Engine Dead Or Alive .....?

[2doorevo]

First heres a brief rundown of the kind of car i have, its the 1995 gsx with air intake exhaust and stock turbo 5spd manual.

Ok heres how ...it starts I got my alternator changed by my mechanic he does it and yeah everything goes fine and he tells me wow "fast car" but you have a problem. He tells me that my pulley is bad, he brings me to the car to listen and i think i heard some chirping or something. He tells me don t drive the car until i go to the mitsu dealer and buy the pulley. I figured i had time so i drove the car for a month.

I was driving home and noticed a slight decline in power but it was of no concern. I made it home !!!! and drove the car up in the drive way and went inside to sleep after a long day of school and work.

The next day I went in the car slipped it in neutral and rolled back out of my driveway. Then when i attempted to drive off i turned the key. I hear the car trying to start , it was going "ying ying ying ying" but no "vrooom". in other words i turned the key and i heard the car "try" to start but could not finish with the deep tone grunt that it would make when its running. I called my mechanic and told him what happened, he said that the car might have a sensor that wont allow the car to start due to different reasons such as a bad pulley. So i drove my truck to mitsu and i bought a new timing belt and (pulley /aka harmonic balancer). I gave the car over to my mechanic and the next day
my mechanic says to me : "I told you not to drive the F%@!*ing car" now your engine is f@%^&ed up he was dissapointed and angry at me he showed me the original timing belt and he says its not that bad at all and was trying to explain to me but i was in shock and didnt hear everything to well. I asked what can i do he said "replace the entire longblock is easiest way to fix it."

Please rember this car is 95 awd 5 speed and few mods 16in X 255 tires wheel i only had the car for 6 months and on the odometer has 102,000 miles on it . And please note that the car was parked when i tried to start it so in other words it did not blow or make any detonation noise while driving it was parked!!! , and when i turned the key it sounded like it was going to start but it did not go vrooom it just continued to chug and ying ying when i had the key turned for like two whole minutes but it did not start sounded like it only did one step instead of two. the car ran perfect before all this I changed the oil and filter a week prior to everything.

So what exactly happened here did my engine fail ?, do i need to replace whole engine ? how do i know for sure what happened ? how do i know what engine i have for an exact replacement?

thanx for reading this , has this happened to anyone out there? how did the pulley fail and what did it do cut the timing i think my mechanic said not sure?

oh before i go please eliminate or change your balance shafts(pulleys) people, dont be like me jus , take care of maintence always!!!. Im sufferin now because i dont have my "2 door evo" and on top of this im still confused about my engine is it DEAD OR ALIVE...?

Take care and drive safe !

 

[Old Mitsu Tech]

Do a compression check. Post the results. Harmonic balancers do not in my knowledge cut or damage timing belts. If you have good compression you have not damaged your timing belt. Everything at this point hinges upon the compression test. If it's bad, remove the timing cover to check the belt as it could have just slipped 1 or 2 teeth which usually don't bend valves. 3 or more and you are gambling.

Let us know. Good Luck

 

[DSM90AWD]

Holy Crap I'm BLIND from that 50pt Pink Font

Anyway, the factory harmonic balancer/pully is actually a two-piece unit with a rubber elastomer in the middle to dampen crank harmonics. It is not unusual for a high milage car to experience "separation" of this pulley (as if we need one more thing to worry about ).

Another problem you may/may not be aware of is Crankwalk which more ofter hits the 2Gs. If you are hearing a noise from the pulley area, it could be that your crank pulley is "walking" (e.g. crank thrust bearing is gone) out toward the CAS and making contact with the pickup. Other symptoms include clutch engagement issues (i.e. clutch goes to the floor on hard right turns) and "clicking" sounds

 

[Dream On]

(i.e. clutch goes to the floor on hard right turns)

Left turns isn't it?

 

[DSM90AWD]

Left turns isn't it?

oopsie, yes, second cup of coffee just kicking in

 

[2doorevo]

[COLOR="Navy"] sorry for the purple big fonts i did not mean to blind anyone .......yeah , but check it out , when my car was running I did not experience any symptoms of crank walk i replaced the clutch as soon as i got my car along with general maintanence so no crankwalk symptoms as of yet.

remember i was trying to start my car it did not start it was trying to start, most cars when u turn the key goes ying ying ying vroooom the ying ying ying ewas there but no vrooom .ok

The weird part is my mechanic took off my timing belt and did not put in the other one he gave up and told me my engine was bad and he gave me my belts in hand and i still have the new belt and pulley. what he did was give me the old belts and he gave me my rusty pulley that he took off. so my car has no pulley or belt on it. it just has the alternator belts and balance shaft belts . when i refer to the harmonic balancer im reffering to the larger pulley the one that weighs like 12 pounds its called the harmonic balancer.

So when i took my car there it was trying to start now like the car has no life at all prob due to battery but also because no harmonic balancer is on it and no timing belt is on it.

how can i check my engine at this point to see its dead or alive ? what do you reccomend ?

thanx again oh and i appretiate all the help [/COLOR]

 

[2doorevo]

Hey ok now remember i said i turn the key and the engine would choke or stall but would not start 100% now i forgot to mention my mechanic found a blown spark plug and he told me i should not have driven the car with out replacing the harmonic balancer or as he calls the pulley, he said the timing belt was still "good". he refused to put in the new pulley and timing belt becaus ehe said my whole engine is no good , this guy is a respected mechanic in my town.

how can i check my engine ?

and how do i give out points to you all? i dont understand how to give points out

please answer this the last time OLD MITS TECH and DSM90AWD answered very quickly

so again how do i check my engine i have tools and chiltons and how do i give help points out ? ok bye

 

[DSM90AWD]

Reputation Points FAQ

As OldMitsTech stated above, a compression test is the first thing you should do. A damaged sparkplug is evidence of detonation, which may have also caused a Headgasket failure. Compression testing and inspecting the oil for coolant and coolant for oil is one easy way to diagnose that.

You should also check to make sure both fuel and spark are being delivered to the cyls and that the timign belt is correctly aligned. Your Chiltons should be helpful on all of these checks.
And please for the love of all that is DSM, stop typing in large fonts. It's really annoying

 

[2doorevo]

im sorry i cant see to well .....but ill stop haha thats funy for the love of all thats dsm yeah. ok so can i do a test when the engine is not cranking? it has no belts on it and has no power.

 

[DSM90AWD]

im sorry i cant see to well .....but ill stop haha thats funy for the love of all thats dsm yeah. ok so can i do a test when the engine is not cranking? it has no belts on it and has no power.

No on the compression test. You could manually turn the cams so the valves are closed on individual cyls and perform a leakdown test, but would likely only spot a major failure as the rings are cold and not expanded/sealing (cap of oil might help).

You can also pull the valve cover and check to see if any of the valves are bent/cam follower off their perch (would be pretty obvious by rotating the cam sprocket and visually inspecting).

Can check for crankwalk (worn Crank thrust bearing) by gently prying the crank pulley away from the block and measuring the distance and then pushing the crank pully all the way into the block.

Also, you can still check the fluid (oil/coolant) condition

 

[2doorevo]

hey yeah thank for the reply dsm90awd he .......check it i pulled apart the valve cover and took it off along with the fuel rail and spark plugs the cams are in place and rotating properly , i also drained the coolant , what can i do from here i cant see the crank. what kind of repair do you foresee for this ? a new short block, replace valve etc ? i really cant tell you how much i want to fix this car and how i appretiate all the help .....

 

[DSM90AWD]

what can i do from here i cant see the crank. what kind of repair do you foresee for this ? a new short block, replace valve etc ?

Rereading your first post, I'm really leaning toward crankwalk. The "ticking" you heard was likely the crank pulley hitting the Crank Angle Sensor. If that sensor got damaged, you'd have problems with your car starting.

Unfortunately the only remedy is either rebuilding your bottom end or swapping in a used engine (I'd go for the 1G 6-bolt swap).

In either cases, you may want to contact TurboTrix (looks to be an 1.5hours from you) to see what they recommend. They are DSM experts and have a full machine shop, so more choices for you

 

[2doorevo]

yeah sounds like a great idea and they do specialise in dsm , hey man your car is nice u see, now if i had to do it over i would have got the 90 awd haha but yeah ill do that i already made my bed you know ..i contacted a dsm shop yeah everybody reccomends the 6 bolt swap im going to do it i think .......hey ill see what turbo trix says and ill get right back ....the tracks are open now so i dont want to waste too much time thinking dsm is very powerfull ...i think in the quarter mile many cars fear it (hint) thanks.

 

[2doorevo]

yeah will i get the same stock power levels as my original 2g or will i have to boost more in otherwords will my car have 210 hp with a 1 g swap ? does anyone know ? im not doing much mods. What are some of the other advantages of doing a 1g swap on a 2 g besides no C W ???

 

[Ultimatedsm]

You will lose a little power because of the lower compression ratio of the 1g (7:8:1 V.S 8:5:1), However, the 1g's come with bigger turbos (14B) which out flows the T-25 by almost a 100 CFM. So if you turn up the boost to 13-14 psi, you will make more power then your stock setup and plus the boost doesn't fall flat after 5500 RPM.

 

[2doorevo]

im think im going to have my mechanic rebuild my engine because he has a 2 year warranty and he will rebuild my original motor that car has, the original engine with 110,000 miles on it. For $2100 doing this seems like a good step i really dont trust the used engines out there and i cant afford the damn remanufactred engine so my new plan is to seek a mecahnic who will rebuild. my engine never really blew i turn the key and it cranked but jus didnt start up. didnt have crank walk no clutch in left or anything. how else can i fix the boost falling flat at 5500 rpm ? i didnt know about that is it the turbo ?

 

[2doorevo]

im thinking about a 16 garrett or something higher with more spool up but the engine is the main thing the car has higher compression so it dont need alot of boost im thinking about taking the compression down to 8:1 with a coper head gasket layers ill see .............any body who wants to know about remanufactured engines and used engines let me know i called so many places i learned alot im kinda glad my car acted up , at least it was intresting ........

 

[BOBS90TURBO]

Dude, you do not need to rebuild the long block for sure, or at least untill you check your compression, you may have just jumped timing a few teeth, and for about half of what your mech is saying the build will cost(it allways ends up much higher in the end) you can get a 6 bolt JDM engine off ebay or import co. that has been compression tested and has under 50k miles and does come with a warranty. Take your time, look around, think about it.

 

[2doorevo]

Just wanted to be a little more specific, for my friend.

The GSX is currently sitting. It has been sitting for quite some time. The engine has NO timing belt on. The Previous mechanic that refused to do the job took his timing belt off... The mechanic pointed out a spark plug... When you look at the spark plug, it looks like it has been physically and mechanically damaged... Allmost like something smacked into it... Without going any deeper into the engine, the most we have gone into, would be the valve cover... Because of lack of tools, we havent been able to take off much more off of the engine to take a peek inside the cyl head...

Questions:

Can we safely perform a Compression test on the engine with NO TIMEING BELT on the engine, And How? What are steps to perform the compression test if it can be done at this stage?

What tools are needed to take off the head. I know this is a broad range. But we are considering purchasing a mechanics toolkit from sears to get the rest of the head off...

The timing is DEFINATELY off by now, as in the procces we have rotated the cams to see if they were free, and done a number of other things, so Simply putting a timeing belt on the car and trying to start it up is OUTA the question...

At this point of the game, we are at a stand still... We either want to replace the engine all together (Although that is not posing as an easy task, to find a 4g63t 95) If you guys have any leads on where I can find the engine, please let me know.

The next thing, is we got a few quotes from some mechanics, One Mechanic in particular said when we arrived "You didnt tell me it was the AWD version" then after that stated that it would be more expensive to do the engine work on that car, because of the all wheel drive aspect... He claimed that it would take more labor to get the engine out, or to remanufacture the engine... How much truth is there in this? More than likely the only different would be the tranny on this engine? Am I correct?

Let me know!
And thanks for all you input.

 

[DSM90AWD]

Can we safely perform a Compression test on the engine with NO TIMEING BELT on the engine, And How? What are steps to perform the compression test if it can be done at this stage?

No. A compression test can only be done with the timing belt correctly in place. Simply turning the crank pulley now coudl lead to sever valve damage as there is no clearance btw valves and piston when valves are open (why everyone bends valves when the tbelt breaks).

As I said before, you can do a leakdown test with each cyl individually at TDC and compare to the cold specs in your service manual.

What tools are needed to take off the head. I know this is a broad range. But we are considering purchasing a mechanics toolkit from sears to get the rest of the head off

10mm - 19mm 3/8" socket set with extension bars should get you 99% there. Just remember, once the head is off, you will need to replace the headgasket (OEM not reusable) and head bolts (2G bolts are not tork-to-yield and non-reusable). So make sure what your problem is before removing.

The timing is DEFINATELY off by now, as in the procces we have rotated the cams to see if they were free, and done a number of other things, so Simply putting a timing belt on the car and trying to start it up is OUTA the question...

Why? Putting the timing belt back on (if you already have the belt) is free. Better to make sure your problem is something major before tearing down the engine.

As I said before, your best bet is to call up Turbotrix and say your engine is dead, flatbed it over there and have them look at it with the premise that if it is spent, you want to re/re a used longblock

 

[2doorevo]

I called turbo trix and i told them about it in detail .......the cost of the rebuild is estimated and its a good price (27-29 hundred) but i dont have that money .........im thinking about the 1g and 2g used motors again now. The 1g, i noticed on 1g cars the top speed on the od is 140mph but on the 2g its 180mph on the od.

so i want to know what is the top speed of the 1g motor. and how fast can i make this engine ?

with the lower compression of the 1g(7:8:1) how much can i boost over the 2g(8:5:1)?

I noticed the jdm cyclone 6 bolt motors have higher compression instead of 7:8:1 its 8:5:1 and also jdm evos 1-2 have same compression but those are harder to find and they are 7 bolt like mine. The 7 bolt evo 3 has the highest 9:1 compression rate so i dont like that so the evo 3 is outa da question. so jdm wise its down to the (evo 1-2 engines) , the (jdm 6 bolt with 8:5:1) and finaly the standard jdm 7 bolt outa an eclipse.

next set of q's : the 1g in a 2g idea sounds great i want to know about the maintence of this when it comes time to change the belts, will mechanics no what there doing ?

in the 1g in a 2g method will cooling be a combination of both gens ? for ex an air to air cooled 1g method+++ water cooled2g method ?

would the jdm 6 bolt motor with 8:5:1 be the "best of both worlds" ? no cw plus fast spool up ?

which is better for god like speed 7:8:1 compression or 8:5:1 ?
which engine can hold more reliable hp on stock internals? im thinking its the lower compression engine 7:8:1


is low is boost lag a problem for 1g cars for my car it spools fully at 2k rpm?

what is the best compression for reliable hp and fast acceleration ? is higher compression a bad thing for turbo?

like i said before the help just makes this more intresting and im suprised to see the amount of help ive been getting and the amount of views this thread has recieved dsm tuners is my fav forum place for sure great job everybody ! thanx dsm90awd and all who read and contributed thus far

 

[2doorevo]

any body know which 4g63t is best ?

 

[2doorevo]

hey got my car working again its sweet man got the engine swap done awd turbo whooooooooooooo hoooooooooooooo yeah cars a hell of a ride what is the best motor oil royal purple right ? expensive but must be good