Bought this car knowing it most likely had a blown coolant seal and was missing a few parts(afm/ecu/shifter/airbox, wheels)

The odometer reads 94k miles but I've never verified its the true mileage it has.

It came with -
1) full exhaust 3" I believe , custom probably
2) tanabe lowering springs
3) fuel cut defender
4) blitz bov
5)electric fan
6)drilled slotted rotors
7) some kind of Turbo timer but its not hooked up and may be missing wiring
8)s5 taillights

The car looks to have been painted at some point and the hood was replaced, everything looks decent but the paint on the hood is slightly off, and the front bumper could be lined up a little closer to the hood on the driver side.

All in all I got the car for a deal for $1000 towed to my house.

So far I've gotten -

Missing parts - ecu, afm, shifter, airbox, underbelly tray, stock wheels

Upgrade- s5 turbo/exhaust manifold

Replacement stuff - thermostat, rad cap, tstat cap

I've not got to work on the car much yet but I've looked in the coolant system it appears empty and looks like it has oil in it.

The efan is set to constantly run, which I really don't think is the best option.

I have a junkyard engine that I could try running but it was said to have 160k miles, though all the apex seals appear intact. I'd want a compression test and coolant pressure test done before deciding to use it.

Plans - to get the car running on the junkyard engine or get it rebuilt, run around 8-9 psi on the stock turbo and later upgrade the ecu and fuel system to run the Max boost the stock turbo can handle efficiently.

Rotary >Pistons

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looks like a good start, good luck getting yours going, im in about the same boat, but n/a:(

I've had an na for a daily for 6 years they're a lot of fun, but you'll always wish you had a turbo.

Took me almost 10 years of waiting before I got myself a nice turbo project, I bought a Turbo car before but it was so rough I used it for only parts.

Rotary >Pistons

^^^ ya for sure, ive had a couple n/a before my current one, and your right they are fun, just blows going from turbo to an n/a lol

not a bad buy! i was just looking at one in the same. let me know if she fires!

What was wrong with the one you looked at?

Rotary >Pistons

I'm really wanting this car to run, might just throw this block I got at the junkyard in it if i cant fix the coolant issueand see how it goes.

Pic was taken after I cleaned it up quite a bit

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So I'm taking off the tstat housing and there's no tstat in there. Could that cause overheating?

There's all brown stuff coating the inside of the housing.. Oil??

Man what a hack the last owner was.


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So I'm really starting to think this engine is done.

Look at the inside of the lower road hose here.

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It might be, just tear the block apart already and see what you gotta work with.. Post some pics when it's apart..

Progress today.

Found a bunch of cracked hoses glad I didn't try running it even if the engine was good.

Dropped one bolt under where the wipers are. Its OK I plan on taking that off to repaint it.

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Here's some more pics.

Quality custom flange on the bov.

Bad s4 turbo. It looks like the blades have been clipped?

Got that magnetic tool/bolt holder so I don't lose anything after losing a bolt today.

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fun!

Today worked on the car some more, I think the next step is really to get the engine out after I get everything off and ready for it to be pulled.

I can't seem to figure out how to get the lim off, rmtge turbo etc off, or the accessories bracket on the right side.

I got my girlfriend to help a little lol.

Also discovered the car is running high and low impedance injectors (purple and orange that may be faded from red?), my car is an 87 model so it has the resistor box near where the airbox is, though none of the wiring looks modified for them.

I'm pretty sure it should of been modified and running two different sets of impedance injectors just doesn't seem right to me.

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Just leave the LIM on and just drop the DP and pass motor mount.. You can remove the LIM when the motor is out of the car, but that crappy turbo & manifold comes off first then the lim..

You do have low ohm injectors, it's just faded and most likely replaced awhile back.. You can tell by that crispy brittle square inj plugs..

I'd think I'd be removing both motor mounts or at least unbolting them.

I'll verify which injectors the car has installed tommorow.

The engine/tranny won't be out until I can get my jack fixed and get some jackstands.

At that point I'll need a cherry picker to get the engine and tranny out, I'll be using the tranny to compression test my spare block seen above, I also plan to do a coolant pressure test.

Once I confirm its compression is okay and the coolant test checks out I'll put it in as soon as I get everything else I need.

My diagnosis says everything is okay upon visual inspection and hand spinning for a compression test.

Even chugs, and no rust inside to show a blown coolant seal. All apex seals appear intact.

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So I got my jack working today and put on some much better looking 88 t2 wheels.

Car looks so much better, ignore the lack of windshield wipers/arms they're off to be painted.

Noticed not only does the car have tanabe gf210 lowering springs but also has tokico blues from what I see, car feels very stiff too :)

The back definitely could use some spacers to widen the stance.

As you can see from the engine bay pics, the engine is ready to come out just need to remove a few things holding it in.

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Car looks good with the turbo wheels.

Well I am probably going to get the engine rebuilt.

I'll probably go with rotary resurrection since he did my last one and his prices are good.

I'll be keeping ports stock, gonna see if I can use als apex seals and get a warranty with them since he won't give a compression warranty with ra seals.

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more pictures of girlfriend.

Lol. If she works on it with I'll take one, I'm not going to post pics completely unrelated to the thread.

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Discovered my junkyard block has a broken spot where it bolts to the transmission bell-housing today.

You can see it where my finger is, good thing I already decided to do a rebuild using both my engines.

I also cleaned the engine bay up, the firewall and a few other spots won't come shiny clean , due to what I believe was a cheap paint job.

Rotary >Pistons

Looks a bit better then it did when I bought it.

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Looks good man. Make sure you inspect that turbo for shaft play both in and out plus up and down. A tiny bit of up and down is okay but you don't want any in and out play at all.

Also some of those fins look kinda bent up. When people "clip" wheels on a turbo, it's usually the exhaust turbine and not the compressor wheel.

That turbo has in and out as we'll as side play.

I did get a full s5 turbo swap in mint condition though so that'll be going on after I port the waste gate.

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Cool, you got the manifold as well?

And s5 has two wastegate holes so it's definitely a better setup.

Yeah I got the manifold with it, I didn't get any heat shields with it, I assume the s4 bolts on the same way.

I'm not even sure if the heat shields are completely necessary to have but I'd think its a good idea to use them.

I'm also going to look into setting up my efan with a thermal switch and getting a temp gauge, though I'm not sure where I'd mount it.

I really don't want to put a hole in my tstat if I don't have to, but I do want it in a place that will provide an accurate temperature. I'll have to adjust the thermal switch according to the temp so it turns on at the right time

Aaron cakes has a writeup on his website about how to wire up the setup properly. The last owner that installed it put it in to run constantly, which is the wrong way to do it, seeing as it constantly draws power (which is bad), and it doesn't always need to be on (only needs to be when the cooling is needed as temperature reach around 190).


I found a kit with a radiator probe, adjustable thermal switch, and relay on summitracing.com for $22 +shipping, I'll probably go with that.

Hoping I can set it up with it looking clean and not tacky.

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Just got the engine out, the welds on the flange on the down pipe where it bolts on split and the transmission looks like it has broken mounts or missing mounts, ill have to get that fixed.

Also made a dumb decision of jacking the car up in the wrong place and got a little spot pushed up under the driver side door. Its not bad, but stupid mistakes really get me mad.

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Taking the engine down to short block today and discovered it was rebuilt.

What made it obvious was the sealant coming out of all the seams on the irons/housings on the bottom of the block.

This block is very dirty, worse than my junkyard engine.

One of the housings had gelled/hardened coolant in the passage mating to the lim where the o-ring goes. I cleaned it out and a bunch of oily coolant came out and the passage appears to have surface rust, hopefully the damage isn't substantial.

I already went through 3 cans of carb cleaner cleaning this block. I'm getting two more cans and will post pictures of the results.

After cleaning it more this is how it came out. I wonder how it got so dirty on the housings and got rust on the irons.

I guess it had to of sat for quite awhile outside.

The other block came out much cleaner, I'm surprised considering this engine came out of a car with 94k miles and was rebuilt. The other from the junkyard supposedly has 160k.

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Doesn't that blue tag on the front cover make it a reman engine?

Hmm I have no clue, it does say 3-98 , maybe it was built in 1998?

Whoever built it used wayyy too much sealant on everything , I pulled some off the seams on the irons/housings in multiple places.

Not sure what the "hole in the thermostat" is about, certainly nothing to do with a thermoswitch install.

Avoid the adjustable/rad probe type switches like the plague, they are garbage.
You can drill/tap the waterpump housing and find endless varieties of OEM fixed temp switches that are far more reliable and consistent than what you're considering.
Another location for the switch is the upper rad hose, just splice in an adaptor.

I meant thermostat housing, my mistake. I had mine drilled and tapped by a shop for my last NA to use a mechanical temp gauge.

I'm not sure what temp the fan should be coming on though. 190? 185? I wouldn't think 180, since that's when the tstat opens.

I like the upper rad hose idea, seems simple and functional. I didn't really like the tapped tstat housing, depends how big the hole is.

Depends on your radiator and fan.
With a good setup, I think 195° is a reasonable trigger temp for your low speed.

Hmm..well I think my fan only has one speed, what's the purpose of two speeds and how would you make it two speeds?

If your fan has two wires it's single speed, three wires and it's a two speed.
The fan has to be designed as a two speed, you can't "make" a single speed into a two stage fan.

Why two speeds?
Modern cars (from whom we're appropriating the hardware) run much hotter than we're used to...presumably for emissions purposes.
Current GM V-8's, and even the FD, don't activate their fans till @ 225°- way beyond what we can tolerate.

With a large OEM fan (like the popular Taurus unit) it takes a lot of juice to get it spinning up. Jackhild (got it right, Jack!) demonstrated that this "spike" is not as extreme as people thought, but it's still to be reckoned with.
Once spinning however, the bump needed to jump to the second speed is much less, far easier on fuses and alternator.

Grafted into a FC, such a fan is usually going to be sufficient on low speed, high is for real emergencies.
The 18" Lincoln fan in my car turns on LOW at 195° (and goes off at @ 180°), HIGH is activated at 210°...to the best of my recollection, it's never gone to HIGH in normal driving.

Ideally you want to run in the sweet spot between the thermostat being full open (@184°) and TOO HOT! FAN ON!
Below @ 50° ambient, my stripper NA (no AC) rarely runs the fan and if on, it's only briefly.
On the highway, you need no fan at all (in fact, you're better off without one from an airflow perspective).

You want the biggest single fan that will fit your rad- one big fan>two small ones- with a tight fitting shroud and a robust control circuit.
You can see how I did it here.

Do these switches work to turn on the high speed at certain temp and low speed at certain temp? As well as shutting off automatically when below the temp it turns on at? My fan is suppose to be from a Pontiac fiero.

Here's a pic of my twin blocks Im using on my rebuild. :)

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Yes.

OK cool. Now I'm just trying to get in touch with Kevin at rotary resurrection so I can get my rebuild done.

Now before I put my engine in I'll be doing all I can to ensure maxim reliability and longevity, as well as cleaning everything up so it looks nicer.

Took the two blocks to Kevin today , turns out my junkyard block was a rebuilt/remain with like new housings, he said they looked like they had 30-40k miles and were 9/10 in quality being like new.

Needless to say my $250 junkyard engine turned out to be well worth it.

Next goal is to clean up this engine bay and get my down pipe fixed since it broke.

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Congrats man! Fresh housings is the biggest plus you could get!

If you have a powerwasher then you can degrease it and blast it to do most of the work. If you plan to paint the bay then use air craft stripper. Comes in a can and gallon form, removes paint to bare metal so it saves a lot of the headache. Pull the harness, fix any bad clips and such then rewrap it too. Now is the time to make it fresh.

I'd have to remove both harnesses completely from the bay to do that wouldn't I?

The engine harness isn't bad but the other harness worries me. That one is huge.

If I could I'd like to take everything out and repaint the bay or at least fix the spots with rust.
I'd want to paint it some out of the ordinary color possibly, maybe I'd just keep it black.

Im probably gonna tell Kevin I want the block blue and black instead of the traditional colors he does, I didn't put any thought into it until after I told him to do it black/Gunmetal.

He won't be starting my build for a few weeks so I dont think it'll be a problem.

To pull the driver side harness, its easiest if you remove the dash. Then you disconnect the headlights/front lights, front relay rack, engine fuse block, PS plugs, leading coil, main relay plug, starter cut relay plug, the 3 connectors that connect near the trailing coil. Then you can either pull it into the cab and do what you want, or you can leave the dash in and just drape it over the fender while you're painting and such. I left the dash in (I've done it before so I knew how to get at it) and probably cut out 3/4 of the wiring that wasnt being using (auto suspension, coil harness, etc) and then I heat shrunk the wires I wasnt using and then taped it up (I will be removing the dash next fall and depinning everything).

Anyways, long story short, it would take a couple hours to get the harness out of the way so you can clean it up.
Good luck!

I'd consider dash removal imperative not just "easiest", especially given his stated goal.

I don't think many people appreciate the size/scope of the harness since they've never seen it out of the car and rarely do I see a "pruning/simplify" harness job that extends beyond the engine bay, which I would consider only a first step and not an acceptable endpoint.

Consider the AAS system for instance (almost universally unused at this point).
The computer for the AAS is in the spare tire well and it has connectors going to all four suspension towers (this may be the biggest single system in the whole car in terms of length), so simply removing the engine bay wiring is only touching the surface, most of the system is still in place.

Consider also that simply unplugging the AAS cpu from the harness does not stop the car from sending power to the connector, it'll still be hot even unplugged.
The more systems you remove (AC, PS, power antenna, etc.), the more unused power you have coursing through the harness, just looking for a ground.

Seems like that would be something more worth eliminating than just a few connectors in the engine bay.

I've swapped all the harnesses before on my old na so I know doing all this is a pain.

I do have a few messed melted up connectors that go to unused stuff as it is that I should probably remove. The abs and aas are two that I know of and there might be more.

I just am pessimistic about removing all this stuff to paint it and creating more problems.

You already have problems that will require digging into the harness (melted connectors are never a good sign) and will the job ever be easier than now?

I will certainly agree that working on harnesses is a PITA but an empty engine bay (which you already want to strip for paint) is as good as it's gonna get.

Well I was told the car ran fine when it did run. I don't think those harnesses with the melted connectors are associated with anything important.

How they got melted? I have idea, I know the car does have the xenon hid kit.