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Some of you know my car has been under the knife for some time. I drove it to the 2004 Shootout, but on the way home the 120k transmission gave out (bearings). I decided to take the car apart and build it again from the ground up. A week later I put it on jackstands and started to dismantle it. That was 14.5 months ago.

The car sat in pieces for some time until May 2005, when I had saved up enough money to actually start ordering parts. The past 5-6 months have constituted the bulk of the rebuild, from ordering parts to putting them all together. When I started, plans included, and then grew into:

Motor:
2.4 150mm motor, 8.8:1 Wisecos/Eagle rods
FP/Ferrea valvetrain
FP3 cams
JM Fabrications sheet intake
No balance shafts
Ported oil pressure relief hole

Drivetrain/Trans:
XACT flywheel, my existing 2600 pp, 6-puck unsprung disc
Originally wanted to rebuild the trans, but plans for that got too expensive. I ended up getting a Galant VR-4 trans from a JDM dealer.
Rebuilt front axles
JNZ's short shifter

Suspension/other:
New brake rotors/pads
Poly bushings in every stock location with the exception of the front crossmember under the radiator
New swaybar endlinks front and rear
New ball joints front and rear
Seal kit for p/s pump
Steering gear re-adjustment (to get rid of play)
Welded clutch pedal assembly
Welded rear trailing arms
New clutch master & slave cylinders

Electrical:
AEM EMS w/ 5-bar MAP
PLX wideband
Oil pressure gauge (dunno why I didn't already have this)

Misc:
New custom O2 housing (the one I had was a prototype and didn't fit too well)
New IC pipes
TiAL BOV
Tons of new stock parts

Today the car runs once again. Below are a bunch of snapshots of the rebuild....

 

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Re: Diary of a rebuild

The way the car was sitting from August 2004 until May 2005:

6-bolt 4G64 out of a '91 Expo

Replacing the front wheel bearings

Some "custom" pieces I fashioned out of old tranny bearings for pressing out EVERY stock bushing of EVERY suspension component

Front subframe cleaned up prior to installation

Rebuilt axles from raxles.com

Disassembling the old head to make way for the new valvetrain

Additional porting to the PTE turbine housing of the SCM61. Those of you who followed my thread on the SCM61 a while back will be familiar with the boost creep problems I was having as a result of not making sure the wastegate hole was big enough to begin with

Matching the exhaust manifold collector

Plethora of parts waiting to be installed

"Square cam" FP3s

Custom SS O2 housing TIG welded by a friend

Large washers for welding up the rear trailing arms

 

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Re: Diary of a rebuild

Fresh from the machine shop. Punched out .020", .0040" piston-wall clearance

Also fresh from the machine shop with FP dual valvesprings, Ti retainers, and Ferrea standard size SS valves

Balanced XACT Streetlight flywheel and stock harmonic balancer

I had my 2G exhaust manifold milled flat. You would not believe how warped this thing was. It's worth checking any time you have it off.

Rings filed and ready to go

Bottom end assembled

Ported oil pressure relief hole

Some more bottom end stuff added, including paint

Hondata's "heatshield gasket" for the intake, sort of like a phenolic spacer but thinner and reportedly more effective. We'll see...

Further along

I later ended up moving the coil pack and transistor

Blocked-off FIAV

 

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Re: Diary of a rebuild

I had to grind the welds down a bit on the intake for the throttle to clear

Rear suspension back on with some new brakes

New ball joints, poly bushings, and alignment bolts

This shot sort of shows the welded rear trailing arm

Galant VR-4 trans and xfer case, ~50k miles

JNZ's short shifter (installed) next to the stocker

Ready to drop in

Engine bay no longer unoccupied

New O2 housing and wastegate dump

New elbow welded onto compressor outlet

Turbo/O2

Mocking up the new IC pipes

 

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Re: Diary of a rebuild

New IC pipes and valvecover, etc fresh from the powdercoater (American Stripping Company in Manassas, VA)

Wiring: splicing into sensor ground

Wiring the MAP sensor

Note here how the extraneous connectors (BCS, A/C switch) are bundled in with the main harness now to keep them out of the way

IAT sensor wired up and harness tucked away

Interior back together. The device showing "Air" is the PLX M-300 display. The red in the lower right is the new oil pressure gauge.

Almost ready to fire, just needed some new gas (to replace the 14 month old stuff)

Made it out into the driveway and down the street under its own power today around noon

A friend provided me with an EMS base map that's pretty close, but there are still plenty of adjustments that need to be made. It starts (sort of), idles, and runs. From what I can tell, the idle quality is better than the old 2.0 with HKS cams. I even drove it down the street to McDonald's to grab some lunch. The car feels pretty darn quick down low, quick-spooling almost like a stock 2G with a T-25. The clutch is SUPER grabby so some high revs are required to get going and not fall apart at the seams from shaking. Can't go too far from home, though, as the state inspection, town, and tag registration stickers are all dead.

Hope you enjoyed my little show and tell. It's been a long and expensive ride. Hopefully it'll be worth it. I'm excited, but I guess I won't really be happy until the motor has several thousand miles on it without having shaken the flywheel off or snapped the crank. Wish me luck.

 

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Thanks guys. I can't take credit for the welding, but everything else I did myself. Having my own welder and some welding skillz REALLY would have come in handy, but fortunately there's a metal fab shop down the street from me.

It'll be a week or so before I can stray far from home in the car. I need to get it running smoothly enough to pass state inspection, and it needs an alignment real bad.

did you take the motor and tranny out together..?

Yes. I always remove them together and drop it out the bottom of the car. It's easier and faster.

I can't help but to keep looking at your cas, polish/clean that up

Heh, yeah it is pretty ugly now that you mention it. I'm not very good at coordinating bling in my engine bay; too concerned with how it runs.

I hope we can get together soon and tear up the track like the good 'ol days.

I wish. If only there were a closer track, or I had a trailer.

 

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I've had that pod for two years.

 

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Well I started in May and got it running a week ago, so almost six months.

For a while, yes, I did sort of lose my zeal for having a DSM, which was depressing. I was worried I wouldn't appreciate it as much when I was done because it had been so long. All those concerns melted away as I started driving it again, though.

By now the car has been dialed in pretty well. I don't have a boost controller hooked up, so all I'm running is 1 bar of boost. Even so, the car seriously hauls. Not that it means much, but the AEM HP calculator estimated ~350whp with an extremely flat torque curve. I'm waiting on a solenoid for use with the AEM for automatic boost control.

 

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Try half that. Maybe it would have been that much if I had someone else do the work.

Oh and I have an angry dog so don't come knockin'.

 

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Since the G4CS doesn't have the knock sensor hole that you have behind #2 is this the 4G64 from the 91 Expo?

Yes. I mentioned that in a caption, I think. I got the block & crank from a friend who got it from a junkyard source. He instantly regretted selling it to me as it's a good find.

What machine shop did you use? Would you recommend them? Where did you get a torque plate for a 2.4 from? Did you hand-lap the block and head to arrive at that finish?

I use Gunther's Machining & Rebuilding in Walkersville, MD (few minutes north of Frederick). I've had a few blocks/heads worked on there and I trust them. As with any machine shop, there is some clean up work you have to do when you get the parts back, like washing out the block & head with running water to flush out the metal shavings, etc. They have a torque plate there for use with the 4G63/4. As for the finish, I believe they hot tanked the block and blasted the head. I went over the block myself with a wire wheel to get the extra crud off and then gave it a few coats of engine paint. The head I left alone, other than flushing it out.

I do some work out of my house in case any of you local guys are interested.

 

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am i close enough tobe local?

Probably not.

 

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Thanks for the kind words. To me, the car would look great if it weren't for the !@#$% scratches on either side from getting keyed a couple years ago. It's not visible in the pictures but it's very heartbreaking in person. I really need to take my mind off performance (NOOOO!!) and address this cosmetic issue.

The heatshield gasket doesn't compress very much, so you have to make sure both the intake manifold and head surfaces are completely flat, even if you apply copper sealant (which they recommend). It leaked a little when I first put it on, but I was able to tighten it down enough (hopefully not too much) to where it didn't leak anymore. I haven't done the touch-manifold-when-car-is-hot trick for the "hey, that's neat" factor. I have no prior test data with which to compare, so I guess it doesn't really matter.

The car has been running pretty good. However, the alternator took a dump, so the car is down again for a bit. I'm also going to take some time to replace the tie rods and install a rear camber correction kit. I am now a true believer in overhauling and tweaking the suspension/alignment on these old cars. The trailing arm modification in conjunction with the poly bushings everywhere and the new ball joints and swaybar endlinks has REALLY woken the car up, handling-wise. I can kick the ass-end out on spirited backroad runs with relative ease. A friend of mine who took a ride with me this weekend couldn't believe it: "I thought this was a 1G AWD understeering pig!" Mind you, my existing suspension modifications were an RMDSM rear swaybar, H&R springs & AGX shocks, and front/rear strut bars.

The car is definitely fast on just 16psi, however because of my relatively high compression (8.8:1), I'm finding it difficult to tune around knock on pump gas. The car felt faster on just 1 bar and lots of timing advance. I do need to re-tap the threads of the knock sensor hole (to rid it of paint; something I neglected to do earlier), which may have a positive effect on things. Either way, some time soon I intend to throw some meth injection on this car. Relatively simple and cheap, it will let me tool around town with C16-like power on pump gas. A friend dyno'd 590 on pump gas, meth, and 32 psi (PT67 turbo).

 

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Did you go with the updated lifters?

I already had them in my head prior to this rebuild.

 

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Here's what I do, 1Gs and 2Gs alike. 2G motor pulls are actually faster. A clean and smooth floor is required, as well as a 4x4 block of wood, engine stand, engine hoist, and some muscle:

Using two jacks on either side, jack the front of the car up as high as possible (watch open hood clearance in low-ceiling garages). Place it on a pair of 6-ton jackstands (for trucks). Drain the motor/trans and pull everything apart, including all the braces and gussets from the undercarraige and wheel well splash guards. Place some large cardboard on the floor. Bring the engine hoist (cherry picker) in and attach to the motor/trans from the top (p/s bracket and passenger side of intake mani are good attachment points). Put some tension on the motor and finally remove all of the motor mounts. Be sure the hoist chain is long enough and drop the motor/trans out the bottom. Place the wood block under the front motor mount bracket. Once the motor/trans is on the ground, detach the hoist and get it out of the way.

Here's where the muscle and clean/smooth floor come into play. Slide the motor/trans out from under the car. Pull, push, leverage, whatever it takes, just don't let it slide off of the cardboard or wood block and get scratched/dented. If the front end was jacked up high enough, there will be ample room to get it out. Once clear of the car, attach the hoist again and lift the motor/trans into the air a bit. Remove the trans, then lift the motor onto an engine stand.

Installation is the reverse. I like doing it this way because it's faster and does not require two people nor removal of the hood. It is particularly handy on 1Gs with ABS, as you don't have to worry about shoe-horning around it like when pulling/installing from the top. As long as you are gentle, you should not have any oil pan denting, etc.

 

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I do have one crazy question, where did you get that oil filler cap? It looks like from a truck or something?

It was on the car when I bought it.

 

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http://www.noyanusa.com/

 

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The car will be getting some methanol injection in the next couple weeks. I will post some pics of that once I get it completed.

 

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Thanks to all for the compliments and words of encouragement. Unfortunately, the motor self-destructed over the weekend.

I fitted the meth kit to the car which went off without a hitch. Later that night, my friend and I went out to dial it in. We worked the boost up to 30 psi and the car felt sick. The meth was working, tires were squealing, all was good. We got on to the highway and I started to make a pull in 3rd. Halfway through, the rod in #3 gave out.

The amount of damage to this engine was astonishing. Although there were no signs of detonation in the logs or on the spark plugs themselves, we believe that #3 preignited (occurs without much warning) and over-powered the rod and piston. The rod, because of the non-ideal angles it has to travel in a short-rod 2.4, snapped in half and took the bottom half of the piston with it. The piston then cracked in half and punched a hole in the cylinder. The coolant and oil mixed and pressurized, blowing out four freeze plugs (three in the front of the block, one in the back). Cylinder 3 filled with the oil/coolant mix which then migrated to the intake manifold and into the other cylinders. The intake manifold saw tremendous pressure, ballooned out, then blew off the UICP. The big end of rod #3, still connected to the crank, swung around and did a machete number on the bottom end, punching large holes out of the front and rear of the block. The headgasket was also compromised in #3.

Of these multiple failures, we are still trying to figure out what went wrong first, so that I can avoid it in the future. The preignition theory is the best we've got so far, although the headgasket issue may have had something to do with it as well. I wish I had something to show for all this, aside from a few logs and twisted metal, but I'd like to think the car was making decent power for forged internals like these to break in this manner.

Here are some pics of this catastrophe:

The scene of the crime.

Rear of the motor. Note the hole and one missing freeze plug.

Front of the motor.

Note the giant hole and THREE missing freeze plugs.

Nice chunk of #3 piston, about 25% of it.

Internals. Note the small end of the #3 rod sitting on #4.

What's left of the #3 rod and piston.

Hole in #3 wall.

Headgasket. Strange activity around #3.

#3 in head.

I'm still kinda reeling in disbelief from all this, but I'm not terribly upset. This time around, it's just an engine rebuild that needs to be done, rather than an entire vehicle overhaul. The task is much less daunting to me and shouldn't take another 1-2 years to complete like the last time. I still have to decide what exactly I'm going to do, whether it's build another 2.4 or revert back to 2.0. I'm leaning in the direction of 2.4 because I just can't get enough of that powerband.

 

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The gasket was a Cometic 87mm.

 

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It's looking like I ran the wall clearances too tight for the amount of power I was putting down. The piston expanded and got stuck, broke apart, and the rest is history. The other pistons, although in good shape, also showed some accelerated coating wear after only 2000 miles.