seattlejester

I'm assuming you are using a fuel cell? You just kind of get used to it. Really you only need to know when you start the car or are cruising. When you are on the throttle all the fuel goes to the back if you have a bottom sump so not a problem when you are breaking hard it might be bad if you are really low on fuel. If it is bothersome you can add a baffled box to keep the fuel level more consistent around the sender, but performance wise that won't help in any way and would require quite a bit of fabrication. Wouldn't you want a stronger spring for a loose BOV?

Hmm last time I did a wet it brought the numbers up quite a bit more then that. If the block was bore honed, the rings all gapped and all that, then those values shouldn't be that variable which does point towards the head being problematic. Once again that is with the assumption the rings were gapped and the block honed. Cylinder one which looks the most oily also didn't go up that much with a wet compression test at least the last time I did one it was almost 200. The only questionable thing in this is when you said there was no oil when you connected the valve cover hose back to the intake. I suppose it is possible the vacuum could hold the oil from leaking down or something, but it is still a bit of a red herring. Is the intake clear of oil? Can you take off the intake boot and shine a light down in there? Once we establish the cylinders are not getting oil from the intake tract, then it more or less comes to the chamber. The chamber could get oil from 3 maybe 4 spots. The pistons not scraping off sufficient oil (bottom), an oil passage leaking into the combustion chamber from a blown head gasket (side), or directly from the top via a valve seal (top). The compression test should have ideally ruled out the bottom or the top, but those numbers lack consistency which makes it hard to judge.

Goodness I love the info here. Kind of glad I went off the shelf as I definitely wouldn't have considered all of this.

Always wondered what you could do with a stroker kit on a K24 block with a high flowing head. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRFrFudg7eM Pretty nuts. I saw 520 on the dyno video, that's damn near 200hp/L naturally aspirated. Granted for sure I'm sure it is running something like 15:1 compression and some derivative of race fuel and have an insanely short life expectancy. For reference I remember when honda had the manufacturers top spec with 123.5hp/L a while back with I think the F20C for the longest time, then the likes of Porsche, Lamborghini, and Ferrari have all challenged for the crown. Then Ariel took the throne with a road legal manufactured car with 166hp/L although that is pretty much a track toy more then a street legal manufacturers car. Just thought it was pretty neat.

No worries, John A picture of all the spark plugs in a row will be illuminating. A singular plug won't help too much. Plus you will have to pull them all anyway for a compression test, might as well pull them all at once.

I'm somewhere in the same boat, I had to make my front chin removable after I stiffened it up as I couldn't slide my jack under it anymore. Definitely been looking at some more interesting options to lift the car. Been looking at custom jack points or onboard air/electric jacks. I wish they had jack points like an E36.

Dry, then wet compression will help determine which half of the block is the problem portion if we are still thinking it is oil related. Throw up some pictures to how you have things routed? Can you show us the spark plugs? Are you still running megasquirt? Can you throw up a log? Might show something else.

^Seconded on the sound clip. I appreciate the work involved in those headers as well. Made sure to give himself enough room to weld all the way around or made them all equal length. Depending on how attentive he was and which cylinders he matched before merging it could give a more flat plane sound then the traditional cross plane.

Definitely need some picture or numbers to work with. The sooty ring kind of suggests maybe you are just running very rich? If your near the rich mark then it wouldn't be unexpected for you to stumble when you put oil through the intake. What is your AFR sitting at? Leaky valve seals would kind of deposit a bit of oil as the oil drains a bit back into the pan so you would expect some smoking on startup. Then as the oil is flung around you would expect it to leak past the seals. Putting vacuum on the system using the PCV would kind of condense the mixture and have it burn through the engine which wouldn't be very visible. If the smoke which is your concern went away when you vented it to the intake then throw a catch can inline. Oil vapors will hamper the air fuel mixture which might explain why the car stumbles. Honestly I think the rear cap seal is more so the culprit over the rear main seal most of the time. Hammering in those metal strips making sure you don't slice the rubber seal is quite the task.

^That is really clean.

Ooh that sounds like quite the setup. Please do post pics! I do feel you may rub, I think I was on 2 inch lowering springs following johnc's guide. Had to roll the guards.

I can see camber and toe depending on activity and or more practical reasons like street setting and race setting if you don't tow your car to the track. I just haven't heard of adjusting caster very often. I guess because most cars don't have that option from the factor or aren't easily modified for it. I guess similarly if you change activities and run street tires vs road racing slicks or something of that nature a caster adjustment would be merited?

Is caster something you adjust that often?

Looks great!

Oops, I just assumed based on the last time I saw the car. Bummer to hear about the oil pump. Without the turbo in play that kind of eliminates all the intake bound stuff and points more towards the engine. I think a wet and dry compression test will tell us quite a bit. Either the valve seals are not making a good seal. The oil rings are not doing a good job of pulling the oil down. Or the lack of the PCV is messing with the situation.

To make it look decent I think you would have to drop about an inch or so more then I am at, and at that height I was high centering the floor on things. I get what you mean though the 215/60/15 make the car look like its on stilts. Probably why my set only has 1000 miles on it. I am definitely planning the move to 16's, not many more tire choices, but the extra rim diameter makes more tires look "right."

I would say some rivnuts would probably be a better option. I've got a full kit, but your in utah now lol.

Thanks, that was a pretty big moment and lots of hurdles cleared. More good news. Or kind of embarrassing news? Because the fitment on the treadstone manifold is known to be so bad, at some point a previous owner drilled out all the holes to allow the manifold to slide on the studs. As an unexpected bi-product this allows the manifold to tilt up and down on the studs. Tilting the manifold down allows me to slip the factory nuts onto the top studs and tilting the manifold up allows me to slip nuts onto the bottom studs. Then it is a matter of pushing the manifold on, threading all the nuts in a few turns, the repeating until seated. So if I shave the interfering torx bit and maybe the first couple threads I might be able to get away with slipping a 12 point down there and tightening a 1/12th turn at a time. Spent last night looking at catch cans and such and figuring out all the fittings I need to order. I'm going with a oil catch can to vacuum pre turbo. That means buying a coupler for the intake to the turbo I can put some fittings on and finding a catch can that has the desired design and fittings. Given nothing really exist that doesn't either break the bank like crazy or fit my very specific needs, I'm going to buy one maybe two and modify them for what I think they should be.

Ah, good to know! If I may suggest, I'd do a once over where the hinge bolts to the door, and where the stainless frame goes into the door for stress/rust cracks, and poke along the bottom in the front and back. Out of 4 doors, 3 of them were separating at that joint, two of them had cracks around the hinge and two of them had holes in the bottom.

I have a 240z and yes I am running the extreme BC coilover kit. That is unfortunately the case I think hondas and miatas run that smaller tire size so we're kind of out of luck. Here's the car with the 225/50/15 Kumho Ecstas. Compared to the 225/45/15 BF Rivals Just fills out a lot better. The factory tire size is actually even bigger then the 225/50/15, that fills out the well even better, but almost looks like too much tire at that point. Car with the 215/60/15 falken azenis They have a pretty bad contact patch though Falken on top and Kumho on bottom

Glad you got it back up and running. How did you assemble the pistons? Even if you dipped them I'm thinking it shouldn't be burning oil for this long. If you used some lubricant mix though it could be smokey until it clears. The valve seal comment is indeed concerning, what does go over mean? Did they just look at it and say it's ok? What oil are you running? Have a picture of your vacuum running? If your venting to atmo, do you not have any PCV? What about the turbo? Rebuilt? A friend had a similar situation, turns out it was the atmospheric venting for him. Running a catch can routed to the pre-turbo intake caught a lot of oil that was burning up in the intake and causing him to smoke. Really it is a matter of forensic disassembly. Pull off the turbo intake and take a look. Do you see any oil? Take off the compressor housing. Do you see any oil? Look in the intake tract. Do you see any oil? Each stage should tell you something as you go.

Very cool that you are back on track with this. Was definitely hoping to incorporate this into my theoretical dream build. Keep up the good work!

Will the doors fit? I thought their latching mechanisms were different.

Decided I had enough chips in my hand to get a bit of work done. Happiest of days, it seems like everything fits! The turbo clears the shock tower with about a 1/4 inch or so... and the intake also clears with about a 1/2 inch of room to play with. I think combined with the poly mounts I might be able to get away as is. Worse case scenario I'll have to hit my shock tower a bit just to make sure it doesn't bob up against it. Unfortunately a staged shot really. The intake manifold needs a once over and to be cleaned with the fittings installed. The turbo manifold has problems of its own listed below. Picture of the chopped up mount for the trigger wheel. I eyeballed it and cut the ends off then welded it back together. Problem was that it was too tall given the 7m is a 3 groove pulley. It is canted a bit down, I may have to slot both the holes a bit to get it to hit the wheel at a better angle, but I believe it shouldn't really matter. I'll have to run a tooth log once everything is buttoned up. It is pretty easy to get to so not too concerned. The holes in the block are threaded, so using some M10x1.25 75mm long I was able to bolt the adapter to the block. Then there are the problems like always. Exhaust manifold studs are too long for most of the holes. I think the ones on the end might get away, but the ones in the center are definitely going to have to be dealt with. Given that the head is aluminum I'm not too excited about my options. A regular bolt is going to be a nightmare especially trying to get a wrench in there since a socket is clearly out of the question. Probably looking at some allen head bolts, but given that the manifold just absolutely sucks for fitment and all the holes are drilled larger to barely get it on I'm going to have to run some weird offset washers most likely. I've sent them an e-mail to see what they suggest. Kinda miffed. They are as far as I know a reputable company, even a lot of ebay manifolds are notched and such just to avoid this, but the more I search the more it seems that fitment problems are the norm. Additionally the turbo won't accommodate the ideal length bolt as the scroll gets in the way. That means I have to find some fairly short studs as well. Good news is I finally measured the lengths for the drain and feed so I can submit my order to summit and pickup some tubing for the exhaust and an o2 bung while I'm at it. Last order other then one for OEM valve cover gaskets. Pretty excited parts are finally going on the motor and off the floor.

^Like the driveshaft pinion? I always thought it was halfshaft, stub axle, then inputs. I didn't know pinion was also on the list. I agree, going to have to do a lot more reading and see who you are taking advice from if the rear subframe is the first point you are concerned about when throwing power at this chassis. At the bare minimum a look at the suspension diagram and using the correct names will be a good start.