93 Eclipse 4g37 turbo.

[9!'clipseDOHC]

Subscribed Matt. Good luck getting her fixed!

 

[PieEyedPiper]

You don't think it broke for the same reason you were eating hydraulic lifters?

 

[Mischif]

Subscribed Matt. Good luck getting her fixed!

Thanks Nate.

You don't think it broke for the same reason you were eating hydraulic lifters?

No. It ate those lifters because of one of two reasons. The "how to" i followed to install the lifters said you could just soak them in oil for a few hours and not have to pump them, thats how i used to do it. I'm starting to think thats why they all went. Originally i thought it was due to the increased lift of the reground cam i was running at the time, but im running the stock cam right now so thats not the issue.

 

[Mischif]

So i've had this slight issue ever since i pulled this engine out of storage and put it back together, that until now i've omitted from any of my posts. It first happened when i made a video and was free reving the crap out of it. Went to go drive around and one of my cylinders was missing all the time. trouble shot it and found out i had an oil fouled spark plug. Cleaned it off and it was fine again. Didn't happen again for probably another month or two. The next time it happened was while i was in coasting down a long hill in nuetral and came to a stop light. When i went to drive off it started missing again. Oil fouled spark plug again. I figured out it only would happen if i free revved it alot or sat at idle for too long. So i wound up replacing my valve stem seals hoping this would fix the issue. At first i thought it did, then it happened again. Since it didn't happen very often i lived with it. It slowly started happening more frequently, drive throu's were out of the question. If i caught it quick enough i could just accelerate into boost and it would clear it up, that worked about half the time. Then it got to the point were certain lights at night that take forever to change were almost certain to cause a fouled plug. At first it was just one cylinder that did it. Over time 2 of my other cylinders would do it occasionally as well. Only one cylinder ever got fouled out at a time. Cylinders 1,2, and 4 with 1 and 4 being the ones it happened the most in. I can't even remember how many times i've had to drive across town back home running on just 3 cylinders, boy was it annoying.

Anyway after the rocker broke on me and i replaced it, cylinder 1 pretty much crapped the bed. Within a 5 mile drive it would be fouled out and no longer spark. It even started doing it while i was cruising which has never happened before. Then cylinder 3 did it, the one cylinder that has not had the problem yet. So i'm pretty sure given the high mileage of the engine that my valve guides are done on it.

I'm pretty positive its the guides. Compression comes back damn good so im sure my pistons/rings and head gasket are fine. Turbo has zero shaft play, and shows no signs of leaking oil seals. So worn valve guides is the only reasonable conclusion i can draw from testing. For now i'm just using a bandaid to keep cylinder 1 from fouling out all the damn time. Threw in the biggest size spark plug anti-fouler they have. To my delight its working like a charm. Granted on start ups most the time it smokes alot. That and i'm burning oil at a pretty decent rate.

I'll probably ride it out until im done with my new manifold setup and swap to one of the other heads i have. I have 3 choices. A stock head with around 160k on it. A rebuilt head with about 25k on it with a 3 angle valve job and milled enough to bump me up to about 10.5:1 compression. The third choice would be a rebuilt head with a 3 angle, milled enough to bump me up around 11.5:1 compression, heavily ported, and only about 20k on it.

Obviously the stock head is out of the question since i don't want to be right back in the same boat a few hundred or thousand miles down the road. However i'm not too sure i'll be able to run either of the other two heads given my subpar tuning solution. As it is i'm already running fairly low timing, going any lower and it will just be too much of a slug off boost to really be DD able. So im leaning toward the head that will give me 10.5 compression since that one will have the highest chance of being able to manage it. But then again, the 11.5 one with the major port work should net me an extremely noticeable increase in spool up time that i wish i had.

Which ever one i decided i don't intend on lowing my boost. I'll be staying at 20psi. So i'll be finding out sooner than i thought just how much this stock bottom end can handle. The little 37 has taken everything like a champ so far, so she might just be willing to keep playing.

 

[Mischif]

She lost another life today, wonder how many are left. 236111k

So its been raining for the past 3 days here, and today finally stopped. Went to go get a pack of smokes and it died backing out of the driveway. So after looking a few things over determined that letting it sit outside without a hood for 3 days while raining was a no no. My smic was pretty much full of water. Must of sucked a shit load into the cylinders while trying to leave. Took a little over an hour of pulling my sparks repeatedly to dry them out to finally get it running on all 4 cylinders. Was finally going to get my smokes and decided to check the oil. Boy was i pissed, it was sweat pants gray. Thought i might have blown my head gasket while trying to dry out the cylinders. So i grabbed a copper pipe, spare spark plug anti fouler, and a house coupling and made a leak down tester. Head gasket was good. My rings were also in great shape except cylinder one which had a tiny bit more blow by then the rest, but i expected that. Nothing to write home about. Did an oil change and everything is back to normal.

If i had to guess, about 2 quarts found its way into my oil pan. Not sure how to explain that one. Best explanation i can come up with is since my smic was full my compressor must of had water sitting in it as well. The water made its way through the chra(?) and down my oil drain. Does that make any sense?

 

[Boomer33]

I've been follwing these posts since dsmsource and dsm1eights. Been very interested in the build. Has the water damaged anything? Drain it all out . Change the oil. See what happens. Dont give up now

 

[Mischif]

Yea i took care of all that yesterday. It appears to be fine now.

Update.

Guess the water wore out cylinder 2's rings just enough to cause enough blow by to oil foul the plug and cause a constant miss. In went another spark plug anti fouler, and cylinder 2 came back alive. Cylinders 1&2 both have anti foulers now. She's still not ready to kick the bucket it seems.

 

[Boomer33]

Never under estimate these 37's . I've had mine for 10 years. Every morning is a victory in the driveway

 

[Mischif]

So i need to fix my front passanger side rail/strut tower. Going to reinforce it for some steel tube. Already got the tube. Went with 1 3/4' OD with a .120 wall. Still need to get some 1/8" steel plates. Going to pull the engine to make room to work, and pulling the dash so i don't have to worry about anything catching on fire. While i have everything out im giong to stripe all the extra stuff i don't need from the wire harnesses, and reroute the engine bay fuse box to the cabin.

Went ahead and pulled the dash out today. Removed the wire harness thats to the dash and stripped all the excess stuff off.

Removed all the hvac and fog light wires including the pins and taped the harness back up.

 

[buhay6]

I love your build man. Maybe some hacking and rigging but your dedication and to a less main stream platform is extremely admirable.

 

[Mischif]

^ Thanks.

So haven't gotten much done been way too lazy. Got some more stuff done today.

Put it up on jacks, removed tires, removed passenger axle, fenders, and bumper. Drained transmisison and radiator. Still need to remove driver side axle, engine/transmission, and chassis & engine wire harness. Then i get to the fun part.

All i got done today. Part of my lower radiator support broke so thats another thing that will have to be rewelded. Probably gonna redo part of the front support.

Two of three of my tripod roller bearings on my axle broke. The roller pins inside them fell out. Replaced the pins on those two before but i guess i didn't use the right size pins so they broke again. With both of them broken like that the car vibrates ALOT under acceleration. This thing was keeping me from going into boost at all just about, and made it feel horrible trying to maintain highway speeds. Its definitely getting replaced with a junkyard replacement.

Hopefully i'll have more progress to report tomorrow.

 

[Mischif]

Updates.

Got the engine out.

Got the engine bay harness out.

Got the front chassis harness out.

The crack on my manifold, that runs all the way around.

Where my strut tower started ripping apart.

Think i will use some of my 1/8" plate that i bought and patch all that up on this side.

A view from the other side.

Once i patch the other side i weld this side back up. Then use a length of tube and go from the top of the rail to that circle hole where the engine harness went through, obviously with a plate welded over it.

Also going to add a tube from the end of the rail to the side of the strut tower to tie that end down.

Guess we will see how everythng turns out.

 

[serviceguy]

I know you don't want to hear it but that chassis is coming apart at the seams. I can't believe you don't feel any vibrations, there's nothing holding the strut towers to the actual chassis. I would seriously consider finding a good shell, how hard can that be and how safe would it be to drive the car rigged up the way it is or even with a patched up strut tower? It's great that you're thinking outside the box with your project (turbo 4g37 etc.) but I don't believe that car is any longer streetable.

Believe me, I don't want to be negative but I felt obliged to tell you. Good luck.

 

[AEM2013]

I was wondering if you could give a breakdown on how you installed the manual trany. I have a 1993 1.8 gs with a bad automatic and a 1992 1.8 manual with everything i need . I'm hoping to turn the 92 engine into a turbo project it has 236k though.

 

[untouchablecc]

I know you don't want to hear it but that chassis is coming apart at the seams. I can't believe you don't feel any vibrations, there's nothing holding the strut towers to the actual chassis. I would seriously consider finding a good shell, how hard can that be and how safe would it be to drive the car rigged up the way it is or even with a patched up strut tower? It's great that you're thinking outside the box with your project (turbo 4g37 etc.) but I don't believe that car is any longer streetable.

Believe me, I don't want to be negative but I felt obliged to tell you. Good luck.

Im with this guy. I can't beleive this passes any sort of inspection unless you don't require it in your state. I think after all the shells you have had and can find you are better off just getting another. This is at the point or soon will be at the point where it is unsafe to drive on the road for yourself and others. Not trying to hate on your project but I would not attempt a chassis repair on something of this scale for a street car. If you were taking this to a track by all means go for it but It could be 1 wreck away from a disaster. I do not see your front end repair being able to hold up to what the stock frame work can. Good luck with the rest of your build. Definintely interesting.

 

[AEM2013]

I'm looking at the Garrett GT2860R for my car. I'm wondering if this would be a good choice or do i need to go for a smaller one. I hope to get a good even range of power from my engine with decent torque.

 

[Mischif]

I'm looking at the Garrett GT2860R for my car. I'm wondering if this would be a good choice or do i need to go for a smaller one. I hope to get a good even range of power from my engine with decent torque.

Well with the stock cam, reving past 5.5k is a little pointless, as the power starts to fall off at that point. With that said, try and find a turbo that will spool early and have enough juice to hit 5.5k. A 13g or a t25 would probably be a good choice.

UPDATE:

Finally made some progress. Have the strut tower to rail patched up. Finally decided how im going to reinforce the rail. Have my two anchor plates welded up. Have two of the three tubes im going to use for the rail reinforcement cut to size fitted. Basically got the hard part done, which was everything that required me welding 16guage. So on with the pictures.



Strut tower patched up. Welding 16guage metal is a nightmare with my crap-tastic welder that has two settings. Low, which is useless for anything. High, which loves to burn right through 16guage.

Did a little bit on the other side as well.

Anchor plate welded to the end of my rail.

Anchor plate welded inside of the car.

So originally i had planned to bolt a plate to the firewall on each side. However since that area of the firewall has a fun shape to it, bolting plates to it was out of the question. So i decided i was going to cut a 4" square out of the firewall and weld in a piece of flat plate to make bolting the plates to it easy. Traced out my square and started to cut. Right away i realized it was going to be a big pain in the ass to cut a square out. So i abandoned that and came up with a much better solution.

Decided it would just be easier to have my tube go straight through the firewall in one piece.

The main reinforcement tube along with the outside anchor tube.

Still need to cut and fit the inside one. Then weld them up and that should add more than enough reinforcement. However im not stopping there. I've decided to tie in the end of the strut tower with the end of the main tube. So with that i shouldn't ever have to worry about the strut tower starting to break again.

Also decided to listen to one piece of criticism i've gotten about not having my front end tied together. Going to tie the passenger and driver side rails together as well using the same tubing im using for the rail reinforcement.

 

[buhay6]

Thanks for listening to the constructive criticism, the way your strut towers were coming apart like that is scary as hell. Welding the tubing to it should help but even then it might still continue to shear the metal, so you might end up having to get a new chassis but time will tell as to how long it holds.

I was I need of a welder last year and found thermal archs fabricator 181i was a steal for the price. Gave me the option of stick, mig or tig welding ( got pictures in my build thread) even being a first timer with auto body welding it did great. I payed a little over 1k for it but I believe you can get it locally for $900 or less, there's not a lot of youtube reviews on it but you can't go wrong when it comes to buying a welder from a company that makes Miller's parts for them.

 

[pacn91]

I have to admire your determination man. This has been an entertaining read. My work pc filters out the pics, so i cant see any of them. This visual that i get is greatly horrible. Reminds me of my dirt tracking days.. alot of fun. This is definitely the road into, " uncharted territory." anyway, even greatness has a rough draft and the knowledge that you learn along the way is priceless. good luck and keep it up.

 

[Mischif]

Made more progress today. Got everything tacked together good. Almost out of welding rods so it might be another week or two before im able to finish up the project.

The inside tube set in place. Took forever to get it cut to fit.

The outside tacked together.

Inside tacked to plate.

Inside tubes tacked together.

End of strut tower tied to tube and tacked together.

Going to have to hit up the junkyard when i get an axle and pick up a cross member so i can mock the tubes up for tieing the end of the rails back together. Not sure how i should do it. I only have 5ft of tube left which wont be enough to do the front, unelss i angel the tubes from the rails inward so i wont need as long of a piece to connect them. Its either that or make the straight and use a section of fence tubing to temporarily tie them together.

 

[AEM2013]

Well with the stock cam, reving past 5.5k is a little pointless, as the power starts to fall off at that point. With that said, try and find a turbo that will spool early and have enough juice to hit 5.5k. A 13g or a t25 would probably be a good choice.

Did a little more research on some more Garrett turbos. How about the GT2554R. I don't know much about the pressure ratio but for where i'm at its about 1.9. I wouldn't want to go over 20 psi. Would a reground cam to 6k work better? I did get the "Garrett Boost Adviser" app that helps calculate pressures and what turbos are recommended in hopes that this would narrow the selection. Now being that the trim on Garrett turbos are relatively big would that mean that these turbos are too big? What other brand would you recommend? I do hope to do the same mods you did on your motor. Thank you for your help.

 

[Mischif]

From what i was able to look up real quick it looks like that garret is around a 60 trim, which may be a bit to big, but then again it is dual ball bearing so it may work. Why not stick with a mitsu turbo? I think a 13g would probably be the best choice. Good spool up time with a good top end on our motor. A cam upgrade will always be a good upgrade over stock, just don't go too big. The stock valve train should be good to handle a 7k rev. If your going to be using the stock ecu, it has a rev limit of 6.5k. So as long as the bottom end your working with is in good shape you will have no problems hitting that with the proper cam. However i think picking an exhaust manifold is more important than your turbo. If you go with the 4g32t manifold, it has very small runners so i doubt it will support a bigger turbo than what it was designed for. There are log manifolds, a cheap alternative but i dont like them. Since with that style the exhaust gases aren't directed toward the turbine they don't make for very fast spool up.

Which ever route you go i would recommend a heat shield of some kind to protect your alternator. I've killed two due to the heat from the turbo and me not having any heat shields. That's why i relocated my alternator to where the a/c compressor used to be. On that note, you may also need one for your power steering if your equipped with it.

 

[AEM2013]

K. I was thinking about having a custom made header for putting on my turbo. I will try to find a smaller turbo for faster spool time. Do you recommend eBay for finding the Mitsubishi turbo? I don't have ac on my car anyways so that's shouldn't be a big problem with moving some things around for heat protection. Have you tried to make your valve ports bigger to increase VE and air flow? Just wondering if that's possible or not.

 

[boosted240]

This has to be BY FAAAAAAR the most ghetto shit iv ever seen in my entire life. And im talking about having to do with anything, not just cars. I dont even know what to say. But on another note, your lucky to even be alive. Thats probably the worst damage to a car iv ever seen without the person being dead.

 

[Mischif]

K. I was thinking about having a custom made header for putting on my turbo. I will try to find a smaller turbo for faster spool time. Do you recommend eBay for finding the Mitsubishi turbo? I don't have ac on my car anyways so that's shouldn't be a big problem with moving some things around for heat protection. Have you tried to make your valve ports bigger to increase VE and air flow? Just wondering if that's possible or not.

Ebay is fine as long as its an actual mitsu turbo and not one of the knock offs. Craigslist is a good place to look. I would say look in the classifieds on here but you'll need to get your post count up.

Yes you can port out the intake and exhaust ports on your head. Just don't port too much or you'll break thought into a water/oil passage. You'll be able to feel it with your finger once you start getting close to that point. Theres actually a nice little ledge on the inside of the ports right by the valves that if you smooth that out will help increase flow alot. Id say its more important to smooth that out than to make your ports bigger. For the ports i would just do a basic port, getting rid of the little bumps in the casting. Also another good idea would be to polish your combustion chambers and piston tops, will help reduce temperatures inside your combustion chambers.

Heres some pics of one of my heads i ported back when i was still n/a. You can't see that ledge im talking about tho.

But on another note, your lucky to even be alive. Thats probably the worst damage to a car iv ever seen without the person being dead.

Back in the early 2000's when i was in hs still i was in a bad wreck with my first dsm. Tboned a 88 delta doing about about 45mph. The damage to that one was alot worse than what happened to my current one. Needless to say i strongly believe in wearing a shoulder belt.