X2BOARD

Finally, she is back !!! Weak and slow as ballz, but back ! We started her up and slowly, but surely she cranked. I let her idle from about a half and hour, monitoring the engine bay.... it began ....

First off, a fuel leak !!! from injector #4, thought it was the seal to the manifold, so, popped it out and replaced it. Restarted and OMIG, now the fuel is squirting out... popped the fuel rail again and realized the O ring on the opoosing end of the same injector was shot... replaced that and VOILA ! No leaks !
Noticed a small amount of coolant leaked onto a line below the TB, but that stopped after the initial idle run and hasn't shown itself since.

I did notice a tiny amount of oil leaking from the seam on the head/block on the front left side, (I am hoping it's only improper torquing from a crappy torque wrench on the head studs... I'll find out soon. Every now and then some smoke eninates from the bay, but my entire bay was washed with oil prior to the rebuild thanks to a broken fitting, so it's prolly just burning off... no smoke from the tail tho

The tranny is SUPER tough to row thru the gears, it has been easing up, but not much, maybe the shift linkage is too tight ??
I rolled her out to the street and I LOVE THIS CLUTCH !! (stock clutch, carbon/kevlared with a notched fly and stage 5 PP) travel is short, light and springy... no surprises once you get used to it.

To avoid damaging the turbo, I connected the charge pipe and ran my turbonetics MBC down to nothing. The only prob is that I can read boost climbing past 1 psi... even with the MBC at nothing ! Oh well, I have been avoiding even creeping into boost and have only shifted at 3K at most. I can only get to 55 in 5th .
For those who don't know, I am running aftermarkets, yeilding almost a 9.0:1 and the 'piston slap' is there, but not intruding. But let's face facts... my car now sounds like a truck (don't play..... stock ITR exhaust for now) but the idle seriously reminds me of a big rig... just not sooo loud... let's put it this way... I run FAL fans and you can hardly hear them click on while I'm idling..... but the motor sounds mean and it runs hots in the bay, you can feel the heat eminating from the car. People will be crowding around the Magic Show during the winter months for sure !

Well, not much else to add so far, the low comp has been very noticable down low and the car does not attempt to make any power until about 2500+, but I believe the stock GSR fuel maps will definitely need to be modified when I get my hands on a Vafc.

I did a short highway run at night, few cars, I drove at slow, alternating speeds. I drove about 50 miles total till this morning, but on last night's cruise, the temp gauge went all the way to H once, I eased off the throttle, switched on the fans for a moment and it went back to normal temp and never did it again (removed the thermostat as well).

I am, however, having problems with what seems to be my idle control valve (IAC) as periodically, the car will drop to low rpm on idle and come back soon after.

Sorry about the rambling post, [Best Sprokets voice] I am as happy as little girl ! [Best Sprokets voice]

**Soon I will retrain myself as I was before... A SITH .... Muh HAHAHA HA HA HA HA....

EE_Chris

Not sure if you were looking for advice or not, but I'll give it.....I would throw the thermostat BACK in. There has to be a restriction in the coolant system to allow the coolant enough time to absorb the heat....if its constantly flowing the temp gauge could be telling you the engine is cold/normal because the coolant hasn't absorbed heat, however, your engine is probably smoking hot.

And re-reading your post one last time: "My engine bay is hot....so hot people will be gathering around The Magic Show (I like the name BTW) in the winter"....hmmm....

X2BOARD

Advice ? Adivce is always good... I wasn't sure on the thermostat thing, but I opted out for it... you do have a good point on the heat absorbtion, so I just might consider putting it back on there, but if I do, it'll go on during the weekend. The last time I worked on her on a weekday, my tie got caught in the timing belt and my motor tried to kill me... j/k

VTC_CiViC

The Magic show is back? **cringe**

Must...turn....up.....boost...

X2BOARD

MUH HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW !!!

Enjoy what little time you have left.... right now, an original Mini can beat me... heh heh heh....

After the 'break-in'... let's see what else breaks...ha ha ha... I crack myself up...


[Modified by X2BOARD, 12:19 PM 5/14/2002]

TurbodCX

hey man, the car is getting hot because the head gasket is leaking, i had the same prob.. i bet that if you check you bleeder there will be alot of air that comes out of the hole if you break it loose..... another thing is to take off the radiator cap after the car has been setting and cooled.... i bet you get alot of air out of there also... i know all this bad news suck, but you are better off to fix it now and not be stuck with worse probs. trust me i had the same **** happen to me THREE TIMES!!! later.
brian

X2BOARD

Hell, if it is the headgasket, that's not a problem, I will pull the head with a quickness... on the weekend Besides, I would like to retorque the head studs and check on that small leak anyways.... but if it is the headgasket, I wouldn't be able to re-use it right ? That would suck... HG's are not cheep.

TurbodCX

yeah you can NOT reuse the head gasket.... just buy a new one ,,they are around 50-60 bucks, but hat is a cheap fix if it gets it running right..
brian

X2BOARD

Ok, update:

Replaced headgasket with a new LS head gasket.
Re-torqued head with 30W oil to 80 ft/lbs
Bolted it all up and zipped all the zips...
Found a rather large hole in the oil feed line which was causing some periodic smoking, fixed it

Saw a small amount of oil leak out the left, frontmost side of the head. Looked kinda like a large tear drop of oil. For the rest of the day, there was not oil leaking oil for the entire day... woo hoo... then the following day !
Saw a small amount of leaking out, then today, a bit more than before.
Have not needed to add a quart yet.

This sucks, I think the head is warped !!

Frig...another headgasket to buy, que mission !!!

VTC_CiViC

:cough: Lake Okeechobee :cough:

X2BOARD

You bring your old teg out too and we can have a real lake party... *glub, glub glub** What's the phone number for progressive again ?