Project Slimer, new owner......

metal_gear_jon · Post by **metal_gear_jon** » Fri Feb 26, 2010 11:53 pm

First off, I'd like to introduce myself and a little about my background.

My name is Jonathan and bah blah blah. Edited out the personal crap, no one cares.

The 1998 Highline Coupe was purchased from the same charity auction back in Feb of 09. It's pretty light options wise, only a/c and power steering, no tilt, cruise, power locks or windows. The 98 was first MTX I had neon wise and prompted the sale of the Miata.
It wasn't much to look at.

Had awful dark tint on all the windows, but the body was pretty good for the mileage despite the fender and bumper. I fixed the mechanical probs first, then the cosmetics.

And then it sat. It lingered for about a year in the back lot at work.

I drove it up to the Nats this past summer and to TomZ's BBQ. (plastic fuel line broke on the way up)
It won 1gn of the month http://forum.1gn.org/viewtopic.php?t=6285
I recently started driving it daily to work after the sale of the second green beater.
I discovered a few months back a nasty spot of rot on the rocker.

The aftermath of 15 mins with a cut off wheel and a grinder...

Patch panel screwed in awating panel bond adhesive.

Anyway, the goals for this car is for it to remain a stock appearing as possible (girly color and all), but to hide the fact it's turbo'd. I'm not looking to be street racing with a loud BOV or big cams to give me away.

This is the first car I have time to play around with and not having to just keep it on the road running.

I'm being realistic here with my goals. Maybe 190-200 whp with 4 to 8psi. The budget is about $1,000 but I'm at $331 right now

My setup will be:

Updated 5-17
SRT turbofold, downpipe, etc.
Begi RRFPR
stock SRT fuel pump with Spoolboy modded canister
Stock Sohc block with a Dohc head that has been mildly ported with the chambers polished
Stock? cams,valves,springs.
Saab 900 intercooler to be located about where the battery was (soon to be located in trunk)
35 pound injectors

What I have now:

PT valve cover

Dohc head with intake (Thanks 98neon_r/t)
Dinner time kids!!!

rising rate

Evo fuel pump (flows 160LPH at 43psi with 12 volts) Should be enough? < Realized that this pump was designed to work with tanks that the canister is dropped from the top, not the side like ours, oops!

Lucas 35lb hour injectors (EV1 connector, so i'll have to swap pigtails) < got adapters

Saab intercooler

Turbofold and etc (on the way from Racyneon)

Misc Junk!

I will still need to buy:

Wideband
Dohc timing belt, misc in relation to conversion
Extra canister to modify
AN lines and fittings for canister
Downpipe and intercooler piping

^ have all of this now

And more misc junk!

Plus I still need to send the head out to get sanded, then I can reassemble.

I understand the limitations of using a rising rate with the stock pcm for fuel management. But right now, it's the cheapest, plus with the Sohc PCM, it should be a little safer (less ignition timing)
I'm well aware of the known weaknesses of the stock drivetrain and axles (low torque rating + unequal length driveshafts FTL)
If I come to the point of upgrading, it will be with a MS, plus a proper bottom end. But by that time, SRT's should be dirt cheap, so why bother. This car will be something to play around with for a few years, nothing more.

Any ?'s or comments. Don't worry, I have a thick skin!

charger440neon2.0l · Post by **charger440neon2.0l** » Sat Feb 27, 2010 12:46 am

Looking good thats nice work on that patch panel.

metal_gear_jon · Post by **metal_gear_jon** » Sat Feb 27, 2010 9:18 am

Thanks! That's the first time I ever attempted anything like that. The most body work I ever did was removing the front end off of the Miata, some sanding priming, and of course the fender and bumper on the Neon. I was ready to weld, but one of the bodymen at work suggested to "glue" it in place with panel bond. I was too lazy to get it painted, so it's buried in undercoat. You can't see it anyway, unless the car is in the air.

Ianguilly · Post by **Ianguilly** » Sat Feb 27, 2010 12:57 pm

Jon i alway thought you had one of the best looking alpines around, you going up to the mopar nationals this year?

metal_gear_jon · Post by **metal_gear_jon** » Sat Feb 27, 2010 3:18 pm

I should make it, I went last year on Saturday. The car should be put together by then.

And on the color..... The first time I saw it , I thought "Auto car!" would of never even considered buying it, but for the fact it has a MTX. But it grew on me. (but not like a rash)

When I worked at Northgate, there used to be a Alpine Sohc sedan that came in all the time for service. It only had like 30 or 40k on it. The only problem was the owner was literally a "little old lady" and could not drive worth the shit. Both bumpers were repainted several times and peeling. All four corners bondo'd up and poorly repainted also. The car was a splotchy mess.

I feel sorry for whomever ends up with that one.

Ianguilly · Post by **Ianguilly** » Sat Feb 27, 2010 4:04 pm

maybe i'll see you up there, Are you gonna bre in the show field or just driving it up there?

I go up every year, this year i'll be the for friday night and untill saturday night but i don't show just drive around

metal_gear_jon · Post by **metal_gear_jon** » Sat Feb 27, 2010 4:53 pm

Last year, I just paid the $20 and went in. I could do the $65 and go for the Trophy drags. IIRC there wasn't enough for the FWD class so they lumped them in with the Street.

metal_gear_jon · Post by **metal_gear_jon** » Sun Mar 07, 2010 6:51 pm

UPDATE:

Turbofold and o2 housing showed up from Steve (Racyneon). I'm very happy with it.

I had to work this past Saturday, so the only good thing was I got to use the parts washer all day. The head is now ready to go to the machine shop Monday to get sanded. Plus I'm thinking of painting the intake, flat black maybe.

Also got to move the battery to the trunk. Used 4 gauge and used the strut tower in the trunk to ground like everyone else does.

I know, I know, it's not in a box. I'll have one ordered soon.

On a side note, a customer took one of our DTS's on a test drive and returned on a rollback looking like this.......

Fun stuff!!!!

It's just one of many that is rotting on the lot lateley.

metal_gear_jon · Post by **metal_gear_jon** » Mon Mar 08, 2010 6:58 pm

Of fucking course....... my stock fuel pump died today at the stop light ready to leave work.

I was 2 or three weeks away from getting a spare canister from the junkyard and putting the evo pump+spoolboying it. At least now I'll save the trip.
So now I'll be buying a new pump, just to run it for a few weeks. What a waste. I should of known, the pump seemed to be getting louder lately, just like the one in the old 95 did before it died. The joy of 12 year old cars.

Ianguilly · Post by **Ianguilly** » Mon Mar 08, 2010 7:10 pm

Why are you painting you intake its already black? And are you thinking of putting a CAI on?

metal_gear_jon · Post by **metal_gear_jon** » Mon Mar 08, 2010 7:43 pm

Um, mabye I should of said intake manifold.

Plus, it's getting turbo'ed, so most of the Sohc bits will be gone soon, I hope.

metal_gear_jon · Post by **metal_gear_jon** » Fri Mar 26, 2010 7:04 pm

Well, last Monday was my birthday. Having nothing going on, I decided to reassemble my cylinder head. I just got it back from the machine shop the week before, so I figured I should just keep working on it to keep my mind off other things.

I did not have the C-clamp style valve spring compressor at hand and we all know the OHV style ones will not fit on our heads. Gm uses these bolt on type compressors for their heads, so I borrowed one from work. It's normally used on Northstar heads but I made it work with mine.

How they work is that they bolt onto where the cam caps go on, thus giving you enough leverage to compress the springs. Only one of the holes lined up, so I used a wrench bolted to the outer cap holes to span over it. Needless to say, it worked. It's slower than using the c- clamp type, so it took aobut 1 and half hours to finish all 16 valves with new seals.

Finished^

But of course something has to go wrong.

Two days later, I was soaking my lifters and rockers in oil at work. I forgot them when I left, so I decided to go back around 6:30 to retrive them just in case the cleaning crew might toss them.

Drive over like normal, get back in, no crank. Checked fuses, swapped relays, hooked up a jump box even, still nothing. I managed to roll the car down the back lot and got it to push start.

Drove it back up the hill, killed it, still wouldn't crank. Repeated the process and parked it for the night.

Next morning, I took the starter out to discover the ring gear area was full of caked oil. The teeth were ok, but it looked like it was leaking for a while ( probally from the rear main) with the flywheel slinging the oil onto the starter gear.

That evening, I tore the starter apart to find it's beencompletly soaked with oil on it's insides. Also two of the brushes were gone altogether, which was the root cause, but the oil wasn't helping either.

I can order a new brush set off ebay for $20, or go to Jacks and try to find on that's been replaced already for $10 + plus my old one. Guess what I'm doing tomorrow.

metal_gear_jon · Post by **metal_gear_jon** » Fri Apr 09, 2010 6:40 pm

Car is running again, put a new starter in it two weeeks ago.

Ebay is comming through for me. Now I have:

Ebay downpipe $50 shipped.
Several AN -4 lines for my fuel and oil feed for the turbo + AN -4 to AN -5 reducer for the oil feed on the turbo + AN -4 to 1/8 npt adapter for the head AN -10 bulkhead for the oil drain
Timing belt, new water pump are on their way.
AEM Wideband
Vinny Bricks PDC mount #002

metal_gear_jon · Post by **metal_gear_jon** » Sun Apr 18, 2010 6:54 pm

Sunday Update!

Wideband is here, along with the T-belt , water pump, ebay downpipe.
I installed the Vinny PDC bracket a few days ago, works great and is better than the zip tie method.
I did a mockup of the oil feed line to the turbo....

Installed a SRT fuel pump in the spare canister, plus added a fitting for a return. I followed this write up on the big org,
http://forums.neons.org/viewtopic.php?f ... l+pump+mod
I believe it will work fine for my goals.
Plus there is a Dohc TPS + pigtail on the way from Uptownsport from the .org

metal_gear_jon · Post by **metal_gear_jon** » Wed May 12, 2010 9:31 pm

It's 10 ish and I'm tired. I've been up since 6 a.m. today.

My current place of employment has a "Customer Appreciation Sale" Saturday (cause we're so damn slow), which means I'm stuck working. It was going to be the big install day, so now I'm getting to work early and staying late to start on it.

So far both manifolds, the head, timing crap, and few of the oddball stuff is off.
New water pump is on along with cleaning/prepping the top of the block for the new head. I was surprized to see the factory cross hatching on the cylinder walls.

I hate having to do this with hand tools, but using them will give me a nice "feel" when torquing the bolts down. God, I've been spoiled with air tools and lifts. Just so sick of waiting, I've been working on other people's cars for the last few weeks, so my previous Saturday's have been tied up. I won't be able to get in the shop at all this weekend (I'll be "upping" customers all day")

Hopefully, the head will be on tommorrow morning, along with cams and the timing belt. At least by doing it the slow way, I can focus on the small stuff better.