CSX-T SRT4 Swap

[CSXRT4]

I have a friend on here and ive used his name a couple times but I figured I would make my own account and post up my swap :)


Ive been working on an SRT swap into my CSX-T for a bit now, I bought the engine last fall but havnt been able to do anything until it warmed up recently because I dont have a heated garage and hate working in the cold :o

Anyway, this is CSX-T #476. Im using megasquirt-II for the electronics, A555, water-to-air intercooler, meth injection, and eventually im going to upgrade the fuel system and run E85.


The bracket you see on the passenger side is not the actual mount, its just holding the engine from rocking forward. I cut out the frame-rail and welded in a plate that the stock SRT4 mount bolts to. I wanted the engine to mount in my car similar to the way it does in the stock SRT4. Once I get everything mocked up and welded im going to strip the engine bay and paint it the same color as the CSX-T grey, I want the engine bay to look extremely clean when im done :thumb:

yes I know my garage is a complete mess!
http://boostjunkies.net/CSXRT4/1.jpg
http://boostjunkies.net/CSXRT4/2.jpg
http://boostjunkies.net/CSXRT4/3.jpg

[omni_840]

Welcome, It looks like you have a nice project on your hands. Keep us informed on your progress.

[inplansight]

:love:
Nice keep it up. How did the 555 work out?
PAul B

[BadAssPerformance]

Welcome to the forum! The project looks like it is coming along well! :thumb:

[2.216VTurbo]

Nice work. The lighting and shoot angles in those first pics are less than optimal, care to share a few more:eyebrows::clap:?

[badandy]

Somebody needs to start getting cad files made up of these mounts so that those of us that attempt this later can get e'm fabbed up easily:hail:

[raccoon]

more pictures of your car! I have a shadow fetish.

[turboshad]

Always good to see more 2.4 shadows :thumb: And I would say the SRT4 is definately the easiest way to get things done. Some times I wonder why I didn't just go that route. I could have been driving by now. +1 on the more pics topic.

DJ

[CSXRT4]

Thanks for the welcome. Ill get some more pics up soon, I have the intercooler mounted and ill probably be working on finishing up the mounts saturday.

and +1 to going with the SRT4 engine in the first place, I thought about building a non-turbo 2.4 up but figured I would probably end up spending more and taking longer. I also dont have as good fabrication skills as you(turboshad), so I wanted to cut out as much custom fab as I could. Your intake manifold looks beautiful, and I wish I could weld aluminum so I could add that mount boss to the transmission :thumb:

Ill beef the engine up later on but I gotta recover from the cost of swapping first lol


heres some external pics of the car though.
http://www.boostjunkies.net/forums/uploads/post-1-1172548045.jpg
http://www.boostjunkies.net/forums/uploads/post-1-1172532261.jpg

[Anonymous_User]

Very nice project!! Definitely want to see updates regularly. I'm not sold on painting the engine compartment gray, though.

[CSXRT4]

Very nice project!! Definitely want to see updates regularly. I'm not sold on painting the engine compartment gray, though.

you dont like the grey idea? I was going to do the same grey from the CSX-T two-tone, I thought it might match better than just flat black. I dont really want to re-paint it white

[Anonymous_User]

When I bought my CSXT, the PO had rattle canned the engine compartment in black. It looked like dog @#$%. I cleaned it all up and re-shot it in the proper white. Personally, I think it looks great.

I haven't seen one in gray, but trying to picture it in my head, it just doesn't look right to me.

It's your car, though, and it is obviously not a restoration piece!!!! Do it and prove me wrong!!! :D

[CSXRT4]

When I bought my CSXT, the PO had rattle canned the engine compartment in black. It looked like dog @#$%. I cleaned it all up and re-shot it in the proper white. Personally, I think it looks great.

I haven't seen one in gray, but trying to picture it in my head, it just doesn't look right to me.

It's your car, though, and it is obviously not a restoration piece!!!! Do it and prove me wrong!!! :D

Well I appreciate the input, I cant really visualize it in grey either so im not sure how its going to turn out. I guess I can always tear it down and re-spray it in white if I dont like it :o

[2.216VTurbo]

Now that is a great pic:thumb: The wet parking lot reflection makes the shot:) Cant tell though, are those Lace rims or Shelby Lancer wheels with custom centers? Keep those pics coming! Great project.

[t3rse]

There is a pretty car sitting between two turds! :D

[CSXRT4]

PROGRESS!!!!

You can see the mounts in these pics. The one on the strut tower is for the factory SRT-4 torque strut, the one on the frame rail is for the factory SRT-4 engine mount. The paint looks great in person, I wish I had more time to shave the bay but I want to get this thing running. It finally seems like things are starting to get somewhere, I cant wait to drive my car again haha :thumb:


Primer

http://boostjunkies.net/CSXRT4/Picture001.jpg
http://boostjunkies.net/CSXRT4/Picture003.jpg
http://boostjunkies.net/CSXRT4/Picture005.jpg

Paint - its hard to get a good picture because its a metallic paint and it glares/shines really bad on my camera
http://boostjunkies.net/CSXRT4/Picture008.jpg
http://boostjunkies.net/CSXRT4/Picture009.jpg

thank you dad for painting meh car :)

[raccoon]

saved! must copy cat....

but chopping up the frame kinda scares me a tad.

[CSXRT4]

saved! must copy cat....

but chopping up the frame kinda scares me a tad.

oh trust me its probably 10x stronger lol, I was also worried about this so I tried beefing it up as much as possible. I actually added a lot more than I took away, and I put a 1" steel bar across the bottom which you can see in a couple pics :o

[turbovanman²]

Looks good but some pics are red x's? :(

Whats the hole for?

[Subliminal]

Whats the hole for?


:lol::clap::hail:

[Captain Chaos]

Looks good but some pics are red x's? :(

Whats the hole for?

It's where an engine mount goes. The Neons have a mount there plus the one on the strut tower.

[turbovanman²]

It's where an engine mount goes. The Neons have a mount there plus the one on the strut tower.

Well I've worked on lots of Neon's but for some reason, I don't remember anything looking like that, :confused:

BTW, pics work at work, very nice looking, that engine bay is going to look sweet with the engine in it, :hail:

[Captain Chaos]

Second gens not the first gens. My 2000 and my SRT had it.

[CSXRT4]

Yeah the 2nd gens and SRT-4s have an engine mount that sets in the framerail. I probably just made more work than its worth but I wanted to mount the engine in the same fashion as the SRT-4 (even though its a single shear setup :( ).

[WickedShelby88]

Looks good to me. I figured you were going with the two tone on the outside under the hood so it would be white on top and grey on bottom, but it looks good. I can tell your doing it right just by looking at the primer pics. This CSX-T is definitely in good hands.

[CSXRT4]

http://img530.imageshack.us/img530/4163/picture1ne5.jpg

So the shelbah actually moved under its own power today!!! I still have some work to do for it to be ready for the road but its close. It needs intercooler piping but I think im going to plumb it with PVC pipe until I can get something made up. I was pretty excited to actually get it off the jack stands and drive it, even if it was just around the driveway :)

thanks to j4278h for selling me a flywheel so I was actually able to get some work done on this thing!

[BadAssPerformance]

Looking good! :thumb:

hey, wait a sec... wasn't it white before?

[CSXRT4]

Looking good! :thumb:

hey, wait a sec... wasn't it white before?

thanks :)

The engine bay was originally white but I painted it dark metallic silver to match the CSX-T's gray

[CSXRT4]

A little more headway, I actually got to drive it which was pretty cool. But now its snowing :banghead:

I still have some stuff to do before its finished. I need to wire up the alcohol injection pump, have some intercooler pipes fabricated(PVC right now haha), put in the water cooling system for the intercooler, finish the battery hold down, paint/powdercoat the intake manifold and thermostat housing black, entire exhaust needs fabricated, a TON of tuning, and probably a couple other things I am forgetting...

here are some more pics though

http://img390.imageshack.us/img390/6020/60362136ys4.jpg


The fuel line is still hooked up with a stock regulator, I still need a couple things to hook it up to the aeromotive on the strut tower.

http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/8308/67378603ys2.jpg


I mounted the megasquirt in the cupholder, it fits pretty good and hides away well when I flip the top back up :)

http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/4782/11xu3.jpg

[CSXRT4]

I also took a video. It usually starts right up, of course when I take a video it hiccups :o

Absolutely no tuning though, I put together a map from a couple other maps and adjusted the req. fuel until it started and idled correctly. I cant seem to find a basemap for a stock SRT-4 engine :confused2:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe63VbP2Ong

[contraption22]

Thats is just awesome work. Congrates on getting it moving. Cant wait to see it progress from here.

[turboshad]

Looks good. It's always nice to get things running. I could send you my 2.4 maps if you like. Like everyone else they aren't done but a very healthy start. You should just be able to adjust the required fuel and get things going. If anything they should be on the rich side since I am using a Holset. Are you using MS1 or MS2?

DJ

[crazymadbastard]

Hey that is cool! how are you running the factory tach?

[CSXRT4]

Looks good. It's always nice to get things running. I could send you my 2.4 maps if you like. Like everyone else they aren't done but a very healthy start. You should just be able to adjust the required fuel and get things going. If anything they should be on the rich side since I am using a Holset. Are you using MS1 or MS2?

DJ


Heck yeah, im always looking for more maps lol. Im running MS2-Extra, my e-mail is bandoftheburg@comcast.net :D




Hey that is cool! how are you running the factory tach?

You can build a tach-out in the megasquirt proto area, I actually need to change the resistor though, I put a 10k resistor in but my tach is reading about 200rpms higher than what it actually is :o

[BLUEBALL]

Nice work puttin in the neon ft eng mount in frame. Prob much stronger now. Did you use the lower mount also by kframe?

[BadAssPerformance]

+1 I like the mounts... guessing you like to weld? ;)

cannot wait to see this car :thumb:

[Aries_Turbo]

do you need SRT-4 timing maps? i should have one on one of my pc's here at the house.

Brian

[turboshad]

I'll send you the .msq but just for thread info hear are the fuel and spark tables. Like I said I haven't fully tuned boost yet but it is on the safe side for fuel the whole way and up to at least 15psi for spark. I am running ~8.5:1 comp with an HE351 and 880cc Delphi low Z injectors. I am also using a peak and hold board so make sure you check all the injector settings in the msq.

http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g103/turboshad/FuelandSpark.jpg

DJ

[Aries_Turbo]

here are stock srt values and stage 2 as well.

Brian

[CSXRT4]

thanks for the maps turboshad, I had a good laugh at the 3 e-mails :lol:


and thank you for the stock spark maps Aries, I think I will use values close to those since I have the stock SRT pistons and I hear they make a big difference on how much timing is optimal :)

[turboshad]

thanks for the maps turboshad, I had a good laugh at the 3 e-mails :lol:


And it wasn't even a Monday..............you can only imagine what the begining of my week is like :D