Street Build bkrathwohl's Galant VR4 #1228/2000

[curt-s]

Great build. Watch those rad hoses, I have had universal ones in the past and they actually sweat over time. The glycol passes through and leaves a nice layer of sticky residue in the engine bay. Not saying it will definitely affect these but you will know after a couple months just by looking at and feeling the hose.

 

[bkrathwohl]

Great build. Watch those rad hoses, I have had universal ones in the past and they actually sweat over time. The glycol passes through and leaves a nice layer of sticky residue in the engine bay. Not saying it will definitely affect these but you will know after a couple months just by looking at and feeling the hose.

I will keep that in mind, thanks for the heads up!

 

[GST with PSI]

I had a hell of a time installing my wastegate into my cast FP cast 3" O2 housing as well. I eventually said f*** it, and used the clamps the pull the wastegate down flush with the flanges. They were only off by a hair, but it made installing the wastegate seemingly impossible. Good to know that's common to a situation other than mine. Is the ExtremePSI video online?

The car is looking awesome, and I see a lot of similarities between our builds. I'm also loving reading about all the Galant builds here recently on the forums! Now, lets hear this thing run.

Edit: Where'd you get that coolant surge tank?

 

[bkrathwohl]

I'm glad to hear that I am not the only one that was having issues. It certainly wasn't as easy as they made it seem in the video they sent me:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9ntdsBCoTOCRmt2M1Q5VWZxMW8/view

I had a bit more of a gap than they did in the video. I'm not sure if it was something from the V44 to the MVR, although they are supposed to be the same bottom section. I see that the title of the video is for an MVS, maybe the 44mm ones are just harder because they are bigger.


As far as the coolant tank goes, I was just searching on eBay for coolant reservoirs and it was one of the cheapest ones available.

Part: Dorman 603-001

 

[GST with PSI]

I'm glad to hear that I am not the only one that was having issues. It certainly wasn't as easy as they made it seem in the video they sent me

Same. Mine took a bit more effort, but it eventually complied.

I'll check out that reservoir. Thanks.

 

[92AWDHX40]

Keep at it mines is coming along slowly.

 

[bkrathwohl]

I suppose Monday is a good day for an update. It starts out with a nice little garage addition.

No more dirty laptop! This will be nice to have for the FSM, also easier than pulling it up on my phone or laptop.

I finally finished all of my wiring! I went to Home Depot, to make my life easier, and bought a new soldering iron. The one I bought has 3 LEDs on it, which makes it very nice to use in tight spaces (under the dash). With that, it was time to wire in the wideband.

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Weller-40-Watt-LED-Soldering-Iron-Kit-SP40NKUS/204195330

As I have an Innovate LC2 I used ECMTunings LC2 guide:

https://www.ecmtuning.com/wiki/lc2install

I routed the sensor on the driver side of the engine bay. I ended up making an incision in the speedometer cable grommet to push the sensor cable into the cab.

I also found a place to mount the boost controller. I wasn't happy with how close the coolant overflow tank was to the air filter (rubbing on it) so I will move that elsewhere.

With that, it was time for some fluid shopping!

I'm going to start out with some Rotella T6, after that I will probably switch to AMSOIL like the rest of my vehicles.

After filling up my power steering fluid I noticed a puddle under the car the next day. After further investigation it looks like one of the fittings on the high pressure line was leaking. I must have screwed up the compression fitting on that end. I opted to just order a custom hydraulic line online. That way I don't have to deal with screwing up a fitting again.

My turbo oil feed line comes in tomorrow, but I can't start it without the power steering line! It's so close!

 

[GST with PSI]

Why not stick with the T6? It's baller shit on a non-baller budget.

 

[bkrathwohl]

I don't have a good reason, I just want to use AMSOIL.

 

[19gsx91]

You know.. if you reach out to amsoil and pay like $30 a year (don't qoute me on that) you get like 30% off all amsoil products, my buddy was an amsoil dealer for a while (150/year) and got 50% off all amsoil products.

Awesome build btw! Like Curt-s I'm not a huge fan of the "universal fit" radiator hoses, I had issues with mine on my camaro

 

[92AWDHX40]

Thanks for the updates this build has helped me a lot in various areas if my current build.

 

[bkrathwohl]

You know.. if you reach out to amsoil and pay like $30 a year (don't qoute me on that) you get like 30% off all amsoil products, my buddy was an amsoil dealer for a while (150/year) and got 50% off all amsoil products.

Awesome build btw! Like Curt-s I'm not a huge fan of the "universal fit" radiator hoses, I had issues with mine on my camaro

Yeah the preferred customer tier gets 25% off for $20/year.

I've used the universal type rad hoses a couple times before and didn't have any issues. We will see how these ones hold up.

 

[bkrathwohl]

Only a couple things left to tackle!

The first is the coolant overflow. I didn't really like where my aftermarket one was placed (it was also rubbing on the intake once installed). It would also block quite a lot of airflow to my intake. For now I've put a coolant overflow bottle in the driver fender well. I will likely just grab a stock VR4 overflow bottle when I get a chance.

Some other random parts showed up. I picked up that Tial Q a while back but didn't have a UICP to mount it on. Luckily Treadstone Performance makes one that is the perfect length to replace my VRSF pipe. I also picked up an oil feed and vband clamp from them.

One of these guys showed up too:

When I was bleeding my power steering, my high pressure hose decided to leak at one of the fittings. I suspect I botched the interior liner of the hose when installing the fitting.

Instead of dealing with it I decided to order a custom built hose online. I waited for a couple of weeks with no updates from them. I called them up to see what was going on with my order. Turns out they didn't have the fittings that I needed and didn't know when they would be in, so I just cancelled the order.

Luckily, a friend at work had some connections and was able to get this for me in a couple of days!

 

[bkrathwohl]

Next was to figure out why my ECU wasn't able to trigger my radiator fan to turn on. Even manually triggering the fuel pressure solenoid (the solenoid that I had hooked the radiator fan up to for the trigger wire) nothing would happen. I went back to the forums and tried a couple different things, to no avail. Everyone seemed to thing that my wiring was the culprit. So to alleviate that I decided to pick up a relay and wire it myself, instead of using the stock wiring/relay.

For those curious, as it's hard to gather all of this information in one place, this is how I did it:
Pin 85: Ground signal from ECU output (FPS or EGR in this case)
Pin 86: Fused +12v to power relay coil
Pin 30: Fused +12v to power relay contact
Pin 87: +12v to fan positive
Pin 87a: Not used
Fan negative: ground to chassis

These are my settings in ECMLink:

Annnnnnnd I have the same issue.

I tested continuity on the plug in the bay and the plug on the ECU, which turned out okay. I also seemed to be getting signal from the pin on the ECU. As a curiosity thing, I moved the wiring for the FPS to the EGR pin. Lo and behold my fan turned on.

I'm wondering if there is an issue with my ECU. I'll admit, I was getting a little frustrated/careless when it came to this radiator fan wiring for a bit and had a little ECU scare (which turned out to be my MPI fuse popping instead).

Upon inspection of my ECU I noticed quite a lot of corrosion. I will likely be sending this to ECMTuning later to see what they can do about it.

This leads to my first start! Well, one of many. I had started it a couple times and found some leaks that I had to fix. It was actually started before I tackled the radiator fan wiring as well, as that's when I noticed it wasn't working. Either way, one of the first starts!



Once started I worked on idle settings. This is the first time I've tuned on speed density, so everything was new to me. This guide helped immensely:
http://www.dsmtuners.com/threads/how-to-tune-a-1g-v3-sd-ecmlink-with-no-maf.395564/

The only real issue I had with the idle tune was not knowing what the deadtime for my FIC BlueMax 1250cc injectors was. This is where the trial and error happened. For those interested it turned out to be 630 with a -64.1% global.

Once idle was dialed in I went for a quick 30 minute cruise to adjust my VE tables.

First things first, I need fuel:

Everything went alright! My brakes are extremely loud, to be expected from sitting for so long and not being able to properly bed them, nothing seemed out of the ordinary though.

When I finished the cruise I noticed a couple of oil leaks that will need to be addressed:

1) The stock turbo feed from the head is leaking. I purchased a plug from ExtremePSI but it doesn't seem to be plugging very well. I might need to add a couple of copper crush washers here.

2) My valve cover gasket looks like it's leaking. I'm sure I just need to tighten the valve cover bolts now that it's been through a couple heat cycles.

3) This last one kind of sucks; it looks like the front part of my oil pan is leaking. Maybe I didn't put enough RTV in this area, but it will need to be addressed at my next oil change.

 

[bkrathwohl]

Man does it feel weird to be sitting in this cockpit. The car is surprisingly comfortable, like way more than I had ever imagined it would be, with all of the poly mounts.

I haven't done any other tuning, yet. I just take it for a spin around a couple of blocks to get it moving. I want to get my Tial Q on before I start WOT tuning, as i'm going to be putting it on anyway (I just have to clean off that horrid wrinkle black paint that is on it).

In the meantime, there's no reason I cant get her shining a bit brighter!

It's weird to have two of my own cars parked in the driveway. There has always been at least one in the garage since I moved here!

As you can tell, i'm missing my sideskirts and front grill. I need to order new fasteners for those areas.

I'm also impressed with the lack of visibility there is to the FMIC. It does a tremendous job of hiding in plain sight, unless you are looking for it.

 

[95eclipser]

Great update man!

 

[spyderdrifter]

Awesome build. Looks great. Can't wait to see more.

 

[COVR4355]

Great Work!
Loving the build and looking forward to seeing her roar
WRX and a VR4...which one do you prefer-driving, enjoyment, comfortability, etc?

 

[bkrathwohl]

I prefer driving the STi to the VR4. I don't know that it will change, either.

It's been quite a while since my last update, just some little things here and there. I will try to get to it today!

 

[bkrathwohl]

After one of the first tuning nights, I discovered that my headlights didn't work. I managed to make it home before it got TOO dark, almost getting pulled over in the process.

The next day I did some digging into what was going on there. I made my way to the engine bay fuse box and found out that one of my relays was missing a lead.

The left one is the front headlight relay and the rear one is for the tail lights:

After consulting the wiring diagram it looks like the one that was missing was tied in to the alarm, which I no longer have. I'm not sure if i'm the one that ripped it out, or if the previous guy did. Either way, it's a fairly easy fix. The trigger is the only one that is missing, and the rear relay just loops from the power side. I did the same thing to the headlights.

Somehow I managed to have the perfect pre-crimped wire in my pile of spare stuff. It fit right in the fuse box!

Voila!

I also made a few other changes. I was having a very difficult time tuning for SD, so I decided to jump back to a MAF to at least get dialed in. I may go back to SD later, but at this point I am going to stick with what I know. I had a new upper intercooler pipe coming for my Tial Q, so it was the perfect time to set it up for MAF.

I sandblasted my Tial Q and got the disgusting paint that was on it off. I just did a rattle can black for the final result.

Next up was some chopping on the intercooler pipe to fit the GM MAF in there:

And the final result!

I successfully did a BLT up to 19psi before it blew off. This was enough for me to get my base tune dialed in at wastegate pressure. This turbo feels great, even on low boost.

I've been having a hell of a time figuring out what size tbolt clamp I need for the inlet on the HX35. 4" is too small and 4.5" is too big. I have a 4.25" clamp that should be arriving today. Hopefully that will stay on for 30+psi so that I can start my power tune.

On a side note, now that it is getting cooler, I put my winter tires back on the STi. I decided I would just give the VR4 my Continental DW summer tires.

Oh, and my plate arrived:

 

[diambo4life]

Looking good.

 

[livedsm4g63]

Love the plate.

 

[COVR4355]

Lol...I second Diambo and lived's post regarding looking good and the plate-trying to either have a lisp or a Elmer Fudd tone for the pronunciation of the plate
Well done, would love to see a video of a pull or two

 

[livedsm4g63]

Maybe after he fixes the horribly engineered hx35

 

[iceguru1114]

Maybe after he fixes the horribly engineered hx35

I may or may not have some insight as to the design of that turbo and may or may not agree with your assessment.