Im unable to see the pictures. Anyone else? Great build man!

boostdawd said:

Im unable to see the pictures. Anyone else? Great build man!

Click to expand...

I can see them on my laptop?

jamel16 said:

Build is amazing, great minds think alike. I routed my wiring harness in a similar fashion. I will be posting a build update so you should check it out. Keep up the good work.

Click to expand...

I have taken a peak over at your thread a few times. I will keep an eye out for the update!

EDIT: I just noticed that your build is not linked to your profile. Check out the link below and get those two linked together so its easier for others to find

https://www.dsmtuners.com/threads/connect-your-build-thread-to-your-dsm-profile.479329/

mitsubishikid said:

Great thread here, I have not finished reading it all yet but I'm going to watch this thread for sure, I love these sorts of builds, the attention to detail, so far looks immaculate, I also love your youtube videos vary good work, this makes me want to dust off my 90 awd talon and get back into my dsm again, although I barley scratched the surface first time around but hey thats what long term builds are for... ...One day I'll get back to that car maybe when I finish building my garage, in the meantime I have been collecting parts to mod it in the future any more updates on this build keep em coming.

Click to expand...

Glad your enjoying the thread. At one time, i really enjoyed making those videos but its hard to find the time it takes to edit videos these days. For now these posts have kept the build alive and they are easy enough to type up. I’ll keep this thing updated as I get time.

boostdawd said:

Im unable to see the pictures. Anyone else? Great build man!

Click to expand...

I’m not sure why you can’t see the photos? I can see them on both my phone and computer. The thread is very picture heavy so depending on your internet connection, loading can take some time.

Robert

That's how I ran my engine harness also but through the shifter cable hole since I went auto. Also I used a mini buss man fuse panel for my engine harness and put it in the left front wheel well. Crazy how much wire they used in the stock harness.

Next up it was time for the Engine control harness. I used various resources available here on Tuners and throughout the interwebs.

In the last post, we routed the harness through the firewall and started cutting circuits to length. Once I was happy with the routing and length, I crimped all the connectors on and feed it all back through the firewall.

I laid the harness back out in the floor and began to heat the crimp, solder and seal connectors with my heat gun.



Once that was complete, I wrapped the harness in electrical to make it nice and tidy. There are some circuits that have shielded wires. Instead of cutting and shortening these circuits, I folded them together.



On the left we have the interior plugs that are in the passenger kick panel. Next down the line is a single connector that used to plug up under the fuse box. It will now plug in behind the glove box. Next in line is a check connector, ECU plugs, MPI and PTU. Heading towards the bottom of the picture you see a red and orange wire wound up. These wires are for the BCS.



Not sure where that white line came from but oh well……. Right behind the white line is the rubber firewall grommet. Directly on the other side of the firewall you have the wiper motor, reverse light switch and 3 power wires for the fuse block that was attached to the positive terminal of the battery.



Breaking off to the left are the injectors, coil pack, tachometer noise filter and the chassis ground for that leg. Up the middle we have the starter signal wire and the knock sensor. The right leg contains the IAC, TPS, IAT, MAP, CAS and the two temp sensors on the lower thermostat housing.



I wrapped the harness with Techflex split loom and some sleeve in high heat or abrasion prone areas.



I then wrapped up the harness with fusion tape and fed it all back through the firewall.



The bulk of wires on the left hand side is the Engine control harness. The hole on the right will be utilized for the fuel pump power wire and fuse box power.



Behind the CD player you see the PTU mounted on the right hand side. I just used a couple rivnuts and bolted it down. To the left you see a few weather packs that I used to connect wires from separate harnesses. This should make removal possible/easier should that ever happen.



Here is a better look at that jumper wire.



Quick glance at a 2 pin weather pack. I split the cigarette lighter power into the male ends to feed the WB controller and aftermarket gauges (not yet wired).



The ECU sensor ground moved from the passenger side to the drivers side radio bracket mount thing. The single red wire is the ground for the WB re-calibration led and push button. Look to the far left and you will see a single weather pack connector connecting two wires together. I used jumper wires off of some ECU pins to connect the WB controller. I used weather packs for all these connections.



Here is another weather pack under the steering wheel that connects the BCS.



In the drivers kick panes, we have a ground for the WB controller and another one for the clutch switch to activate NLTS.



The next set of photos just show the routing of the Engine control harness.


Reverse light switch



The entire right leg plugged in and secured



Lower thermostat housing sensors



The Noise filter that was relocated to one of the PTU bolts. I have read that this housing must be grounded so we shall see if this location works.



Left Leg plugged in and secured



Minus the feed line and the fuse box wires draped over the passenger fender, this is what the bay looks like with all the wires installed.



More to come……

Happy Boosting

I love your work, how to's, and attention to detail. Flawless, I'm in awe, speechless. Thank you for the time and effort you have put in. It will be a great help when my life gets settled down to the point I can start tackling some of the things I will do to my car as well.
Thanks,
Seth

90'AWDTalonFroggy said:

I love your work, how to's, and attention to detail. Flawless, I'm in awe, speechless. Thank you for the time and effort you have put in. It will be a great help when my life gets settled down to the point I can start tackling some of the things I will do to my car as well.
Thanks,
Seth

Click to expand...

Be careful how much of this you read This whole 2nd build started because of a simple clutch disk. Thanks to @Calan build thread, inspiration and some bright ideas, this is where I sit 4 years later. Not saying it's a bad thing but life happens and it took a lot longer than inticipated. I wish you the best of luck in your future plans and send me a link through PM when you start your build thread.

Robert

The last couple of weeks have been pretty entertaining. The photos started to get short considering that the car is now running and I have been chasing gremlins but we will get to that.

We left off with just a little wiring to do so lets get back to that.

The fuel pump relay wire was ran through the firewall and dropped over the passenger side fender.



Next up we modified a used JMF bracket that I picked up to hold the Antigravity lithium ion battery that I plan to run. This thing has 720 cranking amps so I have high hopes that it will work out.

Here is the modified bracket..... I literally ran a die down the threads so that I could tighten the battery hold down. I then fabricated a bracket to solidly mount to the battery tray and hold the alternator fuses and fuse block. I am using an ANL fuse from the ALT to the battery and from the battery to the fuse box. The fuse panel powers the radiator fan, MPI, fuel pump and ignition.





With that done it was time for the main power and grounds. All wire is 4 GA wire. The lugs where soldered, covered with heat shrink and covered with some sleeving. For power we have the following.... battery to fuse panel, battery to starter, battery to fuse panel in glove box and alternator to battery. For the grounds we have battery to firewall, battery to transmission bolt, block to firewall, intake manifold to to block and intake manifold to throttle body.



After I got all the installed, I secured all the wires and this is what I had.



with the wiring complete and everything done under the dash, it was time to put it back in. I followed a video on youtube in reverse order to make sure I didn’t miss anything.



With that done and all the wires installed, it was time to look everything up and look for a fire. This is all the wires installed and the positive side of the battery disconnected.



This is what it looked like with all the wires installed.



The last thing before firing her up was the spark plugs. I had some Magnacore wires that where in great shape but they were red.... I couldn’t put those in my engine bay being red. I used some of the leftover tech flex to cover the wires and sealed the ends with electrical tape. Now they are ready for primetime.



I installed these wires hooked up the positive side and tuned on the ignition AND this is when I encountered my first problem. The low oil pressure light would not turn on! I use this light when priming the motor to make sure I have at least 10 PSI so I had to fix it.

First thought was that my wiring was bad. I check all of it and it was good. I then grounded the wire and the light came on so I knew it was the sender. When checking the sender with a multimeter, it was bad. I had a spare so I threw it in and I had a low oil light.

During all this troubleshooting, I came across some diagrams for the oil feed ports on a 1g OFH. I noticed that I had been feeding my turbo from the dirty side of the OFH for years. I had to order a 90 degree BSPT to AN fitting from extreme to fix the issue.

With a low oil light and clean oil to the turbo, it was time to give her a go and....... CLICK!!!

Thats it, nothing but a click. Again I thought it was my wiring so I checked power, probed the battery when I tried to start and no drop and rerouted my ground wire from a bell housing bolt to the starter bolt that goes through the bell housing. None of those solutions fixed my problem. I don’t know what made me think of it but I thought about the clutch pedal safety switch. When I redid the wiring I plugged everything in including the clutch safety switch. I unplugged it and she turned right over.

BUT she didn’t run very well and threw a DTC for ignition circuit malfunction. I used a spark tester to find out that number 2 and 3 where getting no spark. I again thought it was my wiring.... so I checked every wire looking threw the schematics only to find that it was all good. The coil also checked out. I happen to have another 90 PTU from a spare motor so i threw it into check that part and what do you know..... it fired right up. I would say it purred like a kitten but it didn’t.

It ran but it stumbled and struggled. I looked at the log and noticed ISC position to be extremely high. I tried to adjust the BISS but the ISC would not fall below 80. After a lot of troubleshooting and chasing my tail I phoned ole Jafro. After a while he asked if I had a throttle stop and I don’t because I simulate it in link. That was the problem. The throttle stop keeps the throttle plate cracked so that it doesn’t stick but that allows airflow through and you fine tune with the BISS. Anyway, I threw the throttle stop in and adjusted it so that I could use the BISS to achieve 30 idling at temperature.



It was hot in the car so I tried to roll down the windows and no passenger window Turns out I just had to plug in the connections! I found that out when I went to probe my connections.

You might think thats it....... well guess again! I looked under the car to see oil dripping off the inspection cover. I tried using a borescope to see if it was the rear main, I tried looking through the trans by the shift fork and I tried just about everything I could think of without removing any of the parts I just installed. I also noticed that the oil return from the turbo was leaking.

I ended up pulling the pan. When I was taking off the next to last bolt the pan fell and dangled from the block. The RTV pealed off in sheets with nothing more than my fingernail.



Looking at the trans side of the oil pan, we can see some major distortion in the lip of the pan. Remember I did nothing to remove it so this is how it was installed. There was some gross neglect on my part when installing the pan and it simply did not seal at all.



I had plans to straighten the pan out but I noticed that the 12an fitting a nick on the sealing surface. I was sure this was causing the leak. I had three choices, cut the fitting out of the current pan and replace it, repair the fitting with a resurfacing tool I don’t have or put a new fitting in another pan.

I had a spare pan from another motor so I ordered a fitting that would show up on Wednesday. Well, it did and when I pulled it out of the package it was ALUMINUM!!!!! It was my fault so I ordered another fitting off Amazon so I could get cheap next day shipping. However, the only 12an steel fittings they had were threaded on the other end but I ordered one anyway.

The fitting showed up and the inside diameter was much smaller than a 12an fitting Oh well, I found a drill but that barely fit in the bung fitting and I drilled out the new fitting to that size. I then cut the threads off and boom I had a bung.

Here is a picture of how much I drilled out. this is the threaded end I cut off.



Next I needed the modified fitting to go into the pan. I went to a buddies house to accomplish this. We removed the plate holding the two nuts for the turbo oil return, drilled out the pan to accept the new fitting and he tigged it in for me.




After the welding I media blasted the outside of the pan to remove some surface rust and imperfections. I didn’t feel like getting all the powder coating stuff out so I sprayed two coats of primer and three coats of black paint.



After all this, I mocked up the new pan to find out it didn’t fit! The ARP mains require you to dent the pan. SO, I dented the pan, flatted the sealing surface, cleaned the sealing surface and cleaned the pan really well to insure no media was left inside.



I used the grey version of The Right Stuff and I reinstalled the pan. After adding oil and starting it up, there are no more oil leaks!!! I am dialing in idle and waiting on the fluid for the rear diff and t case and then its time for a test drive.

I know that this was a long posts and thanks for hanging in there. I will try to upload a quick video of it running from my phone but we will see how that goes. More to come

Happy Boosting

Glad to see it’s running, funny thing is I have a leak at my oil return and I’m dreading taking this pan off again.

Pulling the pan really isn’t that bad, its just getting started thats the hard part.

I took the car for a short drive and quickly realized that the alignment was way out of whack. I needed a quick fix until I can make it to an alignment rack so I pulled it in the garage. I used jack stands and some twine I had hanging around to do a quick and dirty alignment. I set the string parallel to the rear tires then adjusted the toe of the front tires until it was parallel to the string.



Next up was another project that I have been putting off and thats the hood pins. I deleted the hood latch to move my radiator back so I will need to install hood pins. I choose the Aerocatch locking hood pins for this task.

I started by pick a location that I thought looked good and I then mounted the pins.



I used greases to mark the pilot hole, drilled the pilot hole and then tapped up the template for cutting.



From there, it was a a Dremel and some patience. I cut it out cleaned it up and mounted them to the hood using the supplied hardware.



With the latches on, I cut the supplied bushings and hood pins to properly secure the hood.





The next project was to keep coolant from spilling everywhere. I was using a flimsy plastic water bottle that really wasn’t cutting it so I upgraded. I planned to get a billet overflow but I don’t have one yet and its time to drive the car. I used a white monster can to fill the void. I drilled two holes using a step bit until they where slightly smaller than the hose I planed to use. I then replaced the plastic gasket on the inside of the bottle and tightened the cap.



The last task was to find a place to dump the waste gate. I used some stainless tubing and a v band to fab up a dump tube.



This was literally the last project on the list. I was almost ready to put waste gate pressure to this thing. I just made it to 62 miles over 3 short trips. Since the car started running, it has had a tick. At first I thought it was just a lifter but it seemed to be deeper than any lifter tick I had ever heard. I drained the oil after a couple hours of run time already and since I hit 62 miles, it was time to change the oil again. This would also be a good time to look for any issues that would point to the tick being more than I thought.

This is what I found.



It looks like metallic paint when you swirl it around. Its not pretty and believe me, I am not happy with this outcome. I knew the motor was making an unusual noise, I was just in denial. This confirms my worst fear so the empty list I just achieved isn’t so empty anymore.

Happy Boosting
Robert

Damn, I know how that feels.

I did some sole searching and came to terms with the horrible idea in my head. I tried to read the plugs but they looked good. I also used a wooden dowel to push down on the piston ATDC but there was no movement. It took me two afternoons after work and I had the motor ripped out and disassembled. I used a stethoscope to narrow down the tick to the number one cylinder while it was running. I also narrowed it down to more of a bottom end issue.

With that being said, I took the head off with the intake and turbo manifold still intact. I was hopping for a couple smeared bearings that I could fix with a new set and some polishing of the journals. I tore into the bottom end examining parts as I took them apart. The endplay was still within spec and didn’t show any issues. Side play on the pistons also checked out good.

I tore the pistons out, removed the crank and gave everything a better look. I suspected the mains so thats where I looked first. I didn’t align hone the block after adding the Kiggly girdle and I thought that was the cause. Remember, everything you see has 62 miles on it!!!! None of the bearings have embedded material. Some of the photos may look like the bearings are peppered but they are not. I have had them out of the motor for several days not and just took the pictures so the oily surface has accumulated some trash.

I found some abnormal wear on the number 1 and 2 main. Nothing to cause my oil to change colors but definitely something that would have eventually caused issues.

Number 1 Main Cap Heavily worn towards left edge


Number 1 Block (Upper) Bearing Worn on the upper edge


Number 2 Cap (Lower) Worn towards parting line and lower edge


Number 2 Block (Upper) Worn slightly at parting line. The other scratches are from removing plastigauge with a credit card.


Thrust Bearing Slight wear towards top of bearing. You can see where I removed the plastigauge in the middle. The rest of the mains had less wear than this thrust bearing. A couple had no wear at all.


All of the crank journals look perfect with no imperfections on the rods or mains that I can tell.



Since I didn’t find enough wear to change the color of my oil, I inspected the rod bearings next. Every piston (No Load) side bearing showed wear.

Number 1


Number 2


Number 3



Number 4


All of the cap (Load Side) Bearings showed no wear and looked new. I could see where I removed the plastigauge.



All of the caps and rods look great.



When looking at the rods, I found this gem!



The rest of the pistons look fine with minimal wear to the skirt. Remember, these pistons came out of my previous build and they all went back into the same holes so something else happened here.

I then noticed that the number one ring was seized in the ring land. I literally had to dig it out with some pliers and a screwdriver. Number 2 piston also had a slightly seized number one ring. That ring came out with my hands but I had to pull and pry. The 2nd ring spun freely on both pistons but I noticed that it was peppered. The number 1 piston 2nd compression ring was peppered on both sides the number 2 piston 2nd compression ring was just peppered on the top.....



Looking in the cylinders, we can see that number one experienced some lateral wear due to the failed ring.



Number 2 shows some slight wear and number 3 looks like it did when I assembled it.



With the evidence on the rings, I started to suspect oil contamination from blasting media and with the damage to only the top side of number 2 2nd ring, I suspected it came from the intake side.

I started by removing the cams to close all the valves.

All of the cam journals looked to be in good shape.



The cam journal caps show some wear. Nothing that your fingernail catches but its there.



Thats it, I have hit the photo limit.

The next 5 photos are out of order. When I drained the nasty oil out, I cut open the oil filter from the 2 hour run time oil change and the 62 mile oil change and this is what I found.

This is the filter element from the number 1 oil change.



The moly lube used to pack the oil pump did not dissolve in the oil instead, it caked up in the filter element for some reason. This was the worse part the rest of the filter element was not like this.

I cut the element out and it just showed more molly lube.



This is the element from the 62 mile oil change.



I rubbed my glove on the filter element to reveal this.....



First oil change on the left..... Second on the right.



Goodies in the bottom of filter number 1



The bottom of filter number 2 was just more of that goldish bronze color. There were no chunks. I also strained the oil through a paint strainer and it didn’t catch anything noticeable.

These results made me pull the motor in the above posts. Now back to looking at the damage.

I removed exhaust manifold and the intake manifold from the head. When removing the intake, I noticed a lot of oil and chunky material.



Inside the head runners, I started to notice the worse case scenario coming true. There was a buildup of media in the intake runners.



This is what it looks like when wiped with my finger.



I removed the throttle body and found material on the intake side of the throttle body. There is no oil at all in the intercooler pipes nor is there any media.



I removed the valves for inspection and noticed a large amount of buildup on the intake valves.



If you look up by the guides, you can see material on the guides and lodged in the crevices.



With all this horrible news, its time to take some measurements to gauge the damage.

The piston wore just over .001 of an inch. The coating is suppose to be .001 thick so I caught it just as it wore off. Not saying its good, but it was only going to get worse.



I measured the crank journals and they all panned out so the crank made it.



Next up it was time to measure the guides and valves. The guides actually measured pretty good. The valves however are severely worn on the combustion chamber side. Tolerance is no more the .001 tapper.



I also tore down the oil pump I have not yet measured the pump and case but it of course at some of the material and shows some wear.

Here is my current idea of what happened.

Problem number 1: I installed the girdle with out a line hone causing the main bearing wear

Problem number 2: I media blasted the compressor cover, throttle body, intake manifold, oil pan and rear main seal housing. Although these parts where masked off for coating, its apparent that media found its way into some if not all of these parts. From what I see, I believe it was media in the throttle body and/or the intake manifold.

Scenario as I see it was media in the TB/Intake was tumbled around during engine operation. That loosened even more material inside the intake manifold which made its way to the valves and up into the valve guides. The up and down grinding motion caused all the wear to the valve stem. Some of the media also went into the combustion chamber. The media made its way behind the number one ring embedding into the materials and causing the number one ring to seize. The media also blasted the second ring causing the wear to the 2nd compression ring. With the failed ring, we had increased blow by where some media made its way into the crankcase. Once there it was sent through the entire oiling system. I think the color of the oil was changed from the amount of overall minimal wear to so many parts.

This is what I am currently looking at:

Bottom End
1. I will have the cylinders cleaned up with a hone. When they clean up, I will get measurements and calculate piston to wall. I will reuse all the pistons I can or I will buy a new set and bore it slightly.
2. The block will get a line hone with the Kiggly girdle installed
3. I will use the Eagle H beam rods
4. New rod and main bearings
5. Polish the crank slightly

Head
1. Decide weather I can run the current head due to cam cap wear
2. If yes, New Valves guides and a valve job. Deck surface is find and I will use Kiggly beehives.
3. Clean the cam caps up with a scotch brite and check oil clearance

2. If no, get a core out of the garage. Inspect guides and seats, order parts and send out for machine work.

Accessories
1. I will measure the oil pump clearance. If it fails, I will measure the other stock cases I have and possibly use one of those. If not Ill buy another.
2. Turbo needs to be inspected.
3. Throttle body and Intake will be replaced with other units.
4. Valve cover will be scrubbed clean
5. Oil pan will be scrubbed clean as well.

I’ll come up with a solid plan soon and commence to spending some more money.

Happy Boosting
Robert

Sorry to hear the news, l know you will correct the issues and have her running in no time.

Sorry to hear about the misfortune. Im always skeptical to powdercoating parts and this is why. One of my dsm buddies had his valvecover powdercoated and after a few days of driving his engine seized. This was due to media particles clogging the oil filter. Horrible stuff. Good thing you are a DIY 'er and will get her running right.

Wow, I missed the part where this was caused by powder coating. God, that sucks.

This is one of those unfortunate costly mistakes that I think everyone goes through as they venture out into new endeavors. For me, that was making something look nice among a million other things. I dug a huge hole and climbed out rather quickly. In that time I made a grave mistake by overlooking the type of media that I used to blast engine parts. Its going to be a costly one but it hurt my pride more than my pocket book. As much as I didn’t want to admit or make the last to posts, I felt it was important to show so that hopefully it will help others. If those posts and this one can save just one person from making the same simple mistake, it is worth my time.

boostdawd said:

Sorry to hear about the misfortune. Im always skeptical to powdercoating parts and this is why. One of my dsm buddies had his valvecover powdercoated and after a few days of driving his engine seized. This was due to media particles clogging the oil filter. Horrible stuff. Good thing you are a DIY 'er and will get her running right.

Click to expand...

I had what looked to be a good bit of media in the system but my oil filter seemed to be doing the best it could. Oil may have been coming out of the bypass valve but the motor was never starved of oil. It’s important to remove the valve cover baffle when performing this kind of modification and sending it to a company such as @Detective Coating who deals with them and offers the baffle replacement is really the best option.

Vegas smith said:

Wow, I missed the part where this was caused by powder coating. God, that sucks.

Click to expand...

The damage was not caused by powder coating. The damage was caused by the process in which I used to prep the parts for powder coating. I used a blast cabinet with glass beads and another with an abrasive sand material. These are not acceptable to use on engine components. They are nast little critters that can cause the damage that I have. There are other options though.

OEM manufacteres use walnut shells to blast buildup off of intake valves in direct injection motors while the head is still assembled on the motor in the car. Direct injection means that the fuel no longer contacts the back of the valve to clean the deposits so this must be done as a “service”. BMW specifically states to use Walnut shells for this process. They are suppose to be easily cleaned and somewhat oil soluble. They should become softer in oil and would burn up in the combustion chamber instead of fusing to parts. Maybe your exhaust would smell like a pecan pie if you ran E85 but its suppose to be “safer” and an acceptable choice. Soda blasting also comes up a lot. There are ways to blast engine parts, it’s just something that should not be taken lightly as it can lead to thousands in damage and hurt your pride.

I plan to blast and powder coat the parts that will replace the current ones but I will be using methods that are safer alternatives.

Robert

Damn dude, damn... What a let down!

Damn I sand blasted a lot off stuff years ago and didn't get It all out, it ran through the turbo engine and well the crank the rest is history, a lesson well learned, costly too.

Ladies and Gentleman, boys and girls, it’s been 5 years since I sat in this garage and stared at the same car torn apart after only 47 miles. I made mistakes covered in previous posts. I’m here and happy to say that over the last 7 weeks I have burned the midnight oil and got this thing back together. I’ll post updates as I get time with all the pictures that I have but for now I’ll post a couple pics. I am 68 miles and one oil change in at this point. Things seem to be going as planned but I’m it holding my breath considering my last experience!!!

Awesome!! ..Wow 5 yrs just flew by ...

BoostedBeaver said:

Ladies and Gentleman, boys and girls, it’s been 5 years since I sat in this garage and stared at the same car torn apart after only 47 miles. I made mistakes covered in previous posts. I’m here and happy to say that over the last 7 weeks I have burned the midnight oil and got this thing back together. I’ll post updates as I get time with all the pictures that I have but for now I’ll post a couple pics. I am 68 miles and one oil change in at this point. Things seem to be going as planned but I’m it holding my breath considering my last experience!!!

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Click to expand...

Robert! Hell yeah, man! Welcome back and nice job buttoning that motor back up and getting some miles on it!!!

I was literally just watching some of your old YouTube videos this morning. Crazy.

Can't wait to see some vids of the beast!