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I am going to have the machine shop check for cylinder shape first and will have them hone it on the machine. I'm sure you could get away with a flex hone. Yeah, I'm reusing the bolts and I do have rod bolt stretch gauges to check while I am assembling. I have a 3/8" extended head Proto 5112 torque adapter for tightening the rod bolts, which fits my Groden rods and my R&R rods.
Tim, what shop are you using to have the work done at?
 
No idea, been 3 years I've dragged my feet. I asked a few, never got a direct answer from any.
 
Heck, my 2.3L 7 bolt is apart right now but was a running motor from 2008 to 2020, 3x,000 miles, couple hundred dyno pulls, and a metric ton of track passes. I never changed rod or main bearings, retorqued rod bolts or any of that stuff. I would do an oil change every couple thousand miles of street time or for race/dyno events with quality oil, and I have a large oil cooler on the car too. I let the motor warm up before beating on it and I typically shift to neutral at the top end of a pull instead of engine braking.

Tim, since that engine had a really long life, I'd like to ask what kind of motor oil you used in it. And in years when you didn't race it, did you change it more than once per year regardless of mileage and did you use same viscosity winter and summer? (You've got real winters there)
Thanks!
 
I always ran Valvoline VR1 racing synthetic 20w50. I never changed it over winter time, its just motor oil. I would change the oil more when I raced or dyno'ed the car, other than that it always looked clean and I just kept an eye on it.
 
I always ran Valvoline VR1 racing synthetic 20w50. I never changed it over winter time, its just motor oil. I would change the oil more when I raced or dyno'ed the car, other than that it always looked clean and I just kept an eye on it.

Thanks, that really helps because I've been wanting to leave the oil in for a year instead of changing every 6 months, since I run it so little in the winter. But I've been uneasy about it because I've been using 20w50 Penn Grade 1 which is ~90% conventional base stock so I thought I should change it twice per year. With full synthetic I'd be much more ok with changing it only once per year. I don’t seem to be getting any fuel dilution in my oil – not that I can tell anyway.

Looks like you can get it for $7.49 per quart Amazon Prime. Plenty cheap. That’s from the only seller I see there that has the actual synthetic rather than the conventional VR1.

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I would run the conventional VR1 in a pinch if I couldn't find the full synthetic, no issues with either over all the years.
 
I would run the conventional VR1 in a pinch if I couldn't find the full synthetic, no issues with either over all the years.

I like the idea of the VR1 synthetic, and I have thought about it before but the availability was always so slim. I could hardly find it, if even at all. So I never used it. ER recommended to use Brad Penn 20w50 and I know lots of other DSMers use it, so that's what I've been using. (crank bearing clearances are ~0.0022 according to ER)

Do you have any particular thumb up or down about Redline 20w50, 15w50, 10w50? I've thought about those too.
I don't want to turn this into another oil thread. I promise this is my last oil question haha!

I'm kind of assuming that your oil pump for the 3x,000 miles was the stub shaft type that most of us are using including me. Rather than the full length "race shaft" type. Did you make it through the whole 3x,000 miles with just one of those stub shaft pumps?
 
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Still on the same oil pump from 2008. Heck it could have been off the motor prior that was built in 2005. OEM stub shaft.

I have no issues with redline oils, I regularly recommend them too.
 
I cannot remember the specifics of the setup from 15+ years ago enough to give you measurable numbers unless I look at old datalogs. Overall they were healthy numbers on a 20w50 motor oil. Maybe 70-110psi under load, and 20-40psi under idle? It has been too long.
 
I cannot remember the specifics of the setup from 15+ years ago enough to give you measurable numbers unless I look at old datalogs. Overall they were healthy numbers on a 20w50 motor oil. Maybe 70-110psi under load, and 20-40psi under idle? It has been too long.
Ok, actually that sounds about like mine so I'm relieved a little. Lots of people think 110 is too high. But Myles at ER says the way they built my engine it's just what they had in mind. Kiggly's tech paper Oil Filter Losses from about 2012 indicates ~112psi at high rpm. Mine is 109psi usually at 6,500 rpm. It's leveled off at that point (doesn't go any higher with more rpm). 20w50.
My hot idle pressure is 35psi (1,100 rpm idle). So that again is right in your range.
I just started logging oil pressure in June of 2023, is why I'm going around with this now, but also because people think they are supposed to go by the "80 psi rule of thumb".
So I'm conflicted a little but if you are pretty sure that yours was hitting ~110psi regularly at the higher revs, then I think that's a really good data point considering how long that engine and stub shaft lasted.

Gary
 
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I definitely was in 100-115psi range. 7 bolt oem oil pump assembly with 90 gears and stub shaft. 20w50 oil. No issues. Ported teardrop oil passage on cylinder head, Kiggly HLA, 11mm head studs with my shouldered dowels. I had a pretty large oil cooler on the car with -10 lines, and ran about 5qts of oil, keeping it slightly above the full mark on the dip stick.

I had a Frontline Fabrication billet oil pump ready to go on the refreshed motor but then the shop fire happened in 2022 and all was lost, so oh well.
 
I definitely was in 100-115psi range. 7 bolt oem oil pump assembly with 90 gears and stub shaft. 20w50 oil. No issues. Ported teardrop oil passage on cylinder head, Kiggly HLA, 11mm head studs with my shouldered dowels. I had a pretty large oil cooler on the car with -10 lines, and ran about 5qts of oil, keeping it slightly above the full mark on the dip stick.
Ok good! Man I'm much relieved to have an info input like that. Thanks!
 
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