Dream Car

[jukematt]

June, 2014: First Dragstrip Run!

My car is still basically stock. I have a 14B or maybe my Small 16G at this point and a manual boost controller but no other supporting mods, stock injectors, SMIC, stock tune. My car can only handle like 12 psi of boost. Stock for me was 8-9 psi. But I wanted to see what my car would run and I'd never been to a dragstrip. Well, I tried three runs and each time I launched pretty good and could feel the pull of the boost, but then by the time I shifted to third gear I would lose power. It was like I had let off the gas and my car started slowing down even though I was still at WOT.

I couldn't figure out what was wrong at first and I was sad because this girl in this old Camaro was basically neck and neck with me for my last two tries and I was curious to see who would win (not the car with no hood in the picture below, that was just my first run). It was a hot day and we determined I had heat soaked my intercooler. The stock SMIC just could not cool down the air and the ECU pulled a significant amount of timing. For my last try I sprayed water on the front of the intercooler hoping the extra convection would help but it didn't really. Once I started driving normally everything was fine again. After I left I even did some hard pulls on the road since there were no cars and in the shade. It pulled hard just fine. I need to install my VRSF FMIC I bought...

 

[jukematt]

May, 2015: Transmission Dies

I was driving on the freeway and I start losing power. When I hit the gas, the RPMs barely were moving. When I tried shifting it was hard and didn't want to go out of gear or switch to a new gear. I put in Neutral and coast off the next exit. I look under my car and I see a little transmission fluid coming out.

I called my insurance for a tow and told them that I need a flatbed. They asked what car and I told them. I see a flatbed truck arrive and was going to flag them down but they were actually there for a car across the street that apparently was also broken down. Then the tow truck driver for me was not a flatbed but just one of those pickup truck ones. I told him that I asked for a flatbed because my car is AWD. The guy didn't believe me! He said it was fine because he had these rear rollers where you put them around the tire and then they lift them up. So that's what he did. But he still didn't believe me it was AWD! I told him that not all of these cars are AWD but some are (the GSX). When we got in the cab, he handed me this little handheld device where you can enter the VIN and it pulls up details about the car. He literally had me enter the VIN in the device where I showed him that it stated AWD before he finally accepted it.

If you'll notice in my pictures, I have this little yellow tag on the bottom of my license plate. It is a "FLATBED TOW ONLY" sticker. The guy said no tow truck driver would look at that. I also pointed out the one in my window but again he said they probably wouldn't notice, so that concerned me. I have thought about checking into the legality of covering the VIN on the dash with a FLATBED TOW sticker so they are forced to look at it. Anyway, back to the transmission.

I thought it was coming from the drain plug. But when I took a rag to it and tried wiping it away, I found that it was leaking in a spot that was much higher up. When I wiped the fluid away, it started pouring out faster! There was a hairline crack where the casing was super thin and it opened up from my finger pressure against it wiping the fluid away. In the picture, you can see the stream of fluid and at the top middle of the picture is the crack.

I work as an engineer so I brought it into my work and I had the technicians disassemble it so I could see inside what was wrong, and I had never seen the inside of a transmission before. Well, apparently one of the bearings failed and pieces of it were strewn all over the transmission. When the bearing failed, it caused one of the gears to flop around everywhere and as it turned, it machined through the aluminum housing.

This is the kind of bearing that failed. About half of those little cylinders were all over the transmission. The others were still mostly inside the bearing.

Fox's owner had a contact who rebuilds the transmissions. I kept one piece of the internals as a souvenir and gave him the rest as a core for a discount on the transmission.

 

[jukematt]

Alright, I don't have a date but sometime after this and before September, 2016 my catalytic converter went out. Again, Fox's owner had a contact who was going to sell me just a used catalytic converter, but I noticed he had what looked like a homemade exhaust. The exhaust was a full downpipe connected to a catless 3" pipe all the way back to a high flow muffler with a 4" tip; designed to fit a 2G GSX. He said he would sell me that whole thing for $100 and a high-flow cat for like $65 or something. I just remember that it was as much as, or a little cheaper than the stock cat by itself. Also, the downpipe already had a bung for a wideband AFR sensor. YES PLEASE!

I picked that up, bought four 3" 2-bolt flanges, and took it to an exhaust shop (either Midas or Meineke, I can't remember, it's the only time I've ever been to those). I asked them if they would cut the pipe, weld on the flanges, as well as weld on the other two flanges to the cat and bolt it up for me. I can't remember if the section that would be post-cat already had a bung for the rear O2 sensor, or if I bought a bung for that as well, but either way, they took care of all that without a problem and by the time I got out of there, I had a fully functioning, emissions compliant, 3" exhaust with a high flow cat.

Also, I did have my radiator go bad at one point and replaced that with a new one. I also found out that the DENSO 221-4300 is the same radiator as the stock 2G one, although now that part is discontinued so I would probably go MISHIMOTO if it ever goes out again.

 

[jukematt]

Oh! I did take my car autocrossing one time. That was fun!

 

[jukematt]

More shots I had lying around from various times since I've owned her.

 

[jukematt]

2016-09-05 Engine Dies!

I was sitting at a stop light and the car just dies for no reason. It was just before the turn into the apartment complex I was living at the time and a slight hill. I tried starting again and couldn't so I put her in Neutral and when the light turned green, no cars were coming so I just coasted forward, turned left into the complex, and right into my carport parking spot. I popped the hood and removed the top timing belt cover. What I find is a broken timing belt. It was still under tension but there were chunks broken off, long strings of it I could pull out, and looks like it may have skipped at least one tooth.

I could not do car work in the complex so I started riding my bike to work or taking a ride share and just left her parked there. At one point my manager asked about it and I told her it died and I haven't figured out where to take it to work on it. She said I couldn't have a non-running car in the complex. I told her I'm not working on it and it doesn't look like it doesn't run, it's just parked. She said it doesn't matter and I had to remove it from the property. I was not happy but I asked my friends if they would help me push her onto the street where there was space for street parking.

A few days later, it looked like the passenger side glass had ice on it but it was quite warm out. I touched it and the window just shattered to the ground in a million pieces. I think some passerby just hit it and it didn't break all the way. I had to call one of those mobile glass repair shops to come out and fix it but until then I taped some plastic bags around it to close it off and protect against rain. I had the glass fixed but I still had no solution for fixing her so I had to move her to a storage unit. In town they are EXPENSIVE and very few actually let you store a car. I found a cheap one a little over an hour drive away and towed her there. He didn't have any units available but he did have an open car port that he let me rent.

I put her partially up on jack stands so all her weight wasn't on the tires that were sure to go flat over time and there she sat until I could rent a house or something where I would have a garage to fix her. It was even raining that day...

 

[syndr0me]

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That's a bummer! when your rebuilt the engine, did you use new machine head bolts from the hardware store on the oil pan? IIRC, one of them has to ground down a little to avoid interference or your risk shaving the timing belt ever so slightly until catastrophic failure. Kinda like whats going on with the pic. Just an idea.

 

[jukematt]

That's a bummer! when your rebuilt the engine, did you use new machine head bolts from the hardware store on the oil pan? IIRC, one of them has to ground down a little to avoid interference or your risk shaving the timing belt ever so slightly until catastrophic failure. Kinda like whats going on with the pic. Just an idea.

Two of them are shorter and need to bolt into the front case where the timing belt is. I think they were in the right place.
I actually found what I think is the issue, I have just been running into issues with my rebuild and haven't updated my build thread. I will do that soon!