For quite some time I kept reading that it was impossible. The block is mirrored, the head wont fit, the trans wont fit, etc etc. Well, I recently picked up a 4g64 engine block out of a 2003 Mitsubushi Outlander which I beleive is the same engine as the 3g Eclipse RS. This is not a "Will it work?" thread, this is a "It WILL work" thread. So far at least. Yes, it's tranverse mounted with a mirrored head in the Outlander. However, the block itself is not mirrored, it is flipped. Here's my progress so far.

Casting tag. It is indeed a 4g64 (I checked the stroke as well). Some of you more internet oriented people might be able to find out what the other numbers mean.



Here's the bare engine block. This is the "back" of the engine which will be the front in the DSM. Notice the counter-balance shaft is in the same spot as the 2g 4g64/4g63 engines. The knock sensor is also a nice addition so long as it doesn't get in the way of the water pipe.



The top of the block. As you can see the pistons sit down about 1/8" or so from the deck. This might give the engine a lower compression ratio with the DSM head which would be ideal for those looking to use the stock block. However, from my calculations, a 86.5mm piston with a -12 dish will give this engine a compression ratio of about 9:1. That would be a good start for a higher comp build. Personally, I might try to get closer to 10:1 to make this a very high comp turbo build. Also notice that the oil galleys that feed the head are in the correct spot.


Here's the big "issue" with the newer 4g blocks. The 2g DSM head supposedly wont fit. Well, see for yourself.

Exhaust ports on the front.


Intake on the back.


Cams are on the correct side as well.


Bolt holes in the head line up.


Oil drains line up as well. The additional holes will need to be blocked just like the 2g 4g64 block.


Here's the timing components. As you can see, it's nearly identical to the 4g blocks found in DSM's. I'm not sure if the motor mount can be left alone or if a DSM mount needs to be installed, but that's next on the list.


Here is the only problem I have run into so far. The block bumps out around the dipstick so the Outlander oil pan must be used. This is a minor issue though as an AN fitiing could be installed on the oil pan for the turbo drain.


But I'm sure your thinking "How are you going to mount it?". If you remember, the 2g trans has 3 of the motor mounts on it already. As long as the 2g trans bolts up, it will be completely possible to mount it in the DSM engine bay. Well it's a narrowblock and has the exact same bolt pattern as the 2g 4g63/4g63 engines. The starter in the Outlander is in the front, so once we flip the engine it will be on the back in a DSM where it should be. So it looks to me as if it will bolt up to a DSM turbo trans with no issues.


So far this engine block will work. Like I said earlier, my next step is to compare the engine mount to one from a DSM. If it's possible even with minor modification, I'll begin building this engine and noting the pro's and con's in this thread. I'll also be looking into things such as power steering bracket, alternator mounting, carrier bearing mount (which I think I've already found), and other important bolt-on parts like those. It's also important to note that this is probably not the same as the 3g 4g63 and I'm also not 100% certain it's the same as the 3g Eclipse engine. However, I personally don't see that the 3g 463/4g64 block would be any different to build like this. But for now, lets focus on this one.

Very interesting.

Subscribed! Great investigating. I noticed in a few pics that there were some bosses cast into the block but not taped out. Possibly just a simple drill and tap to the correct hole size and there you have a multiple model block! It looks to also have the coolant tap on the "dsm" exhaust side bellow the freeze plug. It must have been made for a turbo then for sure!
I have a 2001 Galant in the drive I'll look and see if it has the same bump out for the dipstick when I get home.

Most interesting thread I've seen in a while. Keep us updated

Thanks!

Glad to see you guys don't think I'm crazy. This will be an "on the side" project so it will be a little while before I start building it up. But I think the progress I've mad so far speaks for itself.

very nice, idk why but its nice when nay-saying gets shown by hands on R&D. not to bash, but it seems to be thrown around alot on auto forums (cant do this/that kinda stuff). happens alot on the supra forum i dabble at.

so, one quick question, i havent been able to find alot of info in my limited searching. i have a 4g64 block from a 93 expo (7 bolt), and after pulling the tranny off, i found that: first it was a 7 bolt, kinda bummed about that but i can deal with it. second, the bellhousing pattern was a bit different.

idk if it a "wide block", but it doesnt have the same pattern as a 4g63 AFAI can tell.

in the end, it shouldnt be a huge problem, because i got the AWD 5 speed and x-case with the engine, and it shifts into all gears, spins in all gears, seems perfect! and as far as my research has yielded, it is the same tranny as the 1g with the same gear ratio.

so if i cant use it with my stock tranny, ill just send the expo tranny to shep for stage 3 work over and use that.

im just curious why the block has a bolt hole in a different spot? since it wont let me repost a picture, heres the thread that my picture is in.

^ Glad you brought that to light. I'm not sure which bolt pattern is the corrct pattern for a DSM trans.

Edit- From further research it looks like tametalon's bolt pattern is the correct one. On the new 4g64 the flywheel center is nearly paralell to the lower right bolt hole. With my 7-bolt and all the others I could find, the lower right hand bolt hole is a few inches down from the flywheel center. So an adapter plate will be needed for this block. However, this isn't much of a big deal anyways as I live right down the street from Jacks Transmission. even if they can't do it, I'm sure I can rig something up to work.

I had my reasons to believe it would fit, but never had the money to actually test it. Good find!

You also get to have forged crank - the newer engine cranks are much stronger than pre 99 ones.

The compression is indeed 9.0:1 since these pistons dont have the elevated outer lip that sits flush with the block surface

WES_393 said:

^ Glad you brought that to light. I'm not sure which bolt pattern is the corrct pattern for a DSM trans.

Edit- From further research it looks like tametalon's bolt pattern is the correct one. On the new 4g64 the flywheel center is nearly paralell to the lower right bolt hole. With my 7-bolt and all the others I could find, the lower right hand bolt hole is a few inches down from the flywheel center. So an adapter plate will be needed for this block. However, this isn't much of a big deal anyways as I live right down the street from Jacks Transmission. even if they can't do it, I'm sure I can rig something up to work.

Click to expand...

thank you much sir! ive been searching for the past couple hours. i believe my search abilities are...lacking. but that puts my mind at ease!

now i just need to make sure this thing being a 7 bolt wont suck balls for building. AFAIK, this shouldnt have pistons squirters, which i believe were the downfall to the other 7 bolts (but i have yet to confirm the no-squirters part). so as long as i can provide proper oil volume and pressure to the mains then it should be fine.

neway, good luck with your build! thats a pretty slick find for the 2.4 blocks, forged crank and all! the bellhousing might be able to slip by, but idk for sure. you could take the alignment slip dowel out of that block and drill a new hole in the bellhousing, but you may compromise integrity.

then again, you may get enough hold from the other BH bolts. keep updating, ill be reading

tametalon92 said:

so, one quick question, i havent been able to find alot of info in my limited searching. i have a 4g64 block from a 93 expo (7 bolt), and after pulling the tranny off, i found that: first it was a 7 bolt, kinda bummed about that but i can deal with it. second, the bellhousing pattern was a bit different.

idk if it a "wide block", but it doesnt have the same pattern as a 4g63 AFAI can tell.

in the end, it shouldnt be a huge problem, because i got the AWD 5 speed and x-case with the engine, and it shifts into all gears, spins in all gears, seems perfect! and as far as my research has yielded, it is the same tranny as the 1g with the same gear ratio.

so if i cant use it with my stock tranny, ill just send the expo tranny to shep for stage 3 work over and use that.

im just curious why the block has a bolt hole in a different spot? since it wont let me repost a picture, heres the thread that my picture is in.

Click to expand...

The only Expo with a 6 bolt is the 92. SOHC 8 valve. The rest of them are SOHC 16 valve 7 bolts. Both narrow blocks.

The trannys the come on the Expo's (93+) are almost the same as a 2G unit but I've noticed they don't shift as nice, maybe something to do with syncros, and they have a viscous coupler about half the size of a DSM unit. The gear ratios are the same though, as well as the cases.

If you want to run a 6 bolt in an Expo all you need is the center subframe from a 92 to support the different mounts and the mounts themselves.

My 93 AWD sExpo reference vehicle








I've always heard that the newer "backwards" 4G motors are all wideblocks but this is unconfirmed and I would love for the OP to let us all know once and for all.

Thanks tametalon. If anything, I think the 3 mounts on the trans would be enough to support the trans even with the high amount of torque. So as long as I can bolt up the trans it should be problem free from there. It puts a slight kink in my plans as I wanted to go Auto trans with the build. It still shouldnt be a big issue either way.

But, with 4g64's being the topic as of now, I have to say there is nothing wrong with the 7-bolt 4g64. I have never EVER personally seen a 4g64 walk. My girls Spyder has a rock solid crank after 120k. Even with her learning to drive stick which involves clutch dumps and grinds. IMO the 7-bolt 2.0 cranks were poorly machined from the factory which is the reason for crankwalk. So no need to be bummed about your 2.4 being a 7-bolt.

Thanks for posting cutlass. From my measurements the newer 4g64 is narrowblock. Botttom bolt to bottom bolt, right? If it's dowel pin to dowel pin, it might be a wideblock, but it looks nothing like the wideblocks (Mighty max, Starion, etc.) that I've seen.

hopefully i was some help. yea that was my thought "at least it was an early 7 bolt!". so ill still build it, boost it, and ###### blow it up. but thats how this stuff goes. anyway, hope u can figure it out, still tuned in haha.

WES_393 said:

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Click to expand...

Now that it's not 2 am I noticed something. I hate to be the bearer of bad news because I want this to work quite a bit but I don't think a early style trans is going to bolt right up to this block. It looks like they took the lower right bolt and moved it up a few inches. The bottom bolt holes are usually on the same horizontal plane. Here's a pic from Zero G showing the differences between a wide and narrow block.



The picture of the starter plates is looking from the opposite side as your picture but you can clearly see what I'm talking about. Plus it looks like they added another bolt hole where the early trans doesn't even have one. I'm talking about the upper hole where the dowel pin is on the right side. I don't think an early trans even has a bolt hole in that location with a dowel pin receiver or not.

I'm not in my garage to check it out but it looks like Mitsu changed the pattern just a little bit so you couldn't easily swap the newer blocks to the older transmissions. Kind of how they made 2G head bolts smaller and they require some machine work. Effers

I don't think it is a wideblock. I guess the next thing to do is find a spare 2g trans and see just how far off it is. But if you look closely on the picture I posted of my flywheel you can see the similarities between the two patterns. The only difference I can tell of is the bottom right bolt hole is in the wrong spot. The top right bolt hole which has the dowel pin is in fact on the 2g 4g63/4g64, just not with a dowel pin. If you look at these pics from Project Zero G, you can see the difference between this blocks bolt pattern (which is the same as Evo 4-9) and the the USDM 7-bolt's. Once again, the only difference is that lower right hand bolt hole and dowel pin.

Here's the Evo 4-9 block which is the exact same bolt pattern as my "newer" 4g64.



Here is the USDM 7-bolt (found in DSM's)



I think it's safe to say this is a minor road bump. With an adapter plate and a DSM starter plate it will bolt up just fine.



So I'm juggling idea's right now on how to solve the issue with the one bolt hole being off.

First idea: Install the trans with 1 less bolt and bore the hole where the new dowel pin will go. This would be the easiest and cheapest way to do it. This might not be the optimal idea for the really high horsepwer drag cars as the trans could use all the support it needs under 600hp+ launches. But with case hardened (or even chrome) bolts that would be installed plus the addition of a bore for the new dowel, I'm certain it would hold up to some pretty good power regardless of a missing bolt.

Second idea: A full adapter plate. This would have to thick enough to cover the dowels completely as well as include new dowels for the 2g trans. It would also need to be thick enough to supprt the entire tans. However, even at the bare minimum to cover the dowels and support the trans, I would be shifting the entire transmission over about 1/2". This means the passenger side axle would be an 1/2" too long and the driver side axle would be 1/2" too short. That would be acceptable, but I doubt the carrier bearing for the driver side axle would match up. So that would mean you now need a custom bracket for the carrier bearing. Then you have the issue of the transfer case on AWD cars since it bolts up to the transmission. The transfer case being shifted 1/2" could cause premature wear on the driveshaft. This could be solved by extending the adapter plate to fit the transfer case, but then your reudcing the surface area of the output shaft which could cause the splines to wear prematurely as well. Here's a rough sketch of what I'm talking about. The red is where the adapter plate would go, the blue is where it would need to be extended for AWD application. It would also need to extend to house the starter which isn't shown. Overall, this idea seems too complicated to be justified.



Third idea: Custom bell housing. F*** that. Moving on.

Fourth and best idea: A small triangle shaped peice of aluminum or steel that bolts to the engine side of the upper right hand trans bolt. It could have a dowel on it for alignment and then I could remove the dowel from the wrong spot. Or bore the trans bolt hole so there are 3 dowels supporting the trans! This would be cheap, very easy, and would give even the high HP guys a chance to use the 3g blocks. Here's a rough sketch of what I'm talking about:



This would truly be the most optimal way of doing this and will be the route I try to take first. It would let me keep the trans bolted straight to the engine, support the trans with all of the factory bolt locations, and I could use a very thick (around 1" or so at the corner) bracket for the missing bolt hole location.

Thoughts? Questions? Alternative ideas?

im liking idea one and four. one being the easiest, and 4 being the stronger option while still not being super difficult.

you could use #4, and contour the plate to the other side of the block, then drill and tap holes for some fatty bolts that will go through the triangle piece into the block on from the engine side. as long as you got your tolerances right, you should be good.

or find some one who can weld cast iron, very very well... ($$$$$$$)

tametalon92 said:

you could use #4, and contour the plate to the other side of the block, then drill and tap holes for some fatty bolts that will go through the triangle piece into the block on from the engine side. as long as you got your tolerances right, you should be good.

or find some one who can weld cast iron, very very well... ($$$$$$$)

Click to expand...

My thoughts exactly. I nice peice of flat iron that is shaped to backside of the bellhousing flange and the triangle peice welded to that peice of metal, it would be just as good if not stronger than the stock corner peice. I'm also pretty sure that the incorrect bolt hole is threaded which means a short bolt could be used from the engine side to strap down the bracket even more.

My father can weld cast iron, but he thinks our little 4-bangers are dumb. . I'm sure I could talk him into it though. Hopefully I'll have a mock up peice done this weekend! I'm in the process of getting a starter plate so I can use that for the bolt hole location rather than sourcing an entire transmission.

WES_393 said:

My thoughts exactly. I nice peice of flat iron that is shaped to backside of the bellhousing flange and the triangle peice welded to that peice of metal, it would be just as good if not stronger than the stock corner peice. I'm also pretty sure that the incorrect bolt hole is threaded which means a short bolt could be used from the engine side to strap down the bracket even more.

My father can weld cast iron, but he thinks our little 4-bangers are dumb. . I'm sure I could talk him into it though. Hopefully I'll have a mock up peice done this weekend!

Click to expand...

sounds good, do it!

Congrats again for your find.

Without getting poetical about it, but you have opened a new horizon for everyone,
If this works out w/o major setbacks, it will decrease the amount of money we have to spend on the motors.

So after reading that, here's my idea... which is basically the same as your #4, except that I'd use a cube of metal instead of a triangle and I'd make the bracing into two pieces to simplify the fabrication of it and make fitment accurate when finished. You could always trim it later.

This could also possibly add strength if three dowels were used, but using three would mean you'd have to change that one hole on the trans, so it wouldn't be plug and play with a regular block anymore.

I'm not even sure if this is doable, but thought I'd share my brainstorming anyway.



Blue square: Drill the transmission to accept the newer block's dowel pin, or simply cut the dowel off flush in the block.

Green square: Tap the newer block for a shorter bolt to thread into only the block. Attach a plate to the block side of these two holes using a longer top bolt and a short bolt only into the threaded lower hole on the block.

Red: Line up the trans and run a drill first through the lower bolt hole in the trans, out through a cube of metal held tightly against the angled edge of the new block and then through the plate bolted to the top two holes in the block.

The cube of metal would need to be drilled to accept the dowel pin on the trans side and be precut to the same depth as the top two bolt holes holding the plate on.

^ Your attachement isn't showing up on my computer, but I get what your saying. I think the best way to go would be removing the extra dowel and forming a new one on the support. The only problem I think I might run into is the entire right side of the bell housing flange seems to be an inch or so too narrow. I've ordered a starter plate for DSM engines and trans so I'll be comparing it to the engine block and deciding what needs to be done. If that is the case, I'll make a single peice that bolts to the back of the bell housing flange and extends out and thickens to be flush with the trans. If the bell housing clears the bolts for the new bracket, it would be a very simple bolt-on adapter. Simple and one peice is really the key here since most DSMer's (no offence) aren't skilled in custom fabrication. And like you said, we want this to be as "plug and play" as possible, no welding, cutting, or grinding needed on the trans side of things.

So as of now I'm just waiting for this starter plate to show up in the mail, then I'll be making a prototype. Once it's fairly well formed, I'll begin making the final product out of either steel or forged aluminum. I'm really aiming towards aluminum since the bracket would be very thick and Aluminum is much cheaper than stainless steel. I wouldn't want to use mild steel as we already have enough rust problems with our cars, the last thing we need rusting is the engine and trans! If people want to use mild steel on their bracket that would work, but I personally want to steer clear of it.

I ran into a block from a 3g awhile back and posted some pics on the difference in the blocks. The ONLY difference i found was the trans bolt pattern. Good luck making an adapter, i think it would sell pretty good considering how popular the 64 swaps are.

jimbob_843 said:

I ran into a block from a 3g awhile back and posted some pics on the difference in the blocks. The ONLY difference i found was the trans bolt pattern. Good luck making an adapter, i think it would sell pretty good considering how popular the 64 swaps are.

Click to expand...

Do you have a link to the thread? I would really like to see it. It would sell very good, but I'm not looking to get into the business of selling them. At least not anytime soon. I'd rather post up the blue prints for people to take to a machine shop and have the bracket made. I'm not sure if machine shops would do anything custom like that though.

delta- That would work great as long as the top right bolt will line up with the trans. But if you look at the casted supports on the DSM 4g engine versus the ones of the 3g 4g64, it appears they are different widths on the right side. Thanks for sharing though, I'll definitely take that into consideration if the top right bolt lines up!

Here is a very rough design I'm made out of an old peice of wood we had laying aroun. The final peice will be much more slimmed down and adhere to the shape of the block and transmission. This is just to give you guys an idea of what I'm trying to make. It'll be a much more polished design once I get the starter plate. This is also assuming the entire right side of the bell housing flange is too narrow for the trans. All I can do is wait to get the starter plate so I can decide which route to go.

i like it, might have to see if i can find some late model blocks, that would be an easy add on. after seeing the wood prototype, i can envision the final contoured prototype. nice work and research man!

Wes, is this the same 4g64 block that the Evo guys use to do their 2.4l builds? Might be selling the dizzum to get an Evo 8 and a 2.4 for DD use would be nice.

simple jake said:

Wes, is this the same 4g64 block that the Evo guys use to do their 2.4l builds? Might be selling the dizzum to get an Evo 8 and a 2.4 for DD use would be nice.

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I'm pretty sure it is. It has the same trans bolt pattern as the Evo 4-9 engine block. It was also mounted transverse form the DSM like the Evo engines are.

Your thinking of jumping on the Evo boat too? . I've been considering it myself.

Tametalon- Thanks man. This starter plate just needs to hurry up and get here so I can see what needs to be done!