Altered Mental Status (1G AWD 5spd)

[pauleyman]

Need more advice from you fellas. I've got some 1G 2 piston calipers and brackets, but they've been sitting outside for...awhile.


New calipers are like $50 a piece from rockauto. The rebuild kit is $30 total.


Should I just rebuild these and try to remove as much rust/refinish it as much as possible on the inside, or are they pretty much unrebuildable? What should I do, preferably from those who have rebuilt brake calipers before. Rebuild the ones I have, or just say screw it and buy reman ones fresh and ready to go. I've decided my next upgrade is gonna be the bigger front brakes and some good pads/rotors.

30$???
The seal kit is less than 4$.
The issue for me would be are the slide pin holes rusted and are the pistons ok? I don't care if the cup is rusted so long as the sealing surface is clean.

 

[CrackedDSM]

30$???
The seal kit is less than 4$.
The issue for me would be are the slide pin holes rusted and are the pistons ok? I don't care if the cup is rusted so long as the sealing surface is clean.

I don't have high hopes. And tbh I was buying into the "more expensive known brand good, cheap less known brand bad" is that not the case? If so, WOOT.

But yeah, if the slide pin holes are rusted would you give up/throw the white flag? Or can they be cleaned? And I can get replacement pistons.


Basically what I'm asking is what would be the nail in the coffin as far as rebuilding calipers go?

 

[pauleyman]

I don't have high hopes. And tbh I was buying into the "more expensive known brand good, cheap less known brand bad" is that not the case? If so, WOOT.

But yeah, if the slide pin holes are rusted would you give up/throw the white flag? Or can they be cleaned? And I can get replacement pistons.


Basically what I'm asking is what would be the nail in the coffin as far as rebuilding calipers go?

The piston bore and the pin holes. If those are bad start over

 

[BLACK'98DSM]

Honestly I'd start with checking the bleeder screws. I rebuilt and painted some calipers that seemed fine, once they were installed and down to bleeding stage both of the bleeder screws rounded off. I couldn't get them out with a torch and vice grips. I ended up drilling them both out and retapping for a larger size screw. It was tough finding the right size screw to use. Not to mention my paint got cooked when I was running the torch. So check to make sure you can break those loose without rounding the hex off or stripping the threads out. Even if the caliper isn't internally rusted (which mine weren't), the bleeder screws & threads can still be fuct.

 

[chrisman287]

Do you have a pic from further away of the knob? I like how it looks. Maybe I’ll get a light up one for mine

 

[CrackedDSM]

Do you have a pic from further away of the knob? I like how it looks. Maybe I’ll get a light up one for mine

How far away we talkin'? I can always snap more pictures.

 

[chrisman287]

How far away we talkin'? I can always snap more pictures.

Hmm like when you open the door that pov and maybe slightly closer. Definitely looks nice

 

[1990TSIAWDTALON]

Is it a weighted knob? I LOVE my GREDDY weighted knob. The light up feature on that knob is really "trick"!

 

[CrackedDSM]

Is it a weighted knob? I LOVE my GREDDY weighted knob. The light up feature on that knob is really "trick"!

It is not weighted. I kept my spare knob which was the weighted leather Evo 5 shift knob. That thing is heavy as FAWK.

 

[CrackedDSM]

I think this is a really stupid idea, but honestly..I think this weekend is the time for me to start over on the tune and do it all myself. It's lean everywhere anyway and is doing weird things at idle. So nows the time!


Good thing is I'll keep my current settings and maybe tweak those a tiny bit with Scott so I have something to fall back on. But plan for this weekend is start over. Use a stock VE map, dial the deadtimes down as far as it takes for it to idle matching wideband and AFRest, then adjust the WOT if that makes it semi-drivable. From there, perfect cruise and then idle. I'd really like to not have to use the MAFComp table at all. I want to do it right. Also want to do it myself.

But yeah. I do also want to drive the damn car to work this week, so...we'll see what happens. I probably am not gonna post up much this weekend unless it goes well, because otherwise it's just more whinging from me and honestly I'm over that being in the build thread. Lol. Wish me luck boyzzz.

 

[1990TSIAWDTALON]

Good luck! It's not a bad thing to do. Just time.

 

[92Turbski]

I think this is a really stupid idea, but honestly..I think this weekend is the time for me to start over on the tune and do it all myself. It's lean everywhere anyway and is doing weird things at idle. So nows the time!


Good thing is I'll keep my current settings and maybe tweak those a tiny bit with Scott so I have something to fall back on. But plan for this weekend is start over. Use a stock VE map, dial the deadtimes down as far as it takes for it to idle matching wideband and AFRest, then adjust the WOT if that makes it semi-drivable. From there, perfect cruise and then idle. I'd really like to not have to use the MAFComp table at all. I want to do it right. Also want to do it myself.

But yeah. I do also want to drive the damn car to work this week, so...we'll see what happens. I probably am not gonna post up much this weekend unless it goes well, because otherwise it's just more whinging from me and honestly I'm over that being in the build thread. Lol. Wish me luck boyzzz.

Before you do any of that, boost leak test, boost leak test, boost leak test, that bish!

 

[CrackedDSM]

No tune stuff done yet, but this did come in. Paid like $4 for it.

Pretty fitting.

 

[Anfurnyy]

No tune stuff done yet, but this did come in. Paid like $4 for it.

View attachment 748746

Pretty fitting.

I had one of these..


Then stuff did break and it wasn't funny anymore

 

[CrackedDSM]

Quick question, is there anything in a tune that can make these cars hard to restart when hot? Is there like a cranking enrichment table where I can add or remove fuel on cranking based on temps? I’d be curious to try to pull fuel when it’s hot and see how it restarts VS adding fuel.


Because I swear on the maf tune it was never hard to restart. It only got hard to hot restart on SD.

 

[1990TSIAWDTALON]

Keystart working?

 

[Anfurnyy]

Quick question, is there anything in a tune that can make these cars hard to restart when hot? Is there like a cranking enrichment table where I can add or remove fuel on cranking based on temps? I’d be curious to try to pull fuel when it’s hot and see how it restarts VS adding fuel.


Because I swear on the maf tune it was never hard to restart. It only got hard to hot restart on SD.

There is a cranking fuel adjust table in the DA page based on temperature.

Also log "fuelcrankingadj" and that will tell you where in this table you'll need to adjust fueling while cranking when hot. I'm honestly surprised you have issues with it firing on gasoline. Should just light right up honestly

 

[chrisman287]

Keystart working?

I’ve never had issues with hot start and my starter is on a push button so no keystart. 2g tho but ecmlink ofc

I think he has something else going on

 

[1990TSIAWDTALON]

On a 1g, you will try 20 times before it will finally come to life. Just a simple check with ECMLink. I got stranded out of town for a while until that issue was discovered and solved. It was dam near impossible.

 

[CrackedDSM]

Keystart working?

I keep forgetting this. I need to add it to my capture values list.


What ended up being the fix after the keystart thing was discovered for you, Marty?


Also throwing two logs up here. One is cruise, and the other is a 3rd Gear Pull. The cruise log I FINALLY caught the "impossible to restart" issue where it died at a light, and you can see in the log how many attempts and how long it took to get it to start again. Like Marty said, damn near impossible. You have to let it sit for awhile, or just keep on trying.


Edit - I must've added it and forgot about it, because its in the list of captured values now Marty. Give it a gander.


Double Edit - WTF is going on with my battery voltage when I am trying to recrank it. It's a relatively new battery but it claims to drop down to 8v at one point then picks back up. Uh....WTAF? Anyone seen this before?

 

[Justin DuBois]

In my case, if I do not have hot start enrichment, it is hard to start. Without it, it would barely catch, and the o2 would read close to 14.7, and slowly catch a bit more each time until the idle stabilized. Had to nurse the throttle just to keep it alive.

With the hot start enrichment enable, It fires over quite strong, and the o2, goes rich, into the 10’s and then settles back to 14.7.

yes, voltage when cranking takes a dive into 7-9v. It puts a huge load on the battery

 

[CrackedDSM]

In my case, if I do not have hot start enrichment, it is hard to start. Without it, it would barely catch, and the o2 would read close to 14.7, and slowly catch a bit more each time until the idle stabilized. Had to nurse the throttle just to keep it alive.

With the hot start enrichment enable, It fires over quite strong, and the o2, goes rich, into the 10’s and then settles back to 14.7.

yes, voltage when cranking takes a dive into 7-9v. It puts a huge load on the battery

Awesome, good to know. I had it enabled, but I swear every single time I enable it I post a log and someone is like "why is this enabled, turn it off" I'm gonna enable it and just keep it enabled. It was running pretty lean on first start up this morning, so it could use it.


Big thanks for the knowledge about battery voltage drop on startup.



Also: Driving this car on a properly adjusted clutch pedal is amazing. I didn't realize how "difficult" the car was to drive before with essentially an on/off switch of a clutch pedal. Having actual range to slip it is awesome. Very fun. And honestly this shift knob is awesome. It almost press fits to the shifter, so I feel almost mechanically connected to the transmission. I can feel it going into gear. It doesn't grind, but I can actually feel it slip past the synchro and into gear. It's awesome, but also crazy.

Can't wait to get the small stuff sorted and to rip it. It's got 251 break in miles so far, so only 249 to go before we turn it up.

 

[Anfurnyy]

When you try to crank it dies warm, and your battery voltage is low like that, does your log actually show an RPM signal?

I'm kind of fighting the same issue, and when I try to restart mine voltage drops to like 9 while cranking and it never gives off an engine speed signal.

If I hook up a jump pack to restart, it's like 11v while cranking and fires up almost immediately.

 

[CrackedDSM]

When you try to crank it dies warm, and your battery voltage is low like that, does your log actually show an RPM signal?

I'm kind of fighting the same issue, and when I try to restart mine voltage drops to like 9 while cranking and it never gives off an engine speed signal.

If I hook up a jump pack to restart, it's like 11v while cranking and fires up almost immediately.

I don’t think the log shows an rpm signal while cranking.

So weird. Wonder what it could be.

Pretty happy with this in the meantime.

 

[Anfurnyy]

I don’t think the log shows an rpm signal while cranking.

So weird. Wonder what it could be.


View attachment 748777

Pretty happy with this in the meantime.

I definitely don't know how it works for sure but to me if there's no rpm signal then the car doesn't know engine position and therefore doesn't know when to fire the coils and injectors? I'm probably talking out my ass but seems like a possible logical explanation?