Mjrstar's bugeye starlet.

[mjrstar]

Discuss here

viewtopic.php?f=18&t=22630

Sorry no before pics of the sky high ride height and 12'' wheels..

first track day at pukekohe led to this:

this was turbo # 3

i use was because this is how the turbine wheel ended up.

some of the stoppy bits..

freebie hilux calipers, running endless pads made for a subaru

245 killerwasps, maybe the 1G boat anchor is good for something? (other than stopping a boat from floating away)

i'll dig around and find some more progress shots of bits and pieces, i am a bit shit on the photography side of things.

[mjrstar]

so i got sick of the nasty fwd offset wheels + spacers so i cheaped out on some sport max 15x8 0 offset with my 205 semi slicks.

not sure i went down the right path here but decided some fibreglass flares might cover the rubber a bit..

the finished product.

needs more low but i need to trim the guards before it finds it's way closer to the ground, not too keen on shredding the semi slicks for sake of a couple of inches of ride height.

[mjrstar]

i did some running around looking for new crank thrust washers today and i have an engine builder man who can make me some if he can't find any to do the trick. No listings from bearing companys.

in other news i gave the slugs a bit of a clean up.. they have been sitting in a box for a fair few years now.

Also had a fiddle around under the car with a tape measure now that i have accurate measurements on how big a 1j is plus the size of the J-W bellhousing , and it looks like a LOT of hassle unless my car grows 100mm even with the water pump removed the block would sit about 30mm forward of the radiator.

I guess i need to carry on with the 1G buils after all.

[mjrstar]

well i'm awaiting some new thrust bearings to be sourced, i might have to get some made from scratch or machined down form a bigger bearing. so the block is a bit lonely looking like this:

and the head got some love once i had modified my spring compressors..

Thats about all until the thrust washers magically appear, no shiny high spec stuff just a basic factory rebuild, possibly with the 3 layer steel headgasket I have stashed somewhere.

[mjrstar]

turns out i had already brought thrust washers 100 years ago (well probably more like 5 years) when i had first got the spare engine..

anyway...

old motor out, new motor built, with a fair few dramas, the following parts are different and were not easily interchangeable.

head, block, timing cover, oil pump pick up, turbo oil feed, turbo oil drain, oil cooler lines, oil cooler water piping, thermostat cover, water pump, dizzy instead of cas ..... etc etc.. still not too sure if my exhaust manifold will fit.

so every part took some fucking around to modify it to fit the new motor.

Also stripped the old motor to find the damage.. It had eaten something pretty small and metallic in to #6 which became inbedded in the head and was getting lightly tapped every time piston got to the top. All the bearings are showing almost no wear so the whole process is looking like a bit of a waste of time.

Oh yeah the new turbo is also dead.. that cost me about $100 per kilometer.

I'm bit sick of the car again, so having a break from it for a couple of days, i'll look at getting the sump, clutch and flywheel on mid next week and slott the motor back in.

[mjrstar]

So here is a couple of pics..

the offending material... fuck knows what it is from..

some of the shit that didn't want to fit.

another coozed turbo

[mjrstar]

Progress?

No hitches today.. clutch was nicely lined up engine dropped in easily.

It looks like i'll have a slight drama with plugging the oil feeds on the turbo head, there are a couple of extra ports that i really don't need. Valve clearances are a little tighter than I would have liked but i'll see how it goes..

That's about it.

[mjrstar]

I picked up my shiny bits today

then i started to put some of them on the car.

apparently a piece of round metal resembling a ball bearing appeared once the turbo was pulled apart, no idea what's going on there....

my attempt to re-use the copper washers for the banjo bolts on the fuel rail is not going to work unless leaking fuel/fire risk/excessive fuel consumption is desireabe, which I believe it is not.

next on the list will probably be the exhaust manifold.. hopefully it not too much dremel action to make it fit.

[mjrstar]

fuel leaks sorted, but now i have a bit of a water leak.. also got some more stuff on.

although something is mising.

I also found some more of the turbo destroying stuff..

no idea where they came from but they are too big to fit through the intercooler.

[mjrstar]

so this is the latest weight reduction plan...

ok so that's not actually the plan the idea is to find the car a bit more slam without it becoming a rather large lathe for tyres.

i used a bit of my underseal goo, sure it's untidy but i couldn't be fucked setting up to put real paint on there, plus it should resist stone chips a bit?

it looks a bit like this now...

sure it's not quite epic slam but its about 40mm better than before.

someone was asking about brake caliper brackets so here you go..

[mjrstar]

been a while...

finally got the turbo fitted back up and gave it a quick run with the compressor wheel held in place to prime it up and all seems well, i think the timing might be out but other than that the motor doesn't seem too bad, no mega leaks, excessive noise and no major smoke. I was going to take it for a decent run but i think i'll leave it to i shift, (the car is now full of garage junk)

A couple of pics because you can't have an update without them..

The engine bay is finally looking reasonably finished

[mjrstar]

So, i got the water pipe braised up, a big thanks to Mike-E, (I hope your boss didn't get too wound up) a bit of pissing around to get the thing back on the car with the exhaust manifold in place, taking off one of the engine to gearbox braces made life it a bit easier..

Crack...

no crack..

bit of paint to keep the rusty-rust away.

Plus some proof that the car actually left the garage, I took it for a quick blast up the road and it didn't fall to pieces so that was a bonus..

need to get motivated an start hacking up the rear guards so the shorter rear springs can go back in, although a bit worried about making the paint catch fire.

[mjrstar]

No epic updates all my other piece of shit cars are taking up my time, this is the most modified car but seems to break down the least..

The bloody mini refuses to stay in one piece and my evo us up on axle stands with a new rear diff and front diff/transfer sitting next to the car.

Anyways i took a couple of snaps of the starlet when it did leave the shed..

I brought a new gas bottle for the mig and some super skinny cutting discs in anticipation of hacking into the rear guards..

[mjrstar]

It's not wanting to idle and is generally feeling like the ignition is miles retarded. It runs with a bit of a miss below 2500rpm but seems reasonably smooth (although down on power) higher up in the rev range. i'm only running 1 bar of boost but it does feel a bit laggy. I'm having dramas getting a timing light on it but i'd say it's close enough to not be the problem.

I have freshly rebuilt the motor but i could not find any skinnier shims for the valve buckets hence why this is making me believe that things are a bit tight in there? Had less than the .2mm specified by the manual.

It is properly tuned etc from the last motor.

Has anyone else had a drama with tight valve clearances and what sort of issues they had.. Also any suggestions as to what might be the problem. I'm tempted to not drive it too much more in case i end up burning out a valve or 2..

Fuel pressure seems about right within 1-2 PSI.

Can i get the shims surface ground and re-hardened?

Cheers

[mjrstar]

Well today I went through my shim collection, I now have the tightest gap at .12mm which is not too far off. the best bit is that the car now behaves itself. normal idle and pulls smoothly... (It had 2 exhaust valves with no clearance)

Friggin stoked hi 5's all round etc... the turbo is making about 6psi at 3000RPM but feels a bit sad running 11psi spring pressure and i suspect the external is cracking open slightly at nearer 8psi...

If the boost controller wasn't so difficult to operate I'd have that set up to run very slightly more that standard pressure.. Currently has a 16PSI and 20PSI setting which is probably a bit much for the fresh engine.

Also slightly odd is the cold start tune seems to be super rich... not sure what the go is there.. I'm not going to get too phased about that until it's got a few more k's on it..

[mjrstar]

I put a few more k's on the car, seems to have is usual get up and go in the 4500 RPM + range, although i didn't want to beat on it too much just yet...

One minor hiccup which involved throwing off and intercooler hose which I didn't bother fixing (only about 6k's from home) so the car had a decidedly n/a feel and lack of grunt when this happened..

It's been a while since I have driven this thing in anger but it sure scared the shit out of me arcing up the back wheels in 3rd on the bumpy Waikato roads, even at a mild 11psi boost. Whilst trying to keep it under 6000rpm for engine running in purposes...

FXXCK knows what 20psi will feel like with this turbo setup!!

[mjrstar]

I got a pile of shims off Escorta a while back (cheers man) and finally got around to re-doing all the clearances today. (bloody 24 valve) anyway, it all worked out spot on so shouldn't have to worry about them again for a while.

I also chucked in a bit more ignition timing to see if it likes that, thankfully the Evo is back on the road after is centre and rear diff replacement so I can get back to concentrating on the real project cars..

I have been talking to a few dyno places in Hamilton and the bloke from Te-Rapa automotive seems like the best candidate to fiddle with the 1's and 0's rather than dragging the car all the way back to auckland for a tune...

[mjrstar]

So I started on plan B on the turbo front if the current turbo turns out to be a disaster..

Part A is an Evo 9 core and housings.

Part B involves a evo 4 turbo that i got cheap off Tardme ..

Part C is a brand new 15GK2 compressor from either an Evo 6.5 TME or possibly Evo 7 GTA. (this was purchased in haste before I found part

I was slightly surprised at the overall height of the 15GK2 compressor being quite a bit taller than the factory evo 4 compressor.

Anyways I index marked the compressor shaft,wheel,nut and pulled the e4 turbo apart and all looks reasonably healthy, well apart from what looks to be some thrust wear on the inducer of the turbine wheel..

Any thoughts on de-burring the turbine wheel vs just chucking it in as is??

For interests sake I chucked the mildly bent evo 9 Ti-Al tubine wheel on the scales and it came in at 120 grams which is a fair wack lighter than the 200g unit I pulled from the evo 4 turbo.

The plan will be to just jam the evo rotating assembly inside the 9 core and see how it goes, i just need to buy a big arsed o-ring for the compressor housing and some fresh loc-tite for the compressor wheel nut..

Probably not a very exciting update as it's not a dinner plate sized turbo, but I reckon it could be a nice compromise for the starlet?

[mjrstar]

It didn't take long to piece this back together after I went to town to buy the seal i needed and some circlip pliers...

As for the turbine wheel... I decided to take off any burrs that wanted to come off easily (with a sharp knife) and leave it at that, it seemed to work all-right

[mjrstar]

So I removed and striped the wastegate.. it looked pretty good inside, so I jammed that back on and pulled off the BOV. It has a screw on seat for the valve, which was slightly loose, it didn't look like it had been sealing properly..

Roads are still a bit wet for my liking... smooth semi slicks make for a unpredictable/dangerous adventure.. I'll wait for a dry day before i take it out for a test run..