Galant VR-4 1417/2000

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Galant VR-4 1417/2000


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Little background, August 2016
Back in August of 2016, I was headed to Verizon to pick up the new Note 7 phone when I received a text message from my brother that someone was selling a galant vr-4 locally. I read the ad and immediately became interested and saw it the same day. Long story short, the owner was driving the car until it shut off on him. As a result, it sat for over ten years after he could not figure it out. I went to see it and to my surpise, the car was all original including the motor and wheels. I took a gamble on the car and ended up buying it for less than 1g.

(P.s., photos are not uploading because the file is too large but will update post with the progress I have done to the car until recently)

 

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So we got to work on trying to figure out why the car shut off on the previous owner. I assumed the worst that the timing jumped but still eliminated the easy stuff first. We were receiving spark but not getting any fuel. We manually turned on the fuel pump and it was not working. I pulled the fuel pump assembly and it was covered in nasty gunk from the old gas that sat 10+ years

The result of the old gas . Nonetheless, we slapped a working stock 2g fuel pump with a brand new sock and gave it a shot to see what happened. Shockingly, the car started right up and was idling smooth. The only thing we changed was the fuel pump and strainer. Here's a short clip of the car running

I drove it around the block a few times and could tell some things needed to be changed such as the front axles but was surprised the car was running smooth with the ac blowing cold.

Parked the car and began to plan all the parts I was going to change such as the timing components, fluids, axles, etc. The next day I go to start the car and as I cranked it, i heard a loud smacking sound. Definitely did not sound normal so I pulled the valve cover to see what was going on. We noticed one of the springs was compressing slow compared to the others which was why the cam lobe was not touching the rocker. Once the spring freed up it shot straight up which was the sound i was hearing. I did a fresh oil change and added mystery oil hoping it would clear all the gunk inside the head but ultimately did not work. The sound always came back after the car sat overnight so I finally decided it was time to pull the head. Before I did, I did a compression test and surprisingly received 150psi across all four cylinders

As soon as i pulled the head, I sent it out to one of our local machine shops to inspect it. Received a phone call a few days later with some bad news of course. The old gas had gunked up the valves so bad he was having trouble removing them (showed me in person). Told me I would be needing a rebuild which was somewhere around 300$. At this point i was not sure what I was going to do, keep in mind I have another 2g talon that I'm building (my baby ) which was already tough since I was going to college full time with only a part time job.
November 2016
Not much had happened since I pulled the head back in August but these next two months were busy for me. While I was still deciding on what to do with the gvr-4, I had sent a fresh rebuilt 6 bolt longblock to a machine shop in so-cal called Millenium Motorsports. Long story short, I bought this longblock not knowing who built it so i was skeptical to run it as is. I was originally going to use this motor on my 2g talon for my build.

That same day I dropped off the motor, I received a phone call from Greg that he had dissambled the motor. Basically told me the motor was all stock except having .030 CP pistons which was an odd bore size but everything was good to go. In short, he would basically build the motor again which was something I did not want to do since it was already freshly rebuilt and already .030 over. A few days passed and last minute thought of something that was brought up by my brothers. Since I was gonna spend the same amount of money to build a motor to satisfy my power goals for my talon, decided why not build my galant motor for my talon since I knew for sure it was a healthy motor and use the already freshly rebuilt one for my galant since my only goal was to have a stock daily driver gvr4.

I made up my mind so it was time to pull the block from the galant

 

[SNAKE_15]

Sorry for the delay, I got real busy and totally forgot to update this thread. Continuing where we left off, I pulled the accessories off and decided to start scrubbing . I hate having dirty parts so I did the best i could with a wire brush and some degreaser.
Feb 2017

After hosing it down with some degreaser (spent hours scrubbing the tight areas)

At the same time, decided to reassemble the motor and set timing with the help of my brother (I always get paranoid doing this part )
March 2017

Once I was happy with the cleaning, it was finally time to install the new motor in the galant. I had my uncle help me guide the motor and surprisingly, everything went smooth and quick.

Now that the hard part was over, it was time to plug everything back together. Didn't really take pics during this process so fast forwarding. I ended up using a stock replacment clutch and resurfaced my original flywheel. I also added ARP flywheel bolts for reassurance since my old ones were filthy.

May 2017

I was too excited to get this thing going so I did not make things as neat, but will do aftereverything checks out.


It was finally time to turn on the car for the very first time. At first, the car was only cranking and would not start. I was frustrated at first and after triple checking everything, I realized my ecu was not plugged in and still in my room fail. I slapped that in and the car fired right up. No leaks and everything sounded good so far. Me and some of my relatives jumped in the car and immediately went for a test drive wich we would later regret and wait hours for a rescue . To be continued.