Street Build bkrathwohl's Galant VR4 #1228/2000

[bkrathwohl]

I just noticed my rear brake lines are going to the wrong ports on the prop valve. I will need to fix that tomorrow.

 

[bkrathwohl]

Well I took the tow brackets off the car and cleaned them up a bit.

Before sandblasting:

Primer:

Paint:

I started taking a look at what I was going to do for my fuel setup. I started with the easy part, or so I thought.

I'm not sure if it was the size of the hardline being slightly wrong or what, but these fittings slipped on HARD! In the end, though, they slipped on. I don't foresee them coming off, ever. Especially on the low pressure side!

Next I put the fuel tank in for the final time! It feels good to be putting parts back on the car knowing I wont need to take them back off.

Next is where I ran in to some issues. I brought the Russell fuel hose under the car to try to mock up what I wanted to do with it. There isn't really a good way to mount it along the brake lines without having it dangle down further than I would want. I also don't want to use the cushion clamps that most kits have as I don't want to screw into the body.

Eventually I discovered that the passenger side frame rail has the same bolt holes as the driver side, they even have the nut welded inside the frame rail for threads! I suspect this has something to do with RHD VR4's, but maybe it's just a coincidence. Either way i'm happy!

After this discovery I decided that I am going to run fuel lines along the passenger frame rail. I'm working on some custom brackets, more on this later...

 

[bkrathwohl]

I replaced the fuel filter element in my Aeromotive fuel filter. It's pretty straight forward.

Aeromotive fuel filter rebuild 12601

The filter that came out was pretty gross looking.

The kit comes with a replacement o-ring for resealing the case.

The new element just pushes on snug.

The fuel filter didn't clean up quite as nicely as the AFPR did.

 

[bkrathwohl]

I finally stopped dragging my feet and painted the engine block tonight. It turned out pretty good for coming out of a rattle can. I'm sure it isn't going to hold up for years, but it'll be rebuilt by then and i'll do it properly.

It's pretty much impossible to get into some of these places, I did the best I could.

Primer:

Paint:

I used mineral spirits to clean up the valve cover too, it's getting painted next. I'm not huge on the shaved valve cover look, but it'll do until I get AN fittings welded on one of my other valve covers.

 

[bkrathwohl]

Here's a little before and after. What a difference!

Before:

After:

 

[95eclipser]

Looks good!

 

[bkrathwohl]

I worked on the valve cover today. I was thinking about painting it red, I forgot how good it looks without paint though! I think ill leave it.

They apparently sell aircraft paint stripper in an aerosol form now. After trying it I think I prefer the jelly.

This stuff is nasty.

I used some wire brushes to scrape the paint loose.

Next I hosed it down with some water to remove the big chunks.

There was still a good amount of paint left on there. I continued spraying mineral spirits and wire brushing around the various areas.

It turned out pretty good.

 

[bkrathwohl]

I've been dabbling in a few different areas over the last few days. It started with my fuel line brackets.

The first piece of the puzzle arrived in the mail, I was pretty pumped!

This, along with some scrap steel that I was able to get from work, was the beginning of my brackets.

They are far from completion, but they give me a good idea of what the final product will look like.

These also showed up in the mail.

My thought here was to weld a nut onto the back of the brackets. With that I should be able to just screw in these little u shaped clamps to hold the fuel lines to the bracket. They are supposed to hold two 1/2" sized hoses. At this point i'm not sure that these will suffice, I may need to go a step bigger.

It turns out the Russell twist-lok hose is slightly bigger OD than SS hoses. These -6an clamps that I ordered are also too small, so I will have to go up a size here as well.

Some other stuff started trickling in. I've heard that the rear left brake caliper is difficult to find at times. I ordered one just to be safe. I'd rather have it ahead of time instead of needing one and not being able to find one.

I thought I ordered the rest of my suspension setup as well.

I ended up forgetting the tophats. Ill have to get them ordered soon.

I spent an afternoon cleaning some bits of the engine as well. I decided to use the front case with straight cut gears that came on the Galant originally. It seems to be in better condition than the helical one that came with my longblock. To be safe, I am going to clean both and check the tolerances of the oil pump gears in each.

I'm using the old pine-sol trick here. It should clean up these parts nicely!

I'm going to take some of the other engine brackets in to work to sandblast and paint. No need for rusty brackets!

 

[95eclipser]

Your updates are always awesome. Filled with a bunch of shinny parts to look at. Very nice attention to detail.

I have to ask. So does pine-sol act as like a degreaser? I have never heard of this trick..

 

[bkrathwohl]

Your updates are always awesome. Filled with a bunch of shinny parts to look at. Very nice attention to detail.

I have to ask. So does pine-sol act as like a degreaser? I have never heard of this trick..

Thanks for the kind words!

It absolutely does. It's a trick I picked up from a friend. Basically you soak your parts in Pine-Sol overnight and you should be able to wipe off all the grot the next day.

Ill probably leave these in there for a couple days, agitating the parts every night (just for my own peace of mind). Pine-Sol is nice because it doesn't damage rubber seals or hoses, is easily washed away, environmentally friendly, and lets be honest it smells pretty good.

Be careful with gold plated parts, it can eat away at that finish.

I'll post some pictures once the parts are cleaned up so you can see the results.

 

[livedsm4g63]

Nick for the win.

 

[bkrathwohl]

I did some more prep work on my brackets. Now that I have the hose clamps I was able to trim the excess off of the brackets. I drilled the remaining holes in the brackets for the clamps as well.

While cleaning up the brackets I decided to round some of the rough edges.

Now that the brackets are cleaned up I was able to get the hardware necessary. This will be the end result.

I am going to weld the nut to the back of the bracket before I paint them.

Here is the result of the Pine-Sol cleaning.

Everything turned out great! Here is the dirty Pine-Sol.

 

[bkrathwohl]

I stopped by a friends house today to see about getting these nuts welded on the back of the bracket.

After some trial and error we ended up getting them on, they don't look terribly pretty but they will hold.

Cleaned up a bit.

Ready for paint! I don't really have anything set up in my new garage for painting small pieces. This will have to do.

I had to enlarge the holes on my fuel clamps to accept an m6 bolt.

I re-adjusted the brake lines so that they are going to the correct ports.

I started getting the fuel tank ready for fuel lines. Come to find out I ordered the wrong size hardline to an fitting. I have the correct one on the way.

My pipe cutter was a bit large. I had to bend the hardline up to cut the end off.

 

[bkrathwohl]

I'm not completely happy with the 1/2" u shaped clamps that I bought, they squeeze the hose a lot more than I would like. To remedy this I ordered slightly bigger 5/8" clamps to see how those will fit.

I tried mocking up the fuel line to see if I could get an estimate on lengths. It didn't really work out because I hadn't yet decided on where in the engine bay I was going to mount the fuel filter and flex fuel sensor.

To mount the fuel filter I had ordered some 2" clamps off ebay, they aren't the greatest but I think they will do.

I wasn't really sure where to mount this. I decided to cut one of the mounting tabs off and mount it towards where the AC lines used to be. This is a good place as my fuel lines will be running up right below it.

As far as the flex fuel sensor, there weren't a lot of areas where I could use at least two of the mounting points. Right above the Heater hoses there were two different threaded holes. That actually worked perfect!

The correct hardline to an fitting arrived. I was able to get the fuel tank pretty much ready to go. I just need to drop in the fuel pump assembly.

I didn't really do anything else as I need to wait for these newer brackets to come before I can cut the hose to length. I cleaned up the head a bit to prep it for the front case rebuild.

Some other goodies arrived as well.

A member on the ECMLink forums was parting out his VR4 and had this up for $200. I figured the piping alone would be worth it so I could use it as a template to make new ones. I liked that the intercooler was side exit on both sides, that will make it easy to get a new core. The BOV looks to be authentic as well, bonus!

 

[Dsmkauai]

Looks just like my fmic setup (mines a vibriant core) mine works great but I deleted the a/c. And put my fmic on the lower Frame rail instead of out front. Took alittle trimming and I need to move the radiator brackets over like a inch still. But I still was able to put the radiator in for now just sitting on the brackets not in . I have a new 1g mishimoto to install next once the mounts are in the proper place. It flows so much better and I don't have a single overheating issue. Even with the hawaii weather and traffic

 

[bkrathwohl]

Looks just like my fmic setup (mines a vibriant core) mine works great but I deleted the a/c. And put my fmic on the lower Frame rail instead of out front. Took alittle trimming and I need to move the radiator brackets over like a inch still. But I still was able to put the radiator in for now just sitting on the brackets not in . I have a new 1g mishimoto to install next once the mounts are in the proper place. It flows so much better and I don't have a single overheating issue. Even with the hawaii weather and traffic

It was on a VR4 before so at least I know it will fit! I really like this setup rather than the VRSF 1g or 2g inlet/outlet areas on the core. I'd like to clean up the piping and powder coat it, or just get new piping made using it as a template. I'm excited to see it on the car!

 

[Dsmkauai]

For sure bro I hate how they have it go under. There's plenty of room for it to go thru like this setup and mine. I actually just switched to a new jpipe setup that's even better. Instead of going up and over mine goes down then over. So much cleaner and keeps the ic pipe away from the exh mani more. the only thing you will probably have to do is move the radiator over. Unless you can find one that will fit. I'm going to move my bottom mounts over. Which only requires drilling out the welds and moving and rewelding them.

 

[bkrathwohl]

One order of the new clamps arrived today. It's a double cushion clamp.

I figured I would just do a couple of ends since I could fully mount the lines now. It won't be permanent but I should be able to get the front subframe on and change out the u clamps later since they are all under the car.

I didn't really know what I was doing with the Russell Twistlok hose, I just winged it.

Time to test out my vice jaw liner!

There was some hose assembly lube and fitting assembly lube that was recommended when I bought my fuel hose, it was cheap so I figured I might as well get some.

Now... push and twist?

Apparently so! Man did these things require some force, it would probably be a lot easier to heat the hose up before trying to jam it on the barbs.

I ran one full line from the fuel sender to the fuel filter. I wasn't sure how much was left over for the return line but I figured I would just end it somewhere in the engine bay. I can always run another short line to go to the flex fuel sensor.

It turned out pretty well, i'll be able to put a 90* fitting on the end of the hose and it will run right into the flex fuel sensor!

Here are the pictures running front to back, it looks pretty freaking good!

 

[92AWDHX40]

Looking great gives me ideas on my build and next one.

 

[godschylde777]

Man I get the chills just remebering the pain I had replacing all of my bushing.

 

[bkrathwohl]

Well, I guess it's back to square one. Ever since painting the engine bay, and how fantastic that turned out, i've been really kicking myself about some of the underbody bits. We all know spray paint isn't going to hold up for the long haul.

Then I saw this when I was playing with my fuel line setup.

Oh hell no. Off it came.

I was able to find a powder coater 30 minutes away. He had a powdercaoted 4g63 valve cover on his main page, it was a sign. I spoke with him and he said he would be able to do my subframes. If i'm getting the subframes done I might as well do the control arms too. Ill be stopping by today to drop off my parts.

I was also going to "hold off" (hah, right) on doing the side skirt/rear wheel well area. Well not anymore, I ripped off the dogleg and side skirt to see what lies beneath. Other than a pile of dirt there wasn't a whole lot. One rusty area on the passenger side.

Ill be prepping this whole area for rust bullet and blackshell. It's going to be hidden under a side skirt so I don't really care about color matching.

Now, on to something a little more productive. I packed my oil pump with some petroleum jelly and readied the front case for assembly!

New crank seal and oil pump sprocket seal.

Now to mount the front case and oil filter housing!

I cleaned up a bunch of old RTV off of the oil pan with a wire brush. I might end up getting that powder coated as well, but for now it will be able to cover up the bottom end. While that was off I decided I would clean up all of the gunk that was in the oil pan mounting holes. There was so much RTV.

Another successful night!

 

[95eclipser]

looks like you made some good progress over this holiday weekend. I'm excited to see this thing turn over.

On the sub frames. My older build i would have torn them off and re did them like you did. Now I would just clean them up again and hit it with spray paint and kept on trucking. But you made the right move.

Keep it up.

 

[GST with PSI]

Oh hell no. Off it came.

You're a better man than I. Serious dedication here.

 

[bkrathwohl]

looks like you made some good progress over this holiday weekend. I'm excited to see this thing turn over.

On the sub frames. My older build i would have torn them off myself now. I would just hit cleaned them up again and hit it with spray paint and kept on trucking. But you made the right move.

Keep it up.

Yes, me too... one day!

If this was any other DSM I may have went that route. The only thing making me so anal is that there are only 2000 of these from 91 and I have one of them.

You're a better man than I. Serious dedication here.

I'm disappointed, you yell at me for not doing the engine bay correctly and then you complain that fixing subframe parts is too difficult...you're better than that.

 

[92AWDHX40]

Great job I'm gonna do all i can for mine. but find another shell but swap and keep all the parts which I've been restoring for years I was able to find lots of parts over the years from different cars keep it up.