Ellie 1460/2000 E39A

[agentorange313]

agentorange313 submitted a new DSM Profile :

Ellie 1460/2000 E39A


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[agentorange313]

I have been quite negligent with updating this profile for my Galant. I am sure as many of you know and can agree, life gets in the way. Enough talking, let me update you on 1460/2000.

I bought this car in the winter of 2015/2016. I been looking for a Galant for a very long time, that was in my price range and in a condition I was willing to restore.

The car ran but was plague with multiple issue, many of which had to do with poor maintenance, boost leaks, notchy shift, a ridiculous amount of clamps and couplers use for the charged air system, valve cover leak, broken manifold studs, exhaust leaks, the list goes on, but nothing a seasoned DSMer cant handle and hasn't see before.

I started with the charged air system. 1460 had a evo8/9 FMIC and the most absurd piping design and routing. Couplers had couplers within themselves acting as reducer for 3" piping that was used. Here are the only two pictures I have the piping and FMIC, I should have taken more but who wants to look at pictures of a trainwreck, come to think of it I would stare for a while.

As you can see from the pictures, it was equipped with a stock MAS system, with a non recirculated BOV. None of the intercooler pipes had bead at the ends, I found this out by having one of the couplers blow off while driving it around my hometown. From the second picture you can see how the evo FMIC was mounted offset with it leaning toward the passenger side. You can also see how the bumper was warped from having the piping wrap under the frame of the car, this would be okay in theory but not with 3" "U" bend pipes. These 3" pipes also has major signs of making contact with the road, dents, bends and road rash.

There was no need to do a boostleak test as you guys can tell, or at least until I get the resting of the piping settled to see if its leaking at other points, fuel injector o rings, TB seals etc. I scrapped the current forced induction piping system, and planned a new route for the piping. I had some major help from all the knowledge on GalantVR4.ORG, a must if you own or want to know the ins and outs of the E39A platform. I found out that the VRSF FMIC for the 1g was a great match and would fit without major modification, so I went that route. This set up will not allow me to keep the stock radiator the the VR4. If you are not familiar the E39A radiator has a gap on the driver side from the frame, that allows the charged air piping to pass through to the tiny stock FMIC. On the passenger side of the radiator there is no gap and major cutting would be required to make it work. My solution was a civic style half radiator.

Mocking up the intercooler piping, I was testing out two different upper intercooler pipes, one would be the VRSF with a TiAl flange for the BOV, the other is the aftermarket pipe that the car came with. I wanted to use the VRSF due to it optimal fitting, and beads on the pipe, but the other pipe did fit and had a BOV already attached, i would need to purchase a 50mm style bov. Neither would solve my venting to atmosphere problem that I still have for this vehicle.

There was only one solution to my problem of venting to atmosphere, purchase ECMlink for 1460/2000. So I went ahead, got in contact with Josh at JNZ, my go to guy for everything DSM, ordered V3 with a Speed Density bundle kit.

Thats it for now, I am further along the build than I had posted so far, so there will be much more to post. Tune in next time, where I tackle the rest of the intercooler piping and resolve a power/ecu issue where my galant would die randomly at idle.

 

[Dsmkauai]

They make a recirc fitting for the hks FYI. What I use . Nice find and safe bro keep at it

 

[agentorange313]

They make a recirc fitting for the hks FYI. What I use . Nice find and safe bro keep at it

Thanks for the suggestion, input is always appreciated. I do indeed know about the fitting, comes in multiple sizes, infact my 1g has this fitting with its BOV. Maybe I should have went with a GM MAF and a MAF translator for old times sake I will keep it very safe, I pledge never to mistreat her and always take care of her problems, this DSM will never know the word neglect again

Switching to ECMlink just makes life a lot easier, no need to fab up or have a fitting welded onto the intake pipe that will accommodate the recirculating piping. Most of this journal will be written with sarcasm and jest, keep that in mind whoever reads this

 

[agentorange313]

Welcome back ladies and gentlemen. Here's another update on 1460/2000.

My main goal was to use as many DSM/VR4 parts that I had accumulated already. Parts are starting to pile up even as I try and sell them. I have so many parts, many BNIB from trades, extra parts from DSMs I have bought, etc, I must be preaching to the choir, car guys know what I am talking about.

So we left off last time half way through mocking up the intercooler system, the cold side piping was all sorted out and the task at hand was figure out the hotside piping. The car came with "stock like" intercooler pipe from the turbo, you can see this in the forth picture posted on this thread. The pipe comes up and over the manifold then bends down near the powersteering pump and passed through the radiator gap I spoke about earlier. My plan was to reuse that piping but to alter it to cater my system. The main issue with pipe is that it was not "clock" in the right position when it was welded together. You can see this by how the reducer in the top half of the picture below has a gap at the top where the pipe slips in. I got out my cutting wheel and cut the bi*** . I used a coupler to allow me to rotate either pipe in the direction I would need. Here is a before and after picture to better explain what I did.

The intercooler inlet pipe was too long for my application, the pipe was hitting the alternator and left no room for a 45 degree coupler. I grabbed the cutting wheel and got back to work.

When mounting the VRSF 1g intercooler, I came across a couple of problems, the first being the mounting point for the intercooler. They are obviously designed for a 1g DSM, the side mounting taps were not lined up with anything on the Galant to use for mounting, but the center mounting point was perfect. Since it was a used intercooler the mounting tabs on the side also had bends and cracks in them, I would just mount the intercooler at the center point to the hood latch bracket. Its a temporary solution right now, until I can have proper mounting tabs welded to the intercooler.

When I first got the Galant, the evo8/9 intercooler set up took so much room behind the bumper that the previous owner removed the bracket for the hoot latch. In doing so, the hood would flop around a bit at high speeds and never stay motionless. The new intercooler set up would allow me to use this bracket again. Luckily the owner didnt chuck this piece and it was in the trunk. I got it out and bolted it back on, I'll never remove this bracket again, with it installed all the connecting body parts fit better. There's a metal trim piece right under the Galant headlight that also bolts to this bracket. Lesson learned, try and use all the oem components that come with your car, my hood, trim pieces, and bumper never fit better with this bracket reinstalled.

I wanted to use 4-5 couplers in this set up. That was an acceptable range for me. I am sure you all know the less couplers in a charged air system the less of a chance of a boost leak. My 1g DSM has only four couplers (3" straight ones) which I feel is optimal. In the end I used 5 couplers for this set up, four are 2.5" and one 2" to 2.5" reducer at the turbo oulet pipe.

Now that all the intercooler pipes and the intercooler itself have been mocked up, it was time to get all these pipes beaded. I took the system over to Beanfab in Edison NJ, Keith over there does some awesome work. Hes helped me out multiple times with my dsms, I remember going over there when they were Turbotrix, boy did turbotrix go down hill. So I hopped in my Jeep XJ, brought the parts over, and in less than a day turn around, Keither had all the pipes beaded and added a bead to the intercooler inlet pipe. He also welded my aluminum honda radiator cap shut and welded a bung to the bottom size for the thermoswitch for the radiator, but I will touch up on this later when I go more in depth with the radiator set up.

Here are just some of the coupler and piping I removed with the new setup, I had already thrown most of the short aluminum pipes away, junk and not reusable in my option, I already cut one of the 3" u bends to make an inlet pipe for my 16g.

The next step was mock up the radiator set up. I know I told you guys I was going to use a civic radiator, and I still plan on it, I went with a 3 row core with a FAL fan set up with a shroud. The rad was going to be used in my DSM but have since changed the set up. The radiator was a bit thicker than I wish it was, for this application I would go with a 2 row if I were to start from scratch. In like the 1g DSM, there is barely any room to work with in front of the radiator. The radiator was a 3" thick.

Like all my DSMS if I am using an aftermarket fan, I always add an additional relay to control the fan and add the much needed extra voltage to the fans. I took the wiring harness for the fan, resistor, and tempswitch/thermoswitch. Heres a diagram from galant vr4, of what I was working with.

Its overall pretty darn simple to add a relay into the mix. The pin list indicates that a blue and black wire that goes to the ran
fan is what will control my relay. Here is a great link to understand how a relay works: http://www.the12volt.com/relays/relays.asp

85 - Blue wire to fan
86 -Black wire to fan
87 - 12v Power to aftermarket fan
87A - nothing
30 - wire from battery

I know I spoke about an issue with 1460 dieing at idle and how I would diagnose it this post, but as you can see it hasnt been touched upon and I spoke too soon, it was a current issue. When journaling my experiences, I have altered when events have happend for the ease of the reader.

Thats it for now. Stay tuned. Thanks for reading

 

[agentorange313]

agentorange313 updated Ellie 1460/2000 E39A


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