Mostly OEM S5 Turbo Vert build
 

I have a JDM S5 13B that was swapped into my 89 vert by AIM Tuning in Indy. That swap was done several years ago, I think in 06 when I joined these forums. I bought the engine from Atkins, no they don't typically import engines, but I got a tip that if I called Dan he might be able to hook me up. The engine arrived looking super clean and seemed to have good compression so it went into my vert with no rebuild. At the time my only aftermarket performance experience was...well NONE!! However, I drove it for about 3 years as a daily driver with the only issues my own creation. I learned alot over the years but prior to this project my experience was limited to swapping larger fuel injectors and fuel pumps, rebuilding vert window regulators, wiring stereos and aftermarket gauges.

About a year and a half ago I detonated the engine. I had RB REV-TII exhaust, custom TID, larger secondary injectors, and an FD fuel pump, but no fuel or timing control...so it was a matter of time.

Here are the 3 verts my father and I own prior to detonation. Turbo vert is in the background.
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During the rebuild process I decided to swap the drivetrain into the black vert that is in the foreground.

There's the car minus the engine just before it went into storage
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Engine prior to teardown
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Apex seal failure on the front rotor
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Front housing was damaged
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Damage to the front rotor
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Stationary gear bearings were replaced
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Housing and rotor were replaced. The turbo wasn't damaged, but it did have a decent amount of play so it was replaced also.

Kinda cool pic I ended up getting while trying to get pics of the irons.
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I used Atkins 2mm seals, I used new side seals, replaced all the springs (including oil control ring springs), FD corner springs, and used plugs rather than solid corner seals. I also replaced the stat gear bearings.

Stat gear pressing did not go well. First machine shop I took them to butchered my bearings. All the marks I took pictures of were not simply scuff or marks on the oil they used. They were all scratches to varying degrees that you could feel.
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Machine shop bought me new bearings, but not without trying to tell me he didn't see any problems with the work and he'd put them in his engine. For obvious reasons I took them to another shop to have pressed. I only got one shot of replaced and pressed bearing
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I painted the housings and irons with rattle can and polished the logos for the hell of it. I used HVT high temp.
Irons are VHT burnt copper.
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I originally did the intakes the same color.
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However, I decided to have intakes, pulleys, and other parts powder coated. I found an industrial powdercoater who did them super cheap. It's not the best quality, but the price was right.

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I made the mistake of using Crisco instead of Hylomar. I probably would have been fine, but mid assembly I find that a couple of my water jackets are cracked at the seams. Being my first time doing a rebuild I didn't trust myself to repair them and opted to have new ones sent to me.

The two replacement seals arrive a week or so later and I start assembly and find that the previously good seals had expanded and were now too long to fit in the grooves. I ordered all new seals and third time on assembling the engine went smoothly.

I don't think I have any pics of this, if I find them I'll post them. Point being though. Don't use Crisco, it's not worth the cost savings over a tube of Hylomar.

I bought a turbo blanket from Summit Racing. My OEM bracket had come apart. The spot welds on the brackets that bolt it down were coming loose. I figured putting something new on was better than a 20 yr old part.
http://www.summitracing.com/parts/TNT-31040/

While assembling the engine I wanted to make sure it would fit so I mocked up the manifolds.
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One thing I found while testing play on the rotating assembly was that I had too much. I had put a new (to me) front housing on and that was enough to throw things off a bit. Rather than buy a new spacer I carefully sanded down the one I had. I sanded a little and measured it in four places. Then sanded more and measured, etc etc. It was a long process but I got it down to where it was perfectly within spec.

I rebuilt my OMP/MOP lines. I used this thread and it went without any problems. It's a very easy mod that is cheap and effective.

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I pulled the sleaving off my old lines. I know some people like having the lines viewable so they have a visual on whether their pump is working or not. I found that at the top before they go under the intake you have line of sight and can see.
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I broke one of the nipples on the vacuum splitter and had to use a different source for one of the injectors
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There it is before install with an ACT street clutch and pressure plate.
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Not the best quality pic...but meh
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Prior to detonation I had added a Prosport temp gauge. I'm not using an airpump so I had the housing tapped for the sender.

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I was afraid that the sender wouldn't make enough contact with the coolant. It was probably fine, but I didn't want to get everything back together and find it wasn't.
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I had a machinist grind some material off the front
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I didn't know if the two senders being so close was a bad thing so I use a washer or two on the front to back it off a little bit.
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Everything went into a 1990 black vert...the one in the first picture. I've swapped the entire subframe from the previous turbo vert onto the new turbo vert.

• Rtek 1.7 on an N370
• FD fuel pump
• 800cc secondary injectors
• Racing Beat REV-TII exhaust
• Custom TID
• Hallman MBC
• ACT Street clutch and pressure plate
• S4 LSD
• Tein springs on Illuminas
• Infini strut bar
• Koyo radiator with Taurus efan
• 140 amp modded S5 alternator (still need to get a dual belt pulley)
• Optima red top
• Greddy v2 boost gauge (sender might have gone bad..it stopped reading)
• Prosport performance water and oil temp gauges (water temp gauge is buggy)
• Prosport premium oil pressure gauge (sender on this one also might be bad, it never reads anything but zero)

I've got like 350 miles on the engine so far. MBC is set to zero and I keep the RPMs under 3k. I talked to a paint guy this past week. Plans are to have my turbo hood, MS scoop, OEM sideskirts and OEM replica front lip painted.

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I started prep work on the body parts, paint guy is going to finish
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Nice. Is the S4 limited slip an N/A unit or a TII unit?

It's a turbo differential and an OEM turbo driveshaft.

I was going to do something cool today, but it hasn't panned out yet. I was going to wire my constant power for the efan directly onto the main fuse links in the engine compartment. I have an unused fuse link open. The spades on the bottom of the distribution block (for lack of a better word) are wider than traditional spades. So I was going to grind the open one down with my dremel. Remove the inline fuse holder and take the 10 ga contant power to the fuse link.

It did not pan out because I could not get my spade to insert all the way into the OEM harness. My other option and less desirable one is to cut that blank spot off of the OEM harness. It's unused and if I need to I can cut it off with my dremel and plug the spade female directly onto the distribution block. However I lost my good cutting bit and was out of the cheap ones cause they break too often.

I was also going to remove my battery/alternator/starter wiring and replace it with upgraded wiring. I looked over some spare harnesses and they weren't as I expected. I thought it was main + off the battery terminal to the alternator B terminal and the starter off of the fuse link distribution block. For the record it appears to be alternator off of the fuse link distribution and + terminal directly to the starter...which once I slowed myself down and thought about it made more sense.

Reason I'm doing this is because I"m getting strange electrical gremlins.

1. Alternator is occasionally overcharging by a little bit...or according to the OEM gauge it is.
2. My rear defroster only works sporadically.
3. Boost gauge mysteriously stopped working. It illuminates but doesn't even do an opening ceremony.
4. Prosport oil pressure warning gauge has never read anything but zero...and to make it worse it mocks me by blinking and chiming to make sure I know it's not working. It was unplugged a long time ago and I'll get to it when I have time.

I don't expect replacing the OEM ground and power from the battery to change many of those. It is simply a starting point for upgraded wiring for aftermarket stereo.

One thing I did get done was swapping JDM foglights for USDM ones. I got them for a steal of deal. I restored the lenses and they are pretty nifty. One night I'll line up my fathers USDM foglights with my JDM ones and get a pic.

Found the cure to an annoying idle/exhaust noise problem that has been plaguing me since a little while after the engine was first turned over. Idle just wasn't sounding right, like it was missing. I found the problem tonight. Fouled plugs on the front rotor combined with the spark plug wire boot sitting kinda loosely on the front leading plug. I probably pulled it loose while running wiring for efan and such. Changed the plugs while changing the oil and it is running great!

I've got the fan wired into the fuse link distribution, it's working well.

I've got 4ga wiring running from + terminal to starter as well as B terminal on alternator. I've also got 8ga going to main fuses. I've got 4ga ground running to shock tower and continuing to starter through bolt.

Really nice build man. Looks like you and your dad have a good collection going

I'm having overheating issues with the engine. I'm using a Taurus efan and Starion thermoswitch in factory location on the back of the water pump housing. Starion switch IIRC is a 195 on and 185 off. I also have a manual on switch wired to cockpit of the car. Fan seems to be working perfectly. I have it wired directly into the main fuselink in the engine compartment on the low setting. I have it setup so that I can swap between to high setting by simply unplugging the low spade terminal and plugging in the high.

Here is what I've noticed so far with normal driving (not driving it hard as I'm still breaking in the engine). Temps will keeping rising and rising and when they start to pass 220 I'll pull the car over and either let it idle with the efan running and hood up or turn off the engine but let the efan run and every so often turn the engine on to cycle what is in the radiator back into the engine.

Here are the contributing factors I've tried to narrow down so far:

1. Put in a new thermostat and while doing that changed to a different used, but working water pump. (It was working fine last time I used it, can mechanical pumps fail?)
2. N/A hood was being used. While I've been driving to avoid boost as much as possible. The Hallman MBC is set to zero boost, but I need to watch how I'm driving. The OEM wastegate simply can't fully bypass. I thought that perhaps because the MBC was not allowing the engine to be in vacuum that it was contributing to heat. By that I mean it may be purging as much of the pressure as it can, it's also trying to keep pressure at zero. That perhaps rather than having vacuum having zero pressure is still pressurized compared to vacuum and thus creates heat. That theory was partially blown out of the water, I put a turbo hood on it yesterday hoping to see lower temps...and did not. (Before it is said, I'm using N/A hood until I get paint work done on the turbo hood and other parts. I keep thinking paint is going to happen and it hasn't yet.)

Other than obvious things where can I start looking for a cure?

1. Flushing radiator and cooling system. Should I flush the heater core seperately?
2. Testing the radiator cap. What pressure cap should a S5 13B T have?
3. Possibly a clogged oil cooler?
4. I have air pump removed and so far only a single belt alt pulley. I had a dual belt pulley with my last alt but usually only used one because of belt slipping. Never had issues with heating.

The engine parts and car did sit for almost a year while the rebuild happened. Is it possible I've got a clogged cooling system or oil cooler? I have both oil and water temp gauges and oil temps seem to be where they should be.

Get the double pulley, flush the coolant, and clean the radiator and oil coolers externally.

I have a FMIC, NO UNDERTRAY (I am trying to make on though), stock clutch fan and radiator and my car doesn't go over 195 when driving. It even runs cooler city than on highway!

You definitely have a problem.

So do you, I think.
Highway driving is essentially the best case scenario for the cooling system, if city driving gives you lower temps, I'd say you have airflow/ducting issues to address.

Captain obvious! I already mentioned my own lack of undertray. A situation I am addressing.

I've never seen much difference with/without the factory undertray.

Sincerely,
Captain Semi-obscure

Then you should take yours off, and give it to me (for free of course, you pay shipping) if it is in good shape. I will further investigate this lack of difference you so speak of!

Water pumps can actually fail and not have the tell tale leak, but do the basics first including the dual belt

OEM rad cap is 13 psi pressure.

You have the A/C system intact, with the condenser coil in front of the rad? Is all the sealing in place?

Question: After it attains 220* have you let the car cool while idling? Will it cool down?

You do know that once that temp switch comes on, it is highly unlikely that the temp will ever go back below 185* to allow the fan to cycle off in warm (over 80*) weather.

Forget the low speed, use high until you have this sorted out.

I'm betting on the Yoo-Hoo Belt to fix it
 

I'm betting on the Yoo-Hoo Belt to fix it. That 130 Amp Taurus Alternator is on the same belt, right?:nod: I bet it's slipping, especially when the Taurus fan is running. Remember that Taurus Alt must create the electricity to run that fan. This might be not be as high a load as the oem belt fan, but if you are also running other accessories it would probably cause slipping.

One other random thought: I bought a reman water pump from one of the chain stores. The impeller was an appalling miscarriage cast piece of sheit. I used my die grinder to reshape and clean up the blades and the flash. I used the oem impeller as a template-BUT my car has *never* cooled as well with that water pump as it did with the oem.

How did the impellers compare?

Nevertheless, double pulley, or simply a yoo-hoo belt.:icon_tup:

Quote:
Originally Posted by dDuB
Now, as far as where to get the belt, don't go to a hardware store like the how-to says, I went to so many and couldn't find anything that would fit. I did however come across this. It is from napa, perfect size. You can order it online or get it at any store, here's the info on it.

Item#: NBH257215
Price: $ 8.49
Imperial Length: 22 1/8''
Top Width: 3/8''
Angle Degree: 36 Degree