First thought was, “Shit. I spun all the bearings in the bottom end.” After considerable troubleshooting, however, it seems the noise is in the head. This has been a real poseur. It’s also the straw that broke the camel’s back, as I’ve decided to throw a different engine into [464], steam clean it, and sell it.

Here’s what we’ve done over the last couple weeks:

Immediately did a compression test – 150-150-130-150. A capful of oil brought #2 right back up to 150psi cold. Nothing that would explain the noises here.

Since the old plugs were old and the wires were sketchy, I figured it would be worth trying new plugs and (Bosch) wires. NO CHANGE.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have a lot of confidence in the new wires, so Keith and I tried the premium (NGK) wires he had on his rally car. NO CHANGE.

We did another compression test, same results. NO CHANGE.

Next, we pulled the VC/plugs and watched everything free spin on starter without any compression. Spins right up like a top. Sounds like a sewing machine. This leads us to believe there’s nothing mechanically out-of-whack until the power stroke pressurizes the cylinders. We didn’t even get any change doing a load balance test and disconnecting plug wires one at a time while the engine was running. NO CHANGE.

I even went so far as to pull the cam retainers and check for a collapsed lifter, missing valve spring retainer locks, or something almost invisible. NO CHANGE.

Then I discovered I’d missed an exhaust manifold stud when I reassembled everything. (This is why you don’t start drinking until all your chickens have hatched in that one basket.) It’s that one tricky one in the lower, timing belt corner behind the power steering pump bracket. Pain in the ass. Thought my problems were solved and this was all a serving of crow for not paying attention. Nope. NO CHANGE.

Here’s a video of what’s going on I posted to Youtube.

So that’s it, then. The engine is coming out, I’m steam cleaning the engine bay and undercarriage, throwing the other engine in, and selling it. The plan is to hopefully get enough cash to pick up a Gen I Montero/Pajero/Raider and move on. I’ll still have the race car. I’ll still be in the Mitsubishi family. I’ll still have my sanity.

The Story
[464] seemed a bit down on power over a weekend late in Janurary 2012. Completely stock under the hood save a hacked airbox, K&N drop-in filter, and manual boost controller (MBC) adding 5lbs to the factory 7PSI boost pressure, it’s been a mostly reliable daily driven parts car for the better part of three years at this point. I thought I might have been hearing a little knock from time to time under load, but couldn’t be sure.

I thought I had enough time to finish [195]‘s engine and get the race car back on the road before this lump let go, but such would not be the case. On my way to work on Monday, January 30th, the car wouldn’t make more than 5PSIi. I was not a happy camper. Running less than 8:1 compression, these cars need their turbos to be any fun at all, and now I was making less than factory power, which was only 190bhp on a good day.

At the end of the day, I went to drive home and had no boost at all. I’d watch my boost gauge jump from vacuum to 0psi and not a hair beyond. It was like hitting fuel cut and maximum ignition timing retard as soon as my right foot was asking for anything more than about 15% throttle. FAIL. It would eventually get up to 70-75mph and cruise just fine, temps and noises all as they should be, but give it a little more pedal and it was very unhappy.

Initial Troubleshooting
After dinner that night, I pulled the intake plumbing to inspect the compressor side of the turbo. Maybe it would be obviously wonky or something. Not so. No more shaft play than expected from an older, healthy TD05-14B – zero in/out, zero up/down, ever-so-slight side-to-side.

Next thing I did was pull the plugs, disconnect the cam angle sensor (CAS), and do a warm compression test. 150PSI across the board, save cylinder #2, which read pretty low for my liking at just 130PSI. A cap of clean Rotella down the well and a re-test later, it was right back up to 150PSI. All the plugs looked fine, if not due for a replacement.

I’ll Never Do a Boost Leak Test
Coming from the 420A-powered 2GNT crowd, I cut my teeth on cars using speed density to calculate fuel needs. The 420A uses manifold absolute pressure (MAP) and intake air temperature (IAT) to determine fueling needs. The venerable 4G63 uses mass airflow (MAF) to do the same. Split a rubber intercooler hose on a 4G63 and the engine runs for shit. Lose a coupler on your intercooler piping on a 4G63 and the engine runs for shit. I hate that. I think it’s stupid.

In come the comments, “Did you do a boost leak test?” No. No I did not. I have never done a boost leak test. As I see it, boost leak testing is merely an efficiency tool. Lose a pound or two here, another pound or two there, and the system has to work harder to to deliver the same results. Additionally, that damned MAF is seeing more airflow than the engine is ingesting, presenting some pretty serious tuning issues, but I digress.

A TD05-14B flows something like 450CFM at 20-ish PSI. Now, maybe I’m being a bit over-confident in my hearing abilities, but I’m thinking, if I can hear faint ping inside the engine from inside the car, I’m pretty sure I’m going to hear a 450CFM air leak under the hood. Call me crazy.

My First Boost Leak Test
So I broke down and made a boost leak tester. Did a boost leak test. Sort of. Used a bike pump. The results? 20psi at the tester on the downstroke, which instantly dropped to 0PSI as soon as I lifted the handle. Complete waste of time. Since the engine otherwise ran perfectly fine, I figured something was wrong with the hot side (turbine, in the exhaust stream) and decided to pull the turbo in order to replace it with the known-good unit hanging on the race car engine on the stand behind me in the garage.

Doesn’t look like a boost leak to me. Looks like part of the exhaust manifold failed, dropped into the collector, and blocked exhaust flow (among other things).

I’m told this manifold was ported and that’s why the ring failed, although inspection of the other side suggests it wasn’t even gasket-matched. :shrug

I tried spinning the turbine, only to find it stuck. Gave it a bit more effort and it broke free, spinning as if nothing was wrong. Yeah. Not going back on the car.

Wastegate flapper looked fine, wastegate outlet was cracked in several places. (Manifold looks cracked down inside, too.)

With the turbo, manifold, and O2-(sensor)-housing completely removed (above), I swapped in its twin from the race car engine (below).

Gave anything I’d be taking loose a liberal shot of PB’laster. I did re-use the newer O2 sensor of the two.

Swapped everything over, topped off my oil and coolant, double-checked everything was as it should be, made sure there were no tools or rags loose in the engine, fired it up to check for leaks and warmup the engine before a test drive…

…and proceeded to spin a rod bearing. Next on Tarmac & Gravel: Engine “Fail.” Stay tuned.

Valve Cover

Cyclone

Cam Gears & Pulleys

“Thunder, light rain, BB King, & an old engine. Saturday nights don’t get much better than this. “

My goal is to get 195/2000 moving under its own power by Christmas. I’m not entirely sure that’s going to happen, but I decided to make some progress this weekend.

Here’s what I started with. The valve cover is raised because I have all the cam retainer bolts only started (to keep me from losing them or mixing anything up). I’m hoping to score a set of Evo VIII cams for this engine before all is said and done. The $700 it would cost me to pick up a set of high-lift/short-duration Kelford or Piper rally grinds (or even a $500 set of Forced Performance FP1X grinds) is best spent elsewhere at this point, methinks.

The “God Bolt” (only one of its kind on the entire vehicle) is one tough mother. I had to drop the oil pan, wedge a piece of wood between the crankshaft couterweights and block before going Breaker Bar Inception on this bad boy. You’re looking at a breaker bar within a breaker bar within a breaker bar - I had a 3ft crow bar slipped inside a 2ft length of pipe over an 18-inch Craftsman 1/2″ drive breaker.

The bolt cracking loose was so loud, I thought I’d damaged the crankshaft. (Hey. We’re talking physics, here.)

GREAT SUCCESS.

My dog, Mia, wasn’t much help, but she kept me company.

Here’s the front case/oil pump with the crank and oil pump sprockets removed. The small sprocket top left is for the front balance shaft. The rear balance shaft is bolted in behind the castle nut above the spindle lower right. (Balance shafts are also known as “silent shafts,” as they spin opposite the crankshaft at double speed to neutralize second-order vibrations for passengers.)

Because A) I’ve spent time trying to help friends figure out which bolts go where on these things in the past and B) it might be a couple weeks before I go to install the new oil pump on this engine, I cleaned the bolts up nice, put them in the box with the new pump, and whipped up this picture, which shows the location of each bolt overlaid on the picture above.

I arranged all the bolts on the floor next to each other. They are all at the same scale, relative each other. Hope this helps someone.

click for larger image

With the balance shafts removed, I took a quick picture of them side-by-side. The front can be completely removed, but I’m debating milling the rear down to use instead of the stub shaft included in my balance shaft elimination kit (BSEK).

For those who aren’t already familiar, the front shaft is spun by a small belt that runs behind the timing belt. If it fails, it can take out the t-belt, potentially destroying the engine (piston-to-valve interference). Since the rear shaft is spun by the timing belt, running a stub shaft to replace it can result in uneven wear on the pump internals, resulting in metal debris in the oil supply. Never a good thing. Turning the counterweight down on a mill reduces the weight considerably while providing for a truer rotation in the bore.

Speaking of bores, here’s a look into the block where the front balance shaft was located. Note the oil supply hole in the bearing between 3-4 o’clock in the foreground. This bearing will either be replaced or popped out and rotated to prevent a loss of oil pressure – this balance shaft will not be re-installed at all.

And here’s a look into the block where the rear balance shaft is located.

One of the hardest parts of this job was removing the front case gasket. This is one of the hottest locations on the engine, as hot oil and coolant (you can make out the round outline of the water pump at the top of the picture) are pumped through the entire lump from this area. These gaskets just get baked on.

After nearly an hour and two brand new razor blades ground down to dangerously dull edges, it looks like this. Still not clean enough for my liking, so I’ll probably take another blade and some acetone or something to everything before the new case and pumps are installed.

And here we have “after;” my stopping point for the evening. The oil filter housing is draining the filter into my catch pan (will be replaced with a 90 DSM housing and remote oil cooler), and the oil pan is full of all the odds and ends removed this evening.

Tomorrow, after a quick Skype with my Gearbox Magazine partner in the Netherlands, Dennis, I’ll be heading to the shop to do the following:

+ Bead blast and/or chemical bath
— oil pan
— cam gears
— coolant hard lines
— exhaust heat shield
— spare valve cover (might paint it red)
+ Clamp camshafts in a vice to remove cam gears
+ Cut out a couple custom gaskets for the Cyclone intake manifold

Should be a good day. I pretty much have everything I need to get this engine back together save the desired cams. Once it’s assembled, I’ll bring the wire harness over with an eye on refurbishing it. A neat project I’ve got in mind for the wiring is building a sub-harness just for the engine and transmission so I can simply undo two electrical connections before pulling the engine/trans in the future.

Pressing on regardless…

Background
There are a pair of coolant lines feeding the throttle body on the first generation DSM and 6th generation Galant Vr4 (4G63T). Basically, once the engine is up to temp and the thermostat opens, the hot coolant melts a wax pellet or something inside the fast idle air valve (FIAV), blocking airflow past the throttle plate to deliver a reasonable idle (approximately 75orpm). Until then, FIAV allows the engine to idle at a higher speed for easier cold starting. When this piece of kit shits the bed, you get a 2500rpm (or higher!) idle until the engine warms up. That’s pretty annoying.

The idle speed control (ISC) is a stepper motor in the throttle body (TB) which the computer uses to adjust idle speed within a set range. It’s probably most active when you activate the power steering at low speeds or turn on the AC/defroster. If the ISC doesn’t burn out on you, odds are good you will do something which will turn it into a complete retard, giving you the infamous idle surge. Always nice to pull up to a stop light and be “that guy” with the engine revving up and down by 500-1000rpm.

I got tired of it.
It’s not uncommon for people to block off these bits and wash their hands of them. Nice thing about OBDI cars; this doesn’t trip a CEL.

So I took a spare TB to Keith’s shop, opened it up with an impact driver (the machine screws holding it all together have threadlocker on them and are made of butter), then cleaned it up in the parts washer. I made a block-off gasket by cutting my own blank from bulk gasket material I had in the garage. No need to get medieval with metal plates, given the low temps seen by the TB. I also removed the little metal springy-thingy inside the FIAV/ISC ports within.

With the TB ready to be installed, I got the old TB out.

1. pull the vacuum lines on top of the TB
2. disconnect the ISC and throttle stop switch
3. disconnect TPS
4. remove small Philips bracket screw atop TB
5. disconnect intake hose at TB elbow, shove downward
6. disconnect/plug TB coolant lines (drain some coolant or expect a leak)
7. unbolt throttle cable from intake manifold (10mm)
8. pull slack in throttle cable toward passenger side, slip cable from TB arm
9. undo 12mm nut on CAS
10. undo 12mm bolts on front of TB, remove TB/CAS bracket
11. undo 12mm nuts on rear of TB, set aside
12. remove TB elbow (try to save the gasket or replace)
13. slide TB away from intake manifold, lift fuel line OVER base of TB
14. drop TB down, rotate toward firewall, lift up and out

Here’s another picture:

Re-assembly is the reverse, but you will want to bypass those coolant lines. I found the hose that ran from the thermostat housing to the TB was plenty long enough to simply attach to the water pipe below the TB (the other line removed in the process above). You an see the coolant hose I re-used just below the CAS in the picture above.

TPS adjustment
I got it all back together only to find I got a check engine light (CEL) when I let the car idle. I swapped the TPS but forgot to adjust it! This wasn’t a hard process at all (but it would have made more sense to do this before putting everything back together). Simply connect the TPS, set the TB on the intake manifold, turn the key to the ACC position, load your favorite datalogging program (I use the old TechnoMotive), pull up the DRB2 info and adjust. In the picture above, I was holding the throttle wide open while gently adjusting the TPS to read 100%. Closed, it reads 10%. Problem solved.

Life without FIAV/ISC
The car won’t just start with a turn of the key when it’s cold now. I have to crack the throttle a bit with my right foot prior to bumping the starter and hold the revs around 1500-2000rpm for 30-60 seconds before it will stay running on its own. Small price to pay for a rock steady idle. RPMs are consistent and predictable between gears, and once warmed up, the tach sits exactly where I set it now. Very happy with this m0d.

It’s almost ready to get back on the road. Just a little more TLC and Keith will be G2G!

Resurrecting a car that’s been apart for so many years brings with it special circumstances. Mainly, where did all the nuts and bolts and parts go? They have a habit of disappearing. Fortunately, Keith has a slight variation of this problem. You see, since this car went airborne on the lift, he’s inherited all the spares from not one, but TWO Mitsubishi rally teams. We’ve filled a small trailer with spare parts at least twice in the last couple years and now there’s an entire storage unit full of spares. Thing is, it’s not always easy to find what you need when you need it.

Keith had the engine hung on the lateral motor mounts, but when we went to bolt it in all the way, we discovered he might have cleaned up a DSM front motor mount horn instead of a GVR4 piece. These two cars might have a lot in common, but there are still a number of odd little differences between them. Remember, the DSM was made exclusively in Normal, Illinois, while the Galant came from Japan. The picture above shows the two mounts side-by-side.

Seen side-by-side, again, the GVR4-specific piece is stamped ’344.’ The DSM piece is stamped ’347.’ Pay no mind to the piece of slag welded to the back of the 344 bracket above. That was likely for a rally-specific reinforcement at some point in the past. We cut it off before installing it in this street car.

We also ran into issues when we went to bolt up the AC compressor. The GVR4 has a different series of brackets for the AC compressor and belt tensioner. Pictured, above, the DSM unit is on the left and the Galant version is on the right. The tensioner bracket mounts to the compressor girdle, so if you get these mixed up (it happened to me a couple years back, actually), you’re pretty much SOL. Just a head’s up.

These two “prototypes” will be used to hold sections of OEM wire harness and switchgear I’ve currently got in two other buckets.

This is what they looked like prior to the hastily-applied stencils.

And here’s a more sinister prototype, done all in black. I’m not sure how I’ll do the rest, but this sure looks better than bright yellow with information on clumping and odor control!

Pretty cool, considering it’s about six years old. Only thing missing is the CD with the software and instructions. (Which I suspect I could find if I asked around a bit.) It looks so simple, I might just give it a try in the daily driver. Hmmm…