Author Archive: wae

I got the new FPR installed last night.  It’s a pretty easy job that doesn’t require dropping the tank — I just jacked up the rear of the car and reached up under the rocker to get right to it.  Unfortunately, there’s no way there’s enough room to remove the fuel pump assembly through the same method.

While the new filter/regulator seems much less restricted, it wasn’t the source of the problem, as I suspected.  On a long shot, I also tried putting 5 gallons of gas in the tank to see if maybe it was just out of gas, but I still get no fuel flow at the fuel rail, so I think the fuel pump is shot.  To that end, I have a new Walbro 225l pump on order from Modern Performance.  It should be here on Wednesday, and I should be able to get it in without too much trouble.

In my efforts to get the car to the courthouse to get it inspected, I ran in to some pretty serious problems getting the car to run.  Basically, it’s suffering from the same things that have plagued it for the last year.  When I finally got it back in to the garage, I started doing some pretty radical things to the tune to see what would happen and I found that aside from giving it some pretty outlandish settings, it ran pretty much the same, no matter what.  I checked spark on all four plugs, and that was good.  I wanted to try testing the injectors to see if they were all firing, and as part of that, I went to disconnect the fuel line from the injector rail.

Nothing came out.

I left it disconnected, put a bucket under it, and tried cranking.  No fuel.   The next night, I got a jumper wire and tried running the fuel pump.  I can hear the pump running, but I get a very sporadic splash of gas here and there. 

Tonight I’m going to try a new fuel regulator/filter.  If that doesn’t work (and I don’t expect it to), I’m going to order the Walbro pump from Modern Performance and drop the tank.

Since my last update, I’ve fiddled with the req_fuel numbers and the idle portion of the VE bins and it starts and idles pretty well.  I haven’t tried to put it under load, except for a short drive to the stop sign and back, but I’ll work with that as I go.

Tonight, I got the mirrors on and the turn signal bulb replaced, so the only thing left to do before trying to get the car inspected by the sheriff is to put in a switch for the horn.

I also had to grind down the pin for the gear selector so that the booger bushing would fit properly.

I got a battery from U Pull and Pay in Carthage today, but after trying to charge it for about 3 hours, it still won’t hold a charge. I jumped it off my van, though, and it started up. Sounds better than ever, in fact. I confirmed that it will move under its own power, forward and backwards, but the brakes need to be bled before I do anything serious.

Last night, I got the transmission filled, swapped out the connectors for the speed sensor, secured the heater hoses and put all the intake piping back together.  Once I get a battery, I’m going to give it a test start and see how it does.

Over the weekend, I picked up a new bit of 2 1/4″ ID flex pipe for the exhaust (I crushed the one that was already there when the motor slipped down), some Pennzoil Syncromesh transmission fluid, and got to work.  The new plugs are in, I swapped the coil, and the new plug wires are in as well.  Exhaust is connected solidly.  I removed the old injectors and they were pretty nasty-looking.  I’m thinking that they could be a bit clogged up and I’m thinking about finding something to soak them in so I have good spares.  The new injects looked almost brand-new, and I put them in so that everything seems well-sealed.  I got the BOV connected to a vacuum line, borrowing a bit of washer fluid line from Stinky.  The PDC is also secured, although I only used zip-ties for now.  I’d like to build a bracket in the future, but that can wait until things are running smoothly.

The best part is that the front end of the car is ready for wheels and can then be put back down on the ground.

Why can’t they make the endlink bolt just about an eighth of an inch longer?  Using the jack on the head of the bolt, I was able to thread the nut on and get the sway bar installed on the front.

At this point, I am considering the front end to be put back together.  It could probably use an alignment at some point, but I’m going to hold off on that until I know that I don’t need to take it apart again.

I’m also going to need to start considering tires.

Things are starting to get close now.  The front end is back together, except for the sway bar.  The transmission should be ready to test, except for the shifter adjustment.  A couple lessons learned:

– The steering linkage drops down through the control arm, not up.
– The Energy Suspension sway bar frame bushings have to be slit before installation

The new brake rotors are on, all the ball joints have boots, and the axles are installed.  Once the sway bar goes in to place, the exhaust needs to be reconnected, and the car can come back down to the ground.

Left to do:

• Swap coil
• New plugs & wires
• Adjust shifter and install boogers
• Re-attach turbo plumbing
• Get a battery
• Connect the electrical to the transmission
• Put new injectors in
• Run vacuum line to the BOV
• Reconnect the PDC and secure it
• Secure some misc. wires that are banging around the engine
• Secure the brake line bracket on the right side

The engine and transmission are finally re-mounted in the car and supported only by the engine (and transmission) mounts.  I disconnected the engine hoist and pushed it out of the way on Wednesday night.

The chain took a hunk out of the coil, though, so I’ll need to put one of the spares on.  There’s also something weird going on with the driver’s side CV — the joint closest to the transmission seems to have come apart, and I’m not sure what needs to be done to re-engage it, or if it’s just toast.  I was able to get the 5/8″ tie rod boot from Dorman to fit on the ball joint, however, so I added some grease and put that on.  The only way to do that, for the record, is to pull the knuckle off of the strut, attach the ball joint and the tie rod, slide the axle into the hub, and then re-attach the strut.

On order right now are new Booger Bushings, front rotors, spark plugs (NGK BKR7Es, standard on only a handful of odd-duck vehicles such as the Aston Martin DB7 Base from 1997-1998 or the 1995 Audi S6), and Accel plug wires.

After trying a few different things, I wound up using a reciprocating saw to take off the welded-to-the-car nut that was frozen up with rust, holding the transmission mount to the donor car.  It’s now filled with Windo-Weld and waiting to complete the curing process.