New owner of 831/2000

[Jay_red]

As of last night I am the new owner of 831/2000. My friend has owned it since around 2011 after I found it on Craigslist and kind of made him buy it, he basically just drove it and didn't do much with it. Back when he got it I did the timing belt, and its been reasonably reliable for him over the years. Recently I caught word that he might be selling it for something newer, and I jumped at the opportunity to get it off of him. After talking to him about it, it seems that its seen better days, recently it was running rough and turns out that it lost compression on cylinder 2.

I got it in the garage last night and just looked it over and have realized that I have a lot of work ahead of me. The plan is to rebuild the engine, just an OEM build, not looking for a ton of power, and just have a nice fun reliable car. The interior is complete but needs a good cleaning, exterior needs a lot of love, no major damage, but its got dings for days, the driver fender has a large dent, and the paint is pretty bad. The good things about the car is that it is complete and "driveable" (as in it can move under its own power) the A/C works amazingly well, and the title is clean.

Anyway, here are some pics I took this afternoon before I washed it.

 

[transparentdsm]

congrats, glad to see another VR4 close. once you get her squared away we should have a meet. there are 2 other VR4 owner's that i know in tahoe and 1 i don't know, then about 3 or 4 in carson/reno/sparks. maybe meet somewhere around eldorado hills/placerville and go for a cruise on all the twisty roads.

 

[988]

Welcome....

 

[Jay_red]

I haven't really done anything with the car yet, as I need to sell my Miata first to get some garage space and funds to start getting the parts needed. Yesterday though, I just decided to look over a some things and got a couple surprises...

First is the timing belt, it seems that one of the oil pan bolts is in the wrong spot...

And second, a Small 16g! I would have sworn it was a 14b on here, I know my friend didn't swap this on. I remember the guy we bought the car from years ago saying the motor had been swapped for "a JDM one" Its a nice surprise for sure and there is no shaft play, saves me an upgrade down the road, and I know this already has a 2g manifold on it as I put it on back when he first got the car.

Here's an overall shot of what I have to work with:

This may be a dumb question, but does anyone know if its possible to pull the motor while leaving the A/C system intact? Like unbolt the compressor and tie it out of the way and have the motor clear the lines? Since the AC works so good right now, I would hate to have to crack it open...err take it to a shop to properly evacuate it and loose that sweet sweet r12.

 

[FlyingEagle]

It clears on a Mirage/Colt, no reason it won't clear on the GVR4 too.

You unbolt the three bolts to the bracket and keep it tied back the firewall or dangle it out of the way. Easier when the motor comes out the top for handling the AC.

Easier to take the trans and motor out the bottom, when on a hoist. Like the assembly line.

Just don't forget to unhook the magnetic clutch connector.

 

[GSTwithPSI]

Yep, just remove the bolts to the compressor and tie it to the firewall when you pull the motor. Leave the bracket bolted to the motor. That's how I do it every time.

 

[Jay_red]

Awesome, thanks for the replies, I was hoping it was possible to do it this way. Living in California having A/C is a must, and it's rare to get an older car with good working A/C, glad I can preserve it.

 

[transparentdsm]

so jealous, i want a 1g or a VR4 with work R-12 so badly.

 

[iceman69510]

Quoting Jay_red:
Awesome, thanks for the replies, I was hoping it was possible to do it this way. Living in California having A/C is a must, and it's rare to get an older car with good working A/C, glad I can preserve it.



I know you have the answer already, but I third this. I have done it this way multiple times. Still the original untouched R12 in my '91.

 

[Jay_red]

SO I have been taking my time working on 831, I got the engine out a few days ago and got it on a stand. I was eager to crack it open and see what was wrong with it. Well once I got the head off, the problem cylinder has a nice big hole in one of the exhaust valves! I gave my friend a call to talk about it and he was asking me some questions about the block, and we started to realize that this was no 4g63t, but a g4cp N/A block from a Hyundai. It would seem that someone had just grabbed a block and swapped everything over to it at one point. So I am now on the lookout for a long block to swap in (I dont want to even deal with the N/A block and dont really care about the arguments for it).

I have plenty of work to do with cleaning the engine bay and interior to keep me busy while I find a block, but craigslist has been dry for a while. On the plus side I was able to snag a fender from pick and pull and a bunch of smaller parts. I also got a set of Lancer OZ rally wheels that look pretty good on the car.

 

[Jay_red]

Its been a long time since I updated this, quite a bit has happened and I have not been able to work on the car as much as I would have liked. I had gotten a turbo block and sent it to the machine shop for work, got it about half way assembled and then my baby was born, and the car got put on hold. I didn't touch the car for a good 4 months after that, and the one day I can finally work on the car, as I'm putting in the last piston into the block, I broke a rod bolt!

At that point I was pretty mad, I did not want to work on it any more and left it at that. A couple weeks later my friend shoots me a craigslist ad for a Laser RS that had its transfercase lock up on the owner, he had it towed to his neighborhood, and then he got a notice that he needed to move it or it was getting towed the next day. My buddy checks it out and it runs great. He gets the guy to let it go for cheap, gets it towed to his shop and see that the drain plug had fallen out and thats why the T-case locked up. I put in my T-case and we drive the car around, it runs great and pulls nicely. Compression test gives us 160-165 across the board. We even smogged the car and it passed with flying colors, so we know the engine is good.

I got the car to my place and pulled the engine out and am currently replacing all the gaskets I had gathered for the other block. Hoping to have it driveable by the end of the month. The car came with some extra goodies also, it had a 2g manifold, ebay 16g (wont be running this) poly motor mounts, SS clutch line, and Spec clutch and flywheel. I also just got some exterior panels from a member that was parting out a vr4 a couple hours away from me, his doors and other parts were much nicer than mine, so I will be swapping those out soon, and the car will look much more presentable.

 

[FlyingEagle]

Sounds like a bunch of good timing, in ways that came to your rescue.

Nice to see the wrenches back in action .... after of course acknowledging your new foray into parenthood!

Congrats man!

 

[Jay_red]

Been a while since an update on this old beater, but I think what has been done is pretty impressive. If any of you are on the Galant Facebook page, you probably have seen these pics, but if not, here you go!

So we left off with me pulling an engine from a donor Laser, I got it installed and had been working slowly on it. At one point I decided to remove the front bumper to get ready to mount an oil cooler, and thats when I discovered something that took this build in a different direction. I noticed the factory intercooler hoses looked weird, and the clamps were all messed up, I took off the intercooler to find this:

I have no idea how long my friend had been driving the car like this, or if it had been like that since he got it, there was no evidence of an impact that would have caused these outlets to look like this. In any case, it meant I needed a front mount, and this is where my friend stepped in and made the most awesome custom intercooler ever.

It started with a Greddy core he got off of a friends Talon that had been damaged slightly, we mocked it up and with the right inlet/outlet, it would be able to use the factory routing on the hot side, and we would route the cold side through the core next to the condenser and radiator. My friend had a very specific vision as to how to get this done, so I basically let him have free reign, and just ordered stuff as needed.

Before we got really into the intercooler, we figured out a slick way to mount the oil cooler, we are using a DSM cooler with a custom bracket mounted to the bolts going through the AC condenser. Then we used adapter fittings and ran some push lock hose to the housing.

After mocking up the intercooler many times, we were finally ready to commit to welding on the inlet and outlet. After we got that, he had enough random piping around his shop we were able to plumb it up. There was a lot of work into this piping, adapting different sizes, enlarging ends to fit 2.5 and beading it. All said and done it looks very close to factory, which is my goal since I live in the great state of CA, and want to look as stock as possible for SMOG. The intercooler fits behind the bumper with NO MODIFICATION to the support! We removed the hood support bracket and integrated it into the top of the intercooler, we are pretty sure we are one of the only ones to do an intercooler this way, but it allowed the cooler to be placed very far back. The bottom is mounted with a piece of 90 degree aluminum with holes drilled to match some of the factory holes that existed already.

Here is a mocked up engine bay shot, I still have a lot to sort out, but wanted to see it in all its glory with the cherry valve cover I have. We decided on running the Honda half radiator for intercooler piping clearance, and so far I am happy with how easy it is to fit into the car.

 

[GSTwithPSI]

You're probably going to have cooling issues with the Honda half rad. I don't know anyone that hasn't.