RWD4G62NZ: 1981 Mitsubishi Celeste Turbo.

[RWD4G62NZ]

I'm fairly new to these forums so hopefully I have done this correctly.

I've been building up my 1981 Mitsi Celeste for about 18 months now. When I brought it for $400 she was running the std 4G32 that was using more oil than gas, but she was real straight with good paint and in original nick.

A couple of months later I pulled the old donk out and slotted a 4G37 1.8L into her. This engine with it's eletronic dizzy and extractors made more torque and revs and turned it into a completly different car!

Funny how things turn up when you least expect them isn't it??? I had been disgussing with a mate about the possibility of stuffing a 4G63BT from a Starion into the Celeste when a crashed 1985 1.8L Turbo Cordia came into my position for the meagre sum of $150. Body was stuffed but engine,Turbo, loom, ECU pretty much all mechanicals were mint. My mind was made up to use the 1.8 rather than finding a 2L as apart from a bit more stroke to get the other 200cc the 2 engines are almost identical.

Took a bit of stuffing around with flywheels, starion engine mounts and manifolds but she was in and running well. The old TC06 turbo was a bit tired and smoked a bit but apart from that she ran 10psi and was bloody quick!!!!

Found a cheap set of 15" mags so she diddn't have to run on the 13inch cookie cutters any more but it was always my intention to get some hotties or modgies before too long. Decided she badly needed suspention attention too so gave it the treatment with new gas struts all round and low kings in the front and 2" blocks in the arse. Really stiffnd up the ride and got rid of the 25+ year old bodyroll!

Toyed with the idea of stripping her out, putting a cage in and doing car club with it but then decided that it was in too good a condition to cut up eh. So I decided to piss take abit and go 80's style's. Put the "Mitsubishi" banner across the top of the windscreen, added the rear louvre and did some re-upolistering inside. The inside is still a work in progress.

Cruized around for a while like it was, picked up an LSD Diff and a few other bits and pieces for her. Then after a weekend down at the ChCh drags I saw a Starion running some quick times and I wandered over and yarned with the dude. He told me what he had done and the next weekend my engine was out and I started to rebuild it. Went for std gear for the rebuild with the exception of a Franklin Cams "turbo Grind" Cam and I shot-peened and balanced my rods. I was never going to boost the living shit out of it and the factory gear is pretty strong anyway. The main addition to the new engine was the Multipoint Manifold and TD04HL Evo Spec turbo. I also added a VR4 intercooler, V5 Link and cleaned and painted everything to within an inch of it's life!

Found a couple of shitty cracks in my wastegate housing when I was putting it all back together so I removed the internal wastegate and made up an external. Used a 38mm Gate, figured that it should flow plenty for a 1.8 SOHC!!

Had a break for a few months here to re-coup some cash and then took her in for intercooler piping and final shit. Went mental with blue silacone hosing but the overall effect is good and tidy.

Fuel system is functional but still a bloody mess. It's in where the back seat used to be in a custom wood box. Running a Bosch lift pump and a Bosch 911 EFI pump. It's 1 area that I dinn't make any effort with making it look nice, figured it was gona be outa sight anywayz!!! Still got to get new carpet and shit 2.

Managed to get me mittz on a new set of 13X7 Modgies. Happy as! Gona put 205X60X13 Bridgestone Potenza G Grids on them so should roadhold well.

Next step is to drive it quietly into town for a reg and WOF. She's only running on the "StartUp" programe on the Link so it's gona be hard to stay off the boost! Hopefully my next post will have some good news on how the tuning of the link went and maybe a dyno sheet. I'm aiming for around the 200-250HP mark and with a lightish car like the Celeste it should make for some interesting driving especially in the wet.

Got my new tyres on the modgies yesterday. Put them onto the car with a new set of wheel and lock nuts and I'm happy to say that I love it!!! Looks way tougher now and I've decided against putting the 2" flares on as it would not look right. The mags and tyres fill out the factory guards well and look sweet.

Fair not the pics are on the way tomorrow night as I have the Digi on charge as I write this. Also did a bit of course tuneing on the Link in the weekend. I'm sort of learning as I go with it and it's bloody amazing just how much shit you can do.....or potentually fuck up!!! Got her running and iddleing sweet at what I think is about Stoichio so I took it for a little spin around the block. I never went above 3 grand and 3PSI boost but you could tell just from that little spin that it is going to be quite quick!

Anyway Pic's up 2morrow.

Discuss here: //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/21152-rwd4g62nzs-celeste-turbo/?hl=celeste

[RWD4G62NZ]

Here are the Pics of her with the new modgies on. May lower it a little more but I think that I'll wait untill the new springs and shocks settle first.

Decided that she was running well enough to drive into town so I put my new seats in and bolted my seat belts back in took her for her first wof and reg for 8 months. Walked strait through, no worries!

Still got to get some new carpet for it but apparently AutoDek don't do a moulded carpet kit so I'll just get it made locally. Hopefully I'll get over to Nelson to have her tuned just after easter so can't wait for that. Will be mint to finally feed it some boost!!!

[RWD4G62NZ]

Fuck, Fuck, Fuck! Just when things were starting to come together

I have found that while she had been sitting waiting for the Multipoint gear to get finished moisture got into the engine and has done damage. It's producing loads of blow-by gas and pressurizing the sump because the rings are not sealing properly. Totally fucken gutted cause I was getting set to take it to Nelson to get tuned very soon!!!

New plan is to bore out my spare block either 20 or 40 thou and add Hypertec semi forged pistons and Perfect Circle chrome-moly rings. While this is being done I'll hoist the motor out and pull it down so I can use my shot-peened rods in the new block. Can't really justify the expence of going for fully forged internals but this will be a good solid setup for the kind of work and boost that the car will be running. I'll put up pics and prices of the parts if anyone is interested.

[RWD4G62NZ]

Just finished pulling the motor apart today in preperation for a rebuild. When removing the first piston guess what I found? Broken 2nd Ring. Well this was the same story for 3 out of 4 pistons, broken second ring.

When I ran this puppy in and drove it around on the old centre point injection she was going sweet and then I noticed a bit of blowby just before I pulled it off the road to go to the multipoint setup. Workshop mates and I had a good look over the pistons and bore and the only thing we can come up with is a dud batch of rings from ACL.

The pistons/cylinders were all pretty evenly matched, none were greyish or anything from running to lean and I never boosted it past 8psi which is about factory. To my pure amazement none of the broken rings came out of the lands and scoured the block and I have been driving it around for the last week!!!

Going for a hone-out and new pistons,pins,rings and new graphite/metalic 3 layer headgasket.

Will post some new pics soon.

[RWD4G62NZ]

Finally got all my new parts in from Aussie. Hypertek piston kit looks awsum and steel head gasket is kick arse 2. Finally found a full moly ring set from "Hastings Rings". All the others I found had Cast second comp rings which I diddnt want as they were the cause of my last problems.

Will start assembling next week so photo's soon to follow.

Cher.

[RWD4G62NZ]

Hey All,

Havn't posted in ages as I have been flat out working both at work and on the Celeste afterhours. I have made alot of progress starting with the fitment of earlier model 1978 bumpers front and rear. I was intending to add the whole 78 front end(grill, lights, bumpers) but I found that the earlier model's headlight buckets are bolted in and the square headlight models headlight buckets are welded in! There was no way I was gona start grinding off welds just to have the round headlights in so I settled for just the bumpers and they look sweet as they hug the body so much better as you can see from the pics.

While I was pissing around with the bumpers I had the engine away getting inspected and machined. The whole bottom end came back with a clean bill of health, no cracks or stresses at all. Block was bored 20 thou and the deck was blocked a little. Crank had the journals done and new bearings throughout. The new semi-forged pistons were installed with the new moly rings and my allready shot-peened rods went back in with new gudgen pins. I made the desision at this stage to also remove the balance/silent shafts as my engine builder had done this before and he said that it was one less thing to go wrong. I assembled it all back together and chucked it back in the car.

Last Wednesday I put her on the trailer and carted it over to Nelson for a road tune of the Link. Took the better part of the day but I left very satisfied. Running 5 to 10psi max at the moment untill after I've done a thousnd or so KM's then I give it an oil change and then hopefully take it to a dyno for a full performance tune. Seat of the pants says the car is bloody quick, even my tuner who has built and tuned 600HP RB's and SR's to name but a few said he was real surprised by how quick the little Moleste was. Boost comes on at about 2000rpm and gives you a real shove back in the seat not unlike a wrx or evo. Obviously she does not rev like either of those but she's a bundle of fun. Next mission is to sort out my LSD Diff. Wanna try and do a ratio change cause my standard diff is to short and the car tops out at 160km. Anyone know what the diff ratio of a standard 1981 Celeste is???