metaruss

I pulled the A568 out of the CSX so I can bolt it to this powertrain.  I found an A523 with 3.50:1 drive ratio in another corner of the garage.  Where did that come from?  Then I tripped over this box marked “Quaife”….

Well, the car is back together.  While I had it apart, I swapped in the A520 that I had just rebuilt before getting rid of the Shadow.  It has the chrome moly bearing plate too, so it should hold up to this motor.  The taller overall gear ratio will be welcome.  Since it had the A568 in it before, I had to swap the shifter, cables, etc.  I also replaced the middle rear freeze plug with a rubber one, as it was starting to seep.  It was rusted through from the inside, just like the one behind the starter was.  I also replaced that first one as the rubber was looking cracked and shabby.

I couldn’t see where the headgasket had blown into a coolant jacket, but it did blow between cylinders 3 and 4.  The gasket was still there, but it was burned between the gasket and the head.  That area of the head is still flat and intact, so it should be fine.  Unfortunately, I drove it to and from work and it still runs like crap except now it won’t rev past 4500.  Grrr.

I am slowly collecting parts to build up the new power train for this thing.  Who knows, maybe I’ll have it done for SDAC.  Hahahaha…yeah right.  Via a series of junkyard trips and parts cars, I finally have all the interior bits for a complete ’91 interior.  The center console was a bit of a challenge, as it changed between ’90 and ’91.  I wanted a manual shifter and trying to find the right center console pieces in the right color was tricky since I am partial to the ’91+ style.  I am still confused about how the whole center console works with the navigator and CD player slots.  I am not going to install a factory CD player, but it would be nice to understand this.  I don’t see how one could get at them with the console up so high.  The service manuals didn’t really have any diagrams that were terribly helpful.  I have my hands on a parts car that has everything else I need and more…bwahaha.

I fiddled with it some more, but now I am seeing that the coolant system is being pressurized with gas after driving it around the block.  Coolant is being pushed out out of the radiator.  Looks like my aggressive cal blew the headgasket.   I took it around the block again and it got even worse.  Perhaps this is why it is running bad.

I added a little spark to the cal and now the motor is not running well at all. The idle is very rough and it pings a lot.  I backed out the change, but the problems continue.  I then went back to the cal I was running during the winter, but it still didn’t help.  I swapped the coil, wires, cap, rotor plugs.  No dice.  Next I decided to look at the timing it looked OK, but when I took off the belt cover, I noticed that the idler side of the belt was very loose.  I figured this was making the timing jump around, but even after fixing it and triple-checking the timing again, it still idles bad, pings in boost, and won’t rev past 5k.

05/25/04: Version 1.2 – extended the cold side of a fuel enrichment curve a bit further, as it seemed like it still wasn’t rich enough around 80^F.  Also the RetardFactorFromBarometericPressure was scaled up again to try to cover the 0-2 psi range with a bit more spark.

I found this thing sitting back in the corner of the garage.  Something about being a 2.2L common block with a forged T2 crank, T2 rods, JE forged pistons, big oil pump, etc.  I dunno, maybe it’s good for something….

Driving the car again in the nice weather.  Hopefully I’ll get a chance to do some work on the Daytona.  Tweaked a few things in the cal to fix some summertime “cold” start quirkiness and hopefully addressed a low boost stumble.

Well, the car made it through the rest of the winter and spring.  The mileage is about right and the idle has been getting better and better all by itself.  I beat on the car quite a bit, so that may be helping it a bit.  Could be the warmer weather too.  I fiddled with the trans kickdown cable figured out how to do the proper adjustment procedure.  It helped a little, but it’s still upshift-happy.  Oh well.

04/30/04: Version 1.1 – extended the cold side of a fuel enrichment curve to hopefully address a slight instability I noticed during “cool” startup.  It seemed like it wasn’t rich enough long enough.