To catch up you folks who don't frequent 7GH....
More work. All work and no play makes Foos a broke boy.
My mani was not right.
Now it's right. Last thing I need is that fucker warping when it gets hot. Gotta give her a little wiggle room. Die grinder style.
My new fuel rail didn't fit exactly right either. Had to figure out how to get the rail to cinch down on the injector plate a little tighter.
Hmmm....
I have a big orange vise....
and a little orange die grinder.....
and a big blue bench grinder....
So strap that in there and start cuttin' and grindin'. I got rid of some superfluous aluminum while I was at it as well.
Much better. And while I was cleaning things up, I pulled the evap valve off the TB and stuck it on the firewall so it makes the IM a little more presentable.
Almost done. Just need to futz with some wiring, wait for my injector clips and strap the head back on and then it's time for a tune at the end of the month!
Next Day.....
So everything was going along smoothly. Wiring done. Gauges done. Kpro installed. MAP sensor wired in, IAT sensor wired in. Installed the IM on to the head. New gasket on to the block. Plopped the head on to it. Started my torque sequence.
20 lbs - OK.
40 lbs - OK.
60 lbs - OK.
80 lbs - 1 good, 2 good, 3 goo....hmm still going, must not have seated all the way, I'll come back to it. 4 good, 5 good, 6 good, 7 good, 8 good, 9 good, 10 good. Let's go back to 3 now.
Turn some more on the 3, still not clicking. back the wrench to 75 lbs, good. Hmm. Stock bolts I'd stop, but these are ARPs. Another 1/4-turn and no click. Switch to my other torque wrench. Another 1/4- tur......BANG!!!
Fucking piece of shit. I guess 5 torque cycles (as many times as I've had the head off) is too much for a set of ARPs at 80 ft. lbs. Now I need to order a new set of studs and another head gasket. Yay.
Here's my fucking gauges. I like them. Go fuck yourself if you don't. I don't want to hear about it.
Long day today and I'm still not done. Oh well. I'm taking my time with so I get everything the way I want it. I came home yesterday (doing some training in Georgia for 4 weeks) and my new head studs, head gasket and injector clips were here. Hooray. I'm tired now but I was a lot more excited when I saw them.
New studs installed.
And torqued to 75 ft/lbs. Since the last one was fine at 75 and snapped at 80, I'm no longer torquing to 80 ft/lbs.
After all this I went out to eat with my family and shit around at the mall area for a little bit. Pulled me away from the garage for a bit but I picked up a new soldering iron and some reference material for my next project; "How to Build Max Performance Chevy Small Blocks on a Budget" by Dave Vizard. Good book so far. I'm not going to break the bank with my next project like I have with this one.
Anywho, got some more work done. Finished up the return setup by installing my lines and inline Trickflow filter. Feed is on the right, return is on the left so I wouldn't have lines running all over the bay. Then I put the mani on. I apologize for the blurry pic on this one but it appears my camera may be showing it's age finally.
Since necessity is the mother of invention, I remember I need a heat shield for my alternator. even though the DP is wrapped, the alternator is still getting some pretty bad heat soak which will only get worse with more boost.
Enter the old cookie sheet!
I cut it in half, put a couple bends in it, and then drilled and tapped a few holes to attach it to the AC bracket. A little paint and she's done! More pics tomorrow once it's dry and I install it.
Continueing on I re-installed the DP and plumbed in all the lines for the turbo, fed the vac mani and brake booster their lines and re-installed the water neck. At this point it was 1130 pm and I was tired so I took this picture and quit.
Tomorrow is another day.
Just about done. I had to nip inside to make sure I'm wiring up the boost solenoid correctly and figured I would bounce up the pictures so far.
Here's the physical layout of the return fuel setup.
FPR is up next to the power steering control unit and this insures a short run between rail and FPR.
Here's the actual rail. I've run return on the left and feed on the right.
Underneath looking up. You can see the brake proportioning valve there below the filter and the bottom of the IM on the right.
My fuel lines running at down the stock location. I'll need to snip my zips before I'm done.
And that's that. I've already taken pics of the pump assembly plus the interior is all buttoned up anyway, so use the search button in this thread if you want to see how that's done.
Like I promised, finished pics of my cookie sheet heat shield for the alternator.
As seen from the front:
And from the DP side. Simple but effective IMO.
Time for solderin'! First off I had to make a third hand. It's hard enough to type, watch porn and solder at the same time so this will come in handy.....hyuck hyuck hyuck!!!
Just a simple piece of aluminum rod with some alligator clips JB Welded to it.
Here it is in action:
How to solder stuff on your car. I make a mess so you probably shouldn't follow my example.
But the clips are all soldered up and installled!
Finished installing the WG and the power steering pump. Since I'm using the EBCS (electronic boost control solenoid), I have to use the top port on my WG. It barely clears the power steering pump.
See? In engineering jargon, the distance between my PS pump and WG vac port is one cunt hair.
Speaking of EBCS's. Here's where I put it:
A shot of my Gate's flexi hose. I need to relocate that coolant port on the thermo housing. As you can see, Honda put it in the wrong place.
That's that! I'm back out to the garage to finish up!
And then I finished up and things aren't right.
Symptoms first.
Rough start and has a hard time getting to idle. When it does idle, it's sitting rich (around 12 on the AFR) and as soon as I open the throttle plate a little, it leans out and dies. If I start it with the pedal to the floor it will run like shit, seesawing on the RPMs and is unable to settle down to an idle. The only time I can get it to idle is by starting it without touching the throttle and then its a crapshoot as to whether it will idle or not. When it does, it idles like stock - as much as that is possible with my car. No valve train noise (that isn't expected) no stuttering, no missing.
What I've checked.
There are no vacuum leaks.
The valve lash is spot on.
The motor responds to changes in the fuel tables in kpro. In otherwords I can lean out the idle, but that doesn't change anything once I open the throttle.
TPS is reading fine and accurate.
The return setup is solid. It's not leaking, the FPR is functioning and responds to adjustment when I can get the car to idle. In otherwords, I am able to increase and decrease the fuel pressure via the adjustment screw and it also ups the fuel pressure as per the boost reference port. One nice note is that I'm building boost with no engine load. The MAP reads about .4 psi of positive pressure at around 3500 RPMs. That makes me happy.
I checked the pump this morning to see if a line was kinked and replaced the SS line in there for a piece of Gates submersible hose. This gives the pump assembly flex like stock where it didn't have that before. So the pump is good. The fittings don't leak, and the lines aren't kinked.
One thing that may be is that I have the fuel filter backwards. It's a Trickflow filter and it doesn't have a flow arrow so that may be it. I will pull it apart this weekend to take a look at it.
The rail is solid. It doesn't leak and I don't get a pressure drop when I am able to raise the RPMs.
I am getting fuel to all four cylinders and I'm getting spark to all four cylinders as well. Air is not an issue nor is timing.
MAP sensor is good, cam and crank position sensors appear to be fine but I haven't checked them with a multimeter yet, but I'm not throwing any codes for them.
Possiblilities.
Stock evap solenoid is removed and the signal wire is wired to my EBCS for kpro to control the boost-by-gear. The evap vacuum line is plumbed into vacuum system of the car. The stock check valve is unmolested. I don't think this is it, but I don't know.
My fuel filter is backwards and causing a blockage. I don't think so because I would see this on my fuel pressure gauge.
I miswired an injector. Injectors don't care which way you wire them, and as far as I know they only have to be wired the same polarity for all four. I double-checked when I soldered in the new clips, but I'll check again.
One, some, or all of the injectors aren't behaving. I did not get them cleaned and flow tested after I got them from Andy, but they should be fine. It's an unknown right now because I didn't have them checked. I am going to swap them for my SRT-4s this weekend to rule them in or out.
