Even though the Talon is up for sale at the moment I am taking the time to still try and fix all that is wrong with it, just in case I have to use it.  In case you haven't been following this project my 6-bolt AWD DSM needed a massive transplant, the transmission was shot, the oil seal on the center diff was leaking, the torque converter was siezed and the engine was 'bout ready to pop.  The previous owner had the bottom end replaced with a rebuilt short block that wasn't rebuilt all that well so I figured instead of just rebuilding it I'd replace it with a factory spec, unmolested engine.  Since everything else needed to be replaced I just bought a full engine and transmission set with wiring harness from a Japanese-Spec Galant VR-4.

The engine itself is in and running, however it does not idle right at all and needs some work.  The oil feed line for the turbocharger is leaking, the turbo itself I think might have a bad seal on the compressor side.  The exhaust manifold is cracked, the emissions system is fully deleted but a few vacuum leaks result because of it, and it has various stripped out bolts for two of the three front-end drive shafts (driver's side CV and Prop shaft at the Diff) leaving an ever present risk of dropping a driveshaft in motion.  At first I thought with the idle that the idle set screw was knocked out of place during transport since the engine was not in a full crate and took a decent hit in transit, however I later determined that a wiring set that wouldn't match between my 1Gb wiring harness and the GVR4 engine was not the transmission temperature probe like I initially thought, but in fact the pulse generator controlling the idle speeds depending on the transmission's condition.  As a result the car idles out of gear at the sort of speed it would in gear at a stop light, and in gear it sputters to a stall if you don't have your foot on the gas.  Today I pulled apart the old GVR4 wiring harness and removed the wiring running from the pulse generator to the ECU since I was unsuccessful trying to remove the old pulse generator from the old transmission so hopefully I can just run the wiring to the ECU and make the proper tweaks with little or no issue.

Sometime soon, weather permitting, I'm going to do a full vacuum leak test on the full intake system (charge cooler included) as well as engine vacuum system to isolate and fix any leaks.  The oil leaks and exhaust leaks are going to wait as my other car is knocking pretty hard and the motor is going to pop sometime within the next year and I'd rather not risk being without a car again, and since those leaks don't really hurt the performance as much they can wait unless they get worse. 

I will keep you updated, it's starting to look like I'm going to have it for quite some time yet, I might just turn it into a full time project car again.

Tags: DSM Repair Rebuild

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As I mentioned in my last post I'm selling my Talon because the engine swap didn't quite go as well as planned and I don't have the time to fix the few things I have left.  I really need to get back on the road but I have a few options of getting there.

A) Today my dad bought himself a Honda Accord, which means I can get the Mercury SlowPaz back.  I really hate the thought of driving that dreadful thing but my dad said there's no way he'd let me use his Honda and my mom needs her Camry so if I want a free car I'm stuck with the Mercury. The plus side of that is that it is free, the downside is that it's a heap of junk and really isn't too much of an improvement but at least it runs and drives most of the time.

B) Back in my home town there is a guy selling an Acura Integra.  He wants $5000 for it but I'm trying to talk him into trading the Talon, all of my spare parts (except I'm keeping the turbo) and giving him maybe $500 on top of that.  The problem there is that I have only seen on picture of the car and it was of the engine bay and I really haven't received much info on the condition of the car.  It has a JDM swap, he didn't say what he swapped in but it looks like either a B18 or H22.  He's put on a short ram intake, polished exhaust, full wiring and a few show pieces.  The downside is that the kid is 16 years old so I'm willing to bet it's some junker rice rocket.  The good news there is that I get rid of the Talon, I'll get something a bit nicer, but I'm willing to bet I'll still have the Topaz again too and I really don't have any need for two cars.

C) I can continue bumming rides, pissing people off, and inconveniencing people.

D) do C for a while, save money, and finance something, probably for a price far higher than the worth of the car at high interest rates and be forced to pay full insurance coverage which, being a male under the age of 25 with a few tickets, would be rather steep considering I'd most likely get either a sports car or a Jeep.

Suggestions?

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Now that it is finished and running I had to start worrying about other repairs it needs.  After thinking it over I felt that the car needs far more work than I have time to give it, so I opted to sell it.  I'm asking $3800 but I will take offers or trades if anyone is interested.  I'm already shopping around for a replacement, I'm deciding between an Olds Intrigue or a Grand Prix GT, both with the ledgendary GM 3800 torquebox of a V6.  I will be sure to keep everyone updated with what happens there, I have to say it was still a fun project.  Fun as it was, words can't describe how badly I need a car that I don't have to worry about.  If anyone is interested in buying the Talon let me know.

Tags: DSM Engine Transmission Swap First Gen Turbo All Wheel Drive

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Today was the big day.  We cracked at it for maybe four hours and got the Talon running.  Sorry guys but I didn't get a video of the first start up, however I can tell you that it only took 30 seconds of fuel system priming and four crank attempts to get it started.  I took it out for a drive and it drives beautifully.  It hits fuel cut or misfires or something if you floor it and one of the drive shaft bushings needs replacing, but otherwise this is the best it has ever run.  At the moment it is at Firestone for a full inspection and for that drive shaft bushing, but as for being a project car it has made the grade and graduated on to daily driver. 

Next two project cars:

1986 Pontiac Trans Am Drag Car

198x Porsche 911 Air Cooled Autocross

I'll update you all when I start those projects.

Tags: DSM Engine Transmission Swap First Gen Turbo All Wheel Drive

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A couple of days ago I was trying to get the jammed CV shaft out of the transmission.  While I was tugging on it I actually managed to pop the inner CV joint apart, so I just cut the boot and pulled out the obstruction.  Today I went to O'reilly Auto Parts and bought a replacement CV shaft, rented the engine hoist again and gave removing the old block and tranny another go. This time I removed the front subframe member to give myself a little more room to move the engine around, dropped the tranny to the floor and pulled the everything out block first.  After a quick run to the store to buy a new 17mm socket to the replace one that I broke on the sub frame I worked at dropping in the new motor.  It took maybe 2 hours to fenagle it in the engine bay from the top and another hour and a half to have it secure on the mounts but it's in there.  I even managed to attach the driver's side CV shaft and a few electrical components.  By about 11pm I figured I'd call it a night so I mounted the hood (which is really hard to do when you are by yourself, for the record), packed everything up, manhandled the old engine off the driveway and called it a night.  Tomorrow is supposed to be another good day so I will connect what I can.  I figure I'll be starting it on Sunday or Monday if all goes well.  I'll try to get at least some pictures, hopefully a video of the first start.  Not Bad for an afternoon's work.

Tags: DSM Engine Transmission Swap First Gen Turbo All Wheel Drive

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Today Sai12 and I went out and bought a battery and rented the engine hoist before she had to go to work.  First Amanda and I scraped and sanded the hood to begin working on removing its battle scars and rust spots.  After she had to leave I had just enough time before the sun went down to prime the hood.  After that I spent a good 3 hours trying to get the engine out myself before my buddy Chase made it over aroun 11pm, laying down a first coat of green on the hood some time around 9:30.  Once he showed up we continued trying to get the engine and transmission out of the car but we were having some hardcore clearance issues.  We would get it started, have a good chunk of it out and something (usually the transfer case and center diff) would get hung up on something.  Also in the process of removing a motor mount I sheered yet another socket wrench, this one belonging to one of my roommates. We were then left for the rest of the night with some crescent wrenches, adjustable wrenches, and a 2 foot breaker bar with some sockets.  Eventually we gave up trying to pull it out and decided to drop it down and pull it out since it's a junk motor anyway.  After fighting with the rubber exhaust hangers for a good 20 minutes I took my trusty breaker bar and started working on the subframe.  Mind you by this point it is already 2am.

Needless to say I was defeated by the subframe simply due to my lack of a ratchet.  I had Amanda pick one up for me on her way home from work but by the time she got here there were some pretty ominous lighting strikes off in the distance and heading in this direction and it was already starting to rain.  We opted to just pack everything up, bagged all essential wiring and hoses so they don't get wet hopefully, covered the engine and called it a night. Tomorrow's forcast calls for severe thunderstorms all day and night so I'm just going to take the engine hoist back, bum a ride from Amanda again to go to work and just rent it on the next clear day.

Tags: DSM Engine Transmission Swap First Gen Turbo All Wheel Drive

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The past few days have been absolutely terrible for going out and working on the car.  If anyone has been paying attention to the national news it has just been one round of severe weather after another so I haven't been able to do too much, but the time I've had to out has been productive.  One CV shaft is disconnected, another is giving us lots of troubles that we'll just deal with once it is out of the car, we haven't even touched the rear prop shaft yet.  The emissions control systems are all taken care of, I converted most of the electrical components on the transmission to accept my USDM wiring harness with the only exception of the transmission oil temperature probe, which I will ultimately end up replacing with an aftermarket probe unless I can figure out how to transfer the probe from the US tranny to the JDM one without risking an oil leak.  Today I also disconnected the oil cooler lines, the only two things left on the block in the car, so tomorrow evening the block is coming out so we can better access the transfer case to remove the center diff and pull the tranny.  Basically tomorrow everything comes out.  I'll drop in the new engine hopefully Wednesday after a few more conversions (o2 sensor, Thermostat housing, Wastegate actuator)  and some fresh belts.  After that point it's just a matter of connecting everything, checking for fluid leaks and she'll be running again.  My goal is to have her driving by the weekend.  I'll try to remember to take a video of the first start up for you guys, we'll see how the motor will handle stale gas.

Tags: DSM Engine Transmission Swap First Gen Turbo All Wheel Drive

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Today was my first full day available to mess with the engine and prep the engine pay for accepting it.  The biggest issue I ran into was with the Air Conditioning.  The Japanese AC compressor is completely different from the North American one, and converting the Japanese motor to accept the USDM compressor would have been a challenge.  The Japanese compressor's bolt holes for connecting the hoses are to the right of the ports, where as on the USDM compressor the bolt holes are to the left.  On top of that the USDM compressor is larger than the Japanese compressor, so large in fact that in order to bolt on the USDM compressor I would then have to bolt on the USDM intake manifold.  This would in turn ruin the engine's performance as the Japanese manifold has dual venturies, a primary and a secondary that opens at higher rpms, where as the USDM intake just has the primary.  As a result I took the easy route of cutting the AC compressor belt and pulling the JDM compressor to save weight, AC is just a luxury anyway that robs power from the engine.

Another issue I ran into was emissions control.  The emissions setups between the two engines are completely different so I had to re-route some emissions devices so they will be compatable to an extent.  There's still no way this engine will ever pass NOx emissions if it were ever tested, but at least it'll pass some emissions tests if I ever moved to a state that tests them and decide to keep the car.  This car is a no go in California though, good thing I have no plans on ever moving there. 

Other tweaks today included pulling the damaged top heatshield and wastegate actuator off the car.  I can't pull the top one because the bolts all seem to be rusted in place, I'll probably end up ripping the shield off as I need to get to the O2 sensor and swap it out for the O2 sensor from the old engine.  The Japanese O2 sensor is a two-wire sensor with two prongs for the harness, however since I am reusing the wiring harness and ECU that is already in the car (the wiring harness that came with the engine has some smashed connectors anyway) I need to put on my three-wire four-prong O2 sensor. 

Also today I swapped out the JDM fuel rail with 450cc injectors with the fuel rail and 380cc injectors I pulled from my old USDM motor since my fuel pump wouldn't be able to keep up with the demand of the 450cc injectors and until I have DSMLink set up I won't be able to adjust my fuel map accordingly either.  The stock ECU that I retained in the car still has the map for the 380cc injectors anyway.

That's pretty much it for today, tomorrow if I can find where I put my spark plug sockets I'm going to check the plugs to make sure they aren't fouled. I'll also check the condition of the timing components and work more on sorting out the vacuum system.  Who knew two versions of the same engine would have such completely different vacuum setups?

Tags: DSM Engine Transmission Swap First Gen Turbo All Wheel Drive

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My engine finally came today after weeks of juggling finances, loads of phone calls, even the engine getting lost for a week.  There wasn't even too much damage to it considering the place I bought it from didn't even put it in a crate.  The wastegate actuator is trashed, exhaust guard is bashed, and a couple of connectors on the japanese wiring harness are smashed but the engine itself looks beautiful.  All the damage is easily fixed with all the parts I kept so that's no problem at all.  I'll start working on getting that engine ready to drop in since there are a few differences between the USDM setup and the japanese set up, mostly in the form of emissions control.  Shouldn't take too much to get that all set up, it looks like everything will otherwise work out well.  I'm going to keep the JDM harness but it won't go in the car, I'll just hold on to it for spare wiring in case I need it.  The sticker on the timing cover is mostly in japanese, the only part that I can understand states that it had 96,900 Km, or approximately 60,000miles.

On top of that, earlier this afternoon before my engine came in I had an interview with O'Reilly Auto Parts, that went pretty well.  Did the background check today which I will surely pass, just have a few more simple pre-hire things to do and I can start selling some auto parts.

Tags: DSM Engine Transmission Swap First Gen Turbo All Wheel Drive

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Well, my busted up 4g63t is all but out at this point.  The alternator, power steering pump, AC compressor, cylinder head, starter, and rad are all out, all that remains in the car is the block, transmission and a few wires and hoses.  I pulled the cam shafts, rockers and lifters out of the head and set those aside as they will be making their way to ebay.  The cylinder head will probably go to a recycler since it has some stripped out holes, one of which being a spark plug tunnel so it's pretty much junk.  I'm going to try to get around to pulling the valves as those are still good.  The alternator is probably going in to Auto Zone or O'Reilly's so they can sell it to a refurbisher, it's so gummed up with engine grease that there's no way that'll sell on ebay.  I cleaned off the starter, I'm going to be cleaning off the AC compressor and power steering pump, those will all go on ebay probably.  The only one I might hold on to would the starter, it could be handy to have.  Of course I'm waiting on all of these until after my new engine arrives so I can replace anything that might be broken or showing age. 

The good news is that the pistons are not cracked, though it is obvious that the block was reconditioned once as there are marks on the cylinder walls from when it was honed, also cylinder 2 is way over bore with a stock piston in it, there's one hell of a gap between the piston and the cylinder, luckily the piston rings held up.  No signs of cylinder damage so the block is still good so far as I can tell.  I'll know for sure once we pull it out and check the crank.  I'm pretty sure I was starting to see some failing bearings but it wasn't driven much once it started so the block should still be fine.  The rods weren't hitting the block so they might still be good.  I got off easy.

Keep an eye out on ebay for my:

valve cover

cam shafts with lifters and caps

block with or without pisons, not sure.

power steering pump

ac compressor.

Trash:

Alternator basically

cylinder head

all wheel drive tranny

There will be pictures, I'm borrowing Sai12's camera so I can put stuff on ebay, I'll put some up here possibly tomorrow if I have time.

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Today when I was out working on the Talon I started hearing noises from the apartment building next to my house.  After a while longer i started hearing orgasmic screams and loads of moaning from said apartment building.  What has just happened was a mixing of the two greatest things in existence; cars and sex.  It was like listening to a porno while putting in wrenchtime, I really don't think they realized their windows were open.  Haha oh well, made the wrenching that much more enjoyable, no doubt they were having fun too.

Anyway, the good ole 4g63 is half apart now. Since my last post I have disconnected all of the electrical components for both engine and transmission, marking them all so I know where they go.  On top of that nearly all of the vacuum lines have been disconnected and marked, leaving the ones that I either don't know what they are or don't know what they're connected to just in case they don't have to come out at all.  The valve cover is off, throttle cable disconnected, today I pulled out the fuel rail, injectors, and ignition coil. I have found a few problems with the engine and the sort of job that the shop who rebuilt that engine in the first place did.  First of all there are several holes in the cylinder head that have been stripped out.  I know of at least two for the exhaust manifold and one for the valve cover, so that cylinder head is useless.  Also there is supposed to be a bracket supporting the intake manifold that connects between the manifold and the engine block.  That bracket is in the engine back, however it wasn't bolted to anything, it's held in by vacuum lines and a wiring harness that wasn't connected to anything to begin with (I think it's for my oil pressure gauge, which didn't work probably because it wasn't connected).

I also discovered some signs of mechanical troubles.  On the timing belt for example there are nicks in the belt spaced approximately an inch apart going all the way around the belt opposite from the toothed side, telling me that I probably have a spun bearing explaining the knock.  Also the ignition coil showed signs of arching, explaining my missfiring.  I don't have the right bit to get the cylinder head off so that's going to wait, I'm now just waiting for a large enough bucket so I can drain the coolant and get the radiator and turbo off and set aside.  I need to figure out how I'm going to get to the bolts for the intake manifold too.

Reusable parts so far that I can tell:

valve cover

cams

valves

fuel delivery system

exhaust manifold

turbo

radiator

intake manifold

transfer case

Dead pieces:

timing belt

transmission

ignition coil

idle speed controller

Maybe next time I'll hire some strippers while I'm working on the car, see if I can outdo this last time.

Tags: DSM Engine Transmission Swap First Gen Turbo All Wheel Drive Sex

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Where the Talon AWD drivetrain swap stands now;

Engine and transmission still not ordered, waiting on funds.  I'm focusing instead of pulling out the old to make way for the new.  So far the Oil is drained.  The transmission drained itself so I don't have to worry about that.  The air intake system is removed, leaving only the turbo outlet and intercooler in place.  Within the week I hope to have all the fluids removed so I can start pulling the engine and transmission out in pieces rather than renting an engine crane with nowhere to put the engine once it's out.  I'll just pull it out in chunks that can be carried into  my house where I can work on prepping them for a rebuild.  By the end of the month it'd be nice to have everything out so I can give the engine bay a good once over.

Tags: DSM Engine Transmission Swap First Gen Turbo All Wheel Drive

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