Van going under the knife! Head, turbo& cam ?'s inside.

[My96z]

Well after a long year in Iraq, it feels wonderful to be back. If I ever have to go back to the Middle Earth, it will be too soon. It will feel good to be turning wrenches on the van again (aside from the cold weather)

So that being said, I need to fix the daily driver. Before I left the transmission started to slip really bad and I had a valve seat that kept dropping and locking the valve open. Track times were in the 14.2-14.3 @ 92--ish MPH with the mods I have - aside from the ported 2 piece and hybrid turbo that I installed at a later date.
So aside from a jump start and some smoke for the first minute of start-up the van had no problems coming out of its year long hibernation.

I am going to start pulling the trans tomorrow to send some of the guts out to a friend on here to get refurbished and a few more mods done so that the tranny is fresh and ready to rock.

I also have one of Tyler's +1mm G-head on its way as well with a Taft S2 installed.

So on to my questions:

I am planning on re-using the Mopar head bolts. This will be my 3rd time using them. I dont see an issue as long as they torque to spec. How many times have you guys been using the Mopar head bolts?

On the turbo, I have a TU 3" SV and its bolted to a .63 turbine. Have any of you had problems with the nuts on the DP bolts interfering with the .63 turbine and the 3" TU SV? There is no room at all to put a wrench, pliers or anything on there to tighten the nut down. I think I might grind off some of the SV to see if I can get a wrench on there.

Taft S2 cam. I would like to hear your experiences with it. Did you have to advance/retard it at all after install? Going to be neat to have a bit of a lope to the van lol.

I hope to get this done within the next couple of weeks. I hope to make some passes at the track with the ported G head on there before the new year. Gunning for some solid 13 sec slips with a good increase in MPH. Still planning on running the 17-19 PSI I had been running. That might change with the new hardware though...

How do you all think it will run?

Thanks for all your help.

Jeff

[A.J.]

First off thank you for your service.

I can answer a couple of your questions from experience.

Head bolts. They can be reused. There is a way to determine if they are god or not. Torque them to spec. Set you torque wrench to 90 ft/lbs. Now do the 90* turn. If the torque wrench "clicks" before you get to 90*, toss the bolt, it's no good.

3" SV DP bolts. I just installed a .63 exhuast housing with a 3" SV and 3" DP. I used factory Chrysler exhaust bolts w/springs. I had to use different nuts because the nuts with the built in holders could not be used. I used a 3/8" impact gun and socket to tighten them down because you can't get a wrench on the one by the turbine housing. I "shock" the bolt by hitting the trigger quick to get it tight.

A.J.

[My96z]

Thanks A.J! That SV always kicks my a$$. I didnt think to use a impact.

Wish my van was as nice as yours!

Just got the tranny out on the ground. Lots of clutch in the fluid.

Jeff

[My96z]

Well I just finished rebuilding the transmission. Set the front clutch to .045" and the rear to .030". Cleaned up everything and used a beam torque wrench to set the bands. 72in-lbs is a bit tighter than I thought. The transmission is sitting on the table while I got the head coming off.

Just need to wait on a buddy to come over and help me lift it off. Then just transfer everything over to the Tyler ported unit then bolt everything back up.

Luckily on the SV I jammed a flat tip screwdriver in there and got that nut to come off.