kimokalihi's 91 SS EJ20 Swap

[kimokalihi]

I think I fixed the clutch. It appears to be functioning now. Didn't even remove the trans. I don't even really know what I did but now it's working although there is some free play up at the top of the pedal range of motion that I wish wasn't there but the bracket is on the end of the threads on the plunger rod so I'm not sure how I can adjust that anymore.

One question though. Does this look right?







You can see the ring that the release bearing snaps into coming in and out nearly a cm. It isn't letting the release bearing come loose anymore but now that ring is coming in and out. I'm hoping that's what it's supposed to do.

Here's a video of the clutch fork/plunger in action.

[Legacy777]

Put the spring on the clutch fork and see how it feels. That keeps the fork taut so that when you depress the clutch pedal, there's no free play.

The hydraulic clutch setup should be self adjusting. You shouldn't have to adjust the plunger rod & bracket all the way out. Those adjustments really are there for adjusting pedal height. That's what I used them for. I set the pedal height stops where I wanted them, and then adjusted the plunger rod & bracket. Once you do that, you may have to fine tune it a little, but it shouldn't be much. You don't want to be pre-loading the clutch master cylinder by adjusting it in too far.

[kimokalihi]

That's with the spring on.

[Deride]

It looks correct, the clip (ring) is supposed to come out part way with the release bearing if the clip stayed in against the pressure plate it would allow the release bearing to pop out. Glad you were able to fix it without pulling the transmission.

[Legacy777]

Does it feel/look like the clutch fork is moving all the way? When the clutch is released, is the slave cylinder rod loose? If so, how loose?

[kimokalihi]

I'll have to check that next time I work on it.

Last time I worked on my car I wired up the battery and left it hooked up. I didn't realize when I left that the blanket I have covering the driver seat was hanging out the door and the door didn't close all the way leaving the dome light on. I came back 23 hours later and saw the light on immediately. I grabbed my multimeter and to my surprise the battery was far from dead.







Yesterday an important package arrived. 4 days from california to washington. The parts are of good quality and I think they're worth $60. The only thing I don't like is the gasket for the drain pipe. It's not the same as stock. Seems to be made of foam. I don't think the drain pipe is under pressure so it should be fine.







The coolant pipes are oriented completely wrong. The bottom one is about 90 degrees off and half as long as it needs to be. The top one is about 30 degrees off and approximately the same length as stock TD04. I don't know if I should try to bend them or use the step bit I bought to open up the holes in the TD04 pipes. I don't like that idea but I don't know if I can bend those pipes that much and I'd have to get a new coolant hose for the bottom and heat shielding for the hose.

Thanks again CJ for showing me the Xavier auction on ebay!

[kimokalihi]

It's been a long day. I made a LOT of progress though. I got off early last night at 2am and got to work on my car at 3am and took a break at 11am to watch my niece for an hour and ended up falling asleep until 2pm. Then I continued to work on my car until just after 7pm when I pulled it out of my parent's garage and took it for the first ever test drive!

All is well, no check engine lights, runs alright and gets up and goes pretty good until maybe 5k and cuts out. Making about 10lbs of boost on the stock ECU, 565s, TD05-16g and stock MAF. Cruising around it's at around 14 AFR. I don't know if that's good or bad but when I step on the pedal it goes down to 8-10 AFR which is pretty rich right?

Here's a little video of me starting it up right after I got the engine back together. The smoke is from the silicone sprayed exhaust wrap.







I ended up cutting the banjo bolt hole in the coolant supply line to fit the M14 banjo bolt because the coolant pipes that came with the TD05 kit were too short and angled 60 degrees wrong.









I had to fabricate a custom throttle cable bracket because my cables were too short to fit the JDM throttle body/intake manifold.









Engine is all back together and running but no air filter yet. I don't want to cut that expensive silicone hose to allow room for that stupid cone filter to fit. I was surprised this turbo is so quiet I didn't even hear it when I started it up. The TD04 was a lot louder.








I wired up these gauges and the LC-1 wideband and zip tied the gauges in place for a temp solution just so I could drive it. Birds nest. Just over 14AFR on idle.










I'm still working on the grill. I painted it semi-gloss black and it's a bit too shiny for the rest of the car. But I'm afraid if I paint is satin it'll fade in the sun and look like shit when all the bugs and dirt gets on it.

[beatersubi]

Lookin good! Hows it feel to finally drive her?
I still have that stereo bracket for you.

[kimokalihi]

Oh, man I need that! lol Any word on your car?

It feels great although I think maybe the struts need to be adjusted. Even with 8k and 6k springs it's not nearly as stiff as I thought it would be. Might be the tires too though I don't think they're fully inflated.

I almost forgot, the rear diff fluid level is unknown. This worries me. Today I tried using a 1/2" breaker bar to open the fill hole and it would not budge and then I ended up basically stripped out the hole followed by some swearing. What do I do now? I did unscrew the drain plug enough for fluid to start coming out so I think it's probably full but have no way of telling.

I also stripped out the driver side bolt hole for the transmission crossmember. I don't know how the hell that happened because I didn't even tighten it hard at all. How do I fix that?

[beatersubi]

Find a replacement drain plug then use a chisel to get a 'bite' on the stuck one and tap it around with a hammer until it threads itself out.
Which bolt in the crossmember? One of the body mounts or on the transmission?

[kimokalihi]

Body mounts. There's two on bolts that hold the trans crossmember to the bottom of the car and then 2 bolts from the tranny mount that go through the middle of the crossmember. The bolt hole under the driver is stripped out bad.

[kimokalihi]

This is how clean I want my engine bay. No chrome, carbon fiber or bright colors though.







To mount the intake manifold backwards is it as simple as lengthening some wires, turning the whole manifold harness 180 degrees and maybe a few hose modifications?

[PhyrraM]

The throttlebody will hit the hood. Most have to have it rewelded at a lower angle.

[kimokalihi]

So is 14 to 1 a good AFR or not? That's what I'm at cruising. I'm thinking about driving it to work but I want to make sure it's safe for the engine. Boost cut is 13 lbs but it pulls pretty good once it gets into boost. I did 100mph today in 5th gear at 4k RPM.

The transmission crossmember bolt is loose and clunking when I take off from a stop or just press the gas in and let off or change gears. I'm worried about it. I somehow stripped it out in the body without even turning very hard. What's the best approach to fixing it? It won't get tight so the threads must be gone.

How bad would it be if that one bolt holding the driver's side trans crossmember fell out going down the road? It's not going to drop the crossmember on the road right? I think the shift linkage would hold it up if nothing else.








Today I was driving down the road and pulling in 3rd gear up the big hill my parents live on and heard something fall off my car and bounce off the road and the body like a bouncy ball. Immediately my exhaust was louder followed but a bit of smoke. I turned around and tried to find whatever had fallen off but no luck. Got home and jacked it up (this task is a bitch now with the car slammed) and noticed a bolt on my header was missing and the one on the opposite side was so loose it had almost come off too. Removed the bolt and put two brand new bolts in and the exhaust is now quiet again. No more smoke.

[cj91legss]

i would try to remove that bolt somehow... and just see if you can get another in there... if not you may have to tap it for a new bolt... but i wouldn't be driving it if you're hearing that clunking sound when you're taking off/shifting just to be safe.

[kimokalihi]

$118 to install my bosal twip tip exhaust. Took an hour and 10 mins. I watched the whole time just so I could make sure they positioned the muffler the way I wanted it.











Here's a clip of the exhaust. Sounds perfect. Not loud at all. Gave me a headache driving to the exhaust shop with just the down pipe installed. Now it's just deep and smooth.

[kimokalihi]

My legacy's birthplace. This is where all the magic happens. It's a mess but most of it isn't my stuff. Believe it or not it's clean compared to the way it was before I put my car in it.









I finally decided to cut my expensive silicone MAF hose to fit the cone filter on.







This is when I noticed the MAF wiring at the connector was brittle and broken exposing bare wires. More often than not this is the condition of all the wiring in the engine bay. Or was until I came along. I happened to have a spare harness from the junkyard with much condition better wiring.








This is when I noticed I'm missing a check valve here. I don't know what it does or if it is having a negative effect on the engine but I can't find it. It was there before I had to take the intake manifold off the last time and now it's nowhere to be found. I plugged each of the hoses with my finger to see if it's a vacuum leak and there was no difference in engine rpm and I didn't feel any vacuum suction on either one.

Can I get a replacement check valve that will fit this at autozone?

[kimokalihi]

I drove it to work tonight. Turns out the dash lights are not working. The only light in the car on the drive home was the boost and AFR gauges, the headlight high beam indicator light and the constantly blinking seatbelt light. How do I disable that seatbelt light? It's annoying. I plugged that connector in under the seat and it is still blinking. At least it isn't beeping.

The rear door locks are not locking or unlocking with the key or with the switches on the driver's door. Could this be related to the lighting not working? Also the rear driver's side window is not working at all. I am almost positive it worked the other day.

When I turned the heater fan on it made a horrible noise like it was either really loose or something was inside it bouncing around. At the same time a bunch of dust shot out my vents and a strong smell of rat piss filled the car. Could a mouse have gotten into the ducting somehow? It's the little things that really piss me off lol. I drove home with my sunroof open so it wouldn't fog up. It was a slightly cold ride home.

[cj91legss]

oh man, that's just not fun. if it smelled like rat piss then you have to get in there and track down the scent. maybe they chewed thru your sires?

[kimokalihi]

Man, don't say that! That's bad news right there. I've already repaired so much damn wiring. Wiring in the car is 10X as hard to repair.

[evolutionmovement]

Definitely could have a rodent in there. I read about a barn find Ferrari that had a mouse nest inside a cylinder. That was with the 250 engine—small cylinders and valves. Prick had climbed up the exhaust and found a cylinder with an open exhaust valve. And I had to work on an XKE where rats ate most of the wiring. And it was an early positive ground car. Yeah, fun.

That loose bolt may be from a broken captive nut that's tack welded to the back side of the sheetmetal. I'm not familiar with that particular one, but there are a few on the undercarriage that I found on the parts car and, yes, they do let go easily—I have a good sense for when fasteners are being too stressed or not and I don't just horse on stuff. How you get them out without a torch or cutting the bolt head off, I don't know. Then what you do about the rattling other end I have even less of an idea about. Maybe if you could keep the remains of the bolt from falling inside, you could drill holes near where the nut would be and re-tack it from the outside? At least on the parts car, I was able to cut the bastards out.

[kimokalihi]

That's crazy about the mouse. Would that damage the motor? Or could the mouse be pulverized and blow out the valves? It would probably shoot bones into the valves preventing them from close and bend them. There was a mouse living on my engine. I recently saw him 2 or 3 times crawling over the heads and the tranny and I could never catch that son of a bitch. Now he's either dead or still in my parents garge. He's fast as hell.

Now you're scaring me. Can anyone confirm this? How can I tell?

[cj91legss]

well if you drove it the other day, i don't think you have a mouse in your engine...

[kimokalihi]

Oh, no that's why I said he's either dead or in the garage. No way he's living on those headers anymore haha. Hopefully he's dead. I think a mouse at my last legacy wiring. That car sat in a field for 2 years and then suddenly had crazy electrical problems everywhere.

Anybody know if the rear door locks and gauge lighting could be a blown fuse? I did just wire in those gauges without disconnecting my battery...

[cj91legss]

could be a fuse, just check the fuses undfer the dash