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Posted: Wed May 17, 2006 4:34 pm

Don't know whether it's a rod or balance shaft bearing yet, but it's making a hell of a racket; however very intermittently.

I was out doing some tuning and just got off the freeway after a pretty hard pull; as I came to a stop and blipped the throttle, I heard a definitive 'knocking' coming from the bottom end. It was very intermittent and not based at any specific rpm. Luckily I was only a couple of blocks from the house, so I limped it home.

The noise is not present under load, and isn't constant, so I'm leaning more towards one of the B-shafts. Initially I thought that I may have thrown a rocker/or dropped a valve, so I pulled the VC and checked everything out. Valvetrain is good, plugs show zero sign of detonation, compression is rock solid, timing marks are dead on and nothing looks out of the ordinary. Even the oil looks great.

I'll be dropping the oil pan this weekend to take a look so for now I'm still clueless to what let go. If it is indeed the B-shafts, this will be the perfect opportunity to drop the motor and pull em as well as take care of some of the high mileage leaks that have been popping up. (front main seal, oil pan, etc...)

Am I mad? Hell no. As hard of a life that this car has seen, I'm surprised that she's lasted this long! More details to come....

Posted: Wed May 17, 2006 10:56 pm

Damn sorry to hear that Paul. If it was a balance shaft it wouldn't be intermittent right? To my understanding if a balance shaft is bad wouldn't it vibrate your engine to death?

Posted: Thu May 18, 2006 10:32 am

This is not the kind of Kill Stories we like to see, but you and Lulu have been through alot. Sad

We know she will be kicking ass soon enough and if not it's time for an EVO. Very Happy

Posted: Thu May 18, 2006 4:37 pm

Not necessarily Wrick. If a b-shaft bearing fails, it will give some low intermittant knocking towards the front of the motor or just make a hell of a racket in general. The sound of a failed B-shaft bearing is almost identical to that of a rod bearing on the 4G's.

One thing that I didn't do, but will be doing tonight is trying to isolate the knock to a particular cylinder if it is indeed a spun bearing. (Raise it to the RPM that it starts knocking and pull the plug wires one at a time.)

Typically a rod knock will stop on the affected cylinder once you stop it from getting combustion since you are removing the load from it. I won't have time to pull the pan till this weekend, so I won't have a definite answer till then.

Seriously though, I'm not even sweating it. I'm surprised that it took me this long to hurt the bottom end. I define the saying "Drive it like you stole it" and have been since I first bought her. Laughing

Posted: Thu Jun 29, 2006 12:28 pm

Well, I finally managed to get a break in my work schedule and figure out what broke.

I dropped the pan and started checking the rods for looseness. #4 had more play than a cheap hooker on Beaver St. The other 3 rods are still within spec with virtually no play. While I was in there, I went ahead and inspected the rest of the bottom end and found no other defects.

Hell, the crank/thrust bearing is solid and what little end-play movement it has is well within limits.

I pulled the #4 rod cap and the bearings were spun approx. 90*.

bearing

crank journal

Looks like I caught it early enough and avoided any serious damage. The crank and rod surfaces are good with just some minor scuffing from the bearing material, and no deformation or grooves.

There was a minimal amount of debris in the oil and the two 'tangs' from the bearings were sitting at the bottom of the oil pan.

I had to go out and pick up a Mic and still need to re-measure the crank pin so I can order the correct size bearings, since Mitsu. decided to use journal specifically sized bearings. (S1, S2, S3)

On another note, since I had to pull the downpipe and O2 to get the oil pan off, I pulled off the hotside of the turbo to re-tap a stripped O2 housing bolt hole..

I found that the housing had a big ass crack that ran down the front side of the inlet and extended thru to the outside of the housing. Fuck! Luckily I found another 7cm housing for cheap. Wink

On a positive side, My manifold had two big nasty cracks that Whitey fixed a while back and the welds have held up perfectly. (I wouldn't expect otherwise though.) Wink

Posted: Thu Apr 26, 2007 10:56 pm

It's nearly a year since I broke my car, so I guess that I should probably give an update..

I haven't done shit with it. The poor girl has just been sitting there collecting dust and coughing up the occasional spare part to other DSM's in need. It hasn't been for a lack of trying though.

I just got back from Iraq the week before last, (Yet another deployment there..) and I've actually started to make some headway at getting her on the road again. Since I'm garageless and time is pretty precious, I've decided that I'm just going to build a back-up motor and drop it in when It's finished.

I sourced up a good condition block and a decent crank, and sent them off to the machine shop for the works. (decking, bore/hone and polishing of the crank.)

Anyways, that's the scoop for now. I'll post up pictures and shit once I get the block back and start to put it all back together. (Fun...)

Posted: Mon May 21, 2007 5:15 am

Another change to the works.. I just got the results back from the recent advancement exam and I finally made E-6!! Lulu's gonna get an OEM build with a 50 trim and I'm buying an Evo in February/March.

Angie and I made a deal a while back that I could buy an Evo when I put on first class.. Well I finally did it and sh's pretty much given me the greenlight. I don't see the actual increase in pay unil October, and there are a few things that I need to take care of first, but hopefully come February or so, I should be able to line something up.

Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 5:34 pm

Congrats Paul........

Posted: Thu Aug 23, 2007 9:02 am

well i have a 92 civic si and i was going about 9k in 3rd gear and it ran fine all the way home from work. the next morning i started to head to church and it started knocking very lightly. and by the time i got there it started knockin harder and harder. so i haven't driven it in a few months. but it still runs. it kinda knocks like if you were to put like a piece of cardboard on a bicycle like they used to do in the old days. I was thinking that a rod bolt came loose so i just ordered some arp rod bolts from stage 6. so hopefully i have the same problem. anyways is it pretty easy to replace them if you just drop the oil pan and leave basically everything in place?

Posted: Thu Aug 23, 2007 10:30 pm

Change #8,456..

Nothing has changed as far as the Evo plans after the new year..

I sold out and went against everything that I ever said that I would do with the motor in my car.

I picked up a complete 90 6 bolt that's been recently re-built for dirt cheap. Long story short; some local kid around here dumped his lunch money re-building the motor in his 90 Talon. The week that he gets it together and running, the transmission lets go. He's broke, daddy won't front him any more cash on it, so the car has gotta go. Kid gets sent out to sea (Navy) and his old man wants the car gone.

$200 later the motor is in my possession, complete with the exception of a turbo, which the kid sold before he deployed.

According to the old man, it's just an oem 95 piston re-build, nothing too snazzy... Funny part is that I drained the oil and started to look around the bottom end and whatnot.. There is still assembly lube throughout on the cams, crank/rod bearings, etc.. However, the jackass put the motor back together and never pulled the B-shafts.

I'm fixxing to pull them before the motor goes in the first week of October or so.. (that's when we're moving into a house and I'll have a garage.. ) Wink

Here's some pictures of the motor the night that I pulled it from the car.

My 6 Bolt find..

Hatchguy,

If the motor spun a rod bearing, it's not just as easy as slapping a new one in.. The affected crank pin for that rod needs to be checked out for damage from the bearing spinning on it's surface.. On top of that, the rod it's self may be damaged as well..

Posted: Fri Dec 26, 2008 11:55 pm

update time..

Been working like crazy in preparation for another deployment to the shitbox. However, I've made some decent headway with the car in what little time I actually have to work on it.

~I built up a -6 fuel system from the tank to the rail. I got rid of the factory feed lines that run thru the pump housing and replaced them with -6 fittings. The rail is now fed with a -6 line thru a -6 Golan filter, and an Aeromotive A-1000-6 regulator is taking care of fuel pressure. Since the factory steel feed line is damn close to 3/8ths", I plumbed them as the return instead of running a braided line all the way back.

~Cleaned up the electrical system some by relocating the battery to the hatch and running 2AWG as the power feed. I installed a battery cut-off and the push/pull rod runs thru a spot behind the license plate. The plate is now installed on a spring hinge so I can flip it up at the track and install the push rod.

The entire stereo system is now gone as well as most other unnecessary electrical wiring, I ditched the leather seats for some stock cloth ones, and lost a lot more weight in the car.

~Picked up a Spearco 2-216 intercooler setup (3.5"x10.5"x28") with a Tial 50mm BOV for cheap and started to convert the car to speed density vs. MAF with an old school VPC that I picked up for cheap.

I also picked up a 40mm Tial wastegate and have converted my old tubular O2 to accept it, since I will be using a Mitsu housing turbo. I'm still flighty about what turbo I'm going to end up with permanently, so for the meantime a 16G will probably go on for now. I would really like to step into something along the lines of a 50 trim/Green since I would like a responsive turbo that is happy on pump gas, but I haven't totally voted against something a bit larger. I just want something that is totally streetable, but I can make decent enough power with. In all honesty, I'd be perfectly happy making somewhere in the area of 400~450hp.

It's sad because I've had my car for upwards of 10 years and still can't make up my mind what turbo I want on there for good. Confused

As far as the junkyard 6 bolt is concerned, it's almost ready to be the back-up motor. Since I was unsure of the condition, I pulled the head and looked it over. With the exception of some minor things, all is good. The head has a new valve train in it, and the cylinders/pistons look great. It's a 1G big rod/2G piston motor. The balance shafts are out, and I've ordered a set of ARP's for it as well as a Cometic HG, although I'm still on the fence on whether I want to throw my spare 2G head on it...

All in all, it's starting to come together. I deploy in 2 weeks, so hopefully when I get back I'll be able to get her back on the street.

As far as Evo's are concerned.... Do you know how hard it is to find a decent condition 04~06 non-MR around here that hasn't been completely dogged out? I must have looked at at least a dozen in the past few months and every single one was either high mileage, or substandardly maintained. I've seen a few decent looking 06 IX's but I'm kind of on the fence about the MIVEC setup. That and I can't find the color that I want. Every Silver or Blue one that I've seen has been an MR. Crying or Very sad

Posted: Fri Sep 16, 2011 11:04 pm

3 years has gone by so I figure it's time for an update...

The GS-T is still sitting in the garage and I haven't touched it in over a year. I've been deploying for 4 months at a shot every 6 moths, so I haven't even had the energy to do anything with the car. As it sits, It's at the point where I can button it up and start/drive it. Since I'm in Iraq again right now, nothing is going to happen with it anytime soon.

I made E-7 last year, and since Angie and I now have 4 boys, I went ahead and picked up an Expedition EL as a family hauler. I still have the Xterra, bought an 04 Evo and then sold it a few months later after I started having repeated xfer case and trans issues with it. (surprisingly, not from abuse since it was bone stock..) I really just didn't have the time, energy or patience to mess with another Mitsu. Especially since Angie was bitching about the Eclipse sitting for so long. There was a point that I even considered selling it, but as usual changed my mind.

Lately I've been looking for another Evo, but have also found myself starting to want an older Mustang to play around with.

So that's what's going on for now. Haven't seen much activity on this board in a while, so I figured that I would post up. Hope that everyone is doing great and the shop is kicking ass. Miss all of you guys!

Posted: Wed Oct 19, 2011 7:49 pm

That sounded like a close call dude. I also had a close call in my 89 maxi.

I was on my way home one day and stopped at a redlight...and she started to run rough at idle...and started to smoke a little out exhaust. As i started to drive the roughness went away and smoke gone...Stopped at next light and it started again.

Long story short i started to have a head gasket blow on bank 2 and it hydolocked when i got home....Shes now rebuilt(just a stock rebuild) and has 7k on the motor. Soon she is getting a turbo build and some addons.

THe plan is around 450hp and a shit ton of ftlbs.