• Hello Guest, welcome to the initial stages of our new platform!
    You can find some additional information about where we are in the process of migrating the board and setting up our new software here

    Thank you for being a part of our community!

Back with another redblock

Just another reason to upgrade I suppose

I really wish I knew all of this going into it, between the new downpipe, and now new housing, I could've gotten one of my spare manifolds machined and just swapped on one of my even bigger turbos. Oh well, I am curious to see what kind of changes are made from all of this. I'm sure it'll be noticeable

https://imgur.com/a/wTXfsg1

For reference, here is the new angled downpipe next to the raggedy straight downpipe. You can see the opening is quite a bit larger

I just got done ripping my turbo out so I can swap housings when I get one. I am discovering some upgrades I'd don't to the turbo at some point or another. It's got a 9 blade turbine wheel, and ARD adjustable wastegate actuator, and of course the 19t compressor wheel and housing "conversion kit". The compressor wheel is billet aluminum as well
 
I supposed all of this hasn't been for nothing. I'm still figuring out a turbine housing, but I did find the boost reference nipple for the wastegate signal in the compressor housing, was loose. Like really loose. I got it squared away so I'm thinking that will also greatly help performance.

If money is in a good spot once I get all my ducks in a row, I might just end up having to do a dyno pull on it. Ideally I could dyno it after one single, big change. T5 trans swap won't warrant a dyno, but maybe after the trans swap I can build a motor and throw my bigger valves in, dyno it, swap out the puny 19t for the holset, dyno it. Be interesting to see the different graphs
 
You're first in line! I'll have to update this when it's all back together on how it performs. It's been hitting boost at like 3k rpms, but I remember it coming alive sooner on previous setups. Hopefully that nipple being loose was the big change.

It's got a lot of "goodies", but was originally put together for a whiteblock so my approach was pushing the boost and power further up the rpm band. It's got a 9 blade turbine wheel, billet spool control compressor wheel and conversion housing, and an ard adjustable wastegate. I rebuilt when I put it all together. I'll probably try to sell it as a package with the angled housing and downpipe whenever I do upgrade, probably a while out still
 
Wesdunns70t5m said:
You're first in line! I'll have to update this when it's all back together on how it performs. It's been hitting boost at like 3k rpms, but I remember it coming alive sooner on previous setups. Hopefully that nipple being loose was the big change.

It's got a lot of "goodies", but was originally put together for a whiteblock so my approach was pushing the boost and power further up the rpm band. It's got a 9 blade turbine wheel, billet spool control compressor wheel and conversion housing, and an ard adjustable wastegate. I rebuilt when I put it all together. I'll probably try to sell it as a package with the angled housing and downpipe whenever I do upgrade, probably a while out still
Click to expand...
Ill be here with your 14.99 in an envelope ready to mail
 
https://imgur.com/a/Seg4m2G

Well, more parts added to the wait list for me. I've been wanting to ditch the Dracos my car came with. Found a full set of GTA Pontiac wheels for 350$. They were dirty at when I first got them, but this is how they're looking after a little steam cleaning, some white vinegar, dawn dish soap and the garden hose! They'll get cleaned up more before getting stabbed on
 
Well my bad habit of collecting parts continues. Had a short day at work, and to my surprise the local pull a part had a 94 NA 940. This car looked like it had barely been picked at. I checked the teeth on the timing gears, and assumed it was a squirter because it has the round teeth. It's been a while since I pulled one of these motors, but I managed to get it all out in about 5 hours. Not too shabby I'd say, just surprised I didn't die of heat stroke. 5 hours in this Mississippi heat with no shade is definitely not for the faint of heart. Once I get it home I will pull the pan and check for squirters.

Is there any secret method for drilling an oil return for the turbo? Or just center of the flat boss and hog it out?

The odo showed like 340k miles, but did still turn over by hand. The harmonic balancer was rusty af. Looking at the inspection sticker dated 2015 iirc, I believe this car has spent the last 10 years sitting and rotting away. Here's hoping for the best!
 
So my brother and I managed to get the motor out of my work truck bed and into my garage via moving cart. I haven't dropped the pan yet, but did pull the valve cover. It looked really clean in there. Hopefully that's indicative of the condition of the rest of it.

Im not convinced that I want to use the head that came with this motor. Though it is much much cleaner than the spare head I've got, it had the weird pulsair system, and I don't know of any really good solutions to plugging the holes under the exhaust ports. I can't help but think that it would cause weird exhaust behavior (maybe not even worth worrying about) and just having another possible issue leak area. Whichever head I do use will be getting cleaned up with bigger valves and upgrades springs. So maybe the starting condition isn't much of an issue. Any insight on all this would be appreciated
 
Been taking my time today. I am in the process of getting the now angled flange 19t installed. I had to grind a good amount of metal between the manifold flange and one of the runners. The angled flange housing have 1 stud that is threaded into the housing, so you're not able to use a nut on it. You have to remove some metal on the engine side of the flange off the manifold to get a nut on the stud. I've got it all ground out, and 2 of the 4 nuts started. I also remade my wastegate bracket. Feels much more secure, less flimsy, and I've got the nipple facing a more accessible direction so win there. I somehow got this weekend off without requesting it, so I will probably be out there late night/early morning when it's the coolest outside. Excited to get this all back together and running
 
https://imgur.com/a/UiKnkJ0

Here it is all buttoned back up. The downpipe from Lucacarmods fits great. Plenty of clearance and no issues. I was able to drop it in from the hood, down, so I didn't even have to fish and fight it from underneath which was nice

I am now however burning more oil than I was before. I'm not sure how that could've happened though with all that I did. I made sure the drain line was a steady downhill slope so I don't believe that is the issue. Ive been using a cut drain with a length of hose in between to allow for some flexibility, but maybe now would be a good time to install a stock drain line and clock the turbo in the factory position again.

I haven't gone on a test drive yet
 
Well my smoking issue is much better now. I think it was a combination of the drain line not being angled good enough, and the wd40 burning off from inside the turbine housing.

With no other changes, I went from like 14psi down to around 10psi. I've since adjusted my EBC and am currently sitting at 15. Car feels really good now.

I've also been tearing into the new motor I recently picked up. I've confirmed it does in fact have oil squirters. Ive also managed to confirm that there is still cross hatching on the cylinder walls, no obvious damage to anything (other than lots of oil buildup) no ridge at the top of any cylinders, no bent rods. The cylinder walls do have some glazing, but with over 300k miles, I'm extremely happy with my donor

Im slowly tearing this motor down, not in a huge rush to get it built up at the moment. I'm more worried about acquiring everything for the t5 swap. I might end up doing that before building the motor.

It seems that my aw71 is starting to get old. The 2-3 shift is starting to act funny. It doesn't like upshifting while taking off from a stop unless I lift off the throttle a little bit. Since it doesn't do it in any other gears, I'm kind of ruling out the kickdown cable. I know at my power level the aw71 needs at least the accumulator mod, which I don't have done yet.

Lucky for me, I have a lot of the components for the t5 swap, just need a couple more things.

One such thing that I've been researching and thinking about is using my flat flywheel. I still need to get the lh2.4 trigger machined into it which is no problem, but I'm not sure how the crank sensor would like the extra 1/4" gap between it and the flywheel. Can anyone chime in on how they took care of this?

So far there seems to be 2 options that are appealing to me.

Ive heard of people having to trim down the mounting bracket for the sensor to close the gap. Looking at the bracket it seems like one could flip the mounting bracket upside down and use it like that. I haven't bolted up my flat flywheel yet and tried this to see how the gap looks.

Another option I've heard is someone using the crank sensor from a kia Sephora (I think that's what it was). Apparently it plugs right in and works on our 2.4 cars, but has a much stronger reading
 
Do the full IPD trans fluid swap on your AW71.... buy a new cable and adjust it properly. These actions combined have restored more AISIN transmissions than we will ever know; they are actually pretty stout. The T5 in the 7/9 chassis is a much harder conversion due to the shifter location and knuckle/dash collisions. I've seen folks remove the covers in front of the fuse block just so they could shift!
 
DET17 said:
Do the full IPD trans fluid swap on your AW71.... buy a new cable and adjust it properly. These actions combined have restored more AISIN transmissions than we will ever know; they are actually pretty stout. The T5 in the 7/9 chassis is a much harder conversion due to the shifter location and knuckle/dash collisions. I've seen folks remove the covers in front of the fuse block just so they could shift!
Click to expand...
I definitely do need a new kickdown cable. Mine sometimes moves within the outer sleeve, so I have to keep an eye on it. I have considered just biting the bullet and replacing it, and doing the accumulator mod while in there, but with how little miles I put on the car I've just kind of been crossing my fingers. I do have a lot of the bits needed to t5 swap though. I know the shifter is pretty much the Achilles Heel of this swap, but I feel confident enough in my fab skills to be able to get something that'll work. The other two "hard" parts of the swap to me would be the cross member and driveshaft, which I've already got those as well
 
Bit of a sad update I suppose, but definitely not the worst in the world.

I've either got a blown head gasket, or leaking valve seals I believe. I've got a bit of smoke at idle once warmed up still. I also found my oil to have some gas contamination. I believe the contaminated oil may have lead to a seal failure of some kind. I am about to be leaving for a week for work but will be doing a dry and wet compression test when I get home. Earlier today I did an oil/filter change, and installed new spark plugs. My old ones weren't terrible, though 2 of them were slightly wet.

I have also ordered some bigger injectors finally. I went with the deatschwerks 900cc set, which should be a perfect match for my setup with the 3" AMM. The gas in the oil was just the straw that broke my back on it. I knew I wanted to run the 3" AMM, and new id need fairly large injectors. These are a little larger than I probably NEED right now, but id rather have a little room to grow. Admittedly, I had not confirmed that one of my current injectors are for sure leaking. It was just me knowing I needed bigger ones anyway, plus the possibility of mine leaking made me pull the trigger.

Other than all this the car still seems to be running fairly strong. A little gutless off boost at low RPMs, but strong once the boost hits. Currently at 15psi, but do plan on running higher at some point (probably once my current engine gets a clean bill of health)
 
Last edited:
Have made some progress recently, and am in the process and even more progress!

Id bought a brand new set of deatschwerks 900cc injectors, and swapped them on with my 012 amm. At the same time I swapped my spark plugs. During all this the battery was disconnected. Car started up and idled no problem (had an amazing amount of lope at cold starts). The first time I kind of got on it, it was down on power. Didn't pay much mind as the computer was learning. After my next couple pulls I was getting bad misfires at 4k rpm, each time I got on it pretty hard. Admittedly I wasn't too happy with how one of my spark plugs wires engaged the spark plug. I drove it home like a civilized driver, and let it cool off

I decided it was a good time to do a compression test. My smoking issue has been getting worse each time I drive the car. I was actually pretty happy with the results

Cyl 1-139psi
Cyl 2-155 psi
Cyl 3-149psi
Cyl 4-159psi

The test was done with the engine completely cold, it hadn't been driven in about a week. No oil added for a wet test reading. The 139-159 spread isn't the best in the world, but considering I'm pushing 300k miles, I figure I don't have to rush to get my spare motor built ASAP

With these results in hand, and considering my smoking has gotten much worse since switching to e85, I'm now.turning my attention to the valve train. I've got a set of new spark plug wire, and valve stem seals inbound to me now. I figure with the mileage, and no history of anything from the PO, and it's easy enough to do for cheap. I've already got a valve spring tool too.

I just got done pulled everything apart, removing the spark plugs and stuffed a rope into cyl 1. I've removed that valve stem seal. The project will have to be on hold until the parts arrive.

I am going to be removing the valve spring from my exhaust valves to give them a wiggle and see if any of my valve guides are shot. If they are, I've reached out to @culberro, and will be arranging to sending him one of my best heads, and having my bigger valves installed and the head gone thru. I've had these valves sitting and am finally getting to a point where my car would be worth the money to install them.

I am hoping to not have to get the head done just yet. There are still a few bugs I'd like to work out before that happens. With the swap to the 012 and 900cc's, my stalling issue is back on throttle lift sometimes. Same as before, go from moderate throttle immediately to hitting the breaks kind of hard, and the idle hunts around 300-600rpm before stalling. Restarts just fine and runs fine 95% of other driving conditions. I am pretty sure I'm getting close to NEEDING
an aftermarket EMS. Lh2.4 is just going to continue having a harder and harder time controlling things, as I'm getting farther and farther from stock. The diy-efi option is probably what I will go with. Sub 1k dollars, plug and play just had to add a couple small things, and it'll finally allow me to play with tuning myself, something I've always wanted to try
 
Slowly cranking away at the car...

All the valve seals were swapped out. All the valves were checked for excessive play by hand and eye, and they all seemed nice and tight. Threw the fan in and checked valve clearances, adjusted all but 4. 2 of the valves were perfect. 2 of them I had to order shims for. They are on the way along with the ever controversial valve hushers. I'm excited to get all of that in and be able to put it all back together

I also reached out to BNE and inquired about their t5 swap throw out bearing. In the description of the part it says it works for cable clutches, and I am going hydraulic. I was told that you can use a rhd hydraulic clutch fork, and have to grind the inside tabs down just a little bit and you can use that bearing. I ordered the clutch form for a whopping 20$ on eBay, so that will be here soon as well
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top