that I won't leave it tennessee blue. So I had a choice to make.... I have about 10 different cans of various undercoatings, bed liners, etc. BUT, I also still have 2 brand new cans of plasti-dip. So why not plasti-dip? Its like a rubber coating, right ? It won't mar the original finish, as you can just peel it off.... and you can touch it up later too if you get any nicks or whatever. So here's how 3 coats look:

rMIswZdl.jpg


0ZSOXyfl.jpg


That little bit of overspray in the front is past where the factory plastics go, so no one will see that anyway.
 
10/11/14:
During the week, played out in the garage a little. I broke off the bottom bolt to the center vertical radiator crossmember thingy, so I tried to drill that out for easy-outs, but it didn't work. So then I tried to tap it for an M8 bolt (oem is an m6x1.0), did that then went to tighten down the m8 and that stripped. Come to find out the hole in the bracket is drilled offset down a little, so an m8 bolt wouldn't fit thru the hole anyway. So I decided I'll just drill thru the lower rad support, and use a long m6 bolt, which worked (except when I drilled thru the support, I didn't catch the bit fast enough and I drilled thru that bundle of wires on the engine side, more work for me with some butt-end connectors and wire crimpers, but I think it'll be ok now):
jWLqXDHl.jpg


Also, another ebay find, m3 style mirrors that have both amber and blue led's in them, so you can wire the blue's to the parking lights, and wire the amber's to the blinker circuit; here's a couple shots of them...
S1zVx7El.jpg

q0c5El9l.jpg


The build quality isn't terrible, but its pretty thin, cheap plastic feeling in your hands. Fitment isn't perfect either, but I had a paint-peeling driver mirror which can probably be seen in earlier pics. But for $35 shipped, this wasn't a terrible purchase, and alleviates the need for my typical late 90's honda accord side markers, drilling in to the fenders, etc., for side markers. Oh and they're power mirrors too.

So on to this weekend, which would be a little more mechanical in nature.
45iKbj5l.jpg


Yup, I'm doing it. I'm depowering my steering rack. This was the rebuilt rack off ebay, some shop down in florida, $83 shipped. Figured that's as a good a starting point as any. I documented most of the process, so I'll do a "how to depower in 2014 how-to thread" after I post this update.

And I can't get thru a weekend without derusting a bunch of parts and painting them pretty, so here we have, from left to right, the accelerator assembly, both new front lower control arms, the 4 fmic mounting brackets, and the brake vacuum booster/master cylinder, oh, and the front sway bar:
AqlwdAKl.jpg


Tomorrow I'll be installing the ball joints and poly bushings on the control arm, and cleaning up the brake/clutch pedal assembly for paint, possibly rebuild/weld the assembly then paint it.
 
10/12/14:
Turns out the front lower control arms is one instance when you should read the directions on the bushings first. You're supposed to KEEP the sleeves on the stock bushings on this part. Just about every other part you have to get the oem sleeves out. Rears, motor mounts, etc. But noooooooo, not the front control arms. Luckily I had my oem set back in a pile of scrap still, so I torched those bittys nice and hot and hammered out the old sleeves, cleaned them up, and threw them in the freezer for a half hour.

Then pounded them in, installed bushings and ball joints, and presto, super duper front control arms:
WMxpdhHl.jpg


Also cleaned up the front headlights with the meguires 3-step kit, left isn't touched yet, right is finished (looks much more of a difference between the 2 in person):
tnidYXxl.jpg


Just didn't want there to be a HUGE offset between my new corner clear lenses and my oem headlight assemblies. But I just gave these a shot so I had something on the car until I purchase a new set of headlights, because all the dials and stuff on the backs of these 2 are all rusted and nasty.

Up next, the 2 little things that bolt up the rear of the front control arms need blasted and painted, hardware all cleaned up, and I think I'll be able to install the front control arms, struts, and hubs. Almost have a roller!
 
10/15/14:
Little baby update. Reinstalled the headlight assemblies, corner assemblies, Hella dual tone horns fit nicely in the stock location, and finally closed the hood for the first time in over a year:
OeQJhCkl.jpg


Started to reinstall the driver side stuff:
5D27Sqll.jpg


Might have a roller this weekend, we'll see!

Oh yea, also ordered new passenger front axle, front sway bar links, outer tie rod ends, and a tps for the wilson tb, all from rock auto.
 
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10/25:
Didn't get to do much this week as I had planned, kinda stalled playing around with little things like clutch master cylinders, iac motors, getting little hardware to mount the tps to the wilson throttle body, just general running around for little stupid crap.

I didn't get to having a roller yet because I wanted to mount the steering wheel back up, so I could mount the steering rack back up..... But you can't do that until the pedal assembly is done. So nowwwwwwwww, its' done! I took enough pictures for a how-to, but don't really feel like writing one just yet. Here's my finished assembly:

xxLRM10l.jpg


All nice and painted, new bushings + brass bushing, welded plate, painted and ready for new pedal pads and install.

Also, pounded in that oil/dust seal I had gotten (which really was not happy going in, it's like .5 or 1mm too large in OD, but it went in and the axle assembly turns pretty smoothly:
8JqA1lnl.jpg


Next up is cleaning/painting the front brake line brackets that mount to the struts, then re-assembling with new hard line piece, and new ss lines. These things:
CxC2iZgl.jpg
 
10/29:
Pretty pedal assembly is back in, with new pads. Just need some new cotter pins to connect the master cylinders to the pedals:
tHfItlDl.jpg


and pretty shifter assembly reinstalled with the bushings:
067OCyil.jpg
 
11/1:
Nice rainy day here in jersey, just the right weather to have a seat and grab the dremel and get to work cleaning up the outside of the block:
lCbh78zl.jpg


We're bored to match the 40-over WisecoHD pistons, align-honed for the kiggly main girdle and arp main studs, and decked .004" for a nice flat top.

Bores:
dEowr5jl.jpg


Crank Journals:
v4U24H6l.jpg


Spent about an hour on each side with various wire brush attachments with the dremel and die grinder, installed all 10 new mitsu oem steel freeze plugs:
bPxMC87l.jpg


Taped and primed this week:
atL899vl.jpg


Will tinker some more tomorrow.
 
11/2:
Cleaned up the brackets that attach to the front struts for the brake lines, cleaned up the bolts that hold the front brakes to the spindles, as well as the hardware to mount the front sway bar.

Only pic for today, was cleaning up the a/c lines... a brillo pad works wonders on soft aluminum:
ZD79y7Bl.jpg
 
11/8:
Since I knew motor assembly would soon be upon me, I took my shiny new pistons/rings/bearings/etc to the kitchen table and hand cleaned them all with denatured alcohol. I busted out my wife's little cooking scale, and got to work mixing and matching things together to get 4 assemblies as closely matched as possible. Here's what I came up with...
LRjyA8vl.jpg


I matched the one heavy rod with the one lighter piston, and it turned out to be 3 assemblies at the same weight, with the 4th only being 1 gram off. To recap, ACL tri-metal main/rod bearings, wisecoHD 86mm 8.5:1 pistons, and k1 rods. Let's move on to the weekend festivities.

Awwwwwwwwwww yea. Time to gap the rings. Read a few posts from a google search about "wiseco ring gap" and other search strings like that. The consensus seems to be .020 gap for the top ring, and .024 gap for the second ring. Also verified these numbers with Josh @JNZtuning. Did some math from the form that came with the pistons anyway:
XkPxEq0.jpg


^^^ I made that picture large in case anyone ever loses their ring instructions, at least they can read mine if they want.
You definitely have to gap your rings. The top rings came in the box with only a .007" gap, put that in your car and the first time your floor it, say goodbye to your internals. Second rings came with a gap of around .017.

Amazon prime to the rescue sending me this nifty little device I saw in some guy's youtube video who was building a honda motor. Got some good tips from that vid. Ordered this thursday and it showed up friday.

OIYwGYGl.jpg


This was a tedious process, especially since I've never done it before. I wanted to go nice and slow, because if I messed up and over-gapped, there's no way to fix that except buy a new set of rings. So, and this is just for the top rings, about 4 hours later, all gapped at .020:

xVBpqGSl.jpg


It took considerably less time to do the 2nd rings. They're softer so they gap quicker with the grinding wheel. There was also less to take off on them in the first place.

FSM states the following for factory specifications:

Piston ring - End gap DOHC 4G63

No. 1 ring 0.25 - 0.40mm (.0098 - .0157")
No. 2 ring 0.45 - 0.60mm (.0177 - .0236")

Since I manually hand-ground my rings, the difference between the largest factory spec of .0157" and .020" is so amazingly small. I understand that I'll also have upwards of 400hp, so I can see why we need to gap them just a tad larger than what a 190hp engine would require.

So yadda yadda, they're all done. Cleaned up my crankshaft, cleaned up the mains, and put the crank in the block raw. Time to do my first ever plastigaging. This is a visual diary for me, just in case I have to refer to it later...so here's a pic of each crank journal:

Closest to rear:
Q9F2cbhl.jpg


2nd closest to the rear:
wiprzpFl.jpg


This one kinda tapered from .0015 to .001, not sure what to call this one...take the average and call it.00125?

Thrust bearing:
iw8sjc5l.jpg


2nd closest to the front:
14A2noGl.jpg


And closest to the front:
Top7qLwl.jpg


FSM states,

Crankshaft:
Oil clearance of journal 0.02-0.05mm (.0008-.0020")
Oil clearnace of pin 0.02-0.05mm (.0008-.0020")

If I remember, jafro was at .003" ? But he wanted that since he did BSEK and I forget why else. I'm doing BSEK as well, and I think I'll definitely port the oil filter housing, pre-planning for excessive oil pressure. I don't want to ruin my beautiful new HX35, or anything else.

To round out the day, I scraped the plastigage off the crank and bearings, applied assembly lube, and torqued the mains back down in 3 steps, 20-40-60 ft-lbs.

It was now 5-530pm, and I was in the garage all day with the heat set at 65. When I got there at 9am, the block was 45F, and it had to be 60F according to the paint. Finally, by 6pm, the block reached 60F, so I ended the day with the 3 coats of black engine block paint:

axe10YNl.jpg


Tomorrow I'll plastigage the rods, and complete assembly of the internals.
 
11/9:
Yay internals day! I put the rings on the pistons, and put the bearings in the rods. I printed out a degree wheel onto some thick paper, so I could properly torque the rod bolts:

Pl0xjGBl.jpg


Rod #1:
LRaAunul.jpg


Rod #2:
xufwJQql.jpg


Rod #3:
4oXEsLtl.jpg


and Rod #4:
1JRGbMgl.jpg


Looks like they were all between .0015 and .002, so we'll call them all .00175 ? Sounds good to me.

Took about a half-hour per rod, which included installing the rings, installing the piston/rod into the block, torque it down to spec once for plastigaging, then undoing it, cleaning off the plastigage, then applying assembly lube and re-torquing back to spec for final assembly.

BTW, found a nice little device to remove the plastigage afterwards, one of those red straws you jam into the nozzle on a wd40 can, etc. That worked really well to remove the leftover mashed down plastic.

Installed the new balance shaft bearings rotated about 45 degrees. Any rotation is really fine, just as long as the holes don't line up:
zSjSFsWl.jpg


Got out my new chisel set, removed all the dowels at the tranny mount, the rear main seal cover, the big oil galley hex bolt, you get the idea. Took a look down the oil galley behind that big hex bolt and here's how it looked (click to enlarge photo):
H3SGV4k.jpg


There was so much crap and debris down that oil galley! That convinced me that she's getting a bath in mineral spirits with my air-spray gun thingy.

Sprayed it all down with the block right side up, and upside down, sprayed it all again, then blasted every which way with compressed air. Removed any residue, hit the front and rear of the block with scotchbrite pad again, and here's my pretty baby girl:

wHMOHeml.jpg


Next weekend I'll install all the new dowels and plugs and stuff. This week I'll shop for oil pump, water pump, rear main seal, and gaskets for aforementioned.
 
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11/15:
Got some goodies in this week, so I proceeded to do the following:
New rear main seal, oil separator, and bolts; and installed the new dowel pins and oil galley hex nut:
Um6mZbNl.jpg


Also put the dowels on the top and front of the motor, assembled the oil pump/front case, and installed that along with the forward facing oil filter housing. I didn't port the ofh, because the ffofh has that "relief hole" that was a topic of discussion for awhile, so I'll see what kind of oil pressure I have before messing with it any. On the front case, I did smooth some of the transitions with the dremel, which can be seen in Jafro's vids:
B92UJs5l.jpg


I bought a little $1.29 jar of petroleum jelly, and filled the oil pick-up on the front case with that, as well as 'greased' the oil pump gears with it.
Oh yea, oil squirters. I installed them and just happened to be rotating the assembly to get to 1-4 if I was working on 2-3.... and I noticed something. The squirter was lined right up with the piston, so if I rotated the assembly, the piston actually hit the squirter and was flexing it.
Check this out:
ymtV1pdl.jpg


Squirter is lined right up with the piston, and yes it's actually touching. Really glad I noticed this and I wonder how many other people have had this happen with the wisecoHD's ? I never saw a mention of it, or did people even notice it and the squirters just give enough that they're hitting and no one notices or had one break ?

So I had to take them all back off, and gently bend them in the vise towards the center of the piston.

What else... hrm. Oh those ARP's in the picture were on the motor when I bought the car. I have faith in ARP, and I'll re-use them, but I'm missing a washer, must be around here somewhere. And maybe tomorow I'll unpack my brand new OEM 1g head and check it out.
 
Thanks Vic, I've made up my mind and I'll buy a new set of ARPs for the head. I found the receipt for those and they're from 2003. So 11 years old.

Also got bored and figured I'd unwrap my head. If you've ever ordered a head from Mitsu, you have the pleasure of at least eleventy billion cans of TuffStuff foam to cut thru:

Yy7OW2El.jpg


Looks like some leaked over at intake cap #1, I'll have some cleaning to do, but she's still damn pretty:

hibhR1pl.jpg


I have 3g lifters, but still deciding on cams, and if I should upgrade anything else before I toss it on....
 
@1990dsmkid , back in 2001 when i bought one from the dealer, it was $850. Some guy in texas had like 10 1g heads on ebay that started at $350, when i found the auction, it was the last one so I got it for $450 i think, plus shipping.
 
11/22:
Shined up my 7 year old tubular that @oddrob probably welded together back at Extreme Motorsports. FYI, this is how far a 1"x15' roll of DEI wrap will get you. If you're going to wrap your tubular, do yourself a favor and get the 50' roll. So I have another 15' roll on the way for the o2 housing, and a 50' roll to finish up the manifold.
KeYiQ5vl.jpg


Here is the last lower t-stat housing in the US, now mine :hellyeah:. I yanked the 3 water tubes I won't be using (oil cooler, turbo, and throttle body, tapped for 1/8" npt, and installed chrome 1/8npt plugs:
dFIbfIwl.jpg


Still have to get all the sensors and a new water outlet for the heater core. Wasn't sure if it came with it or not, and whaddayaknow, it doesn't. Also have a new top half-not pictured.

A little test fitment of the head + exhaust manifold + intake manifold:
fwv3bxPl.jpg


DSgNyQHl.jpg


Took the head back off and yanked the oem exhaust studs in favor of a stainless kit from JNZ.

I also decided to see how this "professional cylinder head tool kit" I got off ebay for $60 shipped works:
U5fKePil.jpg


^^In this photo to the right, I also polished up my o2 housing that Rob, most likely, also welded up at Extreme 7 years ago, and polished up the Tial 41mm wg that came with it. You can also see the o2 plug that I installed in the stock housing, because I'll be doing an Innovate wideband and installing per instructions, 24" past the turbo, which is like right before the flex section on the downpipe.

Looks like it would work just fine, I could press down the retainer no problem. But the valve kept going with it. I guess you need a way to keep the valve in the seat while you press the retainer/spring down. This kit also comes with the fittings to pressurize the cylinder if the head is on the block, that way the valve stays pressed up in the seat, alleviating the problem in the previous sentence. It also has the valve stem tools, etc.

fHSmANPl.jpg


If you get this kit, I'd recommend anchoring it to the top of the cam caps. To do this, you'd need longer bolts. At some point I'll figure out what that length is and report back, possibly tomorrow.
 
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